All the Wild Children (2 page)

I am 50, and I wonder how the first sixteen years of my life can still hold such sway over me. 

My brother tells me you have to just put that shit away and move on.
 

I wonder if he has.
 

I wonder if God still loves him more.

Lilly says, “Life tastes like watermelon, life tastes like aspirin.” 

I can’t argue that.

RAIN TIME

I am 50, and the asphalt reflects ruby taillights up at me.  The visor on my helmet fogs.  Small rivers and tributaries run down it.  My view goes syrupy.  I wipe with a gloved hand and smear the highway into an impressionist painting.  The BMW R1200R feels surefooted, strong, Bavarian.  It was built for foul weather in mountain countries where they ride year round.  My brain searches the swirling world for visual warning signs ahead.

I am 6, the wheels have already started to come off my family.  We are on Alpine, a dirt track of a road.  Rain slashes down on the old VW bus.  Pops is driving, Mom sits beside him, they are laughing at something Shaun said.  I’m not listening.  I have my face pressed to the side window, feeling cool on my cheek.  I watch my breath turn to condensation on the glass.

I am 50, on highway 101.  Rain.  Rain.  No time to stop.  It’s my wife’s birthday and I promised her I’d make it home in time to take her to dinner.  I don’t break my word as easily as I once did.  Somewhere on the road it became important to me.  Red smears ahead warn of brakes being hit.

I am 6 when we slide in the mud.  My brother and sister are yelling.  I just stare out the window in mute panic.  Forty feet down the steep bank is the creek, now gorged and fast moving.

I am 50, and driven.  I will keep my word to my wife or die trying.  Am I a noble man?  Or a guilty man?  I spent the weekend before her birthday at Laguna Seca racetrack.  I know, without her saying it, that the combination of me, a motorcycle and a racetrack scares the shit out of her.  Motorcycles aren’t safe.

I am 32 when the Mustang skids out of the DMV and collides with my Harley.  My left great toe is crushed beyond repair.  My femur is shattered.  In the hospital they won’t give me pain meds, they assume I have brain damage.  “Give my husband something for the pain.  If he’s telling jokes it is because he is in serious pain.”  My wife watches me die and be revived in the ICU.  That was 18 years ago.  Not that she has forgotten.

I am 6 and scared.  The van’s right wheels slide off the road.  In a slow, gut sickening moment we tilt.  Gravity presses me against the window.

I am 50 and my fingers are wet and frozen.

I am 6 and the van is slipping down the bank.  The river rushes up towards me.  My mother is yelling something that is muffled by my fear.  There is a thud and a splash and we aren’t moving any more.  The window I’m pressed against is brown with mud.

I am 50, and decide I don’t want to die in the rain.  At Paso Robles I turn inland, east toward the 5 and out of the rain.

I am 6.  My father’s strong hands are around my wrists.  He lifts me out of the sideways van.  No one is hurt.  My father teaches me and my siblings how to walk with our feet sideways, up the near vertical muddy bank.  This will in time become one of my happiest memories.  We are a family for that moment, united by mud and an incline.

I am 50 and I hit a dust storm.  The 5 is fog thick and choking with dust.  I will never forget my ride through this surreal brown world.  A world where airborne tumbleweeds fly across the road only to explode into confetti on a truck’s grill.  A world of twenty feet visibility and then endless swirling brown earth.  A world where breathing is hard.

I am 50 and eating dinner with my wife and I think
you just never know what in the pages of your life will be good and what will be bad. 
I kiss my wife and remember to make the tale of the rain and the dust feel safe.  I remember a rainy day when my father taught me to walk sideways and we were a family.

THE DUMMY

“Your son is just not as smart as other kids Mrs. Stallings.”
  - Doctor 1

“
Some children are just clumsy, can’t all be athletes.”
- Doctor 2

I am 7, and reading my first chapter book.  It’s about otters, they are sliding down an ice covered hill.  I am struggling.  Fighting claw and tooth for every word.  By sheer force of will I am going to beat this book into submission. 

My eyes hurt. 

My brain aches.

I have taken four pages, then five... so many left.  I don’t count or even look at the stack of unread pages.  Rover, our three legged Scotty is barking from the woods behind our house.  As opposed to the woods in front of our house or on the sides.  We live on eighteen acres in the Northern Californian mountains. 

Rover keeps yapping, he might be in trouble.  He might need me.  No, his barks don’t sound like he’s in trouble, but you never know.

I’m at page seven when I set the otter book down and go outside.

The day is hot and smells like dust.  I love the feel of dry earth on my bare feet.  I love the sounds of birds and wind in tall trees.  I love these woods.  Out here I’m not stupid, or angry, or clumsy.  I am a boy of these woods.  I have on the green jerkin my mother sewed for me.  I have the Little John staff my father made for me.  My brother is Robin Hood, but he’s spending the night at a friend’s. 

Little John is on his own to rescue Rover from the Sheriff’s men.  I take my task seriously.  I move with stealth and grace.  I hold my staff at ready, not to be taken unprepared.  I slip past the blackberry bramble, stopping midway I kneel down to speak to Tangle Thistlerod.  He is an inch tall, very tall for a fairy.  He is Queen Starshine’s most trusted warrior.  He is a general of the Columbine order.  Tangle Thistlerod carries the wounds from more battles than either of us can remember.  The troll battles aren't too bad; Tangle and his troop have flight and intelligence to balance against the troll invader’s size advantage. 

The blackberry bramble is the most prized region.  It has sweet berries.  Thorn battlements.  A mossy creek running though it for drinking and bathing.  It has algae for making clothes.  It is easy to see why the interlopers wanted it.  Thus far we have repelled their every advance.  For now at least we are safe here.

My little sister Shaun and I have witnessed many a raging battle.  We each carried marks from Pixie arrows.  Bug bites we told our mother.  The fairies are our secret. Queen Starshine took a liking to Shaun after the war of the lunch pail.  Trolls had attacked using a lunch pail to cover their heads, thereby rendering the fairy’s spears and arrows useless.  Tangle and I plotted a maneuver to flank the trolls.  Tangle would lead his men in a charge from the blackberry bramble.  I would lead a small shock force into the rain culvert and attack from behind.

Trolls are big.  Mean.  Vicious.  Unrepentant.  Beasties.  Thirty fairies fell before we even began our campaign.  Shaun dragged the wounded to safety, receiving a volley of arrows in her arms and shoulders for her trouble.  I knew it hurt, but she never cried.  She was the bravest five year old I knew.  Queen Starshine and Shaun tended to the wounded whilst General Thistlerod and I waged savage battle.  Many good fairies quenched the dry earth with their blood that day.  But when Tangle and I finally set down our weapons the trolls were all gone.  From that day forth I was made an honorary general of the Acorn brigade.  My brave little sister was invited into the queen’s court and allowed to call the queen by her first name, Fen.

“So general JJ, what word from the lake folk?”

“The frogs are restless, weasels have been sniffing around the banks.  A great horned owl took one of their sentries last night.”

“Tough life for the lake folk.”

“Yes General Thistlerod it is.”

“General?  After all we’ve been through?  Now I’m sure we agreed on first names.”

“We did sir, um Tangle.”

“Much better JJ.  Now can I get you a flagon of Madrone ale?  Fresh made?”

“Not today old friend.  I’m on a mission.  I merely seek permission to pass through your lands on my way to rescue my beast.”

“Of course you may pass.  Do you need an escort?”

“No, I must travel light and fast.”

Tangle Thistlerod stands on his thorn parapet and watches me until I dip down the hill.  He really is a good friend.  I am lucky to have him. 

Rover is barking and circling an oak sapling.  I moved up with staff in two hands, ready to swing.  Something is in the tree.  Trolls have been known to ambush from trees.  Looking carefully up into the branches I see Secret, my tabby kitten.  She climbed up but doesn't know how to get down.  If Rover hadn't brought me to her a hawk or coyote or mountain lion would surely have eaten her.  These were no woods for the small or the weak.

Curling Secret into my jerkin I let her nuzzle my neck.  She is frantic to tell me how afraid she was.  Kneeling down I look earnestly to Rover.  He lost his front leg in battle defending his mate, and deserved respect.  “Rover, thank you for your bravery in the rescue of this wonderful Secret.  An extra bone will be in your bowl tonight. ”

We take the long way home.  I love the trails, roots underfoot, creek cold stones under toe.  The sun is just starting to descend over our hill and begin its long trip to the sea below.  I sit Secret on my bed.  She immediately crawls under the cover and falls asleep. 

I look on my bed for the otter book.  But it is gone.  Walking into the living room I see Shaun, she has my book in her hand.

What is my little sister doing with a second grade book?

She sees my face and smiles.  “I borrowed your book.  It’s really great.”

“You read it all?” 

“Yeah, it’s fun.”

“Yeah, it is…”  I take the book and go into my room.  I never open it again.  I hide it under my mattress.  I tell the school librarian I lost it.

Sometimes at night I slip my hand between the mattress and box spring and feel the book’s spine.  The next year I am put into remedial reading.  The next year Woody, the ginger headed teacher will help me.  On the worst of days I will always feel the spine of that book on my fingertip.  But some days I remember Tangle Thistlerod, and his bravery and our friendship.  Some days I remember a three-legged Scottish terrier that saved a kitten.  Some days I remember the smell of dust.

BEST FRIENDS

JOSH STALLINGS ----- Teachers Betty & Betty

Second Grader, 7 years, 7 months, April 26, 1966

California Achievement Test Scores

Reading 2d grade 0 months

Arithmetic 2d grade and five months

Language 2d grade and 0 months

Total battery 2d grade and 2 months

Academic Progress: Josh is his own worst enemy in reading.  He is very tense when he reads out loud to the teacher, and although he often makes correct starts he is so unsure that he will change his mind, trying another sound, and end up garbling the word so badly that he entangles him self even farther, often ending up with a line of words that no where resemble the words on the page.  He seems caught in a web of his own weaving.  He obviously has no confidence in his ability to do well, he seems to compare himself unfavorably to others.

Josh’s vocabulary and understanding of words is above average, often his first stab at words is correct.  If he just would not condemn himself to failure.  He seems to have perception problems, often reversing words and reversing “b” and “d”.  He still has bad days and seems too fatigued to manage more than a page or two, and he reads very slowly.

In math Josh has a good basic understanding of numbers and grasps mathematical operations quickly. But again, as in reading, he seems unable to focus and has done less in his workbook than any other.

The reports from the shop, art and crafts and music teachers all indicated Josh has little  interest in activities, seems to find concentration difficult and has accomplished little.  He seems to be unable to accomplish more because of some kind of fear.

Real progress was made in the area of peer relationships.  Josh is well liked by the girls and accepted by the boys.

With adults many of his problems come to fore.  He often enters school angry and negative threatening the teachers with possible dire acts.  He lapses into baby talk and that goes as the morning proceeds.  And then he ambivalently denies the threats.  He seems to be very unsure about whether or not it is all right to express angry feelings.

I am 50 and stunned.  I don’t know the boy they’re talking about.  But I wonder if they were asking the right questions.  He’s almost eight, what is he so afraid of?  Also, they feel he can’t control his anger, perhaps he is and the small amount that leaks out speaks of a huge iceberg below the surface.  I’m just guessing here.