My Earliest Memories (Ch. 5)

We moved from our house on Princeton Street to the house on Detroit

Avenue when I was four years old. It just now dawned on me that in

all of my childhood memories it is sunny—even the winter memories.

I remember the rainy days, but my memories are all of the times that

it was sunny again right after the rain, or as the rain was just

finishing. My memories seem to be right as rain — without the rain.

We had an alley behind our house, as most neighborhoods did at

this time. It was my conduit to adventure— egress to enjoyment—

detour to dodgeball— and shortcut to the ice cream truck as it

cruised down Somerset, the sidestreet, in a streak of jingling

attraction, like the Pied Piper, except our street wasn’t cobblestone.

I have a theory that people are introduced to a life of crime at an

early age because the ice cream man drives too fast—you don't

have time to ask for money—your only option when you heard that

familiar jingle was to go right for Mom's purse or tear the house

apart looking for loose change under sofa cushions or the bottom of

dresser drawers.

The neighborhood cast of friends was a variety of interesting kids—

each unique—but somehow we had the usual roles as did any other

neighborhood from any other era. We had the bully—the sissy—the

cool kid—the spoiled kid—the defender—the daredevil, etc…

Charlie was the bully by default. I say default because he just

happened to be the biggest and oldest in the neighborhood at the

time. Ironically, he was just fat and happened to be the runt of the

litter in a very large, fat family. If Charlie was big, his two older

brothers were giants. His mother was obese before her time, well

before the whole of America went obese. She was a trendsetter—

the mother of all obesity—the fountain of fat from which all trans fat

emerged into America like pilgrims scrambling off the Mayflower to

fuck up Indians.

Jerry was the sissy. It wasn’t truly apparent to me until several years

later. I was showing him how to jump a ramp on a bike out back in

the alley. Now, this was something that most of us had mastered by

the age of eight—he was probably ten at this point—a late daredevil

bloomer. I had a couple garbage cans set up to jump over—a

beginner set—and had already given him the complex rundown of

critical instructions—“Go fast, hit the ramp and pop a wheelie on the

ramp.” What I didn’t know at that time is that these things are not

instinctual to a sissy. He had steps one and two down perfectly but

decided to replace step three, “pop a wheelie” with “ride over ramp

—go head over handlebars—skid on face down the alley”. Now, I had

seen this method done a few times before—it is always

unfortunate but a calculated risk we all take for the sake of death

defying wonder. I winced—he did more than wince—much more

than wince in fact. I was shocked by the blood-curdling scream that

he emitted—I wasn’t prepared for it—didn’t see it coming. I hadn’t

seen a reaction like that since—well—never. So, I laughed—like I

never laughed before—I couldn’t help it. Like a volcano spews

magma— I spewed laughter.

My mom heard his death throes from our kitchen window and ran

out the back gate to see what on earth had happened. Now, the

sight of Jerry, with gravel imbedded in his face, would indicate the

possibility of several occurrences. The top three most likely events

were—he just received a localized meteor shower to his face—he

had a really strange case of calcified acne and had been picking at

the sores—or, given the evidence of my mangled bike—a small scale

Caesars Palace-like stunt gone awry.

The next event was one of my first lessons in human compassion—

mom smacked me across the face—for laughing. If holding your

breath is the cure for hiccups, a smack-across-the- face is the cure for

laughing.

Lesson learned—if you don’t feel sorry for someone; you

get smacked across the face.

Our facial trauma was easily cured by some peanut-butter and jelly

sandwiches and Kool-Aid, some Band Aids and the typical homemade

first aid by mom. Mom always made things better. Back then,

it wasn’t a requirement to inform the other kid’s parents of an injury.

The closest mom to the scene took care of you, or punished you

depending upon the occasion. I remember Mrs. Walters washing my

mouth out with soap for saying a bad word—I was four. She didn’t

run that plan by my parents—she just did it, as if it was universally

understood and pre-approved by some parental congress.

Lesson learned—Soap tastes like shit and is obviously an ineffective

treatment for cursing.

JArtB

Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 06:18