BEASTIE

“Not the swimsuit!” I moaned as I watched her slam the front door of the house. She held her flower print towel tightly around her as she slowly made her way across the street. I tried to get to the pool gate before she could catch up, but I was not quick enough. She managed to end up right behind me. “OW!” I cried as I stepped on a large rock.

“Why didn’t you wear shoes, Rosie? Do you want your feet to get cut up? You could step on glass or you could burn your feet.” The Beast stood over me breathing heavily. She, of course, was already winded from her tiring six-foot walk from the house to the middle of the street. I cringed at the sound of her voice and continued to make my way across the street.

“Rosie, is it polite to ignore someone when they talk to you? Answer me Rosie.”

“Oh, so you weren’t just talking to the voices in your head again?” I muttered.

“What?”

“I guess I just like to do things the hard way,” I snapped at her.

She replied by shaking her head in disgust and then she hobbled away to find another person to converse with. I guess she thought that people actually enjoyed having her around. Anyway, when we reached the pool, I threw my towel to the ground and cannonballed into the cool water. After sitting at the bottom of the pool long enough to let the bubbles fizz up around me, I swam to the surface for air. I would’ve been better off staying at the bottom of the pool. I wiped the stinging water from my eyes and was faced with a blood curdling sight. The Beast, her back facing me, removed her handkerchief of a towel. “Oh Lord,” I cringed as I floated there in the water. Everything that I didn’t want to see, I saw. As she waddled like a monstrous duck over to the steps of the pool, her large backside barely managed to stay in her purple swimsuit. Her spider-veined legs bulged out from the suit like Pillsbury Dough being squeezed from its container. Once she was in the water, she began to screech at all of my younger cousins like a giant sea monster. This was the beast. This was my nemesis. This was Moyda.

I have known Moyda since the day I was born. She is not my aunt, and she is not my Grandma, but ever since I was old enough to say the word Grandma, I’ve known who Moyda is. She is my grandma’s best friend, and where Grandma goes, Moyda is always waddling close behind. I have never had a moment with my grandma where Moyda is not there correcting or scolding me. From years and years of being in her presence, I have developed a strong disliking for Moyda. In fact, I don’t think I have ever disliked anybody more than I dislike her.

Moyda likes to correct people. Everyone is wrong and only Moyda is right. I bet Moyda could find something about God that she would criticize. But when I was younger, I seemed to be her favorite target for criticism. “Stop chewing like that! I don’t want to see your food! Uggh, it’s making me sick!” I would shut my mouth and continue to eat. “Do you ever wash your hands, Rosie? Your fingers are so dirty. That’s disgusting.” I would wash my hands and go on about my business. Yes, I did obey her. What else could I do? My mom didn’t want me to get into a “rumble” with Moyda in fear that it would start a family fight. My dad, who strongly dislikes Moyda also, probably would’ve been proud of me for standing up to The Beast, but his mom was Moyda’s best friend, so what could he do? When I was young, I smiled and let Moyda boss me around. But as I got older, I started to realize how ignorant Moyda actually was.

“You are so unladylike, Rosie,” Moyda would say, as she propped her own disgusting feet up on my Grandma’s coffee table. “Don’t be so loud!” Moyda would shout at my cousins. I learned that Moyda was so wrapped up in what was wrong with other people, that she never thought that maybe she should be the one to be criticized. I mean, she is downright cruel.

You know that saying, “There is a little good in everyone”? This does not apply to Moyda. Believe me, I have looked for that tiny bit of good in her and I have only found more wickedness. “Moyda isn’t that bad,” my grandma would tell me. “You just have to give her a chance.” Give her a chance? I’ve known the woman for thirteen years, how many chances does she deserve! Of course, this was never said out loud, but it’s sure as heck what I was thinking. The truth is that I really have tried to give Moyda a chance--many chances, to be perfectly correct. Every time I attempted to be nice or be on my best behavior around her, she only scolded me more. I truly think she enjoyed putting me down. And that’s another thing, Moyda would not only scold you and boss you around, she would insult you. Really insult you. One time she actually had the nerve to insult my own dad in front of me.

“You’re just like your father!” she barked at me one night while I was at my grandma’s.

“What does that mean?” I snapped at her.

“Disgusting and weird,” she replied. “Just like your father.”

I was dumbfounded at the cruelness of her comment. This is when I wanted to walk up to Moyda and kick her hard in the shin. But guess who was around to defend her. Yes, my grandma.

“Oh, Moyda, be nice,” my grandma said sweetly.

“Well it’s true. I’m only telling the truth.”

Not one word of defense came from my grandma. She shut her mouth and changed the subject. I, however, never let that go. I will hold that against Moyda until the day that I die. Besides insulting people and their families, Moyda had the wonderful talent of making you feel downright horrible about yourself. One time when I was about five, my grandma and I were at the pool (most incidents with Moyda and my grandma are at the pool) and I wanted to play a game. “Grandma,” I said. “Watch how long I can hold my breath!” I submerged myself under the water and I stayed there for quite a while. When I finally came up from the water, I smiled proudly at my grandma and she clapped for me. Unbeknownst to me, I guess my grandma got a little worried when I stayed under the water so long. And guess who let me know how terrible it was to scare my grandma like that.

“Rosie, your grandma told me about your trip to the pool,” Moyda told me as I sucked down my macaroni.

“Yeah, it was fun! I held my breath forever.”

“You know Rosie; you really worried your grandma when you did that. She thought you were drowning.”

“I was fine though. She clapped for me after I came up. She was proud of me for holding my breath that long,” I argued with her.

“No Rosie. You scared her. That was not a good thing to do, Rosie. That was very bad. You scared your grandma.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well think next time. Don’t be so ditzy.”

Since I was only five, I didn’t take this conversation too much to heart. But now that I look back on it, I realize that that was a horrible thing for her to say. She flat out told me I was a bad kid. Moyda took it upon herself to let me know how wrong and horrible I was for playing around. That was a really cruel thing to say, especially to five year old kid.

But, oh no, Moyda isn’t a mean person. Of course not! Moyda is so nice to kids! So nice!

“Juanita, I have always been nothing but nice to those kids! I am always nice to them! Always!” Moyda shouted at my grandma. I watched silently from the T.V. room. It was Sunday, and as usual, my whole family was gathered at Grandma’s for dinner. I personally loved this tradition, except for one thing: Moyda was always the head chef. Besides the fact that she loved to create gooey concoctions that I swear were sometimes alive, this was Moyda’s favorite time to boss around my whole family. Earlier that Sunday, my cousin PJ was talking to my cousin Anna. For some reason, Moyda was the main subject: “Do you like Moyda?” Anna asked PJ innocently.

“No,” PJ replied without hesitation. “She is always mean to me and she yells too much.”

“Oh,” said Anna. And the conversation was over.

Well, while Moyda was slaving over her a hot oven full of slop, Anna, an innocent three year old, strolled right up to Moyda. “Hello Anna,” Moyda said. “Where is PJ?”

“I don’t know?”

“Can you find him for me? Tell him Moyda needs to talk to him.”

“Are you going to yell at him?”

“No. Why would you say that?”

“Because PJ says that you are always mean to him and that you are always yelling.” Anna turned away from Moyda, walked out of the kitchen and came to sit on my lap. I was holding in my laughter as I watched Moyda’s face. It went from shock, to sadness, to pure fury in less than one second. Well, that is when Moyda got a hold of Grandma.

“Why would PJ ever say that, Juanita?” Moyda shrieked. “I am always nice to him. Why would he say such a horrible thing? I am so nice to these kids!” My grandma hesitated, searching for an answer that would satisfy The Beast. She had nothing. “I am always nice!” Shouted Moyda, and then she stormed off. As Moyda stomped out of the kitchen, I pretended to be watching a show on T.V. Once she was out of the room, I burst into so much laughter, I fell off the couch. Moyda was so delusional. She claims she is nice to us! Yeah and hell is a nice vacation spot! Not only was Moyda critical and very rude, she was also delusional. Every mean comment she had ever said to me or PJ or anybody, she didn’t see as wrong. I mean we liked her, right? Well, that was what Moyda thought. She was very wrong. Moyda failed to realize that the only reason my family put up with her is because we didn’t want to hurt Grandma. She actually thought we enjoyed being in her presence! HA! Moyda thought we owed her respect. She thought we owed her love. Every Sunday when we would head for home, Moyda would wait at the door and expect a goodbye hug from every grandkid. I miraculously managed to escape once or twice by sprinting out the door and hiding in the back of the car, but Moyda refused to let it go.

“Why didn’t you say goodbye to me? You and your father,” she would say. “Always running out the door before saying goodbye. So rude!”

“Guess I forgot!” I would reply. I prayed she would someday get the message that I didn’t care about her and I was sick of being forced to hug her, but she didn’t understand. As I got older, I would say goodbye to Grandma and then wave half-heartedly at Moyda as I ran out the door. I knew it pissed her off, and I kind of liked that it did. I wasn’t her granddaughter. I didn’t owe her anything. Not even a goodbye. That’s how I saw it. Besides, I was old enough to defend myself if Moyda ever decided to question my actions. Or I could at least make up a convincing lie.

As I got older my relationship with Moyda changed. Moyda became less of a monster. I learned that The Beast was actually a weak and insecure being. She criticized me to make herself feel better about her manly appearance and screwed up family. Moyda was mean because she liked to make people feel inferior only because she herself was never shown any appreciation. Moyda liked to pretend that people liked her because all she wanted was to be shown compassion. I don’t know enough about Moyda to know what her childhood was like, but I can imagine that she wasn’t held enough when she was young, and that’s sad. In the end, I conquered The Beast. I quit letting her offend me and intimidate me and I realized that she was a sad and pathetic person. I guess in the end, I felt sorry for old Beastie.