Front Porch, Stories from High Point, NC: The Front Door.

I was in the 4th or 5th grade. My great-grandfather had come to live with us because he could no longer do anything for himself. His wife had died a few months earlier and he was living alone. Although he had been alone for a few years before that as she dealt with a series of illnesses. It was good for him to move in with us. I think it helped him not feel sad all the time. He needed to be around people.

                But there was one big problem. He didn’t work anymore. He stopped working when he was 67 years old. Now he would be at home all day with nothing to do. Most of the time if he was not watching TV, he would stand at the front door and look outside while he smoked on a pipe.

                “Damn dogs barking all the time,” he would say.  “Somebody needs to clean up that dirty-ass car next door,” he would mumble just loud enough for the neighbors to hear. My neighbors didn’t like my grandfather. He wasn’t always like this. He used to be fun and would laugh all night as he drank moonshine and talked about the old days.  Losing his wife stopped all of the stories. Now he complained. 

                My grandfather had these brown pants that looked like they used to be black 40 years ago. The hips were tight around his boxlike waist, and the legs flared out slightly at the ankles. He had a matching vest. Both were made of some sort of 60’s synthetic material that seemed to last forever. That outfit lasted much longer than his smile. Shit, I can’t even remember his smile. All I can remember these days is the way he would hold his cane in the air just at shoulder height and shake it back and forth. “Damn dogs barking…”

                I said before that I was in the 4th or 5th grade at the time. Not quite sure. Might have been the 3rd grade. But there is one thing that I have never forgotten. Let’s just say that I was slight of frame in those days. I was small for my size with a brain that was slightly more engaged than the other kids in the neighborhood. N.E.R.D. I was totally a science nerd and everyone knew it. We had this neighborhood bully who rode the same school bus to school with me, but he was about a foot taller. People called him Buddy.  Buddy. He was anything but friendly. In hindsight, I think he had some sort of learning developmental delays that caused him to fall behind a few years. Not only was he a bully, but he was big.

                One day Buddy chased me home from the bus stop. I ran as fast as I could trying to avoiding getting punched in the face and laughed at by all the other kids on the block. As I got to my house, I saw my great-grandfather standing behind the screen of the front door. He had heard the noise from all the kids yelling “fight, fight!” as Buddy chased me down the street. 

                Ellis, my great-grandfather, looked at me with those sunken and wrinkled eyes and took his free hand and LOCKED the screen door. He was holding his cane in the other hand. “You can turn around and fight back, or come inside and get your ass beat with this cane!” Ellis demanded.  I had already chosen FLIGHT instead of FIGHT when I darted from the bus top! Shit, what could I do now?

                I looked at the locked door and my great-grandfather. I looked back at the crowd of kids yelling “fight!” I took two deep breaths and turned around. Buddy stood right in front of me. He looked down at my weak arms. I my body shaking as my arm seemed to lift itself. My clenched fist made contact with Buddy’s chin. Then I grabbed him and hit him again. I don’t think anyone had ever stood up to Buddy before. I hadn’t planned to be the first to do so, and Buddy wasn’t expecting it either. 

                The moments from the school bus steps to the locking of the screen door passed in no time. It must have been at least 150 meters from the bus stop to my house. But once that door locked clicked, it was like a black hole had materialized in my front yard and slowed everything down to a crawl. I could feel my every heartbeat. See the faces of the kids yelling. High Point, North Carolina might has well have been the Roman Coliseum. 

Most of the fight is lost to the years now, but I can still remember how it felt when Ellis made me turn around and face the crowd who had delighted in chasing me home. It changed me. I am sure that I have had fear and been scared since that day, but it never really had a paralyzing effect. Whatever happens, happens. Roll with it.