My One-Syllable Life

My name’s Ralph Smith and I’ll share my life in plain words, like the ones we read when I was in grade school.  I can still see—in my mind’s eye—the words in those third grade books:  Oh, Look! Here come the boys, Tom and Don, our good friends from down the road.  They will come and play with us.  We can have fun for the whole day.  We will all have a good time.

   When I was a boy I thought my life should be like Tom’s and Don’s.  In the school books we read, these boys had a mom who made cakes and a dad who drove a Dodge.  They played ball in the park, and at night they knelt at their beds to pray.  I tried to be like the boys in those books. But I did not turn out like Tom and Don.

I did not do well in school.  I’d get sent from class for bad things I’d done.  I stole chalk and I stole glue.  I could not keep my mind on my work.  Noise in the class hurt my ears, and I could not think.  The boys I spent time with were weird guys who’d act tough and tease kids.  We were not at all like Tom or Don.

I write my life in short words so you can sense how the world still feels to me.  It’s not a good child’s world of bright words and clean fun.  This year, I’m a grown man with bad skin.  I live in a jail where guys call me crude names.  I’ve been gang-raped four times, but no one here gives a damn.  You have to watch your back all the time.

I live in a world of stink—the stink of men, the stink of food, the stink of bug spray.  As I write this, I can see a spider walk up my wall.  But at night, when I’m in bed, I like to dream I live just down the road from Tom and Don, where bright stars shine on our homes and our lives are as clean as Christ would have them.

You want to know why I’m here?  I once had a nice, clean house.  But then this creep bought the one right next to mine.  He played hard rock all damn day and the noise wrecked my mind.  So one night, when I could stand it no more, I went next door with a gun and shot the guy.  When noise cracks my brain, I swear I’m not the same man.  And that one night—June third, four years ago—I ran to his porch and shot him dead.

Not all boys turn out like Tom and Don.  Some guys end up like me.

The Power of Fright

I  stood  at  the  candy counter  of  Stanley’s Shoppe  just  before  closing  time  when  I heard  a  masked  gunman  shout  at  Mr.  Stanley: Put  all  your  cash  in  this  bag  and  be  quick  about  it.  I  ran  for  the  door,  but  the  gunman  stopped  me.  Get  over  here,  kid.  Stand  still  and  don’t  move  or  I’ll  shoot  you !  I was twelve and wondered  if  the gunman  would  shoot  me  and  Mr.  Stanley  and  leave  us  bleeding.  Mr. Stanley  emptied  the  cash  box.

Fright  filled  me  like  a  kite  blown  open  by  the  wind.  I  thought  this  might  be the  day  I would  die,  and  I  was  sad  for  the  bad  things  I’d  done  to  other  kids:  the way  I  teased  and  bullied  them,  and  the  lies  I’d  told.  Now  I  had  to  pay  with  my life,  and  I  was  sorry.  My  tongue  dried  out,  and  I  could  feel  my  genitals  pull  in.

C’mere  Kid.  Get  over  here.  I  walked  over  to  the  gunman.  I  know  who  you  are,  Boy.  You  live  on  Mulberry  Lane,  right?  I  nodded  my  head.  Well,  you  keep  your  mouth  shut  about  this,  you  hear?  Otherwise  I  come  after  you—-y’understand?  He  stuck  the  gun  right  in  my  face.  I  nodded  again.  My  mouth quivered,  and  tears  stung  the  back  of  my  eyes.  Then  the  guy  grabbed  a  candy  bar  and  ran  out  with  the  bag  of  money.

Mr.  Stanley  and  I  just  stared  at  each  other,  breathing  quietly,  not  speaking.  I  could  smell  the  stink  of  my  body.  My  fingertips  were  cold,  and  the  edges  of my  ears.  My  heart  banged  in  my  chest  like  a  kid  locked  in  a  closet.

I  thought  I  knew  who  I  was  until  that  guy  stuck  the  gun  in  my  face.  A  voice inside  me  said   Ya  see  now ?  Do  ya ?  Ya  see  now,  Mr.  Wise  Guy ?   That  voice  was  Grown-Up  Me  shaming  the  frightened  kid  now  frozen  under  the  store  lights:   Ya   see,  Mister  Smart  Ass ?  Do   ya ?

It  was  only  a  few  minutes  after  five  o’clock  that  summer  day  I  was  twelve,  but  it  felt  like  the  last  day  of  childhood.   A  telephone  rang  at  the  back  of  the  store,  but  we  never  moved.  Mr. Stanley  and  I  just  stood  there  under  the  store  lights  and  listened  to  the  phone  ring.  It  was  like  an  alarm  going  off,  warning me—scream  after  vivid  scream—that  feelings  were  inflatable  things  that  could  throw  you  to  the  top  of  a  roller  coaster.

We  never  knew  who’d  called  that  day.   Mr.  Stanley  and  I  just  stared  at  one  another,  and  it  seemed  we  were  the  last  persons  on  earth,  two  strangers  scalded  by  fright.  Finally  he  was  able  to  speak.  He  told  me  leave  the  store,  go  to  my  house,  and   call   him   when   I   got   there.

On  the  way  home,  I  walked  steady,  without  stopping.   I  walked  like  a  wind-up  toy,  hearing  only  the  sound  of  my  shirtsleeves  brushing  against  my  body.    I  could  see  things  in   great   clarity—things  people  had  tossed  along  the  roadside—a  Breyer’s  Ice  Cream  carton,  a  thrown-away  can  of  pickled  beets,  Dog  Do,  and  candy  wrappers  strewn  among   the  dandelions.  Funny  how  silly  things  like  that  get  burned  onto  memory  when  your  mind’s  on  fire.  And  as  I  walked  up  the  path  to  my  house,  I  kept  hearing  that  voice  I’d  heard   after  the  hold-up,  that  Grown-Up  Guy  in  my  heart  who  kept  saying,   Ya   See,  Mister  ?   Ya  see  now ?   Do  ya?