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I was resting on a standpipe at White st while Dust bought some photo
paper
a little stooped Iralian man said
“that’s a nice hat”
– a friend gave it to me to use today: I’m walking the whole length of
Broadway, I replied
“he cares about you a lot”
he said, smiling, eyes twinkling
“you’re a strong man… in this heat… that’s a nice hat”
and shuffled up the way…
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starting out in Marble Hill
and it was then my father started to pay more attention to us… or to me at least
he’d always paid more attention to my brother and sister
but now he was trying to prove his love to me
for my 8th birthday party he arranged a complex obstacle course in the back yard
and told me to invite all my friends
i didn’t really have friends, apart from my brother and Neil and Brian (or had he moved away already?)
well, i liked Charlie and Mike…
so i invited mostly kids i WANTED to like me
and that was the age kids started to hate me
i wanted so badly to be liked and accepted and
desperation is so unbecoming…
my father wanted so badly for everything to work out
and i couldn’t do most of the obstacles…
maybe no one could…
i think some of the kids could
he tried so hard and i got embarrassed
i kinda went and hid
coz everyone was making fun of me
i was still sucking my thumb at this age
it drove my father crazy:
as he gave me more attention
i was more an more a failure in his eyes
which made him try harder:
he wrapped my thumb in duct tape
or masking tape with tabasco sprinkled on it
he eventually broke me of it
but i’m still a very self-satisfying person. . .
and sometime during that summer
my brother stole a quarter and a matchbox car from Neil
and our parents made him go back over to Neil’s house to return it
once for each item, as it kept unfolding
and he got spanked each time.
that christmas we got a Nintendo
which was the perfect excuse not to try to get people to like me anymore
i started “relating to a screen” as a friend puts it
and started getting fat
my following birthday i had ever more kids up
but 9 years old? common!
we had a sleep over
and stayed in the upstairs part of the barn out back
we did terrible things
like making one of the boys who fell asleep piss his pants by putting his fingers in warm water
and we used all the nasty words
and told very nasty stories
i was shocked the next day to find that my father had been listening in on us down stairs (or outside?)
and he heard all the nasty words i used
he wrote them down
and scolded me about them the next day
made me write over and over
“i will obey my parents. i will not use profanity”
500 times or something
i didn’t really love 3rd grade
it think this was when i really started to hate school
i was always getting picked on
was terrible at sports
was ugly and awkward around everyone
and had the worst luck…
went out to the playground in fear of being beaten up every day
.. so i started pushing for doing theater: i could get big roles in that
even if my real life was severely failing…
but another class had done a science experiment with incubating eggs
i wanted one so badly
that teacher went and bought me a little chick
it turned out to be a rooster and i named him “Eggbert” (at my mother’s suggestion)
that may also have been the year my sister got a “bunny” and named it “carrots”. . .
before the Nintendo
i remember that summer of playing out on the rusty swingset
Neil was my friend when it was just the two of us
we would empty out the mice traps in the barn (shed) and discect them with my brother’s lab kit (he never used it)
Neil’s dad was a Science teacher in Middle School
so we were learning ahead…
we’d put the brains in one test tube
the intestines in another
the eyes and penis in . . .
we didn’t use any preservative
and they really stunk when we opened them up later to add more to them
but what i’m getting at was the time we were playing with the hose in the back yard
little plastic pool
and hose
and sprinkler
on the big lawn
backing into the cornfield
(oh, i forgot that, when i was 5 or something my brother and i went for a walk… a four hour walk through the corn field… i remember talking to a fox who gave us a ride on his go-kart. we came out the far side of the field and went into a little farm house where a woman gave us a glass of water… then we walked through the corn home… stopping by a little drainage ditch to play with the frogs and turtles
when we got back, police were everywhere and my mother was hysterical: praising some saint or other and grabbing us tightly against her)
anyway
we were in our swimming suits
and Neil and Louis went inside to eat or something
and i lay on the back porch where no one could see me
and took them off
lay naked in the sun
i felt so free
so alive
so full of joy
but i also knew i’d get in trouble
so i had to hide it
and not let anyone find out
often, then
i would sneak outside and be naked
it filled me up with life!
This is the year i assumed everything happened to me
i mean
i used to always say “blah blah blah, when i was 7 years old”
only a few years ago did i realize that many of the things i said
happened to me when i was 7
couldn’t have
all of this time-line is blurry
but here are some things:
my teacher, Mrs. Jarboe, read us the entire Chronicles of Narnia (i
think she did, at least the first four books)
— i’m sure my mother must have read us some children’s books
but we were not a reading family
— my father said “books are for sissies, boys play sports”
i remember the books being the most amazing thing ever…
laying on top of the big brown full sized van in the cement drive way
only about 16 feet from the telephone cables
playing with the walkie-talking and listening in on phone
conversations in noisy cross-patches
playing in the ditch when it rained and filled up
the frogs! the mud!
i got asthma
my mother had asthma
i was her friend, so went there with her
we had panic attacks together
by that ditch at the end of the driveway
were my mother’s peony bushes (she got them from her mother)
i would watch them bud: all sticky
the ants would chew away their calx so they could open
my mother was concerned about our education and her affect on us
(she’d not gone to collage and was constantly berating herself about
it.. if only! she could get a good job! have money of her own!)
what was our address?
my brother was 15 months older than me
and he recited it back to her diligently
however
i just couldn’t get it right
and after my mother getting frustrated with my not learning
or her not being able to teach me
she said “well if you don’t know your own address then you obviously
don’t live here! you best pack your bags and leave!”
and stormed off
i went to my bedroom and put on the little brown suit i’d been given
for first communion (which was also that year)
and packed my little suitcase that i’d always take up to grandma’s house
and left through the front door
down the driveway
left
down
down
down that country road (it was paved, though)
past where the houses ended
corn fields on both sides
wondering just where i should go…
nearly a mile away
my mother came running up behind me crying and wondering why i’d done that
it seemed clear to me
i tried to explain
but just as she couldn’t understand why i couldn’t understand
neither could i:
we spoke different languages
but my brother and Neil and i would often play games in the driveway
in that big brown van
(or any car left open)
we were space explorers
with our walkie talkies
and star wars guns
we’d travel through space
push all the buttons
and flip all the switches
and talk about our parents
Neil overheard his parents talking about divorce
about how my mother had been talking to his mother about wanting to
get divorced from my father
i didn’t understand the concept
so he explained
and i was excited by the prospects
even though my father was away often
i didn’t really enjoy it when he was home, actually
i never really liked him anymore after he shaved off his beard and
just had a mustache…
he’d always find some reason to yell at us
or at something
he’d drink beer and watch basketball or foot ball
and scream at the players for hours
we’d lay there on the floor
and i was sad and terrified that my father thought they could hear him
it hurt my ears
so i told my mom i was happy they were getting divorced
and she cried
but it was only a few weeks later when
on a trip home
my father
called a somber and tense family meeting where he sat alone in the
lazy-boy recliner
with us three kids on the couch with my mother, tight lipped and infuriated
he started crying and said “kids… come and sit by daddy, your mother
doesn’t love him anymore and wants to leave me all alone.. you still
love me, don’t you?”
i was aware that i hated him
and my brother and sister got up to crawl up on his lap
i stayed on the couch
glowering
my mother pushed me
only slightly murmuring “go”
perhaps it was this year my father started being away a lot
or i noticed that
there would be long periods where we wouldn’t see him
as i remember it
he was in russia
or california
or iowa
germany?
he was working for his career
i saw a special on TV about truckers who had two separate families that didn’t know about eachother
so told mother that must be what it was
she was freaking out anyway because she had no real friends
and her family was so far away: over 5 hours up in Grand Rapids
how was she to know how to raise a family all by her self?
she was in a lot of pain, something about her womb
though her teeth were perfect
there was the stereotypical “i won’t eat brussel sprouts” or beets
so having to sit at the table for ever
and perhaps this was when my brother did something “bad” so my mom decided to discipline him
and broke a green ruler over his butt. . .
he started laughing
which made her feel even more hopeless
this was the year, i think
when i was sleepwalking a lot
my mother and father were watching TV
and i came out and asked them if they’d seen the sky
— apparently i was looking for the sky
i said i went out the garage and couldn’t find the sky
i had no memory
but the telling of their story to me the next day created a rich visualization
maybe this was the year i started school
oh no, i mean First Grade
— i couldn’t do my homework for some reason
i would bring it home
and just not do it
by the end of the year
i had a brown grocery bag filled with unfinished homework
i had many meetings with my teachers and my mother to try and figure out why i wasn’t doing my work
they said i should try and get it all done over the summer
but i never did it
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