The wind is
whipping through my short blond hair. This has to be the fastest I’ve ever gone
and I feel powerful as my bare legs pump the pedals of the Big Wheel just to
the edge of losing control. The summer sun is rising fast this morning,
promising to darken my bronze skin even more. I’m aware of these things
peripherally as my focus is on the sounds of laughter down the block.
I’m riding the
three-wheeler like I stole it because I did. It belongs to my older brother,
Tim. He’s one of those laughing voices I hear at the end of the street. My
sisters are up there too, they have to be. Tim is 10-years-old; he’s the
oldest, but he’s following them because they’re riding with the girl who lives
across the street from us. Yvonne or Yvette or something I can’t quite
remember, but Tim has a crush on her and has been following the girls around
like a lost puppy.
The fat, plastic
tires on the back of the Big Wheel sound like sand paper on the concrete
sidewalk, so I don’t notice at first that Tim and my two older sisters, Cindy
and Pam, have turned around and are now heading back my way. In a panic, I break hard, turn around, and
peddle faster back towards home.
I don’t get far
before Tim sees me on his Big Wheel. Enraged, he cuts me off on his bike. I try
to dodge going up on a neighbor’s lawn, but this just makes it easier for him
to drop his bike and yank me off the Big Wheel.
Lying on the grass, Tim on top of me, he punches me a few times which I try to block with my arms. Cindy and Pam come to my rescue. I knew they would. This
isn’t my first Grand Theft Big Wheel.
Mom is at the door
by the time we get to the edge of our yard. Danny, the baby, in her arms. My
crying and Tim’s shouting must have drawn her out. What are you kids fighting about now?
JackstolemyBigWheel!
Hekeepstakingmystuff! Tim spits out.
Whoa, slow down.
Why’s Jack crying?
He STOLE my stuff!
Tim shouts, but slower and more clearly, arms waving around like a mad-man,
which, except for his age, he kinda is right now.
So? He's littler
than you. You didn’t hafta hit him.
Turning to me, And you! You can’t keep taking his Big Wheel. It's not yours. You need to learn to ask.
Mom makes me come
inside, just to keep Tim from attacking me again, but I see it as I’m being
punished. I have to be quite though because my father is still sleeping. He
gets up about noon, has lunch with us when we’re not in school, then goes to work
the swing shift at the General Motors plant in Fremont.
In a few minutes, I’ve
forgotten about Tim and his Big Wheel. Mom wants me to keep an eye on Danny
while she gets dad’s dinner packed for when he goes to work.
Later that night
laying in bed, I look at the bruise on my arm from where Tim hit me and poke it
a couple of time to see if it hurts, before I curl up under a sheet. I fall
asleep almost immediately, a smile on my face because I know I get to do it all
over again tomorrow.
Next door to us
was an older couple. The Johnson’s were retired. If they had children, they were older and
gone, but I never saw them so I can’t say for sure. They had a fence around
their front yard which came up to my shoulders. I never was quite sure if the
fence was to keep us out, or their little dog in.
The dog was
terrier or something like it.
Smallish. Yappy. Liked to jump and bark and bark while
jumping. I know this because I often ran past the fence taunting the dog. Sometimes, I’d ride the stolen Big Wheel back
and forth until Mrs. Johnson came out and chastised me for teasing the
dog. Her bark wasn’t any worse than the
dogs, but it was one that got my mom’s attention and often got me sent to my
room. It took lots of practice, but I
think I eventually found the right amount of teasing that would leave the dog
hoarse and not get the attention of Mrs. Johnson.
Fall in San Jose
was magical when I was a kid. The days
were long and hot. This was all pre-drought and we’d often get late summer
thunder storms. I was always fascinated
with thunder storms. I could sit all night watching the lightening dance across
the sky, followed by thunderous applause, the smell of the rain. It was
fireworks when we were poor– a free light show, a delight to the senses.
San Jose was still
the Valley of Heart’s Delight. There
were orchards and fruit trees all over the place. In our back yard we had a
cherry tree. The neighbors had peaches.
After we’d run ourselves tired most of the morning, we’d sit with other
neighborhood kids and eat cherries and see who could spit the seeds the
farthest. And the peaches… taking that
first bite into a ripe peach, juice dripping off our chins and down our arms. We
didn’t have enemies. Tim wasn’t mad at me. Nobody had complaints. We were just
a bunch of kids laughing and eating delicious fruit. Bath was immediately after at the end of a
hose and not a one of us was upset about “bath time.”
Sunday nights were
some of my favorite times during the school year. After a weekend playing with
my siblings, we got to curl up on the couch and watch Disney movies on T.V. Even
our father was around at this time. Normally he would be working the graveyard
shift at the GM plant in Fremont, but not on Sunday nights. He would sit with
us quietly, drinking beer or wine or… something else until he dozed off,
snoring. Truth be told, after a long day playing, I wasn’t good for a long
night either.
This night, he
didn’t doze. Or, if he did, it wasn’t long. He woke long enough to tell us all
to go to bed as we had school in the morning.
I knew I didn’t have school, so I thought I was exempt. I went and
grabbed a pillow and padded back into the living room hoping to watch the rest
of the movie.
“What are you
doing?” My father stopped me from getting back on the couch. I just stared at him, hoping he would let me
stay. “I told you to go to bed.” Again I said nothing, not sure that I could
ask for what I wanted and not sure that he would acquiesce to my silent
pleading.
Anger spread
across his face in a flash and before I could react, he kicked out at me. My
five-year-old body flew backward, crashing into a wall face first. In the
hospital later, getting stitches in my face, my injury was explained away as
childhood exuberance.
This was the
nature of my father that I was too young to understand: gone most nights
working; sleeping most of the morning; drunk most of the rest of the time.
