San Jose. Bluebell Avenue. 1971.

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.