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I've already posted this, but I revised it and I wanted to post it again.
Childhood Mishaps and Tragedies that Never Leave the Back of Your Mind
She sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table for breakfast. My aunt Lisa told me they both worked together at the bank. This lady had a crazy eye on the left side of her face, cock-eyed to the right. I couldn’t help but notice and wonder about it. She began to tell me that she recently lost 200 lbs and whipped out a picture to prove it. I was impressed; she was merely a shadow of who she was. Then, without prying, she began to tell the story of her crazy eye. When she spoke, I knew she had told the story a million times. Stories like these can never escape you. She must have relived it in her head each time she met someone knew or looked in the mirror. When she was six years old, she said, a little boy threw a rock at her during recess and it hit her in that eye, that crazy eye and it became cockeyed. He didn’t mean to cause the damage that he did, he was a just little boy, but he never apologized for it. Even worse, She went to school with the boy every year until they graduated from high school and all throughout that time, all those years, the little boy never said sorry or ever looked her in that eye.
We laid on the bed and held hands. I told him a couple of stories from my childhood, but none as sad as his. He told me of a family tragedy involving his little sister. They don’t talk about it, he says and if anyone brings it up, the room gets really silent and uncomfortable. When he and his sister were younger, their family had a white bunny rabbit named Jenny, after the girl from movie Forest Gump. Well, they had the bunny for about 6 months when one day his little sister decided to play catch with the bunny. She tossed up and caught it, tossed it up and caught it, until one time she tossed it up, missed, and snapped the bunny’s neck.
I rode in the front seat of his dark blue truck as we passed a pipe back and forth. He is much older than I am, but we stand on equal terms. He is a kind and gentle man whose presence sets people at ease. Often I have wondered why until he begins to tell me about his childhood. There is a tension between us, the kind where you know someone is going places in their mind that they don’t often visit and when they do its still a fresh wound. So he tells me, when he was fairly young his parents got divorced. His dad was shot in the leg during an ambush in the Vietnam War. He saw his friends killed and left behind as he rode away in a chopper that saved. Shit like changes you, He said. So, when his dad came back all fucked up his parents got a divorce. Within a few years when his mom remarried and they all moved to Florida. While in Florida, his step-dad would beat his mother and beat his mother and beat his mother. Being too young to defend her, he had to watch it for years. It wasn’t until he was 14, when his step-dad raised his hand to hit him that he said "Don’t you ever fucking touch me". As his step swung, he clichéd his hand around his step-fathers arm and said "And don’t you ever fucking touch my mother again. Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back". At that point, at 14 years old, he got himself and his older brother out of that house and they went to live with their grandmother. He said that his mother eventually went back to his step-father and stayed with him for two more years in which time, he broke her arm. He’s crying at this point, I am crying at this point. “If I ever saw him again, Id fucking kill him”, he says. We roll up to his house, he lives with his mother and his grandmother still, to take care of them; the way his grandmother took care of him; the way his mother never took care of him. And I know that he is a good man.
Childhood Mishaps and Tragedies that Never Leave the Back of Your Mind
She sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table for breakfast. My aunt Lisa told me they both worked together at the bank. This lady had a crazy eye on the left side of her face, cock-eyed to the right. I couldn’t help but notice and wonder about it. She began to tell me that she recently lost 200 lbs and whipped out a picture to prove it. I was impressed; she was merely a shadow of who she was. Then, without prying, she began to tell the story of her crazy eye. When she spoke, I knew she had told the story a million times. Stories like these can never escape you. She must have relived it in her head each time she met someone knew or looked in the mirror. When she was six years old, she said, a little boy threw a rock at her during recess and it hit her in that eye, that crazy eye and it became cockeyed. He didn’t mean to cause the damage that he did, he was a just little boy, but he never apologized for it. Even worse, She went to school with the boy every year until they graduated from high school and all throughout that time, all those years, the little boy never said sorry or ever looked her in that eye.
We laid on the bed and held hands. I told him a couple of stories from my childhood, but none as sad as his. He told me of a family tragedy involving his little sister. They don’t talk about it, he says and if anyone brings it up, the room gets really silent and uncomfortable. When he and his sister were younger, their family had a white bunny rabbit named Jenny, after the girl from movie Forest Gump. Well, they had the bunny for about 6 months when one day his little sister decided to play catch with the bunny. She tossed up and caught it, tossed it up and caught it, until one time she tossed it up, missed, and snapped the bunny’s neck.
I rode in the front seat of his dark blue truck as we passed a pipe back and forth. He is much older than I am, but we stand on equal terms. He is a kind and gentle man whose presence sets people at ease. Often I have wondered why until he begins to tell me about his childhood. There is a tension between us, the kind where you know someone is going places in their mind that they don’t often visit and when they do its still a fresh wound. So he tells me, when he was fairly young his parents got divorced. His dad was shot in the leg during an ambush in the Vietnam War. He saw his friends killed and left behind as he rode away in a chopper that saved. Shit like changes you, He said. So, when his dad came back all fucked up his parents got a divorce. Within a few years when his mom remarried and they all moved to Florida. While in Florida, his step-dad would beat his mother and beat his mother and beat his mother. Being too young to defend her, he had to watch it for years. It wasn’t until he was 14, when his step-dad raised his hand to hit him that he said "Don’t you ever fucking touch me". As his step swung, he clichéd his hand around his step-fathers arm and said "And don’t you ever fucking touch my mother again. Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back". At that point, at 14 years old, he got himself and his older brother out of that house and they went to live with their grandmother. He said that his mother eventually went back to his step-father and stayed with him for two more years in which time, he broke her arm. He’s crying at this point, I am crying at this point. “If I ever saw him again, Id fucking kill him”, he says. We roll up to his house, he lives with his mother and his grandmother still, to take care of them; the way his grandmother took care of him; the way his mother never took care of him. And I know that he is a good man.