Gumlog Road

Childhood memories

I read somewhere that your earliest experiences are the things that impact your life the most and that those happenings - good or bad, make up the foundation for your life.  The logical thought process being that good and bad experiences make you who you ultimately are.   Then again even that's not guaranteed.  Good or bad, neither one guarantees that your life will go one way or the other they just serve as the foundation. In the end it's really up to you but that foundation always comes back to work for or against you. 

Now, I don’t know if I agree with that or not but it gave me something to think about. Wouldn’t how you were affected ultimately depend on how you interpreted those experiences? I mean, what’s bad for one person might be next to nothing to someone else and what’s good for you might be the worst thing that could happen to me.  I’ve always assumed that when that book talked about experiences what it really meant was memories.

Now, I don’t know about the rest of you but I can remember a lot of things. I mean things from way, way back to when I was a little kid. I remember the smell of something sweet like flowers always around; wherever I was I smelled it. Even when I dream about those times to this day that smell is there. I remember my sister Marcella talking a mile a minute and struggling to pick me up and balance me on her hip to carry me around. I remember my brother Wes Jr., who we all called Dubb, asking my mother if she needed help with whatever she was doing. I remember him not wanting her to do anything if he could do it for her.

 I remember my sister Toni hardly ever saying anything, just always looking with those big cow eyes of hers all shiny like she had just got through crying except she hadn’t. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember her ever crying even when Mama gave her a whipping. I remember my sister Alesia always getting me in trouble but always being around because we were close to the same age. I remember knowing she was older than me even before I knew she was older than me if that makes any sense. I can even remember when my big brother Errol, the oldest of us all, burned my forehead with a hot spoon giving me the scar I carry to this day. I remember the flash of pain and him trying shush me quiet to get me to stop hollering while Marcella and Dubb yell at him for burning me. I even remember Mama whipping him with a brown extension cord afterwards and him slipping me a Lemmon Head as a peace offering.

I remember a lot but it’s not always that clear. Some of it comes in flashes. Bits and pieces of a whole like parts to a puzzle you find in the bottom of a toy chest or scattered on a kid’s bedroom floor.  I’ve tried to put them all together and form a continuous thread of events but I never can. In the end it’s always like I’m walking down a hallway at night but the light keeps turning on and off. I see just enough not to bump into anything but never enough to know exactly where I am. When I go way back to the beginning it’s always like that except when I think about two things - my mother and my father.

I remember my mother walking into a kitchen and sitting down in a chair. She’s wearing a light blue shirt a dark blue skirt and is carrying the black leather purse we couldn’t go near. She’s talking to someone and asking, “Is he still asleep?” I can’t hear what the other person says but my mother sits down and starts talking. I can see her laughing and, if I focus real hard, can even hear her.  It’s at that point I come from wherever I am; she sees me; and her mouth forms into a big smile. I remember being sleepy and yawning as I walked up to her and I realize I’m the person she asking about. I walk right up to her and drop down and put my head in her lap. I remember feeling so happy and safe and secure at that moment. I remember feeling her fingers going through my hair and her lips on my ear kissing me and telling me it’s time to go home.

That’s my favorite memory. I know it may sound messed up but that’s even higher up than my son being born. Some of you may think that’s selfish and if you do so be it, but I not going to lie about something like that. You shouldn’t ever lie about real things and that moment is real.  The other memory is the only one I have of my father when he was my being my father except I didn’t realize that’s who he was until years later when I heard my sister Toni talking about it. She was there too. As a matter of fact Toni, Alesia and I are all in it.

I remember Mama yelling, “Go on and leave me alone!”  Except she wasn’t really yelling it was more like saying it like she was tired but even that’s not right.  I remember my father standing there in the mortar stained brogan boots and brown thick khaki pants that identify him as a member of the brick laying trade.  He has on a brown shirt that's unbuttoned and I can see a white tee shirt underneath. Why his clothes stand out I don't know but I remember them, especially his shirt. It was ironed really well with the sleeves sticking out liked folded paper. As for the man himself, I remember him staring at my mother.  Looking at her like he can't believe his ears; he doesn't look mad, just surprised.  He looks at her for what feels like a long time with neither of them moving and then, without any warning, he reaches to grab her. I remember mama stepping back and pointing at him with something shiny that made him freeze in mid motion.  

I remember looking at Alesia who was standing next to me.  She’s holding my hand and squeezing it tight, really tight, so tight it hurts.  I remember hearing Toni’s soft voice saying, “Mama...”, like she's getting ready to ask her for something but not really knowing what to ask for. Then I remember my father saying, “Wait a minute Ann…” and I know he's scared.  I can hear it in his voice and see it on his face.   Then a second later something that sounds like firecrackers goes, “Pop! Pop! Pop!” 

My mother is standing there not saying anything, just looking at us with this hard expression on her face.  My ears are hurting from a high pitched sound like a bell.  Alesia's crying and still gripping my hand keeping me from covering my ears while that ringing seems to get louder and louder.  Toni is standing as still as a statue and Mama doesn't move for a long time, she just keeps looking at us her hand still pointing at the spot where my father stood just a moment before.

When I think of those two incidents I'm not surpised by the fact I remember them so well. I mean, how can we have an opinion about what we happen to remember or how well we remember it? What I find odd is that, although I know the incident where my mother shot my father happened first, I remembered the one where she picked me up after getting of work long before the other incident came to mind.  I’ve always wondered why that was.  For some reason I’ve always thought that if I could figure it out it would explain a lot of things to me.  Maybe then I would feel differently about how we all turned out and all the things that happened growing up in that small town, in that housing project and in that apartment on Gumlog Road.

Author's Note

Piece I'm tinkering with looking to expand in to a longer story. Had gotten up to 50 pages until my system crashed and my backup file was corrupted. Would appreciate any and all feedback.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Your memory of early life experiences is similar to my own. It's easy to understand why we remember the tumultuous or horrifying, but not so, the memory of a single smile or a smell. My memory, like yours, goes all the way back. It's good, so I believe, to write about one's past.