Under the Lamppost

Where the Sunbeams End: Chapter 1

Photo by Landon Martin on Unsplash

                                                                        

It’s funny, the things we remember.  The lessons learned and then forgotten.  Each memory like that single drop of water falling from the faucet of the bathtub.  

I  was sitting in the bath, my mother had just shut off the tap, but there were still a few drops left in the spout.  The final drips were thunderous in the suddenly quiet bathroom.  She slowly closed the door, leaving me to play for a few more minutes before returning to wash my hair.  My Batman action figure dropped through the depths of the soapy water.  I picked up the t-shaped piece of plastic sitting on the edge of the tub.  Imagining myself much older, I began stroking my upper lip with the razor.  Confusion swiftly drenched me when the white soapy water below mixed with burgundy.  I lowered the razor and gaped at the blade.  Where was the cap?  I was amazed that I hadn’t felt pain as I sliced off thin layers of skin from the top of my mouth.  I can’t recall my mother’s reaction, but I can imagine she felt the same sort of guilt I would later identify with.    

I plucked at the scab as it healed and didn’t know what to say when grownups would enquire about my wound.  I was acutely aware of my appearance for the first time.  Not unlike the gashes on my lip, this memory doesn’t run deep.  Yet it’s there, one drop of many, that I can pull back out of the ocean and gaze at for a while.

            

                                                                        ~~~

It was in that section of trees that separated one side of the parking lot from the other. The neighborhood gang of children made every inch of grass theirs.   We would congregate wherever the wind would push us that day.  Except of course for the lawns of the folks who didn’t have kids of their own.  We felt the dwellers of those lonely households were strange and cruel. 

This small divide in the center of the parking lot was a lively place full of good sticks, dropped from branches of the towering pine trees.  We got excited when we would happen upon a good stick in which we could poke around with or even turn into a sword for battling the demons of our imaginations.  A tall lamppost stood at the edge of the circle where the grass fell away to the curb.  For us it served as an alarm clock.  The light came on and everyone knew it was time to meander on home before mom or dad came calling.  

R.J. was one of the youngest boys in the neighborhood along with my brother Raymond.  These two weren’t really part of the gang due to their age.  R.J. was sort of a crazy or overly hyper child who didn’t quite fit in, although my younger brother attempted to make good friends with him.  R.J. lived with his grandmother who owned a small mangy dog who would often have shit stuck to small ringlets of fur on his back end.  The grandmother was a quite scary figure with short curly hair, a mean face, plump figure, and a shrill voice that she used often.  Most of the time screaming for R.J. to come home from her doorstep.  It was this woman’s shriek almost every night that would also remind us that soon the darkness would be upon us, and we would have to get home.  

The other boy and I were near the lamppost.  I remember the exchange of a couple sentences.  

“Santa’s not real, you know,” the boy told me.  

“Yeah, I know that,” I lied.  

It wasn’t even close to Christmas, so Santa wasn’t at the forefront of my mind, but nothing prepares a child for the death of a beloved saint.  It was blasphemy.  What made it worse was the fact that I knew I couldn’t tell anyone close to me.  I was a big brother.  It was my duty to protect Ray’s innocence as long as I could, and I dared not ask my parents about it due to fear that my haul of gifts would shrink.  I tried to hide my dismay, but I could see in the boy’s eyes that he was pleased.  He found someone to dump this secret on just as it had probably been dumped on him.  He had got what he wanted and soon drifted off, leaving me to my misery.  My thoughts continued to race. Maybe he didn’t know what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter.  The doubt that now filled my mind was enough to kill off the Santa I once knew.  

I staggered beneath the trees on that little stretch of earth and stumbled upon a small piece of timber.  Upon closer examination I noticed a nail pushed through one side and out the other.  I kicked the board around with my foot, being careful not to catch the nail as I continued to contemplate Santa and the coming Christmas.  What other secrets was I unaware of? 

I slowly made my way out from beneath the trees, across the blacktop, then climbed the hill of our front yard rather than taking the steps to my left.  The world took on new color as I made my way to the front door; the lamppost had yet to flash on.  

It was only a townhouse.  Very similar to most of the other houses in the neighborhood, but even today I have yet to find a place where I felt so at peace.  It was home.  The front door opened directly into the living room with a staircase to your left leading up.  I can still remember sitting on the bottom step learning to tie my shoelaces. 

The place was three floors and covered with carpet, except for the kitchen and basement which were slick linoleum.  In just my socks, I’d get a running start and jump from the living room into the kitchen; landing on the well swept floor and sliding a few feet, all for a bit of fun.  

The living room had a decent sized fish tank against the left wall below the stairs, and to the right there were two brown couches with a glass coffee table in between.  Against the right wall was a hutch with a turntable on top, along with other stereo equipment connected to large speakers on the floor.  My father would boom a variety of music out of these speakers on the weekends and I would let my imagination drift to the sound of the lyrics.  Music by artists such as Pink Floyd, Todd Rundgren, and Peter Gabriel.  

Upstairs there was a bedroom for my brother and I to the left, my parents’ bedroom to the right, and straight ahead after climbing the stairs was a bathroom.  There was another room adjacent to mine which my father turned into a kind of office or study.  A small chamber stuffed with books, artwork, and more of my father’s albums.  There was just enough room for a couple chairs and a desk. 

I sat in the study with my father as he read aloud from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  A wooden pipe hung from his mouth as he read, and the pleasant smoke drifted throughout the room.  I often wonder if it wasn’t the smell of the burning Cavendish which enables me to remember my father so vividly as he spoke of Jim and Huck’s adventures down the river. 

A doorway near the threshold between the kitchen and the living room led to the basement.  Rushing down this steep stairway had resulted in quite a few adrenaline filled falls.  Turning left at the bottom of the staircase brought you into a short hallway with the unfinished laundry room off to the right and our toy closet further down to the left beneath the stairs.  The hallway then opened into what functioned as our T.V. room with a couple uniquely gold-colored couches.  I can still feel and smell the velvety fabric.  On the weekends, I’d often wake before everyone else and quietly tiptoe to the basement where I’d drift off into the world of Robin Hood or Batman brought to life on the screen.  

At the right corner of the room was the back door leading out onto a small brick patio my father and uncle had put in.  The backyards of the townhouses led out into a larger field which turned into undeveloped land, or as I knew it, the woods.  My father would take me and our dog Rundgren on adventures through the woods, which I pictured as a dense forest where Robin Hood and his merry men lived.  I imagine you can guess who my father’s favorite musician is by now.  Rundgren was black all over except for a drawn-out patch of white on his chest.  He had only one eye, but that didn’t stop him from snatching a Frisbee out of midair.  He was a good friend.  The first friend who I could trust completely.  He never had a foul word to say, and he always listened.   

I was a bit downhearted after losing Santa, so the next day I stayed in, probably playing with my action figures, or numbing the pain with cartoons.  Honestly, I don’t remember what I was up to when I heard my brother's screams.  

“Raymond! Raymond! What’s wrong? What happened?”  My mother shouted.  

“Mom, what's wrong with Ray?” I muttered as my brother limped through the front door. 

Ray was beyond words and tears dripped steadily down his cheeks.  Mom embraced him and carried him over to the couch.    

“Did you fall down?”

His cries continued, but between wails he managed, “My Foooouut!” Hysterically pointing to his left foot.  She quickly but carefully began untying his laces before slipping off his sneaker.  The blood streamed onto the carpet below.  She did well to shield my brother’s view and contain her own emotions as he continued to cry, albeit at slower intervals.  I stood in awe as she peeled off his sock revealing a small puncture wound in the arch of his foot.  My heart sank as my mind raced back to yesterday afternoon.  I bolted upstairs to my room and flopped down on my bed, burying my face in the pillow.  

My mind couldn’t contain itself.  Guilt rushed over me.  It was surely an accident, but I couldn’t ignore the image of my brother stomping down on the board with the nail through it, while innocently playing with R.J. under the trees where the good sticks lay.  Hadn’t I pushed away a thought as I kicked the small board?  Yes, it had briefly risen to the surface of my mind, but I was too concerned with Santa to pay it any interest.  Maybe it was more a feeling than a thought, a bit of intuition perhaps.  The simple knowledge that someone could step on that nail.  I couldn’t deny the truth.  I had kicked that board into just the perfect position.  Like a hunter I had set my trap and my brother had sprung it.

The thoughts and emotions were too big for a kid my age, but I was forced to face them.  Without fully grasping it in concrete terms I understood that everything I did, even my very thoughts, made ripples in the world around me.