Sandman

The only memory I have of kindergarten is when I brought one of my brother Brian’s Star Wars figures to school. Honestly, it’s my only memory.

It was one of the Sand People, who likely had a weird Star Wars name,

like - Gwan Kantankerin.

But maybe he was just a generic Sand Guy.

Or Sand Gal?

Can we apply a “they” in this case?

It could have been a Jawa.

I don’t really remember; I was a child.

I ended up burying this action figure in the corner of the sand box.

I found the perfect spot for him to hide.

Dug a hole and put him inside.

My plan was to hide him until the following day and then dig him up.

Half days of kindergarten in those days.

I didn’t ask Brian if I could borrow the guy.

Gwan wasn’t there the next day.

Some other kid got a free Star Wars toy.

He was taken to a different home to battle their Star Wars crew.

My brother was annoyed I took Gwan and then lost him.

I wonder if he has forgiven me?

I wonder if he still remembers?

Maybe I should buy one off eBay for $80.

Give my brother back a Gwan, though, not the Gwan.

I don’t like the sound of that.

One last thing:

Yes, I know the Star Wars figure I am telling the story about is actually

a Tusken Raider, don’t be an asshole.

 A Christmas Tale, Plus Some

It’s Christmas evening, and I am reminded of something that happened many years ago, when I was a child. I was maybe six at the time, because my parents were still married. Brian had royally pissed off my father and consequently had all his Christmas presents taken away—shoved into a garbage bag and placed on the highest shelf in the garage.

This story got me thinking about some other knee-jerk reactions I have observed in my life, one of which happened in high school. It was on the day of an exam in biology class. The teacher was out for the day, so the assistant principal was sitting in for her. He and I had had a few run-ins in the past, so what went down was hardly a surprise.

We were in the middle of the exam when a friend who was sitting next to me did something to make me let out a faint chuckle. The assistant principal called my name and told me to turn in my test because I was done. I did what I was told and went back to my seat. I got a “what the hell happened” look from my friend; my response was a shrug. Before I could give it any more thought though, I was kicked out of class and the assistant principal told me to go down to his office and wait for him. When he finally showed up, he just sent me on to my next class. Something like this would have never happened if I had just continued to skip school. I began to think a dark cloud was following me around.

When my biology teacher returned, I explained what had happened, and the people who sat near me assured her I had done nothing wrong. She let me finish my exam. An F-U to the man, I guess. In a funny coincidence, I ended up spending some time with this man years later and was forced to call him by his first name, instead of Mr. Assistant Principal Sir; he was dating my first wife’s mother. He actually gave us a very nice wedding gift. I should have called it even, but I couldn’t; my grudge couldn’t be stifled for a $500 check.

So, back to Christmas, since that was the original point. My brother did eventually get his gifts back. My father was the knee-jerk reactionary type, and thankfully my mother hated him, so she usually tried to undo his consequences, which were too swift and the kind that sometimes-caused physical pain. That, she couldn’t undo.

That was the kind of stuff that happened in my house; that was the kind of stuff that happened in school. In these circumstances, I don’t know if the punishment was deserved, or not. When the indiscriminate consequence wheel is spun, sometimes it lands on your name and sometimes it doesn’t.        

“Mom, Have You Seen My Bike?”

I was twenty-one and living in Boulder, CO. The night was just beginning, and the double date was too. My roommate Adam was talking about who knows what, when he launched into a story from my childhood. He was on a first date with his girl, while I was several in with Valerie, a girl I met through a mutual friend. Valerie was originally from Boulder but went to school at Wake Forest back east. She had come home to Boulder for the summer, and we hit it off right away. She’s too smart for me, and while I love to listen to her spit out the medical jargon she was studying, I was out of my league.

Adam began to haul me kicking and screaming into his “getting to know you” part of the date. He turned to me and said, “Brad has this great story about his dad selling his bike when he was a kid.” While this essentially told the whole story in one sentence, it also tended to provoke a sympathetic response from the listeners. I guess I would take what I could get at this point. I took his bait, took a somber tone, and went:

When I was around seven my friends and I were chatting on the bus home from school. We had some big plans, bike riding. What else is there really for seven-year-old boys besides throwing rocks at shit and riding bikes around? After hopping off the bus at the entrance to the neighborhood, we each headed home to get our bikes and were going to meet back up at the end of the boulevard.

There was a problem, though—dammit if I couldn’t find my bike. I checked the garage, no bike. Checked the back porch, no bike. Back to the garage to check every nook and cranny, no bike. I headed into the house to ask my mother if she had seen it, thinking it must be somewhere. “Bad news,” she tells me, “your dad sold it.”

“Wait, Dad sold my bike?” I exclaim. That is a hard thing to comprehend when you’re a child. Not sure I can comprehend it now. What kid doesn’t have a bike? Or, more importantly, what kid has a bike, which is then sold by their parent, leaving them with nothing?

This, of all the things my roommate could bring up to talk about. How was this good date conversation? Maybe he was secretly using it as a dating sociopath meter? I honestly never understood, and I am pretty sure this wasn’t the last time he did this to me. For those like Adam who grow up in happy, stable homes, the inverse must come off as entertaining. Put a quarter in the slot and the sad monkey will perform. 

Sorry About the Door

You told me I was too small for the tractor.

And perhaps my age should have been a factor.

You ignored all my requests,

until you finally said “yes.”

It was a little scary to drive.

I might not make it out alive.

I did not really want to mow,

just to drive it round back, nice and slow.

As I pulled up to the porch,

I had it lined up, of sorts.

I stopped on the slab, a huzzah was in store.

Then I let my foot off the brake and I crashed through the door.

On Thin Ice

Growing up, I had a neighborhood friend named Ronnie Maddox. He lived a few houses down from me, and while I would have never called him my best friend, we would hang out from time to time and always got on well.

When we were teenagers, he ended up being the guy who would show up at our party only after everyone else had gone home. In Ronnie would stroll, with a cigarette in one hand and Jack Daniels in the other. While we were cleaning up, he would just be getting going. He was soft spoken, yet visceral, which made him seem a little unpredictable even to me, and we had spent a lot of time together since childhood. He seemed pretty hardcore to the guys who didn’t know him. How many teenagers just wander into a party at 3 a.m. and are ready to throw-down like a Japanese businessman?  

As children, we played outside a lot. Our neighborhood was outside of town and adjacent to a large wooded area. We had hundreds of acres to explore, and we tried hard to explore every part of it.

One winter, we were out exploring, and while making our way back home we found ourselves needing to cross a creek, or two.

We were crossing a small creek that was frozen over. This was something we’d done so many times. and it seemed harmless enough. What happened next taught me a life lesson, and gave me nightmares for decades.

Ronnie was crossing the creek first—he put one foot onto the ice and plunged straight down. One second, he was there; then, nothing. It felt like time stopped. My memory has me remembering it like a magician’s trick—there was the slight pause built in for dramatic affect after the initial disappearing. Or maybe it was like throwing a child’s toy in the bathtub, how it goes under for just a fraction of a second and then it’s back to the surface.

After he came back to the surface, I remember helping him out and running like hell home. Today, I can still feel the terror. My daughter knows this story well, because it gets repeated every winter, as well as whenever we’re near any frozen water that isn’t going into my cocktail.

“Remember that story I told you about Ronnie Maddox?” I always say.

“Is that the one about your friend falling through the ice?” she’ll reply.             

After I roll my eyes at her, she usually says, “Tell me again, Dad.”