Floodgate
Prologue:
My earliest memory was seeing my great grandmother’s brains seeping out of her head and into a large stainless steel mixing bowl.
It happened on the front porch of a distant relative’s farmhouse in rural Southern Idaho. It had been an idyllic afternoon of fresh baked bread with homemade strawberry preserves and horseback riding. The house had that non-descript smell of old people’s sweat soaked into the polyester sofas, mountains of knit blankets, throws, arm covers, doilies, and fake flowers everywhere with just a hint of pig shit wafting from the shag carpet.
Imagine an exterior taken straight from a first grader’s backpack. Square house, yellow siding, triangle roof, red rectangle front door, square windows with a white cross brace. Even a tall, fluffy green tree off to the right. It was raised from ground level at least three or four feet, which made the treacherously steep concrete porch seem like a good idea. Astroturf or no Astroturf.
My great grandfather was a stubborn little man. I have fond memories of being mesmerized by his liver spots. But for some reason he insisted that his wife use him as a steadying force rather than the hand rail down from the porch of doom. She seemed to be progressing nicely, except for the occasional brush slap to keep grandpa’s hands away. But in the tussle she lost her footing, fell back and cracked her head like an egg on the corner of a step.
I remember the few seconds pause while the adults took in the scene, and the sweetly metallic smell of the blood evaporating from the pavement. Then she talked and started sitting up.
Several things happened at once: she looked faint and shuddered, an aunt and a cousin shrieked at the sight of the wound, my mother ran for the phone, my uncle, the always practical farmer, collected the mixing bowl, while grandpa stood in dumbfounded horror. I stared until I thought my eyes would implode.
I remember the discussions about the possibility that the doctors could somehow push the brains back in her head and she’d be right as rain, at least until the paramedics covered her for good.
I’ve always believed that the overwhelming feelings of responsibility were what sent my great grandfather into premature dementia and frailty. But what he didn’t know was that it wasn’t his fault at all.
It was mine.
1.
I was born. Four weeks premature, but I lived.
I remember hearing how the rest of the hospital was a ghost town. Dust collecting in hallways and drinking fountains. The rest of the patients, tenants and workers had been moved to the new hospital across town. If I hadn’t come early, I would have been born there too. Officially the last patient discharged from a small regional hospital. Lucky me.
2.
I grew. Not much, to be sure. Small for my age, until I got old enough to be fat for my age. The coke bottle glasses in the tortoise shell frames, complete with crossbar over the bridge, worn from the first grade on, made me stand out. Quiet and bookish, I kept to myself most of the time.
3.
For the most part, I remember reading or playing quietly in my room. The only punctuation coming when things happened. I suppose I should say “Things” happened. No one else seemed to notice much, and my young mind could barely keep track of what I wanted to be for Halloween, or which toy I wanted for Christmas much of the time. Not really fertile ground for noticing patterns. But patterns there were. And are.
4.
Mostly I recall the large events. Going to preschool and walking in on a teacher diddling one of my classmates. My aunt stopping by with every new beau, only to have them leave her shortly thereafter. A smurf teaching me how to fly and buzzing around the living room. That might have been a dream.
But looking back on it, the same things have been happening all along.
5.
In the small town, on the border between Utah and Idaho, things were fairly quiet, at least back then. The tree lined streets, small local shops run by generations of families, families out smiling and shopping and walking. I remember when we got our first McDonald’s. It opened five blocks north of downtown proper, and everyone thought it was in the boonies.
The only entertainments were the one screen movie theater with the huge and gaudy sign, green casing with orange neon spelling UTAH, surrounded by small flash bulbs. We never got a movie that was newer than last year. That’s the best way to describe the town. Last year.
The farmers still drove their tractors around town. There was the occasional cow running through a drive thru. The blackest people I’d seen ran the Chinese restaurant.
Really, only two things put our little town on the map. A regionally respected cheese factory and being the last outpost of humanity before reaching the wasteland of Idaho. Everyone knew everyone. Shopping was a four hour ordeal, after bumping into everyone from your neighborhood/school/congregation and glad handing all around.
Needless to say, there wasn’t much to do, or see, or say. Long lazy summer days droned into long cold winter nights.
6.
From an early age, I could swim. Like a fish. By age four I could keep up with the best of them.
Almost every afternoon my mother and I would leave our house on the hill, dinner prepared and cooking in silent expectation and drive down the long street. It connected the hill where the University campus and housing gave way to the cemetery and one of the newer, better off neighborhoods in town with the older, rougher neighborhoods at the bottom. Further up the street, on the hill, were the golf course and the Old Money. But where we were, everyone drove fuel efficient economy compacts. Mostly foreign.
The drive would take us past the football stadium across the street from the cemetery. There were real pioneers buried there. Past the rundown houses and brown lawns, some sporting a tireless Firebird, further on past the older of the two elementary schools in town. The playground was fenced, and shared the chicken wire with some small pasture lands, divvied up in years past, and soon to be a strip mall.
Just across from the pastures, barbed wire rusting and weather beaten posts, was the middle school and adjoining public pool. Where we would swim.
7.
On the day in question, I remember arriving at the pool. Running around the edge, too fast, and getting the whistle. I remember looking at a pretty girl chatting up a good looking guy, twisting her hair and playing coy. She took a step back, inching towards the deep end of the pool, and there was just enough water on the deck to make her slip and splash into the pool. Talk about embarrassing.
I remember feeling shy in the locker room, by myself. Pulling down my trunks, all the while trying to cover up my inchworm, trying not to look at the gray matted hairy cocks of the old fat men that seemed just a little too comfortable walking around buck naked in front of a five year old. Toweled off and dressed we began our return journey.
It seems like we would have been listening to James Taylor. Or maybe just the radio. That’s one of the things that has faded with time. I can clearly see the angle of the sun, streaming through the window and causing the water to steam off of my swim trunks. Talking about this and that with my mom. Looking up, I saw a man on a motorcycle. Not a fancy bike, like a Harley or something, but one of those big dirt bikes from the early eighties. Lots of red plastic and power.
He had on a helmet that was much cooler than the bike. Black and shiny with the visor that kept his face obscured. Having never really seen a motorcycle, I asked my mom what it was, and why it didn’t have an enclosed cabin. And why the man was wearing a helmet. As she explained that it was for protection we came to a stoplight next to the man on the bike. I looked at him, and he turned to look at me. Flipped up his visor to smile with a mischievous glint in his eye. He wanted to show off.
The light turned green and he was off like a shot, heading back up the long road, just passing the pasture and the barbed wire. Too fast. Or something broke. His front wheel rapidly shaking underneath him, the panicked arm movements. He veered off to the left, narrowly avoiding our car, cut across traffic and bounced down into the drainage ditch.
It looked like that was going to change his momentum enough to stop him in his tracks. But by some trick of physics and a cruel twist of fate, it actually seemed to propel him forward, ever faster toward the fence behind.
With a twang, the barbed wire snapped back in place, the bike still spinning wheels and sputtering smoke, as the man’s helmet flew into the pasture.
For the longest time, I convinced myself that he walked over, picked it up, put it back in place, and drove off into the sunset. Then I remember staring at the headless body stuck in an endless bloody push up. Wishful thinking, I suppose.
8.
I already told you what happened when I was six. It had very little direct impact on my life. The biggest factor was that I lived in a split level kitty corner to my great grandparents.
I remember standing in the bathroom in the basement, shaving with dad. And snow forts in the backyard, under the droopy trees. Willows weeping, or cherries sagging, who can say. The day my parents brought home our Japanese exchange student, or when I broke the tall drinking glass with my hobby horse, the shards sparkling in the blue shag.
Looking back, they occupied very little of my time. They were already ancient, less mobile. But good to watch me in a pinch. The visits wound round the ribbon candy, that had evaporated any flavor over the years, yup years, it had been sitting there on the table. A fine layer of dust would collect, and I would dust the candy. But every now and then, I would forget and pop one of the little buggers on my tongue.
From where the candy sat, I could go four directions, after I stopped running around in circles. To the display case, with pictures of my grampa in uniform, and medals, and sundry. Just down the stairs was a modest library. Reader’s Digest condensed stuff, mostly. Some war books, with dogfighting airplanes and army men in the rain. Out the back was a little garden, with a little porch, and hanging vidalias and a horseshoe pitch. Upstairs were the bedrooms and bath. Lots of peeing.
I want to tell you stories about hearing stories on grampa’s knee, or baking cookies with grammmama, but they aren’t in there. It could have happened that way. I just can’t say one way or the other. I can say that I felt loved, and that goes a long way.
9.
After the accident, grampa had to go to the home. The Sunshine Daycare. Daycare? Nah, Daydream. The Sunshine Daydream. Lousy bastards. False advertising, if you ask me. At least he Daydream part was accurate.
The first few times we went there, I thought it was a wonderful place. A “Mom, can I live here when I grow up?” place. We went periodically to say hello. When grampa was in the wheelchair, chasing the nurses and talking about life on the farm in the 20’s. Hard life. He was a hard man, so I knew that was true.
We went with a church group to sing and play and entertain at Christmas. Someone made the foyer look like Santa’s Workshop with huge bundles of textile stuffing and construction paper. And each oldie got a Santa hat and a present, some gumming feverishly at the paper. George Romero’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
But after a few more visits, he started to slump a little lower. His tongue started to go black. Then he passed.
10.
Soon, their house was sold. Then ours was, and we moved across town, down to the nicer part of down the hill. Pretty close to the school, and the pool.
To the casual observer, the house was newish. Built in the ‘70s in all its goldenrod and lava rock glory. The real shame was the nice dark hardwood floors that had been covered in carpet. And while we’re on the subject, who GLUES carpet to hardwood? Lousy bastards, that’s who.
Now, in reality, I’m sure it couldn’t have been our first night in the house. And I don’t know if anyone could even clear it up, for certain. But it feels like it had to have been the first night. It all becomes a blur; when did the dancing hot dog wallpaper go in?, when did we finish getting the carpet off the hardwood?, what’s the secret to SPAM Surprise anyway? I guess we’ll never know…
None of that matters, except to the timeline in my head. The fused memories from a place we lived in for less than a year. The school was terrible. The neighbors were boors. What little excitement was leftover from moving in was dashed into a million tiny pieces.
As I ran down the hallway, with the hot dog’s dancing as I went. Naked as a jaybird, possibly in a Superman cape. Footsteps pounding/shuffling on the hardwood/carpet. Not wanting to remove sir’s cape, or have the stingy shampoo, and complaining that the water was too hot as my foot touched the bottom.
My father came bursting into the bathroom shortly after my mother screamed, which was even more shortly after the bathtub, which she was filling for my bath, sank six inches into the floor. Just in time to see the tub, free of its caulky bonds, finish the trip through to the unfinished basement below in a beautiful tsunami of porcelain and Mr. Bubble. Thank Elvis for a mother’s catlike reflexes. In that split second she realized what was happening and yanked me up and out, dangling over the chaos.
