A whaling baby interrupts my jazz music in a way that’s so cute, it doesn’t. The infant, only heard and not yet seen, reminds me of either me, and or my younger brother as children. It seems as though we threw temper tantrums often, looking back, well, trying to at least. There was the soap in the mouth, yeah. Other things. Nothing insane. I’m trying to recollect the sources of our screaming and our crying now though. What could have possibly made our eyes pinch into vigorous leaking slivers for entire days? What could have made our guts feeling hungry because we were tired of telling our parents that we hate them? What could have caused to me to rip my wallpaper? I think it’s a little sad that I can’t remember. Don’t get me wrong, my childhood wasn’t mainly fits and tears, and it’s not a life or death situation, me remembering these causes of rage. I just feel a little empty, a little plucked, trying to search for these memories buried somewhere back, tied in knots, maybe for a reason.
I do remember accidentally kicking my dad in the crotch when we were wrestling in the backyard on the Crayola green grass. I exited the backyard, running away like a child actor, to a place located between my house and the Murphy’s, behind - well, in - a really big plant. My dad was wearing jeans this day, and I think he still owns and wears them. My brother came to look for me, found me, and didn’t tell the others where I was. So I thank you for this, Adam.
I do remember my old babysitter Kim’s first day, vaguely. She wore a brown dress that is now too small for her with four or five sets of buttons lining her dress vertically. I do remember another babysitter too. She loved the band A1 and told me she had listened to their newest album the previous night, multiple times. She’s the one who gave us the sticker books, I think. The A Bug’s Life one. (I put a sticker of Britney Spears in it that I got from Wild Water Works with Alyssa. I told her that the sticker was actually of Britney’s twin sister, Andgie. She believed me for a while). She’s also the one who confirmed the lyrics to Destiny’s Child Bootylicious, and the one that said “Well then it would be green,” when I youthfully pondered the possibility of the sky’s colour turning into green one day. I also played hangman with her. I do remember another babysitter who gave us chips one night in the basement. I remember another one who smoked. She babysat us for a summer and my father found out that she smoked on her last day because I told him that she smoked. I told him this when I was in the living room, on the dark blue couch, in the softest green blanket, the one with all the lint. I had the flu this day. I’m pretty sure it developed sometime around noon. This was the day that she took my brother and I to her boyfriend’s college campus, myself sick as a dog, in the rain. I was laying down in the back seat, waiting. The campus was in some detached city, and it was raining, and it was gray. This is the image that I thought of when Dana told me that bullying still happens in post-secondary education, to her older sister at least. She travels a lot now though, Dana’s sister. She’s an artist too, if I can remember correctly.
I do remember having to go to bed at 9:00pm. This is so, because I was never able to watch The Simpsons the night the new episodes aired. I always begged to stay up to see them, but cannot remember if my dad gave in most of the time or not. This took place on the blue couch I mentioned earlier. I also do remember something about this beautiful couch. Alyssa had come over to sleep over on a holiday, presumingly, as there were fireworks going on in the front yard. The blinds were shut, our two piece, flannel pajamas were on, and we were watching TV while sitting on the back of this couch, against the windows. My father, for some strange reason that I can’t quite comprehend even today as a seventeen year old, told us to refrain from looking out the window at the fireworks because he said it was rude, since I had a guest over, although she was looking too. I also remember my dads’ old girlfriend Pam trying to get to the bottom of things with crying me sitting behind the couch. I think it was because I caught them kissing, so I was upset. She asked if there was a reason for me crying, if it was some one who caused me to weep. She listed people off that I knew, and I eventually shut her up at my Uncle Bill. It’s not you though, Billy. I haven’t thought about Pam in such a long time. I remember going to her house in some rich area with my brother and my father for dinner. Her hair was dark and very short, they both drank wine, we all went for a walk. I don’t know if she had pets. We had Yorkshire pudding. When my father adopted her love for this pudding, although it’s bread, I thought of Pam every time he served it for Sunday dinner. We aren’t a religious family though.
Reading this over a couple times, I couldn’t find an underlining theme within my memories, per se. I guess you could call it growing up.
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