The Eye of Thor Ch 4 “Only Son”

 

            I had a childhood life that most parents may acquaint themselves with; it is of being the only son, first born son, or first adopted child as the case may be, and I held that title for most of my childhood. Having this title really means your parents are still active in their social life and meeting preset level of induction available for a couple of standing meant I went everywhere with them, or I went alone. I was first thought in the morning for I would always wake my parents when I woke up for my first four years. We were a family unit and I learned from my parents, and television. Few people could break my exterior unless they came from a different angle than society played for me. They were the ones who seamed to have a secret, or a place that lay within make believe, and I listened to them. I felt out of place so any divulgence of secrets for sure had to be about me and for sure my life was full of make believe and I considered my self equal to the best in the art. I lived in my unique bubble with a view of the world that was full of all the best that two loving parents could give.

            My room was down the switch back hall on the second floor landing across from my parents’ room it was a big room with two huge and weathered windows one on each wall. The windows in the house were so old they were thicker at the bottom for glass is a liquid and continues to slowly flow down over the course of a hundred years and collects at the bottom of old windows. I had hard wood floors with a great oval rope gray blue rug laced with blue and yellow threads on the floor at the base of the pull out couch. My headboard wooden bed lay in the other corner with its matching night stand and dresser. I made a scratch in the wood and then another and it became my rocket ship to the stars on afternoons during nap time. I thought I would get in trouble after I scratched it and fell asleep that day in fear, but my parents overlooked my transgression. My bed was a single put together by my father’s groans and G rated curses like “gosh” and “darn” his heaviest curse beside “shoot”. I had to have a towel under my bed sheets for years because the springs in the mattress would leave scratches and cuts all over my back and stomach. I got to pick my own wall paper and I chose a colorful pattern depicting Noah and the Ark with all his animals two by two. It took a whole week to put the pattern up. The second floor of 7321 had a ten foot ceiling which towered over a small boy like my self. I had a walk-in closet which lay as a small room above the front porch. My cat Fritzy and I took turns pissing in a palm plant that lay in the room until my mom told me Fritzy couldn’t stay in my room at night any more because of the smell. I stopped. Snails and puppy dog tails and all that is my only excuse. The palm lived for awhile until it died for lack of watering. Fritzy was off suspension. I had a huge gray couch that bordered the carpet that pulled out into a double bed which I used when I had sleep over’s.   

            I was in three different pre schools before I went to kindergarten, two in Washington D.C. and one in Silver Spring Maryland. I remember being a show off on the jungle gym one day and while all the other boys were hanging from their knees; I decided to one up them and hung from my toes. This is not to be tried wearing hard soled shoes, but I will say I hung for a moment. I can see my brown Tom McCann’s clearly in my head hooked over the blue bar above me until I turned to say, “Look at me!”  “Bam”, right on my head! I never hung from my toes again.  The last nursery school I went to is on the corner of Fenton Avenue and Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring Maryland. It was in the large brick church that is on the corner with a fenced in back yard. It was here that I saw my first Praying Mantis. It was a female about seven inches long with the most beautiful multicolored wings. The Janitor held her in his grizzled lined hands and brought her down close to show us kids. My mom showed up right then and the Mantis took wing at that very moment and a lighted upon my moms shoulder. She held her ground without screaming but was in a big hurry to have the janitor remove it. I wanted to stay longer, but mom was in a hurry to leave. I learned to finger paint from an Artist who would come in during activity time of course my latest painting would wind up on the fridge. My dad would come and stand in front of the fridge and rock his head back to get a better look through his bifocals with his arms crossed over his chest. He would then swing his torso in my direction remarking, “Well gosh that’s a great picture.” What is it a sky scraper?” I would give him the same look I always gave him or any one who said something silly. I would scrunch up my face and wrinkle my nose while saying “It’s a tree not a sky scraper” which was evident I thought if you just looked at it cause it had a green top.  My dad was always joshing me about something.

            Being a kid one is always looking for something to play with and the parents’ are always attempting to keep the child safe. I remember holding my mother’s hand an looking around the perspective living room at some friends of my parents waiting to be led to a play area while scrutinizing the child across from me with dubious concerns of their ability to “play”, or if no children are present the adults would do their best to entertain me while carrying on conversations. As a child the ability to “play” is often measured by age up until the murmurs of puberty and young adult hood begin to dissolve the child removing the “play” from life. Some adults keep this ability they often become teachers, coaches, professional athletes, or some to a lesser degree parents. I have this ability as an adult and keep it live and active, for being able to share with a child in play opens the door for reaching a child with instruction, wisdom, and love. I strongly believe this attribute should be fostered in the home and community. As a child we recognize this attribute in adults and it is sought out, for children yearn to connect with adults and wish to have that special relationship that comes from a mentor or parental figure. So I was always on the move, looking for that special play.

            This often was portrayed by the need for the best game, birthday party, or the mother of all holidays Christmas where the newest and best toys were given. Under our Christmas tree lay the manna of children toys, cards with a simple Christmas hello wrapped with a five or ten dollar bill, and candy for days rivaling Halloweens take. My father would open his wallet and pour out presents of all sorts in an attempt to satisfy this insatiable desire that stirred me to vocalizations of, “Please!” “Pleases!” or “Can I have that?” echoing the wants of the newest hobby or latest high tech toy which the media had been tossing in my direction via a never ending stream of commercials that back then started the day after Thanksgiving. I went a model train show with Dad at the Natural Museum of History and we became enamored with the tiny world of model trains. Each display was adorned with a world in miniature. Some worlds wound the train through a small western town, others the train climbed to the heights in snow covered mountains, and others a river lay at the center which was crisscrossed by trestles carrying a puffing steam engine black as the coal it carried, a silver liner flashing its gleaming passenger cars, or a yellow diesel pulling its box cars in tandem. When Christmas came that year a large box stood in front of the tree, and I tore into it with the haste a child shows knowing this was the main present he would receive that year. There is was a black model train steam engine that puffed real smoke. I jumped up and down saying, “Thank you” over and over mixed with repetitive, “Can we put it together?” My dad just laughed and said we would get to it after we opened all the presents, ate our breakfast, and he added absent mindedly as an after thought, and a piece of wood large enough to hold it. I stood in disbelief, stunned deep to my fiber, “Impossible, I thought. This could not be happening”. Anything that is not now to child at this point of present unwrapping feast becomes forever, and my Dad said forever three times other peoples’ presents, breakfast, and wood. All in all this summed up an unusual Christmas day.

            I began asking Dad with an at least a double repetition “Please” like two shots from the gun of a trained secret agent just before breakfast. “Can’t we just open the box?” “Please, please” I fired across his bow.

            “No. You just wait.” He laughed.

            Mom would have been working up her blueberry pancakes with some of Dads “Real maple syrup from Vermont which he was always able to acquire from a friend of the family Stan Holt who I thought the best of for his meeting and acquaintance were of fun and smiles. This coveted sweet to top off the holiday breakfast side by side with sausages Dad had been frying, fresh orange juice, English muffins butter and jam milk and cereal.  

I would finish early and would already grilling my dad about his plan’s and what kind of wood for at this point he is fully committed. Dad and Mom still chuckled at my insistent behavior and insuppressible excitement. Finally two forever’s were past and only one remained the opening of the box and assembling of the model train.

            We made our way to the garage and Dad had his measuring tape with him. I stood at the doorway for the garage was still off limits to me; for, it had an asbestos insulation which was torn and loosed its cancerous material into the air like flurries of snow when the air was overtly stirred. My father dove into the stack of wood to the right of the door and began painstakingly measuring and discarding small pieces of plywood. It seems another forever would be adjudicated into the massed lot. None of the pieces of plywood we had would be large enough. Dad came out of the garage with his hair tussled and a light dusting of asbestos on his head and shoulders which had been loosed from the stirring of air by the opened door. I looked up at him with the obvious question written in my eyes. He had me take a few steps back as he dusted himself off and composed himself while he verbalized his thoughts. “I guess” he began “We could ask Mr. Thorn” he finished. Often Mr. Thorn and my father would spend time at the back fence during the spring and summer talking but not during the winter. He could see the disappointment in my face for I knew Mr. Thorn’s routine. “I don’t think he would mind if we walked around and knocked on his door.”

“Gee” I replied. “I never thought of that.” We went back into the house and put our coats on to walk around the block. We got to Mr. Thorns door and range the bell. He answered and said he was happy to help. We walked to the side fence and went into the backyard towards his work shop in the garage. I had never been in Mr. Thorn’s backyard before in comparison to the other neighbors on our block whose yard I had used as a cut through many times. I stood at the open door of the garage and gazed at the many tools that Mr. Thorn who made furniture had dispersed around the garage. Each one as wondrous and alien as the next, and my curiosity had my nose as far across the doorway that it could stretch. Mr. Thorn quickly returned with the needed piece of plywood and Dad and I were off. I wanted to be a part of building my new toy and I considered that as part of it, and in the beginning Dad had that idea too.

We got down on the living room floor and began laying out all the pieces of the model train, there were pieces of track straight and curved, brackets, screws, sign posts, an electric power station, and the train with its black steam engine, and several cars of different colors ending with a bright red caboose. Dad picked up the directions over a page long and dug into the building of a complicated system of tracks that required perfect connection for the proper distribution of electrical current. He began painstakingly placing the tracks down on the plywood, screwing and tacking the pieces together and then finally after an hour or so of work and repetitive questions by me which began to furrow my fathers head we were ready for the first test. I say test because this time the train would not work, but as a small child I was sure it would, so when it didn’t I was like, “Fix it Dad. Fix it.” The problem was that Dad had no idea how to fix it because he didn’t know what was wrong. It was the need for a perfect connection which was not easily achieved. Thus began my insistent repetitive questions in the realm of, “How do we fix it? Can we call someone?” And the ever present question “Is it broken?” My Dad has a great amount of patience and I was the only one in the family who had the consummate ability to exhaust this veritable fountain head. Dad had enough. He face screwed up into a mini snarl then he regained some of his composure and said, “You just leave me alone!” By this time Mom came around the corner armed with Christmas love, and separated us. I was told to pick another toy and play with it until Dad finished the train. I remember how sullen I was and made off to some forgotten part of the house with a toy I have no memory of. It was just before dinner when Dad finished the train set. He spent all day on it. He called me down from my room and asked me if I wanted to put the liquid smoke in it. I was scared and elated, the haze of the fight Dad and I had had began to break and Christmas was reborn. I filled the engine and Dad tussled my hair and we sent the engine into action. It worked, puffing a little cloud of white smoke out of its chimney as it rounded the track. We sat and laughed watching the little engine go round and round. Dad showed me how the controls worked and I got to play engineer until dinner was ready. Dad and my relationship would not change much during my youth.

 I will say the corresponding years netted me presents under the tree that required less “work” to fashion; I got “Hot wheels’ written in bright red colors on the  package with the registered trade mark proving to all the kids that your hot wheels were the best. I put together tracks that round the entire living room or raced them down all 21 stairs and around the corner making a high bank into the living room or through the loopy loop. I run and show my Mom or Dad whoever was closest when alone or be deep in play with a friend over who brought his 20 feet of track with his own track corners some of which were 30, 45, 60, or 90 degrees according to the turn you want. I got a collection going: a silver corvette racer, an ambulance with orange and red stripes, a fire truck, VW beetle, a blue shiny corvette with chrome pipes, and an old mini diaper truck with doors that worked to name of few of my favorites and best rollers all in a case shaped like a wheel. I would leave them one day down by Long Branch creek when I was about twelve and they would be stolen by a neighborhood kid and painted all silver and put back in the case. This boy was killed by the age of twelve by a drunk driver; I remember how shocked and sad Ronnie Hutchison who considered him his best friend was and how the parents had to move away after a few years do their grief, but that just part of a later story. Toys, toys, toys, nut crackers, and action figure of the time period Super Man, Under Dog, the amazing Stretch Armstrong made of this polymer that would allow the action figures limbs and torso to be stretched to wild contortions tripling his size. Kids would attack this toy on T.V. commercials creating a craze that swept the Christmas season one year; kids all over the neighborhood would be doing there best to rip Stretch Armstrong apart and while the craze of this novelty still held so did the rumors that no kid was able to successfully destroy Stretch. Later that summer the whole nation would be discovering Mr. Armstrong’s Achilles heal it was the sun, sun and time, soon the reports during the summer that year of slow oozing sticky exploding Armstrong’s made the news along side murmurs of parents finding said goopy mess in the back window of cars which they were quite irate about. My cousin Marks Stretch died in this fashion leaving a goopy puddle in the back of his mother’s car during one summer while I visited. The goop was imbedded in to the mock green felt never to be cleaned up, and every year the puddle would ooze a little more during the hot Minnesota summer. Stretch’s sales would never recover and only unaware parent would buy one. I think he might be found on some forgotten shelf never to be party to the torture that he once experienced at the hands of Americas children.

I had a rudder sled with a wooden top which was really best for northern climates and one year at Christmas Grandma Lucille Murry’s house my Uncle Ed bought two red plastic toboggans for my sister and I this sled would be my favorite runner for years to come. And since my sister was much younger than me one of my friends would often barrow this extra ride. All the kids would explode onto the streets and fields finding hills wherever we could when enough snow fell to make sledding possible, but the best local hills were at the double hill at Takoma Middle school. The hill lay adjacent to the parking lot and there along the parking lot and fully past the school, over a field, and finally Piney Branch road was wide in expanse from left to right showcasing the entire hill and the valley below. The first down slope sent you down a hundred foot steep grade then over a little flat and then down another smaller hill with still the same steep grade or the left side of the hill by the fields if you’re looking down had a longer more gradual slope referred to as the bunny slope by all the kids. The hill at its apex along this ridge line would have the shortest flat area between the two hills culminating to create a sure fire air ride in the sled due to speed and just plain leaving the ground as you went over the edge of the second hill. The boys after a while would of course build a ramp over by this apex to get the fastest decent coupled with a jump that could launch a small to medium sized boy flying into the air all the way to the near to the bottom of the second hill while he screams and says “Oof’ as his sled slams him down against the snow which is still flying until the ride ends in the second flat area at the bottom of the hill. It’s a long ride. It’s a fast ride. It’s a fun ride. This would be the same place fireworks would be shot off every year in Takoma Park, this place would be the place of where I met the cold one on one, fingers frozen to the bone, and feet stomping the cold out next the trash can with a fire in it. If it was a fresh snow the first to flatten the field were toboggans or inner tubes this could take up to a few rides so the first boys gathered together in teams to flatten down the fresh snow and there bye becoming friends for the day. At first the snow would be so deep that it took several passes to flatten the first hill and flat enough so you could reach the second hill, eventually the snow on the hill would flatten out and ever increasing in speed for the grade left you hurtling down no matter what which way you were coming up or down. One year I got cowboy boots with a new slick bottom and I decided to wear them instead of my hiking boots and spent the whole day falling down the hill when I was trying to get up it. I mean Mom had dropped me off and would be back in about 4-6 hours to get me when I went on a sledding adventures so I had no way to get good boots this time out. I would get so mad throwing my arms down trying to catch myself in a mini tantrum from falling down three or four times in a row nearing the top of the hill and then sending my self tumbling and sliding down the hill until I came to a rest next to my sled or had to march it down because it had a better ride without me in it so it went farther to my chagrin. I would learn to go the long way around to where the hill wasn’t so steep and fight heel toe up the hill till again across the ridge at the crest a long way for a ride. I spent the day learning a criss-cross pattern of being able to skip up hill in big burst of speed digging in with my boots on full speed like, skipping to the top. At the age of twelve is when my abilities and speed kicked in far surpassing my dad and most boys of my same age.

My Dad bought me an old bus bicycle with three speeds when I was about six. I couldn’t reach my leg to the bottom of the swing of the crank so Mr. Thorn made blocks of wood that attached to the peddles adding two inches which made it so I could get enough push to get the bike into motion. Dad took me out front and held me upright running behind me letting me get the feel of the bike and finding my balance. Then he let go. I didn’t know he let go. He yelled, “You got it!” I turned to look back and “Bam!” I hit the ground. I went inside to lick my wounds. The next day I was back at it. This time Dad did let go but stayed by my side until I got the hang of my balance. I was off riding all over my stomping area that summer. The other kids made fun of my bike for they had BMX bikes with special alloy goosenecks, and mag rims of bright colors. Then one day  Brian Trogden and Mike Smith decided to knock me off my bike and started pulling the spokes and breaking them while I rolled around on the ground crying. They laughed and pushed me down when I tried to stop them. Both these boys had it instilled in them that because I was “Black” in there eyes I was less than equal to all the white boys in the neighborhood and they never let me forget it; whether we were playing football in the field they would never play on the same team with me, or let me be quarterback. Philip Ryan and I became a team; he had no false preconceptions or prejudices grilled into him by his parents.

My Dad decided to get me a new used bike, and Brian and Mike thought that he was easy pickings for six dollars. They showed up with a Rampar frame which needed to be put together with new cranks, chain, and front forks. The two boys brought the frame over and asked me to get my dad. I ran into the house saying, “My bike is here. Can I have the money?”

“Well lets go see” he replied and we headed out to the garage. The bike was not done, so Dad wouldn’t give up the money. Over and over again he would refuse to pay for the bike until it was completely put together. And over and over the two boys would go back to their stolen pile of bike parts at home and bring another piece. We had to take the cranks off the old bus and put them on the Rampar frame which were longer than conventional cranks with a bigger sprocket this made my bike faster than all the other boys when we finally put it together. Finally Dad shelled out the six dollars to the boys who found their easy deal had turned into an all day lesson on the fact my Dad was no sucker.

The only son, this title has perplexed me since I put it on the page. I look into my world in the mirror of what my parents tell me and how I emulate my father; this becomes the pattern my life takes and a direct representation of the many bible parables and stories, “The Prodigal Son” where I am definitely the younger son later in life yet, I do wish to earn the elder son title during the childhood years. I was treated as the elder son and so in action, thought, and deed this title lay upon my shoulders like a knighthood in the white world, yet I am not white. I am more than that. I am half black and lost to that part of my being as a child, so I grow in the only world I am exposed to. This induction gives me a knowledge and temperance that does not hold to the actuality of who I am. I am confused battling my nature which rivals my nurture to its very core. I am my fathers’ son.

In comparison I am my mother’s son in a different way for mothers create a realm of love and support that fathers do not. Mothers teach while fathers lead. Mothers dive in letting their nature and temperance provide direction while fathers plot and navigate testing the water setting course and allowing for wind. Mothers lead with heart, fathers by the mind. I was full of heart as a child and carried my mind for use when the situation called for it, or when my heart directed me across the sea of life. By the age of ten I had to step into the shoes of a young man following my deep inset training by my grandma Murry who told me I was the man of the house when no other was present. Her old ways were deeply set into who I was. It was in Rochester New York and Minnesota that the title of only son continued to shape my life.

 

The Eye of Thor Ch 3 " Both Sides of the house"

Let me tell you about my neighborhood to our right was the Winters, the biker family, the Baskings, the hippie family, I mean wicked professional old school hippie) had a daughter Andrea she had long golden brown hair and a gentle tan all the time we used to spent afternoons in the vacant lot next to the Jehovah-witness family who lived on the corner, chasing butterflies as a kid. I mean you could get all the butterflies, grass hoppers, beetles, centipedes, and other insects, back then in this little vacant lot was a gold mine of life in the 70’s. Next to the lot was Miss Tacoma and next to her the one middle class Afro-American family that was in our neighborhood. Across the street was Jacquie Park complete with slide, swings, sandbox, merry-go-round, baseball diamond where the neighborhood would gather every Sunday to play softball leading into a vast field bordered by trees and a covered open air log pavilion. A great deal of my childhood would be played out in this park. At the other corner of the park was the Ryan family. Philip Ryan was the youngest of twelve children and I could say my best friend from the ages of five to twelve. Two doors down from him was Curt and Cindy Sindilars house.

The block I lived on was large with many a deep back yard and to the left of our house was the Beaches; Chris was the elder son, three years ahead of me and, later twins girls were born when I was eleven. The next house was a big old southern style house where my house was tall this one was wide and took the whole corner bordering Baltimore Avenue. Across the street was the Campanulas’ who had a daughter named Lynn; her best friend Marty who lived down the block was always at her side. Baltimore Avenue was a steep hill going down for almost two city blocks ending in a small triangle.

 The Mitchell family lived at the top. I was told to stay away from this family for their father by no means tolerated “Blacks”. I remember one instance of my father flexing his verbal muscle when Mr. Mitchell decided to verbally remark that he didn’t want a little nigger climbing his fence and falling into his yard. Dad could get riled sometimes; it was something to see. He would start talking with his hands while going back and forth and reading it to someone. Considering he is a very amiable and pleasant man on most occasions and not very intimidating to other men Mr. Mitchell jaw went slack when my Dad fired a volley of “You betters” and “Who do you think you are talking to” over the fence. It was pure poetry. The Mitchell boys managed to even the score with me in several ways that weren’t overtly violent, but still managed to get me hurt on many occasions. Their father had told them in no uncertain terms not to put hands on me, yet they would often find some sinister way of getting me to do myself in. My very first bike was a “Bus” with three speeds. A couple of local kids had set up a bike jump with a cinder block underneath it for a base. I came to play and thought that it would be cool to try the jump. Little did I know that the boys were setting up the ramp with the cinder block turned on its side; as soon as my front tire hit the ramp the cinder block fell and so did I. I ran home crying not the first time not the last.

            As we go down the steep hill Jared lived on the right ½ down and next to his house was the “Halloween” house which got its name by the vast amount of ghosts, ghouls and creepy critters that they portrayed every year once even making the local news with their two kids who were a few years older than me. At the bottom of the hill around the triangle lived several families one of which was the Scott family with several kids who lived next to the Japanese family who had a son my age. I remember this kid had so many toys he had a separate room just for them. I was watched by the Scott family for a short time while my parents were both working one summer. The Scott family children were also told by their father right in front of me that racial slurs would not be tolerated. This instance came after a fight with their Kevin and his friend David Lazon. David had come from another part of town a half mile away to beat me up. All the kids in this part of the neighborhood were around us yelling and egging him on and throwing around the nigger word. After I fought both boys and was beaten up pretty well, again I went crying home to Dad. I had to wait for him to get home for some time. He took me back down the street to the Scotts house, and went inside alone. He came back out and we went home. I went back to the Scotts the next day. I was brought into the house, and Mr. Scott an x marine who I saw only at night was waiting for me with all his kids. He had taken the morning off work and he was mad. He blew his top right there in the living room and told his kids how allowing racial slurs and out right prejudice was an evil that no respectable catholic and a Scott would allow, and it was his responsibility to care for me while in his charge. Mr. Scott and my father were very well respected in the Catholic community and the neighborhood. This still did not stop the fights. That was the way of suburbia around Washington D.C. The Greasers and the Black gangs still had rumbles, but that to would soon stop.    

The 70’s had a very special feeling. The racial tension was slowly evaporating and a new sharing of cultures and tolerance of different religions and lifestyles were beginning to remake the American suburb. I became a catalyst for change and also of strife in this tight nit community. A community where the white children played together and parents shared their views over fences and from porches as we all new each other, whether their religions or beliefs differed. You may think big deal; it was after two decades of violence and hate the District of Columbia was still recovering from the riots that tore the city apart. The final rebuilding of the city would not happen until twenty years hence.

            We had several house keeper whose job it was to watch me during the time both my parents worked. I remember how proud the African American “Mammies” would be watching me, for in me they saw their future and hopes. I had all the gifts that a white professional household could provide many that Black professional families could not attain even though they had as much money the power of white parents far superseded that of money or professional status. The racial equality had been made law that law had not made its mark on the American people other that in the way of public institutions.  The racial communities still gathered together, in neighborhoods, in churches, and in social surroundings and in standings among one another. I had chance to read Chaos and Community by Dr. King. In this book written before the racial integration revolution and civil rights battles had begun spoke of a community that had within its self a way of thinking that removed its own self from the American public with its own internal handicaps and fears. The fact that within twenty years the next generation that would be the receivers of the social and civil revolutions fruits made the interim time a place of great hope as the parents and players of that era looked for their new leaders in the young children who were raised in select social arenas. I was one of those children.

The problem in my case was I had no idea about that hope and could be a little stinker. I got one maid fired because while she had stopped vacuuming to watch her soaps, she had left the vacuum out and I wanted to see how it worked, so naturally I got my hands on a screw driver and took it apart. Exit one maid; the next made it for one day. I had convinced her that my parents let me eat lunch on the roof, just the porch roof about twenty feet up, yet enough to get her fired toot sweet. The housekeeper that stuck was Philippe she came from the islands, and did not put up with any bull from me. I tried her once, just once, she had me sitting in a chair. I was told, “You sit right there until your father get’s home.” I was scared and crying. Then just short of my dad getting home Philippe and I came to an understanding. I whole heartedly agreed to not cause her any trouble. Case and point don’t cross Latin women. During the summer months I would have to tell her where I would be playing. It started with reasonably precise locations like Jacquie Park, the triangle at the bottom of Baltimore Street, or the Ryan’s house. Then I t moved to one side of the house or the other; Philippi knew my hang outs pretty well and by the end of the summer I would check in with her, for I still held her in reverence and say both sides of the house.

Philip Ryan was my closest friend and the goofiest by far. We would send time playing football with Brian and Mike who would always team up against Philip and me. There was a lot of pitching back when it’s two against two, with a permanent quarter back. Philip ran like a duck with big ears bobbing back and forth on his feet which kind of swiveled under him as he ran. We had a paper route, The Evening Star, for a while until we goofed off to much. Philip took over after school when we were in St. Michaels he was one year a head of me. I would steal one of his papers almost daily for a while until Mr. Ryan called my dad, and he would chase me through the park yelling, “You’re being completely unreasonable!” I would laugh so hard when I looked back I would fall over in convulsions of hysterical laughter. The Ryan family was the only group of people who would call me Johnny which I received as a term of endearment. Mrs. Ryan undertook my overseeing during a few months of my kindergarten year. She would be waiting at the large dinning room table for me to get off the bus at noon everyday were she would ask me about my day and then feed me a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese. I would be instructed to play or do my homework until later when Philip got home, or go across the street to Jacquie Park. Kitty the family dog would be wandering around and I would sit pat her for a while. I always thought went adults said pet the dog they meant “pat” so that’s what I did. That dog used to roam all over town she would be seen behind the junior high on Piney Branch, on the streets of Takoma Park, or clicking her tiny claws along Fenton Avenue in down town Silver Spring. She was a strange looking dog kind of barrel like body short haired and white with brown and black spots with little tiny skinny legs ending in long toes with nails that clicked with every step she took. She began getting tumors at the age of eighteen and it was one of these that could not be removed that eventually cut off her wind pipe and began to slowly suffocate her until her death at twenty two years of age. If you do the math that’s 154 in dog years, by then she was a pariah of the community and a small article made the paper with a picture of her walking because that’s what she did. Poor Philip was heart broken for awhile.

We spent untold hours in the park swinging on the swings. First we had to put our bellies on the saddle and push ourselves up into the air, for we were too small to get the big chain swings to swing, and the short ones still had wood boards encased in steel straps all in all at forty to fifty pounds a kid just can’t rightly build the momentum needed with knobby knees and spindly arms. Then one day after I crested fifty pounds and Philip had learned how to swing standing up from his sister he showed me. Philip and all his goofiness was fearless when it came to games of play, and therefore could share whart he learned with me which I could soon master and we would share our new game for hours on end. That’s how I learned to swing, standing up. You see, you climb up into the swing and start pumping the swing by crouching and pushing out until you got it going on a good pendulum then just drop straight down sliding your hands on the chains until your butt goes slap into the seat. Sounds scary but God sets thing up for children that often follow the laws of physics, which I’m sure mothers all over the world appreciate cause the species would have died out long ago. We spent weeks in those swings, flying our star ships through space naming the planets hitting the bumps as we passed planets and ran into the meteor belt eventually reaching the sun and coming back home before the street lights went on. One clear day we were practicing hitting our ejection seats at low levels and Philip says, “If you jump from the highest point I’ll give you a whole dollar”

 I said, “Really?”

He replied, “A whole dollar”. Cause a dollar could buy five candy bars back then.

I revved up my ship and took off just, and just as I left the earths gravity I pulled the ejection lever. I flew. My feet landed first right next to the big slide. My legs attempted to work and then said I quit as they buckled. The feet were holding fast and yelling at the legs the knees replied to the feet and said, “Abort! Abort!” but it was too late for the rest of the body had caught up and passed the knees head first.  Bam! The nose said, “What did I do?” The momentum of the flight after ejection had crumpled my little body beyond the point of my legs and even arms to withhold the impact and my head still being the heaviest and highest point on my body decided that the nose was to blame. Philip never paid me the dollar. O yeah and I ran home crying.  

I could run a theme on that action, running home crying. The boys had beaten me up in the park again. I ran home crying. A group of black kids came across the bridge and since I wasn’t white, for they could get in big trouble beating up a white kid and I was half black living in a white household they could beat me up. I ran home crying. Brian and Mike knocked me off my bike and began breaking the spokes out of it, just out of pure maliciousness: I ran home crying. The kids even got the one Japanese kid in the neighbor hood to beat me up. I was never the husband in house, not even if we were playing toy cars and the cars had girl friends, my car always was alone. I didn’t understand hate. My father had drilled into me that peace and love, friendship and acts of goodness, and the way of equality that I could be anything I wanted. I saw how strongly he stood on these principles, and it was reflected in the teachers I learned from, and the adult friends that saw in me as person not a second class citizen, so the fact that other parent’s white and black still taught their children prejudice views and the views were reflected on me was beyond my understanding. Dad said, “Always walk away from fights” So I did. I just didn’t understand why I was so hated, and not accepted. It became part of who I was. I told people I was ugly. I wanted straight hair. I wanted my legs to turn out cause Dad said I walked pigeon toed and would yell at me for not walking with my feet pointed out. The media told me I should be white, all the hero’s were white, all the cartoons were white, even Jesus was white. Most people in any job I saw that was respected were white and those few blacks Americans that had risen to a place in community were definitely not half black and white they were just black, and I never got to see them on my part of town. The Black people I knew were still fighting for equal placement, and their children were still street urchins. White was right and might. The names started zebra, Oreo, salt and pepper, skunk, half bread, zebra that got used that a lot, news paper, passing, high yellow, red bone and of course the ever popular nigger.     

There were a lot of people who came to the park some were nice others mean and others just evil. Some people have asked why I never really dated Afro-American women; no disrespect ladies, it’s the scent. They say memories are locked into scents. Afro-American people have a very specific scent. I was about six when this black man came to the park, and became my friend for the day. I was easy pickings for a predator; for, anyone who watched long enough could tell I just wanted to have friends. It took him about an hour to take me across the street and into the bushes between Harriet Tacoma’s house and the vacant field next to Jared’s house. He made me go down on him, after first pleading then threatening me. I would suck his dick for a while and then try to stop. Then he would grab me by the waist and suck mine for a while until he wanted attention for a while. This went on for a few hours. I have never been able to get the scent, and that mixture of feeling out of my head. I had dreams about Afro-American men forcing sex on me I kill them in my dream.

My first dog met me at the park his name was Twinkles. I met him while playing in the sand box at the base of the big slide. We played all day, and I didn’t get sick. You see when I was young I was allergic to grass, trees, pollen, smoke, rubber tennis shoes, chocolate, bananas, milk, and the dander and hair off of any shedding animal. Twinkles was a poodle and just a stray. Bands of roving dogs used to run in D.C. some were wild and dangerous others just wanted a meal and a place to be. We played all day he would come to me when the other kids called him. I still had my bus bike, and tried to get him to follow me home, and then I tried to drive him home by running my bike at him. He wouldn’t go and I rode my bike home crying. At eight o’clock there was a scratching at the door. It was Twinkles he had followed me my scent. My dad opened the door and said, “O my!” and sort of chuckled. It was his way of being surprised about something that made me happy. I looked at my dad and asked, “Can I keep him?”

He replied, “We will see in the morning.” We feed him some bread and milk and shut the door. I didn’t cry I just went to bed happy. The next morning we opened the door and Twinkles lifted his head off his paws and looked at me as if to say, “We play?” His name should have been puddles, for we had to put him in the kitchen at night and like clock work every morning he would have a big puddle of yellow pee waiting for my mom.

In third grade you were considered able to fight, this did not matter whether you wanted to or not so if you are a kid getting suckered punched or ran away with your hands over your head crying, “No no!” as you ran in whatever direction that gave the quickest escape. Yep that was me for the first and second grades, most of the time. By 1975 a school wide fight for the third and fourth grades was on during the Spring, and I was on the ticket, everybody was girls and boys, but mostly the boys fought. All the boys had a fight because somebody had to win. When my turn to fight came I went in flailing my arms because I had no idea how to fight what I did know was all the boys who ran away this time were labeled chickens in front of the whole school. I had enough problems with out that added to the mix. Bing Bang Bomb the fight was over and I had a fat lip. The two who finally won were two black kids a short stocky boy who punched from the floor and this tall lanky girl who was death from above. I remember how distinctly she had her pinkies out as her fists were raised above her shoulders and her long legs would help with her long reach as she dropped bombs against her assailant as he came in. The little black boy didn’t want to fight the girl but she has beaten two boys to get to this fight, and a girl deserved the title if she passed one more boy. The yells and cries of the group circled around the two fighters as the throng of kids of egged each fighter forward.       When came in he; he got closer and closer every time with every forward attack being met with blows upon his head and arms, until he catches her in a sideways motion and connects with her cheek. The fighters pause; the kids in a circle now a frenzy of movement and screams. The boy comes in again, slowly driving his fists and head forward, not allowing for side ways movement. The girls feigns to one side raining down blows and keeping herself from the dreaded close encounter, yet he doesn’t back off and follows through catching her in the temple. She stagers and the crowd went quiet. One voice then two yell out, “You can take him” the girls egg her on into one more melee. She changes her tactics and charges forward raining down blows pinkies tucked. He has been waiting for this, and lays an upper cut into her jaw. The girl falters, covers her head as he applies a few more punches as if to say, “Give up.” The fight is over. The rest of the children walk away some with the two fighters, others in groups chattering about the fight they have just seen, I was alone and quiet during the fight and that’s how I walked home.

I remember when I learned to read in the second grade. It just sort of clicked one day, and the whole world of books opened up to me. I moved my seat next to the book shelf, so I could read all day long. I no longer listened to the teacher or followed the class work. Every once in a while I would pop my hand up into the air. The teacher would call on me to answer the question posed to the class. I would in return ask my own question, “What does this word mean?” The teacher would sort of look at me with a strange curious look and then drop her shoulders in way of defeat, and come over to answer my question. I would reply, “Okay, Thank you” and go back to reading. This lasted for two months until my parents were informed during a parent teacher meeting of my rebellious activity. Again I have been labeled. My parents thought my reading was cool but, had capitulated my need to pay attention in class. In way of curbing my chaotic activity I was taken to the Takoma library and set loose on the children section of books.

I made it to the fourth grade at Takoma Middle School on Maple Ave. Maple Avenue was were the small amount of apartment buildings that were built in Takoma Park were built. Takoma Park was split by Montgomery County and Prince Georges County to the south. Montgomery County heralding one of the five richest county’s in America lay in juxta position to Prince Georges County which was full of vast sweeping projects full of the minority races, whether they be black, Hispanic, Central American or Porto Rican, or any other European or Mediterranean descendants they were a rich conglomerate of poor peoples. The small area on Maple Avenue was the small representation of those minorities and far from my house as a small boy. It was here that a boy began to grow up.

 

We had to switch classes in Takoma middle school after our homeroom class where we learned the three “R”s the school even taught Science, Swimming the school had an underground swimming pool and, Wood Shop run by Mr. Patty who everybody knew by the Patty Wagon a blue School bus with two eyes and a smile painted on the lights and grill. One day Mr. Patty was not there and a Substitute took over the class. Until the class took over the woodshop; I was there that day and can tell first hand of the wanton and rebellious spirit that griped the Fourth grade third period class. It stared almost instantly as the bell rang and we settled into the daily role. There was a stir in the air that bode of maliciousness a chaotic malevolence of wild thoughts that soon would be turned loose. Kids can smell fear. That’s how it started off, one of the real wild boys started pushing the envelope of common decency as in way of testing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. When no recourse occurred the template was made for the rest of period three. Saws began tearing into the carefully worked projects, drills routed out the table, I took a file and pounded my vice sending pieces of file steel flying across the room in all directions. Other kids were planning a direct attack on the Substitute by way of getting one of their fellow conspirators a talk in the hallway. The poor indefensible man, who just was willing to try anything to reach the kids in his charge, fell hook, line, and sinker for the bait. As soon as the boy got the Substitute out of the door he reversed running back into the room and grabbing the door knob and pulling the door closed behind him. This was a daring deed of rebellion that left the rest of us boys stunned into non-action. We stood spell bound by the action unfolding in front of us. Some boys chose their own way of dealing with the lack of structure for it triggered a deep fear of loss of control and they attacked their work often with stern words and ridged back. I just watched. I remember looking around at the different boys and the individual hells that each of them portrayed. It was a bizarre spectacle. I watched transfixed. The Substitute finally won the battle with the four boys who struggled to keep the door shut, and when he got it opened they scattered into the room. He stood there just inside the door with a look of total shock and defeat on his face. The few boys who would have been easily controlled by any teacher found this even more horrifying than the attack by their fellow students and some began to cry. The bell range and the next class began to filter into the room. The information of the Substitutes harassment reached their ears and we found out the next day the fourth period class made the third period class look like choirboys.

The next day all the fourth and fifth grades were called to a special assembly. We were all sat down on the floor in the large room. In the front center of the room lay a large wooden topped desk with steel sides and legs. Mr. Patty came into the room with a large hammer. He stood behind the desk and looked at the whole class for a long minuet. He picked up the hammer into his hand. A thick large fingered hand at the end of a powerful arm. Most kids see their father’s arms and Mr. Pattie’s arms in contrast had been conditioned and under the skin was a muscular set of pistons, one of which now held the hammer in this hand. The hammer was a large weighted hammer with a heavy rubber head. “Bam!” the first impact on the desk shook the whole room and every student jumped, every student. The next part was just sheer power, a demonstration of power as the hammer pounded on the desk. With each pound you could here gasps from around the room and the cracking of the desk as the hammer attacked it. Mr. Patty’s arm drove the hammer down on the desk in a fury never seen by any of the horrified onlookers. The kids up front backed up away from the noise, the violence, Mr. Patty. The desk too movement broke in half with a huge whole in the center. The steel legs and side were buckled and the drawers lay partway out in disarray from the attack.

Then three more blows with words to match “How!” “Dare!” “You?”

Silence shook the room with small stirrings of children as they flinched around the room accompanied. He began his verbal representation of the laws we had broke and how the whole school was to blame giving a long list of our infractions, and ending with a punishment. The whole school went on lock down. For an entire month no group of students was allowed to break lock down rules. No talking to other students. No, not following directions. No movement unless with a teacher. The students who would not follow lockdown rules were quickly put in, in school detention. The classes were suddenly cut down in size by 25% as kids break the rules. The final core of the children who remained I was one of. The teaching continued. If you may wonder where all the other students went all you had to do was break the rules once and get caught I got caught near the end of week two for talking. Keeping me quiet for two weeks is a trick. I was shuttled off to one of the in school detention class rooms. I looked at what the other side was. It was lockdown with no class, no teaching, and only one thing could change it the students want to learn again. I didn’t like it one bit, not at all, and after six hours in lock down I was ready to go back to class. The most terrifying part of this lockdown status was the help the school enlisted, parents; students’ parents now walked the halls and ran the detention rooms. Can you imagine? Getting in trouble and winding up in front of you mom or dad who had every right to punish you anyway they wanted which included spankings in front of the whole class. It was amazing the way the whole community stepped forward to help in the middle school. In one month most of the classes were full again and things went back to a semi-lockdown condition. The students were never allowed the freedom that they once held.

The school still held a heavy penalty for fighting and this I knew, so when David Lazon stated calling me names in class I returned the insults. I was a bit of a stinker at times and would push the issue. I did not realize that racial insults were becoming a taboo I still wanted to be white. Besides being a stinker I was a full blown clucking around the barnyard chicken so, when it came to fighting mostly I was the kid going, “No no” “Help” “Help” Today I had been a stinker and David said he was going to beat me up after school. I was scared and crying hanging out on the corner hiding behind the crossing guard, and she knew it. Every time kids would build up on the corner she would get out into traffic on the next light and cross with the kids. So back and forth I went with David right with me. Then the crossing guard questioned me for awhile about my clinging behavior and quickly saw the results of a child who was scared of a fight, and was using her as a barrier by following her back and forth across the street. That she wasn’t going to have so when an opportunity came to cross again she took it and told me to stay on the side she was leaving. David had been waiting for his opening and now that it presented its self he began to take off his jacket. After watching the “Happy days” episode where Ritchie had to fight and learned the dirty trick of attacking while the guy takes off his jacket. I charged flailing my arms. I agree this is still one of the worst ways to enter in to a fight, but I didn’t know how to fight. He quickly slipped into the coat and met my charge. We twisted and turned on the ground and somehow I got back on my feet. And zoom I was out of there like a chicken flying the coop.

I wasn’t scared of everything. I was pretty daring when it came to climbing, and could scale almost anything once I got my hands on it. Philip Ryan and I once spent all afternoon getting on top of the brick building at Jacquie Park. Jared and I made the tricky climb to the top of the log cabin one Saturday. We decided it would be fun to slide down the green roof, so we climbed to the top and down we went on our buts. We made three slides before the itching began. You see we were sliding down a roof made of fiber glass slates and by the third slide our buts reached a level of itchiness that rivaled any thing imaginable. We began screaming and jumping up and down on the roofs edge. My mind decided after a prompt yelling at by the skin surrounding my butt, “No time to be careful and climb down. Jump you fool. Jump” Jared and I bounded off the roof and into the grass, and we took off across the field high stepping and crying holding our butts as we ran scratching like mad monkeys with lice. Jared had less ground to cover and I saw him shoot into his house screaming and jumping up and down. The fear of my butt’s reprisals drove me to new speeds and my knees took it upon them selves to continue my high stepping run down the sidewalk on Takoma Avenue. I reached my house and danced in front of my mother while trying to tell her why I had both my hands down the back of my pants, and tears streaming out of my eyes. Mom’s eyes got real big when I told her what Jared and I had been up to. She called Jared’s mom and found he was already heading into an Epsom salt bath which would pull the shards of fiber glass out of his bum, and soon I was in my own bath getting my bum worked over by the soothing Epsom salts.   

In the fourth grade I had what could be considered a doppelganger his name was Patrick Ramon and his skin color was close to mine and so was his hair. His Parents both black were from France and he spoke perfect French, yet he was lighter than any of his siblings. We would often were the same clothes a red and navy blue shirt with a white collar popular at the time and blue jeans. The teachers would often confuse us, for I was the only mulloto student in the school. I took great comfort in this for I found a kindred spirit. We became close and I would visit his house on weekends. One day I went to his house knowing that I was supposed to go home first before playing at a friend’s house. We played and I felt a certain gleeful wild abandon knowing I was breaking the rules, and put the reprisal from my father out of my mind until.. I had to call home at the direction at Mrs. Ramon. I called my Dad and told him where I was. I was in big trouble. My Dad yelled, “Now you come home right now!” I started running home thinking that my speed could curb the spanking I was heading for, but as in show of the dreaded admonishment I cried all the way home. As I reached the yard my father was waiting at the front door. He said, “You’re getting a spanking. Now go to your room.” This tactic scared the hell out of me and I ascended the stairs and went to my room plopping face down on my bed crying ever the more harder. My father would soon arrive and deliver a quick fierce spanking. It was the anticipation of the spanking that left me in a state of terror not so much the punishment. Such was the corporal relationship that my father laid upon me, the fear of fear.  

One day a boy has to fight. My day came in the spring of my eight year in fourth grade. I was playing soccer with a bunch of neighborhood boys in the park when Jon Patrick a six grade boy knocks me down while we are playing. He was a bully and I was his target. I was fast and got the ball again and was heading down the field when Jon comes up behind me and punches me in the back knocking me down. I got up and ran home crying. I ran to my father and began to tell the story he had herd to many times at this point. He yelled at me saying, “I tired of you running home and crying every time some boy wants to bully you.” You have to fight sometimes, so you go back to the park and fight that boy.” He had a hold of my arms and shook the words into me as he gave me the directions that he never before had spoken. Fight, I had to fight. I would guess in retrospect; Joe Beckwith an Afro-American man who fell in love with my little sister and became an extension of our family had a talk with my father, and explained that I had to fight one day. He understood what it was to be black and when my ingrained “White Privilege” thinking was getting me beat up all the time; I could see him telling my father that one day I had to fight. I wish I had lessons before my first one, but it seems going crazy is some form of fighting ability. I ran back to the park crying all the way. I jumped into the game and right away Jon tripped me in a dirty move. Slam I hit the ground. I jumped up and a wild screeching scream issued forth from my grass and dirt stained face. I went after Jon and took him down pounding and pounding with my little fists. He rolled me off easily for he was in 6^th grade and out weighed me by 30 pounds, and got to his feet. Then I herd my Dad; he had followed me to the park, “Fight John, fight”. He yelled. I got up and Jon charged me swinging a hay maker which totally missed. I was fast and could dodge well, and backed up several feet. Then my Dad got involved; I saw something I had never seen from him. Rage pure rage. He grabbed Jon by his shirt and pulled him close. His face was contorted in furry. I can still see it pure as day. He held Jon in front of his and yelled; “Now you leave my son alone.” All the other kids stood and stared in disbelief. No father had ever done what he was doing. This support was like rocket fuel adrenaline to me and I charged forward tackling Jon and we rolled down the hill by New York Avenue and stopped by the bushes. I was on top and flailed my arms down in attack. By this time a large group of kids had joined the circle of on lookers. I felt some one jump on my back and start pounding me. It was Jon’s older sister and she began hitting and scratching my back and neck. “This needs to be a fair fight” I herd Fritz say as he hauled her off my back and tossed her into the bushes with one hand. Jon was crying and he had enough, and Dad yelled down from the top of the hill, “John that’s it let him go” Another boy ran at me and starting swinging. In my lust and loosing of years of anger from all the beating from both races I fought him to. That fight was over quick because some kids just don’t want to fight if they might get hurt. I was ready to fight anybody. One of the boys who lived behind my house jumped forward and said, “You want to keep fighting, come one lets fight.” This kid could fight he had been trained so when I went after him with my hands he danced to the side and punched me in the face twice. I shook my head because the power of the blows made me see white, and attacked again. He leveled two more punches on my head and one in my mouth that made me taste blood for it broke my lips and check. I was done. I backed up and went towards my Dad who was now standing up the street towards home. We walked back home for a ways in silence. He stopped and turned towards me gripping my shoulders so I would look up at him. He stood there for a minute and gazed down at his son. He said, “You learned two lessons today. Sometimes you have to fight, but as you found out you can’t fight everybody.” I looked back at him and silently nodded. He looked at me for a long second. His hair which was usually neatly combed over lay in disarray across his face his hands lay on my shoulders; he gave a little squeeze and we turned and walked home in silence.  

"No Voice"

The first time, that first night December 18 2010, my neck and back did something to me. I screamed one in pain and two knowing I just did something real bad to my back and I couldn't stop it. I screamed..

I was already having issues, this thing that was shaking me, tearing at me.

It is this thing, a slow death,

like the window, life just began to shut too soon.

All the colors got brighter, everything meant more,

and the window shuts some more,

 I was fighting Death what was I to do but live and run more, fight more roar more.

I ran, jumped, lived the best, shining like all my life was in these years.

I became THOR re-forged.

the window shuts some more.

I see a crack now, I fight in the dark alone.

My life is vivid wild full of expression,

I tell my window,

before my window, Shuts.

I can't talk right now, but my arms both work again for now,

The window is very old dusty hard to see,

It shuts some more and sound is left, and lights, eye's opened and closed,

just like the window, open or closed,

the lights never stops, dreams.

THOR

written after paralyzing incident