I was sitting in the third row, second seat from the back when she walked through the door. She had short brown hair, wore no-name blue jeans, no-name white tennis shoes, and a brown sweater. She handed the slip of paper to the algebra teacher. The algebra teacher told her to sit in the third seat of the second row. She had freckles dotting her nose and upper cheeks. She had brown eyes and a pretty smile. My heart fell.
Nine months later she invited me to her hosue for the afternoon. She was about to leave - headed back to Brazil with her parents. We played chess. I was a nerdy little kid, I didn't know anything about dames. Afterward, I walked home. I didn't even look back. I should have looked back. My heart fell.
Twenty-seven years later... where is my heart?
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Why I don't have dreams
I lived in a two-story duplex, complete with an unfinished basement. It was a brick house with a concrete porch and a good sized front yard. The backyard, however, was about an acre. The back part was an overgrown blackberry patch. That is where the fort was, right in the middle of the dense entangled blackberries.
I am a four year old. Mommy lets me go to school now. I wanted to last year when we lived in Michigan, but they said I was too young. What do people from Michigan know, anyway, especially Mr. Dill, the principal. Most kids just called him Mr. Pickle, or just plain sour-head.
I like to go to school, but I don't like the teacher. She should be a teacher anyway. If you talk in class she puts tape over your mouth and makes you sit next to her desk. If you lick the tape, though, it won't stick and just falls off. Mrs. marble makes you sit on your hands then with another piece of tape over your mouth. I think she thinks I pull it off when she isn't looking, but, of course, I don't. It is just that it doesn't stick when you lick it.
She yells at me a lot, too. All I did was tell her that the tape fell off, and she yelled at me. Then, she made me go to the office.
I don't like going to the office. "Hurricane Face" is there. The Principal's name is Mrs. weathers, but everybody has their own name for her; mine's "Hurricane Face." She made me go and get her some coffee once. I found some Exlax and put them in with the sugar. She liked the flavor. She said the cafeteria likes mocha, whatever that is.
I like school. I've got lots of friends there. Most of them are black. Most of the neighborhood is black. Most of them don't like my brother, though. I really can't blame them. He is really mean to people. I don't think he likes black people He's always getting into fights with them. One time he pointed his finger at my friend J.J. His name is John John, really, but we call him J.J. for short. Well, Willie stuck out his finger, you know, the middle one, at J.J. and called him a "Niger". J.J. just grabbed his finger, twisted, and broke it. That happened a couple times that year. You'd think he'd learn not to call J.J. that, and not to point his finger at him.
My favorite time at school is recess. Most of the time we would go outside and play kickball. I'm good at kickball. We play that a lot at home, so I'm pretty good at it. I'm not very fast, though. I can kick the ball all the way down the hill, so I have more time to run, which helps. Sometimes, I don't get a very good kick on the ball, and I get thrown out, sometimes.
Sometimes during recess I don't play kickball. I sit by the tree and talk to my friend. His name is Tim. He's really in Second grade, but he comes out when we do. We talk about all kind of things. We talk about climbing the wall and getting on top of the building. We also talk about how come Willie has a broken finger. Sometimes, we just sit under the tree and watch the girls jump rope.
"See, see my playmate, why don't you come out and play with me?"
Pretty stupid song, but they sing it every day anyway.
At the back of the playground there is a sink-hole. It's fenced in so nobody goes down there, except my brother. He goes lots of places he's not supposed to. At the bottom there's a car. I guess nobody wanted it anymore, so they drove it into the hole and left it. Willie says there's other things in there too, but I'm not gonna' find out what.
After school I walk home with one of my friends. Mom's never there when we get home, just the babysitter. Mom's at work, but she comes home at night. Most of the time I do my homework before she gets home. It's not hard, so I get bored and I don't do it. Then the teacher makes me sit next to her desk because I didn't do my homework. If she would give us something fun, I might do it.
Next I would change clothes and go outside and play. I run to the back yard. I would crawl through the blackberry bushes until I came to The Fort. The Fort consisted of a bare patch of dirt covered by a piece of plywood. The bushes were so think that they supported the wood really well.
The Fort was where I really enjoyed to be. There, I had no brother sticking his fingers at my friends and calling them names, or a teacher telling me to sit on my hands. There I could be whatever I wanted; a cowboy, an indian, the captain of a spaceship to mars, or even Mohammad Ali.
One time, when I was going back to The Fort so that I could go to Mars. I found a really big spider. It had built a web across the path I had to travel. It was a large black spider about the size of a pop can. It had yellow spots on it, and it sat in the middle of its web. I was unsure what to do with this intruder on MY spaceship. Finally, I backed out of the path the way I had come in. I looked around and found a big stick, three or four feet long, I'd guess. I slowly crawled back through the blackberries where I had been a minute before. I took the stick and started to make a circle through the web. The spider didn't move. When I got about half of the circle "cut out" of the web, the spider jumped, no flew toward the blackberries. It ran away so fast I couldn't even catch it.
The only problem with the whole incident was that it scared me. I had nightmares for weeks about giant spiders coming to get me. One time I had a nightmare about a spider that had jumped on top of me and was squishing me to death. In a sudden panic I opened my eyes, lifted my head and screamed. I never told my mom the real reason why I screamed, because my brother's bunk-bed had fallen on me and was squishing me to death. I was so glad that it was only a bed on top of me instead of that giant black and yellow spider. I don't think I can remember more than a dozen or so dreams since that time. I wonder if there is any connection.
I am a four year old. Mommy lets me go to school now. I wanted to last year when we lived in Michigan, but they said I was too young. What do people from Michigan know, anyway, especially Mr. Dill, the principal. Most kids just called him Mr. Pickle, or just plain sour-head.
I like to go to school, but I don't like the teacher. She should be a teacher anyway. If you talk in class she puts tape over your mouth and makes you sit next to her desk. If you lick the tape, though, it won't stick and just falls off. Mrs. marble makes you sit on your hands then with another piece of tape over your mouth. I think she thinks I pull it off when she isn't looking, but, of course, I don't. It is just that it doesn't stick when you lick it.
She yells at me a lot, too. All I did was tell her that the tape fell off, and she yelled at me. Then, she made me go to the office.
I don't like going to the office. "Hurricane Face" is there. The Principal's name is Mrs. weathers, but everybody has their own name for her; mine's "Hurricane Face." She made me go and get her some coffee once. I found some Exlax and put them in with the sugar. She liked the flavor. She said the cafeteria likes mocha, whatever that is.
I like school. I've got lots of friends there. Most of them are black. Most of the neighborhood is black. Most of them don't like my brother, though. I really can't blame them. He is really mean to people. I don't think he likes black people He's always getting into fights with them. One time he pointed his finger at my friend J.J. His name is John John, really, but we call him J.J. for short. Well, Willie stuck out his finger, you know, the middle one, at J.J. and called him a "Niger". J.J. just grabbed his finger, twisted, and broke it. That happened a couple times that year. You'd think he'd learn not to call J.J. that, and not to point his finger at him.
My favorite time at school is recess. Most of the time we would go outside and play kickball. I'm good at kickball. We play that a lot at home, so I'm pretty good at it. I'm not very fast, though. I can kick the ball all the way down the hill, so I have more time to run, which helps. Sometimes, I don't get a very good kick on the ball, and I get thrown out, sometimes.
Sometimes during recess I don't play kickball. I sit by the tree and talk to my friend. His name is Tim. He's really in Second grade, but he comes out when we do. We talk about all kind of things. We talk about climbing the wall and getting on top of the building. We also talk about how come Willie has a broken finger. Sometimes, we just sit under the tree and watch the girls jump rope.
"See, see my playmate, why don't you come out and play with me?"
Pretty stupid song, but they sing it every day anyway.
At the back of the playground there is a sink-hole. It's fenced in so nobody goes down there, except my brother. He goes lots of places he's not supposed to. At the bottom there's a car. I guess nobody wanted it anymore, so they drove it into the hole and left it. Willie says there's other things in there too, but I'm not gonna' find out what.
After school I walk home with one of my friends. Mom's never there when we get home, just the babysitter. Mom's at work, but she comes home at night. Most of the time I do my homework before she gets home. It's not hard, so I get bored and I don't do it. Then the teacher makes me sit next to her desk because I didn't do my homework. If she would give us something fun, I might do it.
Next I would change clothes and go outside and play. I run to the back yard. I would crawl through the blackberry bushes until I came to The Fort. The Fort consisted of a bare patch of dirt covered by a piece of plywood. The bushes were so think that they supported the wood really well.
The Fort was where I really enjoyed to be. There, I had no brother sticking his fingers at my friends and calling them names, or a teacher telling me to sit on my hands. There I could be whatever I wanted; a cowboy, an indian, the captain of a spaceship to mars, or even Mohammad Ali.
One time, when I was going back to The Fort so that I could go to Mars. I found a really big spider. It had built a web across the path I had to travel. It was a large black spider about the size of a pop can. It had yellow spots on it, and it sat in the middle of its web. I was unsure what to do with this intruder on MY spaceship. Finally, I backed out of the path the way I had come in. I looked around and found a big stick, three or four feet long, I'd guess. I slowly crawled back through the blackberries where I had been a minute before. I took the stick and started to make a circle through the web. The spider didn't move. When I got about half of the circle "cut out" of the web, the spider jumped, no flew toward the blackberries. It ran away so fast I couldn't even catch it.
The only problem with the whole incident was that it scared me. I had nightmares for weeks about giant spiders coming to get me. One time I had a nightmare about a spider that had jumped on top of me and was squishing me to death. In a sudden panic I opened my eyes, lifted my head and screamed. I never told my mom the real reason why I screamed, because my brother's bunk-bed had fallen on me and was squishing me to death. I was so glad that it was only a bed on top of me instead of that giant black and yellow spider. I don't think I can remember more than a dozen or so dreams since that time. I wonder if there is any connection.
Tears
Slowly Rebecca walked through the light rain early in the evening. Although it was after dusk, she could still see everything in the city because of the street lights that endlessly seemed to shine their cold light down on the streets of Manhattan.
Normally the street would be littered with youth, but not tonight. Normally, she would have taken a taxi home, but not tonight. No. Today, she was not in a hurry to get anywhere. A tear fell from her cheek, but no one would have noticed even if it wasn't raining. No one was around.
Slowly she climbed the concrete stairs toward her little apartment. She didn't even bother to look up. She didn't need to. She knew every nook and cranny in these old cold steps better than she knew the back of her own hand. Today, though, there seemed to be a few more cracks, a few more lines. She rummaged through her purse for the key. Finding it, she opened the door. No need to turn on the ling, she thought. She knew the way to her bedroom. She needed no light to walk that well that well beaten path.
As she walked to the middle of the room, she thought she heard a noise in the kitchen. She started to walk that way when the lights came suddenly on to reveal a large room full of people and decorations, and not more than three feet away, a three layered cake.
"Surprise!" came a sudden roar all around her.
Another tear fell from her cheek.
Normally the street would be littered with youth, but not tonight. Normally, she would have taken a taxi home, but not tonight. No. Today, she was not in a hurry to get anywhere. A tear fell from her cheek, but no one would have noticed even if it wasn't raining. No one was around.
Slowly she climbed the concrete stairs toward her little apartment. She didn't even bother to look up. She didn't need to. She knew every nook and cranny in these old cold steps better than she knew the back of her own hand. Today, though, there seemed to be a few more cracks, a few more lines. She rummaged through her purse for the key. Finding it, she opened the door. No need to turn on the ling, she thought. She knew the way to her bedroom. She needed no light to walk that well that well beaten path.
As she walked to the middle of the room, she thought she heard a noise in the kitchen. She started to walk that way when the lights came suddenly on to reveal a large room full of people and decorations, and not more than three feet away, a three layered cake.
"Surprise!" came a sudden roar all around her.
Another tear fell from her cheek.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Eulogy for Sue, the family dog
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that long evening we spent together last night. It almost seemed like we both blonged there, together. Just the two of us, alone, with the snow lightly falling on the rooftop overhead, while the two of us sat alone, most of the time without a single word being uttered. You had originally entered the room with your wet hair draped upon your shoulders but now almost dry. Your beautiful brown eyes looked over at me, with a look as if to speak, but no, you kept silent. I could tell you were cold, but I didn't feel it appropriate to offer you my coat, although I should have. I was busy with my work, most of the time not even paying attention to you, oh, but now I pay attention. Now I focus all of my attention on your face, your body, your spirit. You sat there occassionally taking a drink. I know, out of love, you offered some to me, but no, I would not. I could not.
Now, I look back at the moment with some sense of disbelief. A sense of wonder of how two creatures created by God could love each other as we did, and to look at us now. I admit it is sad to think of it all, but I realize that it must be thought of. The memory must not die within me. Today, that night lives within me forever.
Now, I look back at the moment with some sense of disbelief. A sense of wonder of how two creatures created by God could love each other as we did, and to look at us now. I admit it is sad to think of it all, but I realize that it must be thought of. The memory must not die within me. Today, that night lives within me forever.
Love, American Style
Slowly, he ran his long bony fingers through her silky brown hair. She looked up at him with a look he knew all too well; one of pleasure and delight. They stared into each other's eyes for several moments, or possibly minutes; in the mood they both were in, time was of no relevence. He looked into her beautiful brown eyes and saw the love he knew only she could give him. Still looking up, she slanted her head slightly, looked deeply into his eyes, and with a deep breathe she said to him, "bark, bark!"
I chose this template
I chose this template because it reminded me of Converse tennis shoes. I don't know about you, but when I was growing up on the less than rich side of town, my mom bought me converse for school. We got one pair a year each, so it was important for us to take care of them. I remember the star on my ankle. Go Converse - and go blog!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
My first posting - sort of a "well here it is"
I decided to have a blog where I write. Some of the material will be my opinion, some of the material will be contrary to my opinion. Please don't think that because I write it here it is what I believe. It is an experiment in writing, not a forum for some view.
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