kingtycoon | Highs and Lows of Childood (Reply)

aslant Says jump and I say - well, when I get around to it.

Her 5th question for me was what are the highs and lows of your young life. So. I had a job when I was 12 and had to fire someone when I was 14 and when I was 16 I evicted tennants. What I mean is - when you say young life I think age 10 and lower pretty much. I just assume the reference is to childhood - so that's where I'm going.

When I was born there was a lady next door who my mother pushed me off on - because she was terrified of having a baby, knew not at all what to do & had no nearby family to rely on. My father's family was likewise distant and this very nice lady was nearby - offering to babysit. So I don't have a solid recollection of when Grandma Evelyn came into my life, she was always there - and after a while I went with her every single weekend. We had a great rapport - a wonderful relationship. She took me all the places, always was patient & sweet. Her husband Jimmy was really cool to me too - always making me like, action-figure houses in his shop.

Jimmy was from the mountains outside Chatanooga - he came to Cleveland to work at the Mill where he was a shop steward in the Pipefitters local. Evelyn was from the mountains of western North Carolina - she came to Cleveland to work. She handed out pay envelopes at the mill & that's how she met Jimmy. She'd already had a son & had to go back to North Carolina to get him from her mother here and there. One night she got in trouble for speeding somewhere in Virginia - she drove so fast that they arrested her. She didn't know what else to do so she called this man Jimmy she sometimes dated (she was very, very pretty and very, very sweet, there were a lot of people she could date). Jim Smith hopped in his Monte Carlo and drove straight there to get her out of jail. And then drove hom to go to work. After that they were sure to be married. He had a house on Buddulph in brooklyn & she and her son moved there and they were together. When I was born her son was in the Air Force - and maybe she missed having a boy around, and maybe she missed having a baby around since she'd had to leave hers behind a little for work. Whatever the reason - she really loved me -and I came into conciousness with her in my life and I really loved her.

I never did get there with my parents. They'd made the yuppy decision to have children. Thinking they'd be a kind of ornament. Well, I say they - but I mean my Mother. My father, stubborn, proud and titanic in his way does what she wants without fail - so when she realized she needed children to be like her sisters - he had to go along. So I was born. If you have babies you know - it's kind of not at all fun. It kind of sucks. It sucks in a way that you really miss - as time goes by.

My neighbors had their baby over the weekend - just born. I held him a littlle and was sweet - and like a tiny baby. Baby Jimmy - just born. His older sister Evelyn 3 years old and a hurricane is on hand to demand attention through all the worst behaviors. It's sweet to see a family and all - but it's hard to see what's nice about their hard, hard situation. But still - after a few hours of infants a& angry toddlers I can't stop telling Agatha about what it was like when she was just small, when she just began. I get a little weepy considering it.

So an older lady would think with fondness of an infant - while a more youthful couple would regard this all with sudden dawning dread. An arrangement came about where I stayed with Evelyn every weekend. Until I was 8 years old.

My brother and sister - I should mention - they didn't go along. Evelyn and Jimmy are sweet, kind people - they wouldn't turn them away or anything - but we had a thing between us that was not to be replicated and which was special.

So lowest point - I am 8 years old and my grandparents retire - they move away back to Tennessee. I went from every weekend to one week a year. And in that time - a lot of fucked up things were happening. I think I changed schools 4 times? Different neighborhoods & different kids. I started really fucking up at getting along with others and was just failing at functioning properly. In the end I probably never recovered. I still have hangups about people leaving me to pursue their own agendas - I still realize that people will put themselves ahead of me - and I still take that as an insult. I don't know - I'm messed up about it still - I hate thinking about it.

It's only worse how things are now though. I shouldn't get into this here. I owe her a letter, I at least need to point out to her how funny it is my neighbors unknowingly named their children Evelyn and Jimmy - just like her.

Best thing in Childhood is probably the year or two I lived in Seven Hills - a middle-ring suburb of Cleveland. Mid-Century style housing development - split levels & a community pool. I knew a lot of kids in the neighborhood - knew their dogs, rode bikes everywhere, hung out in the woods & had crews of people to be friends with & be enemies with. I saw my first fistfight at the bus stop between the older kids down by the brick edifice that marked the entry to our neighborhood. It was faintly idyllic - those years, I have no bad thoughts of those days.