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.
