Casey Clabough’s “Show & Tell”

           

Of all the piece we got to read this week, I was most intrigued by “Show & Tell” by Casey Clabough. For me, this piece was the most complete, and well rounded, I’ll explain.

            From the get go we get a deep understanding of the narrators deep attachment to the mother. It is not stated, it is show, “Unless a teacher made me move, I would wait listing until it reached the place half a mile away where the speed changed from 25 to 55mpg. Then I would hear the sudden burst of sound that came when Mama stomped the floor. She didn’t know it, but that was her real daily goodbye to me,” (60). The passage shows the ritual and routine, and therefore the attachment of the child to the mother. This comes after the mother has already said good bye to the child. This also lays the ground work for the connection between the mother and the son.

            Clabough does a excellent  job of show us the perceptions of the society the narrator is growing up in, by once again showing us instead of telling us, or rather having the charades tell us. When it is reviled that the narrators mother is a “homemaker” the perception of what she will show in show in tell is changed and the negative imagery comes through, “There is nothing wrong with being a homemaker, but you should ask your mother if there is anything special about what she does before she shows and tells. A lot of what homemaker do is unremarkable and the same. We don’t want all the mothers visiting mothers to say the same things,” 61. Here it is clear that the role of the homemaker is looked down upon, and Clabough’s use of the word “unremarkable” is very potent in striking a cord for me as the point in that line. It made me want to say out loud all the remarkable things mothers, and fathers for that matter who choose to stay at home with their families do. At this point I was searching for some depth, Clabough delivered in the next section.

            The scene where the mother is teaching a class is my favorite in the whole piece. It is so vivid and full of tension. The pacing of this section is to be noted. “Whispers as she begins the slow descent to the stage, heels clicking steadily on the concrete. About halfway down someone launches a brief, piercing whistle—ancient trumpet sound of male admiration—applauded by sporadic laughs from his fellows. Mama keeps walking,” 62. The line “Mama keeps walking.” Is in its own paragraph and that helps the pace of the piece, as a reader I had a feeling that this wasn’t headed for dread as the first part of the passage suggests. The line meant more than the mother continued to walk down to the stage. It was a symbol for her preserving. Later in the section after the cat calls and repulsive behavior of the men in the class, Clabough again slows the moment down to show the true strength of the mother, “Mama strides across the stage to where the jar lies resting. Hands still on hips, attitude of sensual affectation, she lifts her right foot, arches an eyebrow at her audience, then brings it down suddenly, heavily, air of the room pierced as glass shatters, echoes, jagged irregular pieces sliding across the stage in various directions. Silence, pause, then the lonely sound of Mama’s heels as she walks back to the table, puts on her glasses, and looks up around the lecture hall.” ‘Let’s get to work, gentlemen.’” (63). This sections shows better than any words could say what the mother was before having a child. It shows that she was much more than the homemaker the teacher labeled her as. That simple act of strength in the face of adversity showed the mothers true character. Clabough was able to do this by slowing down the scene to the point where the reader could hear the mothers heels on the concrete.

            I say that this piece is well rounded because it comes full circle to the show and tell in the last section of the piece. In that section we are able to see why the narrator has so much admiration for their mother. The confidence she displays in front of a classroom full of kids and the success she has in her presentation would make any child proud. More than that the narrator gets to see their mother in action, in a role other than mother, this is show in the following lines, “My little classmates, weaving around the skeleton in a frenzy of fascination, quick touches from small forefingers—one girl reaching up to grab a bottom rib, then lifting her shirt to poke at her own. And me, apart from the others with eyes only for my mother; towering above the swirl of motion, commanding the classroom beaming down upon the children, showing them themselves,” (68). Here we can almost see the pedestal the narrator puts their mother on. It comes full circle that the mother did show exactly what she said she was going to show. It shows that there is more to a person than what they are doing in a particular moment. The piece is heartfelt and written with love, but it is not sentimental because the scenes are so vivid and the pace is so purposeful that the actions drive it forward.

Best,

CF Pinto