When dad went to Nam, we moved to Sacramento, and that summer for 3 months, I had a purpose. I was a part of something. I belonged.
Near our home was a gas station with a garage, where four dark, greasy men hung out every day but Sunday. When they weren't busy drinking canned beer or playing roundball in the parking lot, they souped up muscle cars – GTOs, Impalas, Galaxies...
I never really took notice of the place till summer vacation started. One afternoon on my way to the park, I heard laughing, and glanced over. I didn't see anyone, but there was a coke machine propped against a shaded stucco garage, and it was hot out. I fished a dime out of my pocket, and walked over. Some guy poked his head around the open garage door, and asked me a question about the principal at my high school, and my answer made him laugh.
He asked me if I knew anything about cars, and I said no. He asked if I could help him with something, and I said yes. He said he'd buy me a coke.
He needed a small hand to reach for a bolt he'd dropped inside the engine he was working on. He handed me a pair of coveralls, and I climbed up into the hood. It was a difficult reach, but I was flattered that he'd even asked, and wanted to be useful to someone grown up. I came up with a bolt, and he bought me that coke.
We sat in turquoise metal chairs and talked about basketball and egg fights.
When I went to leave, one of the other men said if I wanted a job cleaning gears, he'd pay me 50¢ an hour for 3 hours work. So I stayed.
For the rest of the summer, I showed up almost everyday, and stayed for hours, rubbing engine parts and tools with gasoline. Precious metals, the shine might as well have come from silver and gold. But for every minute spent cleaning, there was another spent peering into engines while one or the other was telling me what this part did, and why that part wasn't working.
Never once did any of them come on to me. (I was a skinny 16, and they were in their muscled 20s). But they often teased me about how pretty I was gonna be when I grew up, and how I'd hafta marry one of them, cuz coincidentally, it was gonna be that long before any of them was ready to settle for one girl.
They talked about pot and corn tortillas, about Vietnam and women they'd probably got pregnant. They talked about what a great country America was and how they were voting for Hubert Humphrey. They talked about jail and men they'd met there.
I never quite understood all of it at the time, but was honored to be included. I never told them how clueless I was, because I was too embarrassed to admit my ignorance...I didn't want them to figure out that I was a fraud – not one of them. I just kept my mouth shut, and smiled. Cuz maybe I didn't need to understand. Maybe it was enough that they let me wear matching coveralls and sit with them in their turquoise metal chairs.
Showing posts with label childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childhood. Show all posts
01 December 2011
22 June 2010
The Pipecleaner Man
This is a fictionalized piece of something I'm still in the early stages of working. I posted it on a forum a few months ago, and have only made a few small changes since. There is a bigger story here of which this is only a tiny part.
To offer you the same background I offered them (since so much of the story is missing) - - -
1. When we moved from Lincoln Air Base to Beale Air Force Base, the Capehart Housing for Beale's senior NCOs was only about 75% full. I think that much of the housing had been built in anticipation of the 9th SRW (strategic reconnaissance wing). Many of these houses lay vacant for over 6 months before we moved in. On top of that, the oak trees (blue oaks) already growing there were inadvertently killed off by the contractors...who put in topsoil much too deep for the trees' roots to do their jobs.
That first year we lived there, most of the lawns were brown from neglect, and half of the deciduous trees (most all of them oaks) were dead or dying.
2. My father hated the man who moved in across the street. I still don’t know why. It might have been something as basic as territory…Sgt “Krestus” wasn’t in my dad’s unit…
3. Sgt. Krestus' wife died from cancer. And the day after she died, Sgt. Krestus shot and killed several birds roosting in his yard. It’s always been mystery to me why those birds didn’t fly away with the first shot…but then it was mystery that they started gathering in his yard in the first place.
4. The day after the APs arrested him for discharging a firearm in a residential area, my brothers and I went into his back yard…we found more than a dozen dead birds…we collected them to bury them in our yard…the other thing we found…was a sucker growing near the base of one of the dead oaks…new life from a dead tree. We talked about this guy for years…we named that summer for him: The Summer the Pipecleaner Man Killed all those Birds.
“Sgt K is dead.” It was October – a school night. And we were sitting down to a supper of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Dad stood at the head of the table, smug, pleased with himself, as though he’d done the deed himself.
“Sgt K? The Pipecleaner Man?”
“Yep. Day before yesterday.”
“Poor Sgt K.”
“What’d he die from?”
“God killed him.”
”For chrissakes, Brennan, don’t tell them that. They’ll believe you!”
“Good. Because it’s true. Eye for an eye, Krestus killed those birds, and God killed him.”
“More likely, he died of a broken heart.”
“He probably killed those trees, too.”
“Jesus, Brennan. He was only there for three months. Those trees were already dead.”
“He probably cast a spell on all of them from wherever the hell he came from. He cast a spell on those birds. He was a witch. God casts out witches.”
I slipped from the table, and looked out the front window at the Krestus’ old house across the street. The dead trees were gone now, blue oaks, cut down the week after Sgt K was arrested. And for two weeks after that, a van and 5-Ton stayed parked in the driveway while men in green coveralls and heavy boots chopped up the felled trees, put down new grass, and added siding and new paint to the house.
There were saplings there now. Sweet Gums with trunks no bigger around than a man’s thumb, two in the back yard to replace the oaks, and one in the front, marking the halfway point between the street and the porch.
Someday its leaves would block the view from this window, but today I could still see Sgt K sitting there alone, soaking wet, back against the door, his knees drawn up against his chest. He was wearing a dark blue robe, but it was open. And in cotton white boxers on cotton-white skin, he looked naked, but for the two black socks drooping in a pile below his bony ankles. He was crying.
That was August. Three months after he and Mrs. K had moved in…
It was the middle of June, 106° in the shade. School was out for the summer, and we were all in our bathing suits just in case we should run into a sprinkler.
Sgt. Krestus was the only man we’d ever seen who was taller than Dad. He was skeletal, bony. And he was bone-white. His body was covered in a fuzzy sort of skin that stretched so thin you could see the corners of his bones, hints of pearl shimmering in patches under his knuckles, his elbows, and sometimes his Adam’s apple. Mom called him ‘wiry,’ and more than once we looked above the places he stood to see if he was actually held up a wire. When he moved he hummed, and when he stood still it was always at attention, a single strand of white horsetail on a slender bow, still vibrating from its last draw.
We waited as he helped his wife out of their Lincoln. She was as thin and as pale as he, but more grey than white. She was wearing a blue muumuu with large white blossoms and blue terry bedslippers. And a green silk scarf molded so perfectly the shape of her scalp that I knew she couldn’t possibly have hair growing there.
I must have started at this thought, because Sgt K looked straight at me. His eyes were a deep teal, set so close they might have been one eye, except for his nose, razor sharp and almost blue, a beak jutting two proud inches from his white face. Somewhere in its shadow was a mouth, but there were no lips to help me find it. I wondered if he had no proper mouth at all, and if it was a beak that tore the food from his dinner plate.
He walked Mrs. K to the porch, and in an instant, lifted her right out of her slippers, floating her up the steps, over the small porch, and through the front door. Dwayne was right behind them retrieving the slippers. He followed them up the steps, and dropped them next to the door just as it slammed. In that same instant, on a sunny day with not a cloud on the horizon, a clap of thunder shook his house and the ground beneath us.
Dwayne leaped from porch, landing almost in front of us, running. And as he passed us, we all turned to follow, and didn’t stop until we’d put both yards, the street, and our own front and back doors between us and man with pipecleaner skin.
To offer you the same background I offered them (since so much of the story is missing) - - -
1. When we moved from Lincoln Air Base to Beale Air Force Base, the Capehart Housing for Beale's senior NCOs was only about 75% full. I think that much of the housing had been built in anticipation of the 9th SRW (strategic reconnaissance wing). Many of these houses lay vacant for over 6 months before we moved in. On top of that, the oak trees (blue oaks) already growing there were inadvertently killed off by the contractors...who put in topsoil much too deep for the trees' roots to do their jobs.
That first year we lived there, most of the lawns were brown from neglect, and half of the deciduous trees (most all of them oaks) were dead or dying.
2. My father hated the man who moved in across the street. I still don’t know why. It might have been something as basic as territory…Sgt “Krestus” wasn’t in my dad’s unit…
3. Sgt. Krestus' wife died from cancer. And the day after she died, Sgt. Krestus shot and killed several birds roosting in his yard. It’s always been mystery to me why those birds didn’t fly away with the first shot…but then it was mystery that they started gathering in his yard in the first place.
4. The day after the APs arrested him for discharging a firearm in a residential area, my brothers and I went into his back yard…we found more than a dozen dead birds…we collected them to bury them in our yard…the other thing we found…was a sucker growing near the base of one of the dead oaks…new life from a dead tree. We talked about this guy for years…we named that summer for him: The Summer the Pipecleaner Man Killed all those Birds.
“Sgt K is dead.” It was October – a school night. And we were sitting down to a supper of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Dad stood at the head of the table, smug, pleased with himself, as though he’d done the deed himself.
“Sgt K? The Pipecleaner Man?”
“Yep. Day before yesterday.”
“Poor Sgt K.”
“What’d he die from?”
“God killed him.”
”For chrissakes, Brennan, don’t tell them that. They’ll believe you!”
“Good. Because it’s true. Eye for an eye, Krestus killed those birds, and God killed him.”
“More likely, he died of a broken heart.”
“He probably killed those trees, too.”
“Jesus, Brennan. He was only there for three months. Those trees were already dead.”
“He probably cast a spell on all of them from wherever the hell he came from. He cast a spell on those birds. He was a witch. God casts out witches.”
I slipped from the table, and looked out the front window at the Krestus’ old house across the street. The dead trees were gone now, blue oaks, cut down the week after Sgt K was arrested. And for two weeks after that, a van and 5-Ton stayed parked in the driveway while men in green coveralls and heavy boots chopped up the felled trees, put down new grass, and added siding and new paint to the house.
There were saplings there now. Sweet Gums with trunks no bigger around than a man’s thumb, two in the back yard to replace the oaks, and one in the front, marking the halfway point between the street and the porch.
Someday its leaves would block the view from this window, but today I could still see Sgt K sitting there alone, soaking wet, back against the door, his knees drawn up against his chest. He was wearing a dark blue robe, but it was open. And in cotton white boxers on cotton-white skin, he looked naked, but for the two black socks drooping in a pile below his bony ankles. He was crying.
That was August. Three months after he and Mrs. K had moved in…
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +As children, it was not uncommon for us to park ourselves on the sidewalk just barely out the Movers’ path. We were waiting for children. New neighbors always meant new children.
It was the middle of June, 106° in the shade. School was out for the summer, and we were all in our bathing suits just in case we should run into a sprinkler.
Sgt. Krestus was the only man we’d ever seen who was taller than Dad. He was skeletal, bony. And he was bone-white. His body was covered in a fuzzy sort of skin that stretched so thin you could see the corners of his bones, hints of pearl shimmering in patches under his knuckles, his elbows, and sometimes his Adam’s apple. Mom called him ‘wiry,’ and more than once we looked above the places he stood to see if he was actually held up a wire. When he moved he hummed, and when he stood still it was always at attention, a single strand of white horsetail on a slender bow, still vibrating from its last draw.
We waited as he helped his wife out of their Lincoln. She was as thin and as pale as he, but more grey than white. She was wearing a blue muumuu with large white blossoms and blue terry bedslippers. And a green silk scarf molded so perfectly the shape of her scalp that I knew she couldn’t possibly have hair growing there.
I must have started at this thought, because Sgt K looked straight at me. His eyes were a deep teal, set so close they might have been one eye, except for his nose, razor sharp and almost blue, a beak jutting two proud inches from his white face. Somewhere in its shadow was a mouth, but there were no lips to help me find it. I wondered if he had no proper mouth at all, and if it was a beak that tore the food from his dinner plate.
He walked Mrs. K to the porch, and in an instant, lifted her right out of her slippers, floating her up the steps, over the small porch, and through the front door. Dwayne was right behind them retrieving the slippers. He followed them up the steps, and dropped them next to the door just as it slammed. In that same instant, on a sunny day with not a cloud on the horizon, a clap of thunder shook his house and the ground beneath us.
Dwayne leaped from porch, landing almost in front of us, running. And as he passed us, we all turned to follow, and didn’t stop until we’d put both yards, the street, and our own front and back doors between us and man with pipecleaner skin.
31 May 2010
Binny
The last time I saw Binny Green, he was running after a deer into the acres of night lying between US HWY 77 and the Missouri River.
I’m not sure when Binny came, or where he came from. There was himself, his older brother JR, and his mom. And their car that had an engine in its trunk – a VW, pale blue and zippy.
They lived in a house that was only a couple of blocks from Offutt Air Base. Their dad wasn’t around, because he was stationed in Nam. Our dad was stationed in Lincoln, which was almost as far away.
J.R., named for his father (Simon Sr.), was 9 years old, about the same age as Dwayne. And Binny (Benjamin) was 4, which put him between 5 year-old Patrick and 2 year-old Hugh. This made them both proper playmates for my brothers, and (Binny, anyway) a babysitting opportunity for me.
Even in memory, Binny is a typical, bratty 4 year-old - rarely bored, and never still.
He almost always had something in each hand and in the back pocket of his boxer corduroy pull-ups. He was always rotating and trading out with each new find. He had a fondness for dead flies and cigarette butts, and popped them in his mouth whenever the wrong people were looking.
Both of the boys were truly blonde. Mom called them toe-heads. Mrs. Green wasn’t a toe-head though, because she used peroxide. Mom told me not to say anything in front of Mrs. Green, because it wasn’t polite.
For 6 weeks in a row, the summer of 62, we spent our weekends camping with JR, Binny, and Mrs. Green at Tuttle Creek, Kansas.
We were always happy to go camping, to leave, even for the weekend. Born to the corn, to the alfalfa and chickens, we mostly hated the city. There were no meadowlarks in Omaha, or morning sun. Just the city walls becoming less dim, before dimming again.
We always packed the Rambler on Thursdays, and left on Fridays just as soon as Mom got home from work. We’d always go to the Green’s house, and then move out together. Tuttle Creek, Kansas was just a few hours away, and getting there Friday night meant we’d have all day Saturday to enjoy.
On Sundays we’d usually be packed up and on the road back to Omaha by 4pm.
Our last Sunday was different.
It started out muggier than usual. By sun up it was already 81 outside. And by 9am, it was 90. Mom said the humidity was the worst she’d ever seen.
At noon, a breeze started to pick up, and by 12:30, there were gusts moving the flag straight out. There were some fluffy clouds across the lake, but mostly it was still blue. We were situated in the shade of giant elms, cottonwoods, and several dense cedars, so we didn’t really see the skies to the west or even above us.
15 minutes later, when a lawn chair was spotted bouncing in the waves, rocking on a beach ball, Mom and Mrs. Green decided we should leave as soon as we could got packed. A storm was coming.
10 minutes after that, one of our chairs tumbled into the lake, followed by another from the campsite next door, carried by winds gusting to gale force. And by 1:00, hail the size of golf balls started dropping from the trees. And the light around us was yellowing to mustard. We switched from packing to stowing and stuffing. We’ll organize when we get home.
Mrs. Green had to pee. So we sat in our cars, waiting for her to come back from the restroom. Even as she stepped into the ladies room, the hail morphed into softballs, and started smashing at our windows. Mom told me and my brothers to get under the quilts. There were three. So we unfolded them, and huddled together in the steam.
Mom climbed out of the Rambler and into the VW with JR and Binny, and helped them get under their own blankets. She stayed with them because I was old enough to take care of my brothers.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Green was struggling against the wind. It blew her towards the lake, and she stumbled. We found out later that she was struck in the head and the shoulders by large hail. She sought shelter under our picnic area. It was an open pavilion with a concrete center post about 12 inches in diameter. She pulled off her belt, and cinched it around her left wrist. She hugged the post with both arms, and wound the belt around her other wrist. She sat on the concrete slab with both legs also hugging the post. She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, and flip-flops.
The sounds were horrific. The hail fell on our car like rocks from a dump truck, and with the wind, it didn't rock as much as it is shook our car. Lightening was so close it didn’t boom; it cracked. And then there was the sound of a bomb exploding.
After about an hour it all stopped. We climbed out from the blankets to find that all of our windows were smashed in, that the VW’s windows were also smashed in. Both cars had zillions of dents and scratches, and the VW had one very large dent in the roof, like an elephant sat on top of it. There were 5 softball-sized hailstones in the depression. Mrs. Green was standing between the two cars. She had a black eye, and her arms were all bloody and bruised. And there is a gash on her forehead and on her right leg. The legs of her jeans were torn.
We still hadn’t noticed the 40 feet of cedar felled on the stationwagon parked in the next picnic site. We turned at the creaking of a car door. The back door of the stationwagon dropped, and the mom climbed out. Her hair was goopy with blood, and her face was painted red.
Mom ran to her. Her daughter and husband were trapped inside. Mom and Mrs. Green went to the windows, which were smashed in like ours. Mom tried to open the doors. She leaned inside – she was pretty sure the people inside are dead. Some men from a neighboring site came up, and pried open one of the doors. They confirmed it. The man and the little girl inside were lost.
Other people came up, and tended to the stationwagon mom and Mrs. Green, washing the blood from their faces, putting ice on their bruises. And everyone waited for the ambulance. A sheriff came too. The ambulance drivers wanted to take Mrs. Green to the hospital, but she declined. She wanted to go home. So they just took Stationwagon Mom.
Mrs. Green could barely move her right arm. And walking hurt, because the bottom of her left foot was also bruised. But she decided to drive anyway. We drove slowly, maybe 15 miles per hour. Manhattan, Kansas was sitting in shallow water. And we could hear our tires washing through. It felt like the water was washing us. I imagined it rinsing the blood off the dead girl in the stationwagon.
It was hours before we reached Nebraska. We were probably up to about 40mph at this point. My brothers were asleep in the back, and I was sitting with my mother. I saw a deer crossing the road in front of Mrs. Green’s VW. The deer went east, and her VW went west disappearing into the nothing on our left.
Mom drove up to where the tracks left the road, got out, and ran into the nothing after her.
After a long while, she came back and turned off the headlights. She told Dwayne to stay with his brothers, and she told me to come with her. I was to stay with Mrs. Green while she got help.
In the dark, most things are a shade of black. Blood is sticky black, Mom’s shirt is fuzzy black, and the deer lying in the road is a sharp-quilled black.
“Mrs. Green hit a deer? I didn’t see this one.”
“This one? There was only the one deer.”
“But I saw the other one that ran across. The one Binny was chasing.”
“Binny.”
She takes my hand.
The trees whisper, a little boy, and this afternoon’s rain falls on us from leaves moving in a sudden breeze. I try not to follow Mom, but she won’t let go of my hand.
The corn comes to my hips, and wets my jeans all the way through. The VW looks like a small bent shed at first and then an animal sitting with its head bowed. Mom pulls me along, and we pass its belly. It’s on its side, on top of Binny’s clothes, Binny’s hat. I smell poo.
We step carefully around the tires and the bumper to find Mrs. Green on the other side with JR. She’s leaning into the hollow where the elephant sat, and JR has tucked his head in her armpit, his body shaped into her ribs and hip. He’s sucking his index finger the same way Patrick does.
Mrs. Green is humming and rocking, rocking JR with her. She’s cradling a baby, sticky black. I ask her, did you hit a baby? But it’s not a baby. It’s an arm.
Binny.
[edited 14Jun2010]
[edited again 22dec2011]
I’m not sure when Binny came, or where he came from. There was himself, his older brother JR, and his mom. And their car that had an engine in its trunk – a VW, pale blue and zippy.
They lived in a house that was only a couple of blocks from Offutt Air Base. Their dad wasn’t around, because he was stationed in Nam. Our dad was stationed in Lincoln, which was almost as far away.
J.R., named for his father (Simon Sr.), was 9 years old, about the same age as Dwayne. And Binny (Benjamin) was 4, which put him between 5 year-old Patrick and 2 year-old Hugh. This made them both proper playmates for my brothers, and (Binny, anyway) a babysitting opportunity for me.
Even in memory, Binny is a typical, bratty 4 year-old - rarely bored, and never still.
He almost always had something in each hand and in the back pocket of his boxer corduroy pull-ups. He was always rotating and trading out with each new find. He had a fondness for dead flies and cigarette butts, and popped them in his mouth whenever the wrong people were looking.
Both of the boys were truly blonde. Mom called them toe-heads. Mrs. Green wasn’t a toe-head though, because she used peroxide. Mom told me not to say anything in front of Mrs. Green, because it wasn’t polite.
For 6 weeks in a row, the summer of 62, we spent our weekends camping with JR, Binny, and Mrs. Green at Tuttle Creek, Kansas.
We were always happy to go camping, to leave, even for the weekend. Born to the corn, to the alfalfa and chickens, we mostly hated the city. There were no meadowlarks in Omaha, or morning sun. Just the city walls becoming less dim, before dimming again.
We always packed the Rambler on Thursdays, and left on Fridays just as soon as Mom got home from work. We’d always go to the Green’s house, and then move out together. Tuttle Creek, Kansas was just a few hours away, and getting there Friday night meant we’d have all day Saturday to enjoy.
On Sundays we’d usually be packed up and on the road back to Omaha by 4pm.
Our last Sunday was different.
It started out muggier than usual. By sun up it was already 81 outside. And by 9am, it was 90. Mom said the humidity was the worst she’d ever seen.
At noon, a breeze started to pick up, and by 12:30, there were gusts moving the flag straight out. There were some fluffy clouds across the lake, but mostly it was still blue. We were situated in the shade of giant elms, cottonwoods, and several dense cedars, so we didn’t really see the skies to the west or even above us.
15 minutes later, when a lawn chair was spotted bouncing in the waves, rocking on a beach ball, Mom and Mrs. Green decided we should leave as soon as we could got packed. A storm was coming.
10 minutes after that, one of our chairs tumbled into the lake, followed by another from the campsite next door, carried by winds gusting to gale force. And by 1:00, hail the size of golf balls started dropping from the trees. And the light around us was yellowing to mustard. We switched from packing to stowing and stuffing. We’ll organize when we get home.
Mrs. Green had to pee. So we sat in our cars, waiting for her to come back from the restroom. Even as she stepped into the ladies room, the hail morphed into softballs, and started smashing at our windows. Mom told me and my brothers to get under the quilts. There were three. So we unfolded them, and huddled together in the steam.
Mom climbed out of the Rambler and into the VW with JR and Binny, and helped them get under their own blankets. She stayed with them because I was old enough to take care of my brothers.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Green was struggling against the wind. It blew her towards the lake, and she stumbled. We found out later that she was struck in the head and the shoulders by large hail. She sought shelter under our picnic area. It was an open pavilion with a concrete center post about 12 inches in diameter. She pulled off her belt, and cinched it around her left wrist. She hugged the post with both arms, and wound the belt around her other wrist. She sat on the concrete slab with both legs also hugging the post. She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, and flip-flops.
The sounds were horrific. The hail fell on our car like rocks from a dump truck, and with the wind, it didn't rock as much as it is shook our car. Lightening was so close it didn’t boom; it cracked. And then there was the sound of a bomb exploding.
After about an hour it all stopped. We climbed out from the blankets to find that all of our windows were smashed in, that the VW’s windows were also smashed in. Both cars had zillions of dents and scratches, and the VW had one very large dent in the roof, like an elephant sat on top of it. There were 5 softball-sized hailstones in the depression. Mrs. Green was standing between the two cars. She had a black eye, and her arms were all bloody and bruised. And there is a gash on her forehead and on her right leg. The legs of her jeans were torn.
We still hadn’t noticed the 40 feet of cedar felled on the stationwagon parked in the next picnic site. We turned at the creaking of a car door. The back door of the stationwagon dropped, and the mom climbed out. Her hair was goopy with blood, and her face was painted red.
Mom ran to her. Her daughter and husband were trapped inside. Mom and Mrs. Green went to the windows, which were smashed in like ours. Mom tried to open the doors. She leaned inside – she was pretty sure the people inside are dead. Some men from a neighboring site came up, and pried open one of the doors. They confirmed it. The man and the little girl inside were lost.
Other people came up, and tended to the stationwagon mom and Mrs. Green, washing the blood from their faces, putting ice on their bruises. And everyone waited for the ambulance. A sheriff came too. The ambulance drivers wanted to take Mrs. Green to the hospital, but she declined. She wanted to go home. So they just took Stationwagon Mom.
Mrs. Green could barely move her right arm. And walking hurt, because the bottom of her left foot was also bruised. But she decided to drive anyway. We drove slowly, maybe 15 miles per hour. Manhattan, Kansas was sitting in shallow water. And we could hear our tires washing through. It felt like the water was washing us. I imagined it rinsing the blood off the dead girl in the stationwagon.
It was hours before we reached Nebraska. We were probably up to about 40mph at this point. My brothers were asleep in the back, and I was sitting with my mother. I saw a deer crossing the road in front of Mrs. Green’s VW. The deer went east, and her VW went west disappearing into the nothing on our left.
Mom drove up to where the tracks left the road, got out, and ran into the nothing after her.
After a long while, she came back and turned off the headlights. She told Dwayne to stay with his brothers, and she told me to come with her. I was to stay with Mrs. Green while she got help.
In the dark, most things are a shade of black. Blood is sticky black, Mom’s shirt is fuzzy black, and the deer lying in the road is a sharp-quilled black.
“Mrs. Green hit a deer? I didn’t see this one.”
“This one? There was only the one deer.”
“But I saw the other one that ran across. The one Binny was chasing.”
“Binny.”
She takes my hand.
The trees whisper, a little boy, and this afternoon’s rain falls on us from leaves moving in a sudden breeze. I try not to follow Mom, but she won’t let go of my hand.
The corn comes to my hips, and wets my jeans all the way through. The VW looks like a small bent shed at first and then an animal sitting with its head bowed. Mom pulls me along, and we pass its belly. It’s on its side, on top of Binny’s clothes, Binny’s hat. I smell poo.
We step carefully around the tires and the bumper to find Mrs. Green on the other side with JR. She’s leaning into the hollow where the elephant sat, and JR has tucked his head in her armpit, his body shaped into her ribs and hip. He’s sucking his index finger the same way Patrick does.
Mrs. Green is humming and rocking, rocking JR with her. She’s cradling a baby, sticky black. I ask her, did you hit a baby? But it’s not a baby. It’s an arm.
Binny.
[edited 14Jun2010]
[edited again 22dec2011]
14 September 2009
September Harvest
It was 105 degrees in the shade, and there was very little of that where the Sierra foothills lazied into grassy dells and sleepy hummocks near the flightline at Beale.
A mile from the old POW barracks, we found 6 young trees standing in the wild oats - two perfect rows of three, three perfect rows of two. Small, narrow leaves fluttered between silver and green on willowing branches lifting in the hot breeze. Dad warned us not to eat the fruit.
We piled out of the stationwagon, dragging 2 bed sheets apiece, and we spread them beneath the slender reaches, tucking them up against the trunks. Dwayne and I climbed up, and rocked them in the wind. And for ten minutes they dropped a hail of green pebbles, a soft drum of fingers on the cotton below.
01 May 2009
Night of the Frogs
For four months every four years, our dad, like every other Airman in the 9th SRW, was rotated to Kadena in Okinawa. In 1966, Dad's rotation coincided with summer vacation. He'd been to Okinawa a couple a times already, fixing problems...whatever. But this was different. This was four whole months - in a row.
The Summer of 66 ended with a tally of 4 plaster casts; 102 stitches; 2 concussions; 4 visits from the Air Police (APs); 3 from the base ambulance. And at least 12 trips to the Base Hospital's emergency room.
What could I title these visits? Magic Stick v. Bees; Kid v. Barbed Wire; 2 Kids v. Skateboard and Innocent Bystander; Kid v. Tree; Other Kid v. Tree; Kid v. Neighbor's Fence; Kid v. Not-a-Rattlesnake-After all; Kid v. Bike...every week a new crisis, a new versus.
The Skateboard Incident certainly might have been the most exciting for the neighborhood. It left two of my brothers in casts, and the lady next door in an arm sling. Dwayne, whose left foot was already in a heavy bandage protecting 54 stitches (still a family record), broke his right foot. And Patrick, who had already broken his right arm riding his bike into the Gorgone's fence, now had an additional 2 broken fingers on that hand, and had to be fitted with a brand new cast. From all accounts this was Mrs. Brittany's first time getting knocked on her ass that year.
But I think my first anecdote should start before then - with our first visit from the Air Police (APs). An introduction of sorts. The Beale Air Force Base’s Discovery of Our Family. It isn't really a full story on its own...which I guess would make it more of a chapter, more like something that could have been written with a spectacular sort of climax, but in real life ended more with a tired, oh hell, let's just go back to bed.
At this point, we'd only been to the ER twice, and neither visit had resulted in stitches. It was still early June. I'd wiped out on my bike, and Patrick had been stung by several bees defending their home from the Magic Stick that must have poked their hive. He was just in the area. They must have thought he did it.
So how to start...where exactly does it start?
Base Housing at Beale was parked in the foothills of the Sierras. I could write 'nestled,' but it's not as though the interface was anything but abrupt.
We lived at the edge of Wildness. Our street defined the boundary between Imagined Perils and Obsessive Order. Our front yard was a perfect 4-cornered patch of weed-free, greenish bermuda grass, bordered on 3 sides with flawless strips of gleaming concrete. And our backyard was an exotic cosm of cliffs, caves, and condors. Abandoned mines and mountain lions. Rattlesnakes, blue-bellied lizards, golden eagles, and golden grasses of wild oat. As far as the eye could see, one hill rolled into another...all the way to Nevada.
Apart and together, my brothers and I spend our days exploring. Supplied with jars of frozen water, peanut butter sandwiches, and readied coffee cans, we ventured farther and deeper into the foothills, often leaving at daybreak, not to be seen again till suppertime.
These daily treks usually resulted in the relocation of captured reptiles - sleeping lizards mostly, warmed in our palms, calmed by the nearly constant stroking of their smooth bellies. Snakes were common, too - my favorites, actually. I'd bring them home curled around my neck. Most of these critters were released at the back door. It was strictly verboten to bring anything from the field indoors that wasn't first trapped in a jar, a can, or a box. This included all manner of reptiles, amphibians and bugs. And in case I forget to tell you later - shoebox lids mean absolutely nothing to snakes.
Now this isn't to say that no free reptiles made it into the house. Some just found their way in. Mrs. Gorgone had to call the APs once when she found a rattler curled up in her dryer. And who's to say how many lizards made it past the border guard in pockets and sleeves, forgotten by accident or by design. Certainly, there were several loose in our rooms. We offered them sanctuary in our sock drawers. And many times we'd set them to sun and sleep on the windowsill for as long as they wanted.
It was always a mystery to us how they found their way into the central heating-and-air system or into Mom's bedroom. Her startled shrieks in the background were as normal to us as the TV or radio. At this point in time, there was already one snake and one (or more) lizards unaccounted for. The lizard count was always a point of contention. With each sighting the neck colours were described differently, but then temperature changes could account for that. So no one really knew. It could be just one fella or as many as half a dozen.
It was universally accepted, though, that there was only the one Loose Snake. The one who got out of his shoebox. He was 41 inches long. We'd measured him in the field before we'd even brought him home. And we figured he was probably bigger than that by now, what with all the loose food living in our house.
So.
Patrick and the Night of the 30 Frogs.
Not all of our pocket pets were lizards. Patrick had a thing for frogs. In the spring he and I would look for frog eggs, and bring them home to hatch…and more often than that, we’d bring home tadpoles in our water jars. We'd watch them morph into frogs, and then take them to the creek just down the hill from our house.
During the summer Patrick was never without a frog in his pocket, and while the rest of us were petting lizards, he was hand-feeding bugs to his frogs. While our coffee cans held lizards or small snakes, his almost always held something his frogs might like to eat.
I'm not sure what Patrick was thinking that evening in early June, but unbeknownst to us, he came to supper with a 3-pound coffee can filled to the brim with little frogs.
He set it next to his chair, and went to wash his hands. When supper was over, he set the can up on his chair. But then he forgot about it. And none of us gave it any notice. I mean, there were 3-pound cans were everywhere in our house. Even Mom used them. She had a forest of avocado saplings growing in coffee cans lined up against the patio door.
Fast forward past a routine summer evening of dishes, TV, bickering, baths, and pajamas to around 2am. The house would have been pretty quiet. The mammals, at any rate, would have been sleeping.
It must have been the frogs that woke me. Or maybe it was my cat, Mr. Magoo, poised on the edge of the bed, quivering. I rolled over, and there on the floor were two little frogs next to my bed and another in the doorway. needeep.
I slipped out of bed, and they quieted. That's when I heard the others...in the distance. I poked my head into the hallway to find 4 more. And as I stepped out, the frogs in my room started to ribbit again, while these frogs in the hallway stopped.
4 more were on the stairs...and just like the ones in the bedroom and in the hall proper, they stopped and started as I tread past them.
I got down the stairs and found frogs everywhere: on the couch; on the TV; on the dining room chairs...on Mom's dining room table!
Patrick’s coffee can lay on the floor next to his chair, the lid opened enough to make a sort of lean-to roof. The can was empty. I grabbed the two frogs on the table first, and then as I reached for the one on Pat's chair, it jumped away. I tried to grab him mid-air and missed, knocking over the chair and dropping the can.
That noise apparently woke our dog, because she started barking from the safety of Dwayne's room. But of course, that woke Mom. "Shut up, Cinders!"
But then once Cinders stopped barking, Mom could hear the frogs...and Pat, sotto voce, "oh shit."
It wasn't exactly a thundering stampede...more like a windy wooosh, as the entire household made its way to join me down in the living-dining area. Lights came on as hands passed switches on the walls. First the bedrooms, then the hall. And now the entire first floor. A Roman candle on the edge of Base Housing.
Mom told us all to grab an empty can. But there were no empty cans. So Hugh and Dwayne grabbed Pat’s bug cans, and emptied them on the front porch. (Ya know, looking back, that might have been a little noisy.) And in their hurry to get back in and catch frogs, they forgot to close the door.
Mostly it's hard to recall with total accuracy just what went down. Someone bumped into the floor lamp next to Mom's reading chair, and when it crashed to the floor, its glass bowl and light bulb all broke. (That might have been noisy too, since the doors were open.) Also, Hugh knocked against a picture frame and broke the glass out of it. And I remember dishes crashing in the kitchen, but I can’t think who might have been out there. Everyone had to run out to the porch and put on our boots so we wouldn't cut our feet, and Mom made us lock Cinders up in one of the bedrooms with Mr. Magoo.
There were shrieks, yelling, laughing, scolding from Mom. Mayhem and Chaos. And of course, Cinders spent half the time upstairs freaking out over the noise we were making.
There were still more than a couple a dozen frogs jumping around loose when the doorbell rang. We all looked over to see an AP standing in the open doorway, pistol on his hip, like a real cop. Mom went over to answer. She was in her baggy green calico pajamas. But I think it was her hair that the Airman spent most of his time trying not to look at. Mom always slept with her hair entirely in pincurls – dozens of tight little spirals of hair about an inch in diameter, anchored to her skull with two crossed bobby pins apiece. After an hour of reaching and ducking under and behind chairs, tables, and cupboards, some of her curls had loosened. Maybe 20 or so...a little bit, so that the bobby pins were swinging out and bumping back, every time she moved her head.
Parked in our driveway was a dark blue Dodge pickup, standard-issue vehicle for the Air Police. The driver was still behind the wheel, probably the ranking Airman - which would have made him what, an E-4? The Airman in our doorway was an E-2. At the time, I would have seen him as a grown up, but looking back, he can't have been more than 18 years old.
I'm trying to imagine what he must have thought looking past mom's swinging bobby pins. Every light in the house on; both the front and back doors wide open; the floor glittering with broken glass and broken dishes; dining chairs on the dining table; dining chairs on the couch; the coffee table up-ended; mom's leafy avocado trees - all on their sides, pushed up against the patio door; the TV pushed up against the stairs...every piece of furniture so obviously cattywhompus; and the bunch of us standing motionless in pajamas and rainboots, each holding a shiny, green MJB coffee can.
One of the frogs ribbited, and another jumped past the AP as he cleared his throat, and asked no one in particular, " Is, uh, everything okay here?"
Mom answered. "We're okay. My son brought home some frogs, and they got loose."
"How many frogs?"
Mom looked at Patrick, "How many frogs?"
Patrick looked at the Airman’s pistol, " I dunno. A lot."
The Airman looked at Mom, "How many have you recaptured?"
And we all pretty much answered at the same time, "2, 3, 2, 1, 3.” Almost an hour, and all we'd captured was 11 frogs.
“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till morning to find the rest, or find some quieter way to get it done.” He tried to deepen his voice. Mom wasn't impressed.
“We’re not going to get any sleep with these frogs ribbiting.”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but you’re disturbing the peace. I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down.”
“Fine.”
He made one sharp nod of his head, “Thank you, Ma’am. Good night.”
“Good night.” And she shut the door.
Dwayne and I swept up the glass, and the two youngest turned back out the lights. Mom let the dog out to tinkle, and once she was done, everyone went back to bed. This time with our doors shut.
Everyone stayed home the next day. And no. There was no frog hunt. We spent most of the day righting the furniture, and buffing the scratches out of Mom’s hardwood floors. For the next week, we’d see the occasional frog, hear the odd ribbit. We figure most of them either found their own way out, or ran into the Loose Snake.
The Summer of 66 ended with a tally of 4 plaster casts; 102 stitches; 2 concussions; 4 visits from the Air Police (APs); 3 from the base ambulance. And at least 12 trips to the Base Hospital's emergency room.
What could I title these visits? Magic Stick v. Bees; Kid v. Barbed Wire; 2 Kids v. Skateboard and Innocent Bystander; Kid v. Tree; Other Kid v. Tree; Kid v. Neighbor's Fence; Kid v. Not-a-Rattlesnake-After all; Kid v. Bike...every week a new crisis, a new versus.
The Skateboard Incident certainly might have been the most exciting for the neighborhood. It left two of my brothers in casts, and the lady next door in an arm sling. Dwayne, whose left foot was already in a heavy bandage protecting 54 stitches (still a family record), broke his right foot. And Patrick, who had already broken his right arm riding his bike into the Gorgone's fence, now had an additional 2 broken fingers on that hand, and had to be fitted with a brand new cast. From all accounts this was Mrs. Brittany's first time getting knocked on her ass that year.
But I think my first anecdote should start before then - with our first visit from the Air Police (APs). An introduction of sorts. The Beale Air Force Base’s Discovery of Our Family. It isn't really a full story on its own...which I guess would make it more of a chapter, more like something that could have been written with a spectacular sort of climax, but in real life ended more with a tired, oh hell, let's just go back to bed.
At this point, we'd only been to the ER twice, and neither visit had resulted in stitches. It was still early June. I'd wiped out on my bike, and Patrick had been stung by several bees defending their home from the Magic Stick that must have poked their hive. He was just in the area. They must have thought he did it.
So how to start...where exactly does it start?
Base Housing at Beale was parked in the foothills of the Sierras. I could write 'nestled,' but it's not as though the interface was anything but abrupt.
We lived at the edge of Wildness. Our street defined the boundary between Imagined Perils and Obsessive Order. Our front yard was a perfect 4-cornered patch of weed-free, greenish bermuda grass, bordered on 3 sides with flawless strips of gleaming concrete. And our backyard was an exotic cosm of cliffs, caves, and condors. Abandoned mines and mountain lions. Rattlesnakes, blue-bellied lizards, golden eagles, and golden grasses of wild oat. As far as the eye could see, one hill rolled into another...all the way to Nevada.
Apart and together, my brothers and I spend our days exploring. Supplied with jars of frozen water, peanut butter sandwiches, and readied coffee cans, we ventured farther and deeper into the foothills, often leaving at daybreak, not to be seen again till suppertime.
These daily treks usually resulted in the relocation of captured reptiles - sleeping lizards mostly, warmed in our palms, calmed by the nearly constant stroking of their smooth bellies. Snakes were common, too - my favorites, actually. I'd bring them home curled around my neck. Most of these critters were released at the back door. It was strictly verboten to bring anything from the field indoors that wasn't first trapped in a jar, a can, or a box. This included all manner of reptiles, amphibians and bugs. And in case I forget to tell you later - shoebox lids mean absolutely nothing to snakes.
Now this isn't to say that no free reptiles made it into the house. Some just found their way in. Mrs. Gorgone had to call the APs once when she found a rattler curled up in her dryer. And who's to say how many lizards made it past the border guard in pockets and sleeves, forgotten by accident or by design. Certainly, there were several loose in our rooms. We offered them sanctuary in our sock drawers. And many times we'd set them to sun and sleep on the windowsill for as long as they wanted.
It was always a mystery to us how they found their way into the central heating-and-air system or into Mom's bedroom. Her startled shrieks in the background were as normal to us as the TV or radio. At this point in time, there was already one snake and one (or more) lizards unaccounted for. The lizard count was always a point of contention. With each sighting the neck colours were described differently, but then temperature changes could account for that. So no one really knew. It could be just one fella or as many as half a dozen.
It was universally accepted, though, that there was only the one Loose Snake. The one who got out of his shoebox. He was 41 inches long. We'd measured him in the field before we'd even brought him home. And we figured he was probably bigger than that by now, what with all the loose food living in our house.
So.
Patrick and the Night of the 30 Frogs.
Not all of our pocket pets were lizards. Patrick had a thing for frogs. In the spring he and I would look for frog eggs, and bring them home to hatch…and more often than that, we’d bring home tadpoles in our water jars. We'd watch them morph into frogs, and then take them to the creek just down the hill from our house.
During the summer Patrick was never without a frog in his pocket, and while the rest of us were petting lizards, he was hand-feeding bugs to his frogs. While our coffee cans held lizards or small snakes, his almost always held something his frogs might like to eat.
I'm not sure what Patrick was thinking that evening in early June, but unbeknownst to us, he came to supper with a 3-pound coffee can filled to the brim with little frogs.
He set it next to his chair, and went to wash his hands. When supper was over, he set the can up on his chair. But then he forgot about it. And none of us gave it any notice. I mean, there were 3-pound cans were everywhere in our house. Even Mom used them. She had a forest of avocado saplings growing in coffee cans lined up against the patio door.
Fast forward past a routine summer evening of dishes, TV, bickering, baths, and pajamas to around 2am. The house would have been pretty quiet. The mammals, at any rate, would have been sleeping.
It must have been the frogs that woke me. Or maybe it was my cat, Mr. Magoo, poised on the edge of the bed, quivering. I rolled over, and there on the floor were two little frogs next to my bed and another in the doorway. needeep.
I slipped out of bed, and they quieted. That's when I heard the others...in the distance. I poked my head into the hallway to find 4 more. And as I stepped out, the frogs in my room started to ribbit again, while these frogs in the hallway stopped.
4 more were on the stairs...and just like the ones in the bedroom and in the hall proper, they stopped and started as I tread past them.
I got down the stairs and found frogs everywhere: on the couch; on the TV; on the dining room chairs...on Mom's dining room table!
Patrick’s coffee can lay on the floor next to his chair, the lid opened enough to make a sort of lean-to roof. The can was empty. I grabbed the two frogs on the table first, and then as I reached for the one on Pat's chair, it jumped away. I tried to grab him mid-air and missed, knocking over the chair and dropping the can.
That noise apparently woke our dog, because she started barking from the safety of Dwayne's room. But of course, that woke Mom. "Shut up, Cinders!"
But then once Cinders stopped barking, Mom could hear the frogs...and Pat, sotto voce, "oh shit."
It wasn't exactly a thundering stampede...more like a windy wooosh, as the entire household made its way to join me down in the living-dining area. Lights came on as hands passed switches on the walls. First the bedrooms, then the hall. And now the entire first floor. A Roman candle on the edge of Base Housing.
Mom told us all to grab an empty can. But there were no empty cans. So Hugh and Dwayne grabbed Pat’s bug cans, and emptied them on the front porch. (Ya know, looking back, that might have been a little noisy.) And in their hurry to get back in and catch frogs, they forgot to close the door.
Mostly it's hard to recall with total accuracy just what went down. Someone bumped into the floor lamp next to Mom's reading chair, and when it crashed to the floor, its glass bowl and light bulb all broke. (That might have been noisy too, since the doors were open.) Also, Hugh knocked against a picture frame and broke the glass out of it. And I remember dishes crashing in the kitchen, but I can’t think who might have been out there. Everyone had to run out to the porch and put on our boots so we wouldn't cut our feet, and Mom made us lock Cinders up in one of the bedrooms with Mr. Magoo.
There were shrieks, yelling, laughing, scolding from Mom. Mayhem and Chaos. And of course, Cinders spent half the time upstairs freaking out over the noise we were making.
There were still more than a couple a dozen frogs jumping around loose when the doorbell rang. We all looked over to see an AP standing in the open doorway, pistol on his hip, like a real cop. Mom went over to answer. She was in her baggy green calico pajamas. But I think it was her hair that the Airman spent most of his time trying not to look at. Mom always slept with her hair entirely in pincurls – dozens of tight little spirals of hair about an inch in diameter, anchored to her skull with two crossed bobby pins apiece. After an hour of reaching and ducking under and behind chairs, tables, and cupboards, some of her curls had loosened. Maybe 20 or so...a little bit, so that the bobby pins were swinging out and bumping back, every time she moved her head.
Parked in our driveway was a dark blue Dodge pickup, standard-issue vehicle for the Air Police. The driver was still behind the wheel, probably the ranking Airman - which would have made him what, an E-4? The Airman in our doorway was an E-2. At the time, I would have seen him as a grown up, but looking back, he can't have been more than 18 years old.
I'm trying to imagine what he must have thought looking past mom's swinging bobby pins. Every light in the house on; both the front and back doors wide open; the floor glittering with broken glass and broken dishes; dining chairs on the dining table; dining chairs on the couch; the coffee table up-ended; mom's leafy avocado trees - all on their sides, pushed up against the patio door; the TV pushed up against the stairs...every piece of furniture so obviously cattywhompus; and the bunch of us standing motionless in pajamas and rainboots, each holding a shiny, green MJB coffee can.
One of the frogs ribbited, and another jumped past the AP as he cleared his throat, and asked no one in particular, " Is, uh, everything okay here?"
Mom answered. "We're okay. My son brought home some frogs, and they got loose."
"How many frogs?"
Mom looked at Patrick, "How many frogs?"
Patrick looked at the Airman’s pistol, " I dunno. A lot."
The Airman looked at Mom, "How many have you recaptured?"
And we all pretty much answered at the same time, "2, 3, 2, 1, 3.” Almost an hour, and all we'd captured was 11 frogs.
“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till morning to find the rest, or find some quieter way to get it done.” He tried to deepen his voice. Mom wasn't impressed.
“We’re not going to get any sleep with these frogs ribbiting.”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but you’re disturbing the peace. I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down.”
“Fine.”
He made one sharp nod of his head, “Thank you, Ma’am. Good night.”
“Good night.” And she shut the door.
Dwayne and I swept up the glass, and the two youngest turned back out the lights. Mom let the dog out to tinkle, and once she was done, everyone went back to bed. This time with our doors shut.
Everyone stayed home the next day. And no. There was no frog hunt. We spent most of the day righting the furniture, and buffing the scratches out of Mom’s hardwood floors. For the next week, we’d see the occasional frog, hear the odd ribbit. We figure most of them either found their own way out, or ran into the Loose Snake.
24 February 2009
Conspiracies
When choosing between a conspiracy of lies or one of silence, it's better you should choose silence.
Two months before Dad went to Nam, Dwayne ran a table leg through my bedroom door.
He was chasing me down the hall, and I managed to get my door closed before he could make contact. The leg drove right through the wood like a spear.
The story was that Dwayne was simply walking down the hall carrying a table leg, and tripped over something on the floor right in front of my bedroom door, which caused him to twist around just I happen to be closing my door.
Well, we all got the belt for lying, and just two days before we moved to Sacramento, Dad repaired my bedroom door. The inspectors from Base Housing never knew.
We lived in Sacramento for a year waiting for Dad to come home from Nam.
And he wasn't back 2 weeks when my youngest brother, Hugh, kicked in the bottom panel of our bathroom door.
Patrick had done something to piss Hugh off, and when he ducked into the bathroom to escape harm, it pissed off Hugh even more.
After we got over how cosmically spooky it was that we should be dealing with another door, we went into action. We knew that no story whatsoever would convince Dad this was an accident. So, taking a page out of Dad's book, we decided to keep our mouths shut, and repair the door.
Mom and Dad were spending the day house-hunting back up near where we lived before, and they weren't due back for another 8 or 9 hours.
We didn't have any wood, and quite frankly, no one had exactly stood around to watch Dad repairing the first door, though he did tell us more than once the particulars of his brilliance in hiding Dwayne's crime from the inspectors. Something about making diamond-shaped biscuits, one for each side of the door...fitting them in, and sanding it all even...then re-painting. We had no idea how to duplicate his process, so we decided that tape might do the same trick...give us something to paint over.
There was plenty of matching paint. The entire interior, including all the doors, had been painted just before we moved in, and there were still 2 gallons in the garage. And there was never a shortage of masking tape in our house. Mom used it for everything. Mom was always refinishing or painting something.
So we carefully removed the splinters and sanded the panel and wiped it clean. Then, strip by strip, we taped from one end of the panel to the other, overlapping the tape by the just an eighth of an inch. It was a group effort. Hugh pulled the tape, and Patrick measured 24 inch sections, and then Hugh cut the tape, and handed it to me.
The panel was 20 inches tall, and the masking tape was a little more than an inch wide. It took me over an hour just to apply it. There were many fuck ups that could not just be undone...I couldn't remove just one strip of tape. Each time a mistake was made, I had to remove everything, and start over again. And every noise outside convinced me that Mom and Dad were about to burst in and catch us.
Dwayne had a delicate hand so he painted a fine coat over the taped panel, and we took turns holding the hose from Mom's hairdryer to blow heat on it. And still Dwayne waited an extra hour before he would risk painting another coat...and with that coat, he also painted the entire door.
While I'd been taping, Dwayne vacuumed the living room and the hallway. While Dwayne painted I cleaned and rewaxed the kitchen floor. Hugh and Patrick spent most of the time arguing while they cleaned their bedroom, putting away all toys, and re-making their beds.
The house reeked of paint. So we got the idea to repaint the other 3 doors in the hall, and what the hell, why not the one to the garage? We had the perfect cover. After all, we'd be moving soon...weren't we gonna hafta paint those doors, anyway? Such helpful children no two parents should be so lucky to have.
5 hours after we finished painting and cleaning, Mom and Dad came home.
As soon as they smelled paint Mom went looking in the kitchen cupboards for missing dishes, and Dad made a quick inspection of our rooms looking closely at all the windows. (oops. that reminds me of another story for another time.) They both checked for broken furniture and carpet stains.
Obviously they were suspicious. Obviously, we were obvious. I mean, everyone knows rule number one: if you know you're in trouble, clean your room, do the dishes, and paint the house.
We moved back to Beale 3 months later, and on that last day in the-house-we-lived-in-while-dad-was-in-nam, each of us kids must have looked at that panel a half a dozen times.
Dad never knew.
Two months before Dad went to Nam, Dwayne ran a table leg through my bedroom door.
He was chasing me down the hall, and I managed to get my door closed before he could make contact. The leg drove right through the wood like a spear.
The story was that Dwayne was simply walking down the hall carrying a table leg, and tripped over something on the floor right in front of my bedroom door, which caused him to twist around just I happen to be closing my door.
Well, we all got the belt for lying, and just two days before we moved to Sacramento, Dad repaired my bedroom door. The inspectors from Base Housing never knew.
We lived in Sacramento for a year waiting for Dad to come home from Nam.
And he wasn't back 2 weeks when my youngest brother, Hugh, kicked in the bottom panel of our bathroom door.
Patrick had done something to piss Hugh off, and when he ducked into the bathroom to escape harm, it pissed off Hugh even more.
After we got over how cosmically spooky it was that we should be dealing with another door, we went into action. We knew that no story whatsoever would convince Dad this was an accident. So, taking a page out of Dad's book, we decided to keep our mouths shut, and repair the door.
Mom and Dad were spending the day house-hunting back up near where we lived before, and they weren't due back for another 8 or 9 hours.
We didn't have any wood, and quite frankly, no one had exactly stood around to watch Dad repairing the first door, though he did tell us more than once the particulars of his brilliance in hiding Dwayne's crime from the inspectors. Something about making diamond-shaped biscuits, one for each side of the door...fitting them in, and sanding it all even...then re-painting. We had no idea how to duplicate his process, so we decided that tape might do the same trick...give us something to paint over.
There was plenty of matching paint. The entire interior, including all the doors, had been painted just before we moved in, and there were still 2 gallons in the garage. And there was never a shortage of masking tape in our house. Mom used it for everything. Mom was always refinishing or painting something.
So we carefully removed the splinters and sanded the panel and wiped it clean. Then, strip by strip, we taped from one end of the panel to the other, overlapping the tape by the just an eighth of an inch. It was a group effort. Hugh pulled the tape, and Patrick measured 24 inch sections, and then Hugh cut the tape, and handed it to me.
The panel was 20 inches tall, and the masking tape was a little more than an inch wide. It took me over an hour just to apply it. There were many fuck ups that could not just be undone...I couldn't remove just one strip of tape. Each time a mistake was made, I had to remove everything, and start over again. And every noise outside convinced me that Mom and Dad were about to burst in and catch us.
Dwayne had a delicate hand so he painted a fine coat over the taped panel, and we took turns holding the hose from Mom's hairdryer to blow heat on it. And still Dwayne waited an extra hour before he would risk painting another coat...and with that coat, he also painted the entire door.
While I'd been taping, Dwayne vacuumed the living room and the hallway. While Dwayne painted I cleaned and rewaxed the kitchen floor. Hugh and Patrick spent most of the time arguing while they cleaned their bedroom, putting away all toys, and re-making their beds.
The house reeked of paint. So we got the idea to repaint the other 3 doors in the hall, and what the hell, why not the one to the garage? We had the perfect cover. After all, we'd be moving soon...weren't we gonna hafta paint those doors, anyway? Such helpful children no two parents should be so lucky to have.
5 hours after we finished painting and cleaning, Mom and Dad came home.
As soon as they smelled paint Mom went looking in the kitchen cupboards for missing dishes, and Dad made a quick inspection of our rooms looking closely at all the windows. (oops. that reminds me of another story for another time.) They both checked for broken furniture and carpet stains.
Obviously they were suspicious. Obviously, we were obvious. I mean, everyone knows rule number one: if you know you're in trouble, clean your room, do the dishes, and paint the house.
We moved back to Beale 3 months later, and on that last day in the-house-we-lived-in-while-dad-was-in-nam, each of us kids must have looked at that panel a half a dozen times.
Dad never knew.
15 January 2009
SnowDay - part two
...it was while I was making Johnny’s bed, I found the matches.
He had them stuck under his mattress. “Johneeeee, I’m gonna tell. You got matches. Mommy said we can’t play with matches.”
“Don’t tell, Jake, I’ll let you play with ‘em, too.”
“But we don’t have anything to burn, ‘cause it’s snowed outside.”
“We could burn some of our blocks. We could take ‘em outside. In our pockets.” Johnny came back into the bedroom, wet and smelling of ivory soap. I could hear the tub draining.
“Yeah, that sounds good. We’ll make a fire with the blocks to keep warm in our fort. We can cook stuff.”
When I said that, Johnny went to the closet, and from his Kraut Helmet (a gift from Uncle Mike), he pulled out a bologna sandwich and 4 cookies.
“You have food? Can I have a cookie?”
“If you eat the cookies, then we won’t have any food for the war.”
“We’ll have the sandwich. We can cook the bologna.”
“No. They’re my cookies.” Johnny finished dressing. He walked over to the windowsill and picked up a block. “Maybe we should cook the bologna, now, so it’ll already be warm.”
“But we’re gonna eat breakfast.”
“Okay. But let’s burn one of the blocks, anyway.” Cool.
“But how can we put out the - I know, we can start them on fire, and then we can throw them out to into the snow to put it out!”
We stood there, at the windowsill holding match after lit match on a block that just wouldn’t start on fire. And now we were down to 5 matches.
Outside, we could see groups of men with shovels, not shoveling. All the dads, standing waist-deep in the snow, pointing at things, talking, pointing again.
“Time for breakfast!” Mom’s voice carried up from the stairwell.
“We’re coming.” I shouted back. I must have startled Johnny, ‘cause he dropped the match he’d just lit, on the floor. It landed on a ghost turd, and whoosh, it made a small flash of fire and then went out.
“Ooh” Our voices came out in a whispered rush. “Let’s find another one.” We looked under the bed for more dust and lit the little balls, one by one with the last 4 matches.
“We’re out. Let’s go eat.”
Johnny shook his head. “I have more. I stole them from Uncle Mike’s dresser when we visited for Christmas.”
“Where? Go get ‘em.” We had time before Mom called again.
Johnny went to the closet and came back with two more books of matches. “Jake, I wonder if we could keep the fire going if we started the dust balls right next to the blocks.”
“We gotta find more dust.”
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?”
We never heard Dad opening the door. “Is something burning in here? Are you two trying to burn down my house? Matches?”
“Johnny stole ‘em.” I rounded my eyes to show just how innocent I was.
“And you had no idea what you were doing with them.” Standing there next to the open window, I suddenly realized how cold the room was. I pushed my tongue against my chattering teeth. Johnny shivered, and it caught Dad's eye.
“Give me those goddamned matches!”
Ten feet from Dad, Johnny held them out with his arm.
“Bring them here. HERE!” Dad hollered when Johnny didn’t move fast enough. Johnny took little steps forward, still holding his left arm extended out in front of him, hoping the matches would reach Dad before he did.
Dad swiped the matches from Johnny with his left hand while he popped Johnny with his right. Johnny went down to the floor with a thud. Dad rounded to me and said, “You like fire? Let’s see how much. Why don’t we just put you in the goddamned oven for the day and see how you like being cooked.”
“No, Daddy, don’t cook me, please!”
“Don’t cook Jake, Daddy. I won’t have nobody to sleep in the other bed, then.” Johnny stood back up.
“Jesus Christ, Joe. Do you really think you’re gonna fit him in the oven?” Mom. In the doorway.
“Ellen, just stay out of this, o.kay?” There was a look, then. An identical expression on each of their faces, but I had no idea what it meant. Dad snorted and made some kinda smirk. Then, wham! He hit my chest before I even saw his hand. “You goddamned little shit. If I ever see you teaching your little brother to play with matches again, I’ll set you on fire myself.” The thought brought a smile to his face, and he shared that with Mom, too.
“Yes, sir.” It was careful not to rub my chest while I answered. He and Mom started to leave then, and when Dad got to the door, he turned around and smiled again.
“You two can forget breakfast. And lunch, too. I don’t wanna know you’re even in the house till suppertime.” He shut the door then, carefully, like it was breakable. I held my breath waiting for him to come back in, till I finally heard his boots striking the hardwood stairs.
“It’s your fault we got in trouble. You stole the matches.” I hissed at Johnny. “You were the one who wanted to start fires.” He whined back.
“Well, you did too”
“No I didn’t”
“Did too!” Our voices started to raise.
“I'm heating up the oven!" Dad's voice came up through the floor.
“See what you did?” Johnny accused me, now.
“Shhh! Do you want him to come back?”
So, for a while we played quietly with our little toy soldiers, when an idea came to me. “I know what we could do and it won’t make any noise.”
“What?” Johnny was standing at the window. Behind him, on the sill, a company of green plastic men poised ready to attack castle walls of red and black checker pieces.
“I bet if we let the blinds down, we could swing them from my bed and knock soldiers out into the snow hill downstairs.” I ran over to the window to let down the blinds. They were made of sheet metal that would slice you like a loaf of bread if you slid your hands across the blades. The straps that held them were of heavy canvas-duck cloth. They’d probably been white, once, but there were stains on these with brown and orange rings. And some the blades were greasy and thick with dust. They didn’t quite fit the window. Even when they were down, you could still see inside our room at night through the 3-inch gaps on each side.
“Here.” I handed the bottom bar of the blinds to Johnny. “When I get on the bed you hand it up to me.” I climbed up using the headboards. “Okay, hand it up.”
Johnny reached up and I reached down. Johnny opened the window the rest of the way, and ducked. I let the blinds go and, wow. They knocked two of the soldiers out the window. Johnny stood up and looked out, lifting the blinds over his head. “I don’t see them.”
“They’re probably in the snow. Let’s try some more.”
“Okay.” Johnny set up another soldier. He handed me the blinds and I let them swing down. This time they swung right through - right out the window with the soldier.
“OH!” Johnny’s eyes went round as he looked from the swinging blinds to me. The blinds twisted as they swung, and when he grabbed for the bar, he accidentally grabbed a slat, nicking his hand. He did say, “ow.” But thinking back, it was more a reflex because the grin on his face reached both ears. And his mouth was opened too wide to talk. “Jake, Jake. Ah. Ah! We. Jake!”
“What! What?!”
“We! We could swing on the blinds! We could stand on your bed and hold the blinds, and just swing through the window!”
What a great idea. “But you gotta go first. I’m too big. And we’ll hafta pull the blinds higher, too, so we don't hit our feet on the sill.” I climbed down quietly, suddenly remembering, “Johnny, Dad’s still home. We gotta be real quiet.”
“Oh yeah. Okay.” He whispered as he started climbing onto my bunk. I moved over to the window, and pulled the blinds three-quarters of the way up.
“Johnny, you’re gonna hafta keep your legs tucked up, okay?”
“Okay.” He nodded his head “Jake, how’m I gonna reach the blinds if they’re pulled up?”
“I’ll stand on the headboard, and hold your waist while you reach out for them.”
“But I’ll fall.”
“No you won’t”
“Yes I will. You’ll drop me.”
“Shhh. No I won’t. I’ll hold you.” My voice honked while I try to yell and whisper at the same time. “I promise.”
So, I climbed up, and holding on to the top headboard with my right hand, I stood with my left foot on the windowsill and my right foot on Johnny’s headboard (the lower headboard). I took hold of the blinds with my left hand. And then, as I reached to put my right arm around Johnny’s waist, I let go of his headboard.
Problem was, Johnny wasn’t holding on to any part of the bed, either. As he felt the weight of my body pulling us both away from the bed, he grabbed the blinds with both hands. Just as my right foot knocked into the windowsill to meet my left, the blinds broke free of their anchor at the top of the window. The weight of them came down just as Johnny made it to the window.
With his knees knocking into my chin and the blinds hitting the right side of my head, Johnny’s body dragged me out the window, head first. I must’ve let go of him, then. Because he went straight down to the drift below, crushing it with his weight. I could hear him scream out as I followed close behind.
But instead of hitting the top of the drift with Johnny, my body slid, head and arms first, down what was left of its slope, right onto the bare ground in front of the brand new living-room window. The blinds, still firmly in my grasp, struck the glass, hitting it with a crack. I pushed myself up, and there was my father’s contorted face, yelling at me from the other side.
He had them stuck under his mattress. “Johneeeee, I’m gonna tell. You got matches. Mommy said we can’t play with matches.”
“Don’t tell, Jake, I’ll let you play with ‘em, too.”
“But we don’t have anything to burn, ‘cause it’s snowed outside.”
“We could burn some of our blocks. We could take ‘em outside. In our pockets.” Johnny came back into the bedroom, wet and smelling of ivory soap. I could hear the tub draining.
“Yeah, that sounds good. We’ll make a fire with the blocks to keep warm in our fort. We can cook stuff.”
When I said that, Johnny went to the closet, and from his Kraut Helmet (a gift from Uncle Mike), he pulled out a bologna sandwich and 4 cookies.
“You have food? Can I have a cookie?”
“If you eat the cookies, then we won’t have any food for the war.”
“We’ll have the sandwich. We can cook the bologna.”
“No. They’re my cookies.” Johnny finished dressing. He walked over to the windowsill and picked up a block. “Maybe we should cook the bologna, now, so it’ll already be warm.”
“But we’re gonna eat breakfast.”
“Okay. But let’s burn one of the blocks, anyway.” Cool.
“But how can we put out the - I know, we can start them on fire, and then we can throw them out to into the snow to put it out!”
We stood there, at the windowsill holding match after lit match on a block that just wouldn’t start on fire. And now we were down to 5 matches.
Outside, we could see groups of men with shovels, not shoveling. All the dads, standing waist-deep in the snow, pointing at things, talking, pointing again.
“Time for breakfast!” Mom’s voice carried up from the stairwell.
“We’re coming.” I shouted back. I must have startled Johnny, ‘cause he dropped the match he’d just lit, on the floor. It landed on a ghost turd, and whoosh, it made a small flash of fire and then went out.
“Ooh” Our voices came out in a whispered rush. “Let’s find another one.” We looked under the bed for more dust and lit the little balls, one by one with the last 4 matches.
“We’re out. Let’s go eat.”
Johnny shook his head. “I have more. I stole them from Uncle Mike’s dresser when we visited for Christmas.”
“Where? Go get ‘em.” We had time before Mom called again.
Johnny went to the closet and came back with two more books of matches. “Jake, I wonder if we could keep the fire going if we started the dust balls right next to the blocks.”
“We gotta find more dust.”
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?”
We never heard Dad opening the door. “Is something burning in here? Are you two trying to burn down my house? Matches?”
“Johnny stole ‘em.” I rounded my eyes to show just how innocent I was.
“And you had no idea what you were doing with them.” Standing there next to the open window, I suddenly realized how cold the room was. I pushed my tongue against my chattering teeth. Johnny shivered, and it caught Dad's eye.
“Give me those goddamned matches!”
Ten feet from Dad, Johnny held them out with his arm.
“Bring them here. HERE!” Dad hollered when Johnny didn’t move fast enough. Johnny took little steps forward, still holding his left arm extended out in front of him, hoping the matches would reach Dad before he did.
Dad swiped the matches from Johnny with his left hand while he popped Johnny with his right. Johnny went down to the floor with a thud. Dad rounded to me and said, “You like fire? Let’s see how much. Why don’t we just put you in the goddamned oven for the day and see how you like being cooked.”
“No, Daddy, don’t cook me, please!”
“Don’t cook Jake, Daddy. I won’t have nobody to sleep in the other bed, then.” Johnny stood back up.
“Jesus Christ, Joe. Do you really think you’re gonna fit him in the oven?” Mom. In the doorway.
“Ellen, just stay out of this, o.kay?” There was a look, then. An identical expression on each of their faces, but I had no idea what it meant. Dad snorted and made some kinda smirk. Then, wham! He hit my chest before I even saw his hand. “You goddamned little shit. If I ever see you teaching your little brother to play with matches again, I’ll set you on fire myself.” The thought brought a smile to his face, and he shared that with Mom, too.
“Yes, sir.” It was careful not to rub my chest while I answered. He and Mom started to leave then, and when Dad got to the door, he turned around and smiled again.
“You two can forget breakfast. And lunch, too. I don’t wanna know you’re even in the house till suppertime.” He shut the door then, carefully, like it was breakable. I held my breath waiting for him to come back in, till I finally heard his boots striking the hardwood stairs.
“It’s your fault we got in trouble. You stole the matches.” I hissed at Johnny. “You were the one who wanted to start fires.” He whined back.
“Well, you did too”
“No I didn’t”
“Did too!” Our voices started to raise.
“I'm heating up the oven!" Dad's voice came up through the floor.
“See what you did?” Johnny accused me, now.
“Shhh! Do you want him to come back?”
So, for a while we played quietly with our little toy soldiers, when an idea came to me. “I know what we could do and it won’t make any noise.”
“What?” Johnny was standing at the window. Behind him, on the sill, a company of green plastic men poised ready to attack castle walls of red and black checker pieces.
“I bet if we let the blinds down, we could swing them from my bed and knock soldiers out into the snow hill downstairs.” I ran over to the window to let down the blinds. They were made of sheet metal that would slice you like a loaf of bread if you slid your hands across the blades. The straps that held them were of heavy canvas-duck cloth. They’d probably been white, once, but there were stains on these with brown and orange rings. And some the blades were greasy and thick with dust. They didn’t quite fit the window. Even when they were down, you could still see inside our room at night through the 3-inch gaps on each side.
“Here.” I handed the bottom bar of the blinds to Johnny. “When I get on the bed you hand it up to me.” I climbed up using the headboards. “Okay, hand it up.”
Johnny reached up and I reached down. Johnny opened the window the rest of the way, and ducked. I let the blinds go and, wow. They knocked two of the soldiers out the window. Johnny stood up and looked out, lifting the blinds over his head. “I don’t see them.”
“They’re probably in the snow. Let’s try some more.”
“Okay.” Johnny set up another soldier. He handed me the blinds and I let them swing down. This time they swung right through - right out the window with the soldier.
“OH!” Johnny’s eyes went round as he looked from the swinging blinds to me. The blinds twisted as they swung, and when he grabbed for the bar, he accidentally grabbed a slat, nicking his hand. He did say, “ow.” But thinking back, it was more a reflex because the grin on his face reached both ears. And his mouth was opened too wide to talk. “Jake, Jake. Ah. Ah! We. Jake!”
“What! What?!”
“We! We could swing on the blinds! We could stand on your bed and hold the blinds, and just swing through the window!”
What a great idea. “But you gotta go first. I’m too big. And we’ll hafta pull the blinds higher, too, so we don't hit our feet on the sill.” I climbed down quietly, suddenly remembering, “Johnny, Dad’s still home. We gotta be real quiet.”
“Oh yeah. Okay.” He whispered as he started climbing onto my bunk. I moved over to the window, and pulled the blinds three-quarters of the way up.
“Johnny, you’re gonna hafta keep your legs tucked up, okay?”
“Okay.” He nodded his head “Jake, how’m I gonna reach the blinds if they’re pulled up?”
“I’ll stand on the headboard, and hold your waist while you reach out for them.”
“But I’ll fall.”
“No you won’t”
“Yes I will. You’ll drop me.”
“Shhh. No I won’t. I’ll hold you.” My voice honked while I try to yell and whisper at the same time. “I promise.”
So, I climbed up, and holding on to the top headboard with my right hand, I stood with my left foot on the windowsill and my right foot on Johnny’s headboard (the lower headboard). I took hold of the blinds with my left hand. And then, as I reached to put my right arm around Johnny’s waist, I let go of his headboard.
Problem was, Johnny wasn’t holding on to any part of the bed, either. As he felt the weight of my body pulling us both away from the bed, he grabbed the blinds with both hands. Just as my right foot knocked into the windowsill to meet my left, the blinds broke free of their anchor at the top of the window. The weight of them came down just as Johnny made it to the window.
With his knees knocking into my chin and the blinds hitting the right side of my head, Johnny’s body dragged me out the window, head first. I must’ve let go of him, then. Because he went straight down to the drift below, crushing it with his weight. I could hear him scream out as I followed close behind.
But instead of hitting the top of the drift with Johnny, my body slid, head and arms first, down what was left of its slope, right onto the bare ground in front of the brand new living-room window. The blinds, still firmly in my grasp, struck the glass, hitting it with a crack. I pushed myself up, and there was my father’s contorted face, yelling at me from the other side.
13 January 2009
SnowDay - part one
It wasn’t the snow that woke me. That part was quiet.
And it wasn’t just his voice. Something was up. Something was different. I opened my eyes to find Johnny’s face in my face. Climbing up to my bunk, he had his body bent over my headboard, his face upside-down, hovering. I could almost taste the urine drenching his pajamas.
“Johnny. You wet the bed?”
“Look outside.” He slid back down the to the floor, and headed to the window. I looked at the back of his pajamas, totally soaked. Dad was gonna be pissed.
“Johnny. You wet the bed.”
“I can’t help it, Jake. By the time I know I’m goin’, it’s already too late.”
“Well, you’d better hide your pajamas before one of them sees you.” I jumped down to the floor and headed to the dresser to get him some clean stuff.
“Okay, Jake, but you gotta come see outside!” I dropped the pajamas back in the drawer and slid the floor along the length of the bed, over to the window. Our pajamas had no-skid feet in them, but Johnny and I had already rubbed off the white rubber bumps on Mom’s hand-polished hardwood floors.
Snow! A picture of our neighborhood on blue paper scratched with a white crayon. There were no streets, only wrinkled ribbons of white satin. Almost all the cars were missing. Probably eaten by the same goofy marshmallow beasts that had swallowed Mom’s new trees. All the roofs were cut sheets of vanilla icing, and our yards were squared platters of frosted whipped cream.
“Jake? Do ya think Mommy’ll let us go outside?” Johnny opened our bedroom window half way, and threw a wooden Disney block outside. We watched it sink down through the snowy peak that didn’t quite reach the top of the brand new picture window on the first floor. Our bedroom was right above the living-room.
“It’s a school day. We have to get ready. You know we can’t play till after.” I readied a few more blocks on the windowsill.
“We won’t play; we’ll just go out and look at it.” 8 years old, and Johnny was already looking for loopholes.
“Okay, but we gotta be real quiet.” If we got caught, I was already prepared to tell Mom it had been Johnny’s idea. “But first you gotta change your clothes.”
“You boys up?” Mom.
“Yes, Mom, we’re gettin’ dressed for school.” I piped up just as she opened the door.
“Mommy! It snowed!” Johnny just couldn’t be quiet. He stood there dripping in pee, but he had to make sure Mom looked at him.
“Goddammit, Johnny. Did you wet the bed, again?”
“I couldn’t help it, Mommy.”
“Strip your bed, right now. And take a bath.” Then she looked at me. “Jake, you fill the tub for him, and take his pajamas down stairs before your father gets out of the shower.” She looked back at Johnny, then to his bed, and then to the window. “I doubt if you boys’ll be going to school today.” She glared at us like it was our fault, and slipped back out the door.
No school! We both looked at each other. I ran into the bathroom and started the water. “No school. We can make snow forts!”
Johnny and I slept in what was supposed to be our parent's room. I guess they figured it was better we played here than in Mom's kitchen. Besides, this way, we had our own bathroom. Close enough to Johnny's bed, maybe they hoped he could make it there in time.
“Jake?” I could hear it Johnny’s voice - An idea.
“What?” I came back into the bedroom. I was already game.
“I bet if we jumped out the window, the snow would catch us.” Johnny was butt naked, the whole top half of his body hanging out the window.
“It is pretty close.” I took another look with him. Between the drift and our house lay 3 of the 7 blocks Johnny had dropped out there earlier. “But we’d need to jump way out, cause if we miss, we’ll bump into the house.” Our house was built of brick.
“Okay.”
“Go take your bath first. Mom’s gonna be mad if you still smell like pee.” I took his wet pajamas and his sheets and stuffed them in the hamper. Johnny got in the tub and started cleaning up. And I hurried to put new sheets on his bed.
There was about two feet of floor between our bunk and the window, and it was that window the headboards were centered on. When we needed an extra room for the Bed Fort, we’d close the window down on one side of a blanket, and drape the other side over Johnny’s headboard. The dresser was butted up against the footboards, and Johnny would use it to boost himself up onto my bunk.
The head and foot boards, weren't really boards at all. They were made of metal. Every year, Mom would spray paint them a new colour. This year, they were black. Rectangled metal frames, they had a quarter-inch metal tube zigzagging from one side to the other, making triangles inside the open space.
Except for my headboard. My headboard didn’t have zigzags anymore. And the rectangle part had been filed smooth by my dad. The zigzags had been removed so we could rescue Johnny.
He didn’t always bend over my headboard to talk to me. He used to stand on the dresser and stick his head through, between the zigzags. Till one day when he got stuck. I’d tried for a long time to get him out. I pushed on his head and I pulled on his body, but I couldn’t get him through. His ears kept getting in the way. I finally had to get Mom.
She tried putting vaseline on his ears and his face but we just couldn’t get Johnny’s head back outta that triangle. Mom finally called the fire department. They tried to use vaseline, too. After a couple of hours, the firemen told Johnny they were gonna have to cut off his ears. But they just cut the metal tubing instead.
Poor Johnny. His face was all red and scraped, and he had big globs of vaseline all through his hair and in his ears. He kept touching them to make sure they hadn’t been cut off. That was 2 days after New Year’s, when Johnny was still 7. I could hear him sucking his thumb that night when he went to bed.
So, anyway, it was when I was making Johnny’s bed, I found the matches.
This story concludes here...
And it wasn’t just his voice. Something was up. Something was different. I opened my eyes to find Johnny’s face in my face. Climbing up to my bunk, he had his body bent over my headboard, his face upside-down, hovering. I could almost taste the urine drenching his pajamas.
“Johnny. You wet the bed?”
“Look outside.” He slid back down the to the floor, and headed to the window. I looked at the back of his pajamas, totally soaked. Dad was gonna be pissed.
“Johnny. You wet the bed.”
“I can’t help it, Jake. By the time I know I’m goin’, it’s already too late.”
“Well, you’d better hide your pajamas before one of them sees you.” I jumped down to the floor and headed to the dresser to get him some clean stuff.
“Okay, Jake, but you gotta come see outside!” I dropped the pajamas back in the drawer and slid the floor along the length of the bed, over to the window. Our pajamas had no-skid feet in them, but Johnny and I had already rubbed off the white rubber bumps on Mom’s hand-polished hardwood floors.
Snow! A picture of our neighborhood on blue paper scratched with a white crayon. There were no streets, only wrinkled ribbons of white satin. Almost all the cars were missing. Probably eaten by the same goofy marshmallow beasts that had swallowed Mom’s new trees. All the roofs were cut sheets of vanilla icing, and our yards were squared platters of frosted whipped cream.
“Jake? Do ya think Mommy’ll let us go outside?” Johnny opened our bedroom window half way, and threw a wooden Disney block outside. We watched it sink down through the snowy peak that didn’t quite reach the top of the brand new picture window on the first floor. Our bedroom was right above the living-room.
“It’s a school day. We have to get ready. You know we can’t play till after.” I readied a few more blocks on the windowsill.
“We won’t play; we’ll just go out and look at it.” 8 years old, and Johnny was already looking for loopholes.
“Okay, but we gotta be real quiet.” If we got caught, I was already prepared to tell Mom it had been Johnny’s idea. “But first you gotta change your clothes.”
“You boys up?” Mom.
“Yes, Mom, we’re gettin’ dressed for school.” I piped up just as she opened the door.
“Mommy! It snowed!” Johnny just couldn’t be quiet. He stood there dripping in pee, but he had to make sure Mom looked at him.
“Goddammit, Johnny. Did you wet the bed, again?”
“I couldn’t help it, Mommy.”
“Strip your bed, right now. And take a bath.” Then she looked at me. “Jake, you fill the tub for him, and take his pajamas down stairs before your father gets out of the shower.” She looked back at Johnny, then to his bed, and then to the window. “I doubt if you boys’ll be going to school today.” She glared at us like it was our fault, and slipped back out the door.
No school! We both looked at each other. I ran into the bathroom and started the water. “No school. We can make snow forts!”
Johnny and I slept in what was supposed to be our parent's room. I guess they figured it was better we played here than in Mom's kitchen. Besides, this way, we had our own bathroom. Close enough to Johnny's bed, maybe they hoped he could make it there in time.
“Jake?” I could hear it Johnny’s voice - An idea.
“What?” I came back into the bedroom. I was already game.
“I bet if we jumped out the window, the snow would catch us.” Johnny was butt naked, the whole top half of his body hanging out the window.
“It is pretty close.” I took another look with him. Between the drift and our house lay 3 of the 7 blocks Johnny had dropped out there earlier. “But we’d need to jump way out, cause if we miss, we’ll bump into the house.” Our house was built of brick.
“Okay.”
“Go take your bath first. Mom’s gonna be mad if you still smell like pee.” I took his wet pajamas and his sheets and stuffed them in the hamper. Johnny got in the tub and started cleaning up. And I hurried to put new sheets on his bed.
There was about two feet of floor between our bunk and the window, and it was that window the headboards were centered on. When we needed an extra room for the Bed Fort, we’d close the window down on one side of a blanket, and drape the other side over Johnny’s headboard. The dresser was butted up against the footboards, and Johnny would use it to boost himself up onto my bunk.
The head and foot boards, weren't really boards at all. They were made of metal. Every year, Mom would spray paint them a new colour. This year, they were black. Rectangled metal frames, they had a quarter-inch metal tube zigzagging from one side to the other, making triangles inside the open space.
Except for my headboard. My headboard didn’t have zigzags anymore. And the rectangle part had been filed smooth by my dad. The zigzags had been removed so we could rescue Johnny.
He didn’t always bend over my headboard to talk to me. He used to stand on the dresser and stick his head through, between the zigzags. Till one day when he got stuck. I’d tried for a long time to get him out. I pushed on his head and I pulled on his body, but I couldn’t get him through. His ears kept getting in the way. I finally had to get Mom.
She tried putting vaseline on his ears and his face but we just couldn’t get Johnny’s head back outta that triangle. Mom finally called the fire department. They tried to use vaseline, too. After a couple of hours, the firemen told Johnny they were gonna have to cut off his ears. But they just cut the metal tubing instead.
Poor Johnny. His face was all red and scraped, and he had big globs of vaseline all through his hair and in his ears. He kept touching them to make sure they hadn’t been cut off. That was 2 days after New Year’s, when Johnny was still 7. I could hear him sucking his thumb that night when he went to bed.
So, anyway, it was when I was making Johnny’s bed, I found the matches.
This story concludes here...
01 December 2008
Patrick's Diamond
We found the diamond on a Saturday. We were walking with our heads down against the sleet, and there it was, right in front of us. Laying on the sidewalk next to a pile of snow the plows had pushed up over the curb.
It only took us a second to realize what it was, when Patrick snatched it up before another car could drive by, and throw black slush on it. “A diamond! It’s a diamond.” Mom had a diamond ring once, but this one was much bigger. Being the oldest, I was naturally the authority in found treasures. I told Patrick we should take the diamond to a jewelry store, and sell it.
“You mean for money?” The Possibilities: new coats; warm boots; Candy.
We both hated walking in Omaha. Patrick, especially. I’d grown out of last year’s boots, and he hadn’t yet grown into them.~We came to Omaha in September. Mom and Dad had just split up, and she’d found a place there to live, and a job, too. And on a Saturday, Dad drove Mom, all us kids, our clothes, and our furniture to the big city.
At first, I didn’t wanna move there, but when I saw South 14th street, I knew things might be okay. There was something almost holy about the way our new street looked that afternoon. Almost all the houses were made of warm, red brick. It’s not like I’d never seen brick houses before. Lots of our houses at Lincoln Air Base were made of brick. But I had never seen this many houses packed in a row. And there was brick everywhere. The streets, even the sidewalks were paved with bricks.
And then, every single house had a tree in front of it. All lined up straight, one after the other like they were at a dance. The trees were very old. Some of them reached right across the street, and touched the trees on the other side. The leaves were red, orange, and pink. And the sun touched down on us underneath, only after it had fallen through all those leaves. Red was my favorite colour so I decided this was a sign that life wasn’t gonna be so bad there, after all.
But now it was December, and everything around us was hard and grey. Winter had turned the brick houses mean and bloody, and the bumpy brick street and sidewalks were smothered with a grey slime that people in Omaha called ‘snow.’
Downtown, concrete sidewalks followed us everywhere. They bridged bleak stone buildings to ugly dark streets. And they slapped at the bottoms of our feet every time we took a step. We didn’t have a car, and the bus cost too much so we had to walk everywhere. Sometimes, Patrick’s feet would get so cold, he could barely feel them. Then when we’d finally get inside someplace, they’d start stinging, and he’d sniffing. But he wouldn’t cry ‘cause then Mom would cry.
~ But this was a Saturday, and Mom didn’t have to work. We didn’t have to go to school, so we’d headed towards YMCA to play. Standing there with that diamond, we were only two blocks from the jeweler’s. We knew this exactly because we passed it every weekday on the way to the sitter’s.
It took less than a minute to get to the store. It was all lit up on the outside with green and red Christmas lights. The door was wide and covered with a sheet of pink copper, polished shiny, with 4 small framed windows near the top. Beside the door, in a large bay window, there were diamonds and gold watches perched with shiny rings and necklaces of green and red sparkle.
I pushed open the heavy door for Patrick, and he went in first, holding our diamond in his mittened hands, cupping it the way he would a butterfly or a lightening-bug. The floor inside was carpeted in a deep moss green and the room was filled with china dishes. There were goblets and vases of cut glass with little rainbows shining in them. It seemed like there was light everywhere and we could hear the Nutcracker Suite. We started to feel toasty warm right away.
There were two round men bent over a glass cabinet whispering. Behind them was a grandfather clock like the one on Captain Kangaroo, but more elegant.
“What do we do?” Patrick whispered to me.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t, now that we were here. I’d been with my mother the week before, when she’d sold her wedding rings but that place had been filled with guns, old push-mowers, and picture frames hanging from the ceilings tangled with gas lanterns and fishing poles. Nobody there whispered, except Mom.
The man who’d bought her rings wore a green plaid shirt, and he had dirty fingernails. And when he smiled, I saw dark stuff on his teeth. He gave Mom two 10-dollar bills for her rings. First she said no, but then, all of a sudden she made a smile at him, and even thanked him.
But these men here, looking in the glass cabinet, wore suits of soft grey flannel. And their hands were pink and plump. They smelled like tobacco and wool. And peppermint.
One of them turned and saw us. He smiled and his cheeks made little round apples. “May I help you?”
“We have a diamond to sell.” Patrick carefully opened his mittens to show the man.
“Well now, where did you get that?” He came closer, and bent over to see what Patrick had. He had to bend a ways too, ‘cause Patrick only came to the middle of his thigh.
“We found it on the sidewalk by the Safeway. Do you wanna buy it?” Patrick stretched out his arms to raise the diamond higher for the man to get a better look.
“Well, let’s see.” The man reached inside his suit and took out what looked to be a very short telescope made of silver. He lifted the diamond out of Patrick's cupped mitten, and peered at it using the baby telescope. He pressed one end up against his right eye and held the diamond almost right against the other end. “Hmmm.” He furrowed his brow in concentration. He put the little telescope on the glass table and picked up a short, skinny metal pick. He scratched at the diamond and sort of nodded his head. “Hmmm.”
“Have you tried cutting glass with it?” He looked at each of us. We shook our heads in unison but said nothing. Is that what rich people did?
“Well, diamonds are so strong that they can cut glass. I not sure if this is a diamond, but one sure test would be to try cutting glass with it.”
“You mean like a window?” I asked. Wasn’t that against the law?
“Yes, like a window. Try it on this cabinet, here.” He swept his hand to the glass counter beside him. He handed the diamond to me. I passed it to Patrick. He stepped up to the glass, and scraped the diamond across it. Nothing. He tried it again. Not a mark. He turned to look at me and then down at his diamond. “Maybe you just need to put sharper corners in it.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t work, son.” The man in the suit answered.
“You might still need it, though, sir.” I offered. “It’s really pretty, and it would make a nice necklace for your window.” Patrick looked up hopefully.
“I’m afraid not. It would be too soft and might break.” He told us then that it must actually be a big rock of salt, giving us a fancy name. And he told it was used to melt snow. Why would anyone want to melt snow?
We tasted it then, and discovered that it did taste like salt. Patrick wiped off the shiny rock with his mitten, and put it in his coat pocket. I looked down and saw that the snow melting from our shoes was making a wet spot on the fuzzy carpet. I put my arm around Patrick and started pulling him to the door. The heat in the room was starting to make my eyes sting, and Patrick was starting to sniff.
“Thank you, sir. We’re real sorry we bothered you.” I said, inching closer towards the door.
“That’s quite alright. It really does look like diamond, doesn't it? Would you kids like to stay for a while, and look around? We have some hot chocolate and peppermint sticks.”
“No, thank you.” I replied. “We gotta get goin’.” I took my arm away from Patrick long enough to pull open the big copper door. Cold air curled around us, and swept away the smells of the jeweler’s shop. We could hear it swishing around the shutting door behind us as we pushed back out into stinging sleet shooting down from Omaha’s flat winter sky.
It only took us a second to realize what it was, when Patrick snatched it up before another car could drive by, and throw black slush on it. “A diamond! It’s a diamond.” Mom had a diamond ring once, but this one was much bigger. Being the oldest, I was naturally the authority in found treasures. I told Patrick we should take the diamond to a jewelry store, and sell it.
“You mean for money?” The Possibilities: new coats; warm boots; Candy.
We both hated walking in Omaha. Patrick, especially. I’d grown out of last year’s boots, and he hadn’t yet grown into them.~We came to Omaha in September. Mom and Dad had just split up, and she’d found a place there to live, and a job, too. And on a Saturday, Dad drove Mom, all us kids, our clothes, and our furniture to the big city.
At first, I didn’t wanna move there, but when I saw South 14th street, I knew things might be okay. There was something almost holy about the way our new street looked that afternoon. Almost all the houses were made of warm, red brick. It’s not like I’d never seen brick houses before. Lots of our houses at Lincoln Air Base were made of brick. But I had never seen this many houses packed in a row. And there was brick everywhere. The streets, even the sidewalks were paved with bricks.
And then, every single house had a tree in front of it. All lined up straight, one after the other like they were at a dance. The trees were very old. Some of them reached right across the street, and touched the trees on the other side. The leaves were red, orange, and pink. And the sun touched down on us underneath, only after it had fallen through all those leaves. Red was my favorite colour so I decided this was a sign that life wasn’t gonna be so bad there, after all.
But now it was December, and everything around us was hard and grey. Winter had turned the brick houses mean and bloody, and the bumpy brick street and sidewalks were smothered with a grey slime that people in Omaha called ‘snow.’
Downtown, concrete sidewalks followed us everywhere. They bridged bleak stone buildings to ugly dark streets. And they slapped at the bottoms of our feet every time we took a step. We didn’t have a car, and the bus cost too much so we had to walk everywhere. Sometimes, Patrick’s feet would get so cold, he could barely feel them. Then when we’d finally get inside someplace, they’d start stinging, and he’d sniffing. But he wouldn’t cry ‘cause then Mom would cry.
~ But this was a Saturday, and Mom didn’t have to work. We didn’t have to go to school, so we’d headed towards YMCA to play. Standing there with that diamond, we were only two blocks from the jeweler’s. We knew this exactly because we passed it every weekday on the way to the sitter’s.
It took less than a minute to get to the store. It was all lit up on the outside with green and red Christmas lights. The door was wide and covered with a sheet of pink copper, polished shiny, with 4 small framed windows near the top. Beside the door, in a large bay window, there were diamonds and gold watches perched with shiny rings and necklaces of green and red sparkle.
I pushed open the heavy door for Patrick, and he went in first, holding our diamond in his mittened hands, cupping it the way he would a butterfly or a lightening-bug. The floor inside was carpeted in a deep moss green and the room was filled with china dishes. There were goblets and vases of cut glass with little rainbows shining in them. It seemed like there was light everywhere and we could hear the Nutcracker Suite. We started to feel toasty warm right away.
There were two round men bent over a glass cabinet whispering. Behind them was a grandfather clock like the one on Captain Kangaroo, but more elegant.
“What do we do?” Patrick whispered to me.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t, now that we were here. I’d been with my mother the week before, when she’d sold her wedding rings but that place had been filled with guns, old push-mowers, and picture frames hanging from the ceilings tangled with gas lanterns and fishing poles. Nobody there whispered, except Mom.
The man who’d bought her rings wore a green plaid shirt, and he had dirty fingernails. And when he smiled, I saw dark stuff on his teeth. He gave Mom two 10-dollar bills for her rings. First she said no, but then, all of a sudden she made a smile at him, and even thanked him.
But these men here, looking in the glass cabinet, wore suits of soft grey flannel. And their hands were pink and plump. They smelled like tobacco and wool. And peppermint.
One of them turned and saw us. He smiled and his cheeks made little round apples. “May I help you?”
“We have a diamond to sell.” Patrick carefully opened his mittens to show the man.
“Well now, where did you get that?” He came closer, and bent over to see what Patrick had. He had to bend a ways too, ‘cause Patrick only came to the middle of his thigh.
“We found it on the sidewalk by the Safeway. Do you wanna buy it?” Patrick stretched out his arms to raise the diamond higher for the man to get a better look.
“Well, let’s see.” The man reached inside his suit and took out what looked to be a very short telescope made of silver. He lifted the diamond out of Patrick's cupped mitten, and peered at it using the baby telescope. He pressed one end up against his right eye and held the diamond almost right against the other end. “Hmmm.” He furrowed his brow in concentration. He put the little telescope on the glass table and picked up a short, skinny metal pick. He scratched at the diamond and sort of nodded his head. “Hmmm.”
“Have you tried cutting glass with it?” He looked at each of us. We shook our heads in unison but said nothing. Is that what rich people did?
“Well, diamonds are so strong that they can cut glass. I not sure if this is a diamond, but one sure test would be to try cutting glass with it.”
“You mean like a window?” I asked. Wasn’t that against the law?
“Yes, like a window. Try it on this cabinet, here.” He swept his hand to the glass counter beside him. He handed the diamond to me. I passed it to Patrick. He stepped up to the glass, and scraped the diamond across it. Nothing. He tried it again. Not a mark. He turned to look at me and then down at his diamond. “Maybe you just need to put sharper corners in it.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t work, son.” The man in the suit answered.
“You might still need it, though, sir.” I offered. “It’s really pretty, and it would make a nice necklace for your window.” Patrick looked up hopefully.
“I’m afraid not. It would be too soft and might break.” He told us then that it must actually be a big rock of salt, giving us a fancy name. And he told it was used to melt snow. Why would anyone want to melt snow?
We tasted it then, and discovered that it did taste like salt. Patrick wiped off the shiny rock with his mitten, and put it in his coat pocket. I looked down and saw that the snow melting from our shoes was making a wet spot on the fuzzy carpet. I put my arm around Patrick and started pulling him to the door. The heat in the room was starting to make my eyes sting, and Patrick was starting to sniff.
“Thank you, sir. We’re real sorry we bothered you.” I said, inching closer towards the door.
“That’s quite alright. It really does look like diamond, doesn't it? Would you kids like to stay for a while, and look around? We have some hot chocolate and peppermint sticks.”
“No, thank you.” I replied. “We gotta get goin’.” I took my arm away from Patrick long enough to pull open the big copper door. Cold air curled around us, and swept away the smells of the jeweler’s shop. We could hear it swishing around the shutting door behind us as we pushed back out into stinging sleet shooting down from Omaha’s flat winter sky.
16 March 2008
Beast of Burden
For years, my middle brother Patrick slept with a donkey - a fuzzy, grey animal with mohair bangs and beady plastic eyes.But after years of love, Donkey's head hung upside down, flopping on his shoulders. His seams had been sewn and re-sewn dozens of times, and the fabric was so fragile that it would tear from the needle. Mom had finally taken to mending him with duct tape. So the Christmas before Patrick turned 5 years old, Mom asked Santa to replace the donkey with one who was identical in all ways, except for the worn patches, the broken neck, and the Nebraska grime.
Donkey was placed under the tree, and some time during the night Santa came and made him brand new.
-*-*-*-
Neither of my parents was what Christians would call "religious." It's not that they were lazy or lapsed...more like agnostic. Both claimed little patience for "the superstitious nature" of religion, but mom (socialized in the Lutheran version) was especially contemptuous, and the religion she saw as the most superstitious was Catholicism. The thing is, Dad was raised in a Catholic Orphanage -- by Nuns. He was still bitter from the years of physical and emotional abuse, so Mom's bigotry didn't really bother him - so much
Given all this, and the potential for conflict, they made a pact. They decided months before I was born that their children would not be baptized in either church. They would let their children decide for themselves. And they stuck to this bargain - till the year Patrick's dying donkey was reborn.
That was the same year Mom caught Dad cheating (an understatement that deserves a chapter of its own.) And in a brilliant stroke of that'll-teach-ya, she decided we would be baptized at a Lutheran church in Lincoln.
The First Baptism
The Minister wore a light grey suit, and an unbelievably white shirt. And he told us to call him, 'Reverend.' He asked us questions about Jesus. We knew very little. We knew Christmas was his birthday, and we'd been told that the little china doll in the school crèche was the baby Jesus. That was pretty much it. He asked us if we knew about Original Sin. Did we know about Adam and Eve? Not a clue.
With anger whitening his eyes, and flaming from his ears, he told us right then about the Evil that was Eve...and how if not for Jesus, we'd all be burning in a place called hell, forever and ever. The only way to save ourselves was to accept Jesus right there and then, in his office, before mom came back and it was too late. We'd be given a clean slate. We'd be brand new. Reborn.
Patrick, who'd brought Donkey along, asked if he could get baptized, too.
No. And hell no. "Beasts don't have souls. They were put here to serve man's needs - as food and beasts of burden."
Patrick said, "If Donkey can't get baptized then I don't wanna get baptized, either." Dwayne and I agreed. What do you mean animals aren't people?
"But if you refuse, you'll burn in hell. And now it will be worse, because now you have heard the word of God. You are no longer ignorant. You have been offered salvation, and are refusing Jesus! You'll burn in hell."
"But what about Donkey? I don't want him to burn in hell."
"He won't burn in hell. He doesn't have a soul! He'll just die. But you will burn in hell. Forever and ever."
An hour in the reverend's office is forever and ever.
We certainly didn't wanna burn, and if Donkey wasn't gonna burn, we told the reverend we would accept this Jesus guy. So right there and then, we received an emergency baptism just in case we should die before Sunday.
The Second Baptism
That Sunday we sat on wooden benches waiting for the big moment. We were starving. Mom said we couldn't eat till after the baptism. We couldn't play. We couldn't talk. We couldn't stand up. It was hell. Everyone was in greys and numbing pastels. Even the building was grey.
Our school clothes weren't good enough, so Mom had bought Dwayne and Patrick brand new slacks. And made Hugh a white baptism gown trimmed with blue piping so people would know for certain that he was a boy. Lucky Hugh, he got to miss the reverend's lecture. For me, she whipped up a frothy lemon dress with a matching hair ribbon. She bought us all new shoes, black for the boys, and white for me - and got me white gloves, to match. Those gloves saved my life. I spent an hour on that bench taking them off, and putting them back on again.
And the moment wasn't so momentous. Except that Hugh screamed bloody murder when he felt the water on his head.
Finally it was over, and we were leaving the church. As we came down its massive steps, the numbing colours of the day sharpened, focusing onto my father - waiting in the parking lot. Sitting on the hood of our station wagon, he didn't take his eyes off Mom. And he didn't blink. Not once.
Apparently Mom forgot to tell Dad about the baptism. She'd scheduled our interview while Dad was TDY, and I'm guessing she didn't expect him to return till long after the accomplished feat.
The Third Baptism
At this point, a well-written narrative would be building to some kind of climax, looking for resolution...for certainly dad's anger and his decision to use the family car as a murder weapon makes for high drama.
But to be perfectly honest, all I can remember clearly of the drive home is the speedometer - 105mph.
And Patrick crying into his donkey.
So. Should I even include this example of narcissistic abuse? Or should I tighten this narrative to the odd mix of ironies and juxtapositions of Jesus, Patrick's Donkey, resurrection, eternity, and hell?
Donkey was resurrected. We saw it. We saw his love-worn body under the tree Christmas Eve, and the new fluffy one, come Christmas morning.
Donkey was Patrick's beast of burden; his savior; his confidant. He met all Patrick's needs. And through the power of faith, (and the intercession of Santa Claus), he was reborn.
Because for this day, I can find no climax, no resolution. For what could only have been a 20-minute drive, that seemed to last forever and ever, my father terrorized our entire family. He taunted mom with the idea of killing us all by driving our car into a tree. He snidely assured her that, having been freshly baptized, we were all in a state of grace, and would absolutely go to heaven. Would another writer allude to this journey home as a baptism? Yet a third, in one week? Isn't each new trial we survive a rebirth? What washes over us, exactly? Relief?
I know Patrick's tears washed over Donkey.
And suddenly we were pulling into the driveway. We exited the car, and Dad let us into the house. Mom prepared lunch, and we all sat down to eat.
Donkey sat on Patrick's lap.
27 March 2006
Monster
When I was a little girl, we had all the necessary monsters assigned to our homes. In charge, was the boogie-man, who waited outside both the front and side door, and under each and every downstairs window. Inside, were the under-the-bed monster, the behind-the-furnace monster, and the soap-scummed, tubular bathtub-drain monster. And just as I learned how to fold laundry, and set a proper table, I also learned how to thwart their efforts to do whatever it is they were going to do once their efforts were realized.
In addition to these regulation household monsters, was the specially assigned monster-with-the-big-red-hand, living in my bedroom closet. He was invisible in the light. But like florescent clay, his squinty monster eyes, and pudgy monster hand, would glow in the dark.
I knew that if I were ever to look into his eyes, I would go insane. So at bedtime, when my mom turned off the light, and shut the door, closing off any hope of rescue, I would hide under my covers. And to make certain that I didn’t forget myself, and accidentally look into the eyes of the monster-with-the-big-red-hand, I would carefully tuck my blanket under the back of my head.
Why didn’t you just shut the closet door? some of you may ask.
And I would answer that in the whole of my childhood, in all the many different places we lived, as my father was stationed from state to state, country to country…not once did any of my bedrooms have a properly-functioning closet door.
In addition to these regulation household monsters, was the specially assigned monster-with-the-big-red-hand, living in my bedroom closet. He was invisible in the light. But like florescent clay, his squinty monster eyes, and pudgy monster hand, would glow in the dark.
I knew that if I were ever to look into his eyes, I would go insane. So at bedtime, when my mom turned off the light, and shut the door, closing off any hope of rescue, I would hide under my covers. And to make certain that I didn’t forget myself, and accidentally look into the eyes of the monster-with-the-big-red-hand, I would carefully tuck my blanket under the back of my head.
Why didn’t you just shut the closet door? some of you may ask.
And I would answer that in the whole of my childhood, in all the many different places we lived, as my father was stationed from state to state, country to country…not once did any of my bedrooms have a properly-functioning closet door.
25 October 2005
Buzzard Bait
The year Tommy turned 9, he and Pat decided that they needed a pet buzzard. The problem was, they couldn’t seem to get close enough to any buzzards to grab them.But Tommy had a idea. Buzzards eat dead things, so all we need to do is get one to think we’re dead, and he’ll walk right up to us. Then we’ll grab him!
Pat wasn't so sure. He’ll know we’re just faking cuz we don’t look dead.
But Tommy said, Not if we look like we just this minute died from bleeding to death.
So, the next day, before leaving for the hills, Tommy snuck into his mother’s pantry, and got himself a bottle of ketchup.
They found the perfect clearing, and only after they staged a convincing battle in which they would both die, Tommy and Pat put down their wooden rifles, and opened the new bottle of ketchup. They took turns pouring its contents on each other, and then crawled almost 20 feet in the tall dry grass, moaning, Oh I’m dying. I’m dying.
Naturally, they had to make certain that the buzzard was convinced. So for good measure, the boys got up and did their best I’ve-just-been-shot-by-the-Enemy collapse, falling back to the ground.
And then they waited.
On their backs, they waited. And they planned about what to do when the buzzard walked up to eat them. I’ll get up and grab him by his legs. No. I’ll jump on top of him. Should we tie him up with my belt? Hey, shut up. He’s probably looking at us, right now!
And for a long while, watching the blue, cloudless, buzzardless sky, neither said a word.
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