I Still Can't Fly - Confessions of a Lifelong Troublemaker
Chapter 1
February 11, 1996
How did I get here? An abandoned first-floor apartment in a dilapidated rat infested building in a filthy blighted neighborhood where a toll-free call for a car insurance rate quote comes with a free steering wheel lock. Criminals own the streets. Drug dealers own the criminals. I don’t feel out of place.
A tiny flame beseeches an unlikely blessing as it flickers in the belly of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the kitchen counter. [click for more] The rank smell of festering urine reminds me of my purpose: get in, get out. I’ve adjusted to the shadows like an anxious cat. February in New York inhibits my ability to manage my fingertips, while twenty-seven years of addiction strangles clarity of thought like a python squeezing life from its next meal. My body is heaving with anxiety. How did I get here?
The scrawny hooded lookout nervously paces the room and suddenly kicks a ratty old step stool. The sole piece of furniture in the garbage strewn apartment crashes against a wall. The pizza box lying on its top step scatters a clique of roaches that scurry to new digs under a hamburger roll. “Gimme my damn money, bitch.” The tiny runt stated his gripe with conviction, but he had as much chance of collecting as I had of buying dope with Monopoly money. “Get outside, Flaco. We talk later.” The black Puerto Rican, probably female pitcher (dealer) with the big round pock-marked face looked like a football lineman. Her bad attitude was apparently the byproduct of a disturbing reflection. “You gonna look real stupid wit my mother fuggin foot hanging out yo dumb ass, Flaco. I said get outside.”
The young Spanish lookout resembled a short mop stick with a big coat. He stuffed his gloved hands deep in his pockets and glared at the woman with a hatred most criminals reserve for the police department.
Every ten bags of dope sold, the lookout gets a ten-dollar bill, and it appears the big dealer shorted Flaco ten bucks on the last bundle. We had a Mexican standoff. The lookout wasn’t looking out. The pitcher wasn’t pitching until she finally noticed the white junkie suffering silently on the cold radiator. “Whaddaya need, handsome?”
“Four.”
“I only got two leff. If ya take ‘em, I can go upstairs and re-up.”(get more).
Flaco was still grumbling as I handed the big girl half of what I needed to get straight. “I’ll be right back. And I ain’t gonna tell you again, Flaco, get yo dumb, skinny ass outside before─”
CRASH! The sudden explosion of the front door was as startling as a Mike Tyson punch in the face. “Down on the fucking floor! Lemme see hands! Down! Down! On the fucking floor!”
How did I get here?
As I remember, it wasn’t that difficult.
2
September 4, 1956
The sudden commotion out in the corridor warned of the approaching doom. The front door slammed, startling all, closing off my only prayer of escape. Fear of the unknown smothered the air like an atomic mushroom cloud. I was mad, confused, wondering why mom and dad sent me to this horrible place.
After peeling my nose off the window, away from the dream of freedom just beyond, I turned towards the blackboard and gazed in horror as a giant nun floated across the classroom floor like a witch. Sister Mary Monster hovered behind the big desk, hands on hips, dark piercing eyes squinting above crew cuts and ponytails at the only Christian recruit still standing.
My brain was already racing through almost six years of warnings. Wait till the NUNS get hold of you. You better not try THAT with the nuns. We’ll see if you’re still smiling when THEY get you in the first grade, wise guy. I always thought my mom was joking, but this isn’t funny.
Quick action was obviously crucial for staying healthy. I was still pondering a move to take the last seat in the last row when she barked, “What is your name?” Already in fear for my mortal existence, I gazed down at my shiny new Buster Brown shoes and mumbled, “Kevin.” The dark shadow slapped two heavy palms on the green blotter and leered down her pointed nose over rimless glasses. “What is your last name, Kevin!?” The intensity of the moment sucked the air from my lungs, but I still managed to squeak, “Carroll?” So far I got the first two questions right, but it was all uphill from here.
“Well, well,” she mused, “you’re in the right room, Mister Carroll, except your seat is right here.” Sister pointed down with what looked like the massive finger of God at what became my permanent position at the head of the class, third isle, front seat, a short arm’s length from a good smack in the head.
Seconds ago on this very first day of school, the room overflowed with giggles and smiling faces, all searching for a little seat next to a friend. In its place, dead silence shrouds the room as my young brain stumbles through what could only be described as an epiphany. I was about to get educated.
Like a convicted murderer en route to the electric chair, my steps toward the giant digit were painfully slow. Vise-like fingers suddenly snapped out like a cobra, grabbing hold of my ear─that appendage from here on to be regarded as the handle on the side of my head─as she rudely ushered me into my personal corner of hell. The carefree life I’ve known for almost six years officially ended that very same moment.
Sister Mary Monster was big. Seven foot, maybe eight. Okay, maybe not that big, but the giant nun seemed to grow a whole lot scarier when her needs required spontaneous adjustment activated by annoying young Christians. Her thick furry brow ran from one side of her face to the other on a big holy melon framed in starched white material, topped with a brown hood and a veil that cascaded down her back. When she walked, the rest of Sister’s long brown habit flowed to the ground, covering her shoes, giving the illusion of elevation. Sister could float and she could float fast. Take away the giant rosary beads and long white Tarzan rope tied around her waist and Sister could’ve been mistaken for a medieval executioner.
As the unmercifully long days were dragging into a possible life sentence, my scattered brain actually found a way of avoiding the monster in front of the classroom. It was Sister’s own voice that triggered my natural instincts. Her monotonous droning of spelling, phonics, religion and arithmetic sounded more like a lazy babbling brook, so it only took her a few minutes before she put me fast to sleep, sometimes three or four times a day. By the time Sister called on me to recite the next line, add two numbers or ask me what Jesus said, my brain was a million miles away.
THE DREAM
Unlike previous missions, this time I flew into enemy airspace well-fortified. I had everything: atom bombs, H-bombs, cherry bombs. You name it, I had it. Final count down. “Pilot to bombardier. Ten seconds to drop. Nine, eight...” The usual landmarks were whizzing past me in a blur of rainbow colors. “Seven, six...” The screaming turbo engines nearly sheared the giant oak tree that filled the sky above old Aunt Mae’s house on O’Brien Avenue. Boom! A biblical thunderclap cracked the sky.” Five, four...”
Red light! Red light! The cockpit panel lit up like a damn Christmas tree. To my right at three o’clock a screaming vapor trail is headed directly for me. I’m hit! My left wing incinerated before my eyes. The sky darkened to an eerie purple as thick black smoke obliterated the sun. Another missile. Ka-blewie! That one sheared off my tail section. I’m going down! This can’t be happening again! Firepower is raining from the heavens with incomprehensible terror. “Mayday! Mayday!” Now my damn radio’s out! “Eject! Eject!” Sonofabitch, this freaking button is stuck. Death is coming to get me as I watch all five and a half years of my life pass before my eyes faster than Superman. I was blown out of the sky and crashed back to earth in a fireball of hellish proportion.
“Mister Carroll, I said read the next line. Mister Carroll!”
There I was as usual, sitting at my little desk in the front row of the class with my eyes wide open, startled back to reality while still smack in the middle of my latest mission. “Mister Carroll!” Unfortunately, this one ended the exact same way as all the others. “Mister Carroll, I said read the next line.”
The monolith of gloom slowly folded her hands into the large billowy sleeves of her habit. What is she looking for? Switchblade? Brass knuckles? Maybe even a two by four. Don’t look up. Her evil eye is now burning through the top of my head. A quick prayer is my only way out. Please, God. Please make Sister disappear. It was my first meaningful plea for assistance and I was hardly awestruck by His obvious lack of concern. Left to my own devices, I nervously ran my finger down the page.
“Uhh…..look, Jane...see...Spot.” The dead silence behind me exploded into giggles. Sister quickly hushed the entire class with a sudden whack! in the back of my head. “Wrong page, Mister Carroll.” Now we’re both pissed off and it’s not even ten a.m., lavatory time.
The eternity in hell that was only two and a half months in Holy Cross Grammar School didn’t teach me enough arithmetic to make change of a quarter, but a good ear twisting did work on rare occasions, so it was up to my dad to finally drum one number into my thick skull: twenty- nine. November the 29th is my birthday, still six whole days away. It might as well have been six years.
Mom insisted and dad agreed that if I was a very good boy in school for just the next few days, they would let me have a birthday party, and they would buy me the greatest toy in history, the giant Mattel Bulldog Tank. Or, I could do what comes natural and get zip. Zilch. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get a Spalding or a leftover turkey sandwich for lunch. In fact, mom said I’d be real lucky just to turn six years old. What the hell kind of deal is that?
In order to survive a possible bypass of November the 29th I learned to quickly decipher mom’s early morning warnings. Kevin, I don’t want to see any notes today. That was easy, that simply meant, try not to do anything stupid enough that Sister would find a need to memorialize it on paper. Sister Mary Monster’s favorite chore after smacking me around was writing down all the trouble that somebody got me into that day. To make certain her note went all the way home, she would summon my seven year old sister Kathleen and hand it over with strict instructions. But if mom said, now Kevin, you be a very good boy in school today, don’t make sister mad at you, that means mom is learning to speak Chinese. Be a very good boy? I had a better chance of obtaining a Ph.D. in mathematics by Christmas morning. That is not going to happen. Not a chance Not even a little one.
Even after hearing the terms of the deal repeated a thousand times I still figured I could pull off a miracle. I’ll be blowing Jap planes out of the sky with my Mattel Bulldog tank before you could say, “Hey boys and girls, what time is it?”
Monday morning. Crack-a-dawn. I am awake, but unfortunately mom wants me to go to school again. I’ll just stay in bed with my eyes closed and fake it, hopefully until Saturday. I sure wish Grandma was here. Grandma knows God better than anybody. Grandma told me if I ever needed anything from the Lord, all I had to do is pray to the right saint, sit back, the saint talks to God, and bam! God takes care of the whole shootin’ match. I hope the Lord doesn’t mind me cutting out the middleman. Dear God, I don’t know the special saint’s name for changing days back, but I need it to be Sunday again, real, real bad.
Though my head was buried snuggly under my pillow, I still managed to hear my big sister Kathleen flush the toilet bowl. I can’t believe it, it’s really Monday morning and it’s almost my turn. You’re killing me here.
“Kathleen, let’s go!”
Silence. Maybe my big sister fell asleep on the crapper?
“Kathleen, you out yet? Come on. Kevin’s gotta get in there!” It’s a damn good thing I was already awake, that high-pitched squeal mom calls a voice cut through the early morning calm like a good smack in the ear from Sister Mary Monster. “Momeeee, I’m out!” The torture is about to begin.
“Kevin! It’s time to get movin’.” This praying stuff doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe if I rub my forehead real, real hard, it’ll feel like a fever or a brain tumor or something. “Kevin, you up yet?” I got it. I’ll just lie real still and breathe real slow through my nose, mom will think I’m dead.
“Ma, I don’t feel too good. I got a earache.”
“Kevin, something’s gonna be wrong with your rear-end if I have to come in there.” It was definitely time to panic. Chicken pops. I need chicken pops. Something believable. Something contagious.
“Mommee! He’s still in bed!”
“Kevin, move it!” My excuse was dead and my big sister killed it.
At bedtime Kathleen and I slept together in the only bedroom in the house until mom and dad were ready for the sack, when Dad then carried us out and into the living room, where we dreamed undisturbed on the Castro convertible, until the crack of dawn, when my mom was suddenly screaming inside my brain. “Kevin, wash and brush right this instant!” Little Tommy slept on the hi-riser in the bedroom with the door closed.
The fear of my next encounter with the monster of Holy Cross was all consuming, like being awakened during brain surgery five days a week. “Let’s go. I poured the milk.”
I took a whiz, slowly brushed my teeth and shuffled back into the hallway. My dumb school shoes always managed to appear by the banister at the head of the staircase. Once again I prayed they’d disappear before mom was shaking clean socks under my nose.
Mom was in the kitchen standing at the ironing board putting the finishing touches on my stupid white shirt. “Don’t just look at ‘em, they’re not gonna walk to school by themselves.” Mom stood the hot iron upright and slid the shirt off the board. “See if you can manage to keep it clean for a few days.” I grabbed my warm shirt, slipped it on and turned away. Defeated. Traumatized. “Come back here, mister.” I looked over my shoulder as mom snatched my ugly Catholic school tie from a hook inside the hall closet door. “Don’t look at me like that.” Mom quickly tied the red plaid noose around my neck. “Ya have ta goda school.”
“Why?”
“You have a lot of questions, wise guy, but mostly because I say so.” That was the dumbest answer to that question since last Friday. It also sounded like the only one she had. That means it’s time for breakfast. You can’t send a little kid into the valley of death on an empty stomach. First a big old bowl of Cheerios in my Lone Ranger bowl. Then some Bosco in my big old Howdy Doody glass. Grandpa says I should look like a little colored kid ‘cause I drink so much Bosco.
“Ma, I’m goin’.” My sister was standing at the mirror at the top of the staircase. Kathleen buttoned her plaid coat at the chin, then she cocked her matching beret until it was just right. “Gimme a kiss,” insisted mom. I was already gazing into a bowl of yellow milk. Please, God, can you fill this bowl one more time, please, like You did with the loaves and fishes? It didn’t work. Maybe I’m missing a magic word or something.
My big sister was holding the knob on the banister, leaning over sticking out her stupid tongue. “I’m gonna get you,” I whispered. Kathleen spun around and hurried down the stairs. “Kevin, move your ass before ya late again!” Mom doesn’t miss a trick. Ten minutes ago I was working on a performance worthy of an Academy Award. Now she’s looking to push me out the door on my way to die. How come time doesn’t move this fast when I’m sitting in front of Sister Mary Monster?
I grabbed the bottle of milk with two hands and quickly gulped down another glass of Bosco. Then I went into the hall closet and yanked my ugly blue corduroy coat by the sleeve off the hangar. I hate my ugly school coat. When I backed away from the door, mom appeared with the dumb schoolbag. Where’s my guardian angel? Where’s grandma? Where’s my dad? I grabbed my school junk and shuffled towards the staircase. “Come back here, Mister.” I turned in hopes of an eleventh hour stay of execution. “Here, take ya lunch box and gimme a kiss and tuck in that shirt.” Not even the slightest hint of compassion. “It keeps comin’ out.”
“Well, if you stop running around here.”
“Whaddaya want me to do, walk real slow like old Mister Mulligan?” Mom gave me, the look. “Don’t be so nasty. Now, did ya brush ‘n’ go?” I nodded and mumbled as she spun me around, tucking the tail of my dumb shirt securely into my stupid pants. “Now gimme a kiss.”
“ I just did that.”
“No you didn’t. Do it again.” Then she put one right on the kisser. “I think you might need your raincoat for later,” she predicted. “It looks like rain.”
“What does rain look like when it’s not raining?”
“Don’t be so smart, I’ll give ya a good smack.” I looked her right in the eye and dared, “Go ahead, you don’t hurt me.” Mom tugged the lapel of my ugly school coat. “If it rains you better not get wet, mister. Now be a good boy, please?”
~
I was the biggest troublemaker in the first grade, maybe the entire school, so if mom really expected me to be a good boy, she’d gag me, throw my skinny ass in the hall closet and eat the key. But she didn’t do that. Not ever. Instead, she turned me loose on the world once again.
I slowly stepped into the frigid morning while mom prayed from the top of the staircase. “Please be a good boy today, Kevin. Stay out of trouble.” My usual attempt to calm her anxiety was already an exhausting ritual. “Okaaaay.” The effort was hardly worth the air that escaped from my little lungs.
February 11, 1996
How did I get here? An abandoned first-floor apartment in a dilapidated rat infested building in a filthy blighted neighborhood where a toll-free call for a car insurance rate quote comes with a free steering wheel lock. Criminals own the streets. Drug dealers own the criminals. I don’t feel out of place.
A tiny flame beseeches an unlikely blessing as it flickers in the belly of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the kitchen counter. [click for more] The rank smell of festering urine reminds me of my purpose: get in, get out. I’ve adjusted to the shadows like an anxious cat. February in New York inhibits my ability to manage my fingertips, while twenty-seven years of addiction strangles clarity of thought like a python squeezing life from its next meal. My body is heaving with anxiety. How did I get here?
The scrawny hooded lookout nervously paces the room and suddenly kicks a ratty old step stool. The sole piece of furniture in the garbage strewn apartment crashes against a wall. The pizza box lying on its top step scatters a clique of roaches that scurry to new digs under a hamburger roll. “Gimme my damn money, bitch.” The tiny runt stated his gripe with conviction, but he had as much chance of collecting as I had of buying dope with Monopoly money. “Get outside, Flaco. We talk later.” The black Puerto Rican, probably female pitcher (dealer) with the big round pock-marked face looked like a football lineman. Her bad attitude was apparently the byproduct of a disturbing reflection. “You gonna look real stupid wit my mother fuggin foot hanging out yo dumb ass, Flaco. I said get outside.”
The young Spanish lookout resembled a short mop stick with a big coat. He stuffed his gloved hands deep in his pockets and glared at the woman with a hatred most criminals reserve for the police department.
Every ten bags of dope sold, the lookout gets a ten-dollar bill, and it appears the big dealer shorted Flaco ten bucks on the last bundle. We had a Mexican standoff. The lookout wasn’t looking out. The pitcher wasn’t pitching until she finally noticed the white junkie suffering silently on the cold radiator. “Whaddaya need, handsome?”
“Four.”
“I only got two leff. If ya take ‘em, I can go upstairs and re-up.”(get more).
Flaco was still grumbling as I handed the big girl half of what I needed to get straight. “I’ll be right back. And I ain’t gonna tell you again, Flaco, get yo dumb, skinny ass outside before─”
CRASH! The sudden explosion of the front door was as startling as a Mike Tyson punch in the face. “Down on the fucking floor! Lemme see hands! Down! Down! On the fucking floor!”
How did I get here?
As I remember, it wasn’t that difficult.
2
September 4, 1956
The sudden commotion out in the corridor warned of the approaching doom. The front door slammed, startling all, closing off my only prayer of escape. Fear of the unknown smothered the air like an atomic mushroom cloud. I was mad, confused, wondering why mom and dad sent me to this horrible place.
After peeling my nose off the window, away from the dream of freedom just beyond, I turned towards the blackboard and gazed in horror as a giant nun floated across the classroom floor like a witch. Sister Mary Monster hovered behind the big desk, hands on hips, dark piercing eyes squinting above crew cuts and ponytails at the only Christian recruit still standing.
My brain was already racing through almost six years of warnings. Wait till the NUNS get hold of you. You better not try THAT with the nuns. We’ll see if you’re still smiling when THEY get you in the first grade, wise guy. I always thought my mom was joking, but this isn’t funny.
Quick action was obviously crucial for staying healthy. I was still pondering a move to take the last seat in the last row when she barked, “What is your name?” Already in fear for my mortal existence, I gazed down at my shiny new Buster Brown shoes and mumbled, “Kevin.” The dark shadow slapped two heavy palms on the green blotter and leered down her pointed nose over rimless glasses. “What is your last name, Kevin!?” The intensity of the moment sucked the air from my lungs, but I still managed to squeak, “Carroll?” So far I got the first two questions right, but it was all uphill from here.
“Well, well,” she mused, “you’re in the right room, Mister Carroll, except your seat is right here.” Sister pointed down with what looked like the massive finger of God at what became my permanent position at the head of the class, third isle, front seat, a short arm’s length from a good smack in the head.
Seconds ago on this very first day of school, the room overflowed with giggles and smiling faces, all searching for a little seat next to a friend. In its place, dead silence shrouds the room as my young brain stumbles through what could only be described as an epiphany. I was about to get educated.
Like a convicted murderer en route to the electric chair, my steps toward the giant digit were painfully slow. Vise-like fingers suddenly snapped out like a cobra, grabbing hold of my ear─that appendage from here on to be regarded as the handle on the side of my head─as she rudely ushered me into my personal corner of hell. The carefree life I’ve known for almost six years officially ended that very same moment.
Sister Mary Monster was big. Seven foot, maybe eight. Okay, maybe not that big, but the giant nun seemed to grow a whole lot scarier when her needs required spontaneous adjustment activated by annoying young Christians. Her thick furry brow ran from one side of her face to the other on a big holy melon framed in starched white material, topped with a brown hood and a veil that cascaded down her back. When she walked, the rest of Sister’s long brown habit flowed to the ground, covering her shoes, giving the illusion of elevation. Sister could float and she could float fast. Take away the giant rosary beads and long white Tarzan rope tied around her waist and Sister could’ve been mistaken for a medieval executioner.
As the unmercifully long days were dragging into a possible life sentence, my scattered brain actually found a way of avoiding the monster in front of the classroom. It was Sister’s own voice that triggered my natural instincts. Her monotonous droning of spelling, phonics, religion and arithmetic sounded more like a lazy babbling brook, so it only took her a few minutes before she put me fast to sleep, sometimes three or four times a day. By the time Sister called on me to recite the next line, add two numbers or ask me what Jesus said, my brain was a million miles away.
THE DREAM
Unlike previous missions, this time I flew into enemy airspace well-fortified. I had everything: atom bombs, H-bombs, cherry bombs. You name it, I had it. Final count down. “Pilot to bombardier. Ten seconds to drop. Nine, eight...” The usual landmarks were whizzing past me in a blur of rainbow colors. “Seven, six...” The screaming turbo engines nearly sheared the giant oak tree that filled the sky above old Aunt Mae’s house on O’Brien Avenue. Boom! A biblical thunderclap cracked the sky.” Five, four...”
Red light! Red light! The cockpit panel lit up like a damn Christmas tree. To my right at three o’clock a screaming vapor trail is headed directly for me. I’m hit! My left wing incinerated before my eyes. The sky darkened to an eerie purple as thick black smoke obliterated the sun. Another missile. Ka-blewie! That one sheared off my tail section. I’m going down! This can’t be happening again! Firepower is raining from the heavens with incomprehensible terror. “Mayday! Mayday!” Now my damn radio’s out! “Eject! Eject!” Sonofabitch, this freaking button is stuck. Death is coming to get me as I watch all five and a half years of my life pass before my eyes faster than Superman. I was blown out of the sky and crashed back to earth in a fireball of hellish proportion.
“Mister Carroll, I said read the next line. Mister Carroll!”
There I was as usual, sitting at my little desk in the front row of the class with my eyes wide open, startled back to reality while still smack in the middle of my latest mission. “Mister Carroll!” Unfortunately, this one ended the exact same way as all the others. “Mister Carroll, I said read the next line.”
The monolith of gloom slowly folded her hands into the large billowy sleeves of her habit. What is she looking for? Switchblade? Brass knuckles? Maybe even a two by four. Don’t look up. Her evil eye is now burning through the top of my head. A quick prayer is my only way out. Please, God. Please make Sister disappear. It was my first meaningful plea for assistance and I was hardly awestruck by His obvious lack of concern. Left to my own devices, I nervously ran my finger down the page.
“Uhh…..look, Jane...see...Spot.” The dead silence behind me exploded into giggles. Sister quickly hushed the entire class with a sudden whack! in the back of my head. “Wrong page, Mister Carroll.” Now we’re both pissed off and it’s not even ten a.m., lavatory time.
The eternity in hell that was only two and a half months in Holy Cross Grammar School didn’t teach me enough arithmetic to make change of a quarter, but a good ear twisting did work on rare occasions, so it was up to my dad to finally drum one number into my thick skull: twenty- nine. November the 29th is my birthday, still six whole days away. It might as well have been six years.
Mom insisted and dad agreed that if I was a very good boy in school for just the next few days, they would let me have a birthday party, and they would buy me the greatest toy in history, the giant Mattel Bulldog Tank. Or, I could do what comes natural and get zip. Zilch. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get a Spalding or a leftover turkey sandwich for lunch. In fact, mom said I’d be real lucky just to turn six years old. What the hell kind of deal is that?
In order to survive a possible bypass of November the 29th I learned to quickly decipher mom’s early morning warnings. Kevin, I don’t want to see any notes today. That was easy, that simply meant, try not to do anything stupid enough that Sister would find a need to memorialize it on paper. Sister Mary Monster’s favorite chore after smacking me around was writing down all the trouble that somebody got me into that day. To make certain her note went all the way home, she would summon my seven year old sister Kathleen and hand it over with strict instructions. But if mom said, now Kevin, you be a very good boy in school today, don’t make sister mad at you, that means mom is learning to speak Chinese. Be a very good boy? I had a better chance of obtaining a Ph.D. in mathematics by Christmas morning. That is not going to happen. Not a chance Not even a little one.
Even after hearing the terms of the deal repeated a thousand times I still figured I could pull off a miracle. I’ll be blowing Jap planes out of the sky with my Mattel Bulldog tank before you could say, “Hey boys and girls, what time is it?”
Monday morning. Crack-a-dawn. I am awake, but unfortunately mom wants me to go to school again. I’ll just stay in bed with my eyes closed and fake it, hopefully until Saturday. I sure wish Grandma was here. Grandma knows God better than anybody. Grandma told me if I ever needed anything from the Lord, all I had to do is pray to the right saint, sit back, the saint talks to God, and bam! God takes care of the whole shootin’ match. I hope the Lord doesn’t mind me cutting out the middleman. Dear God, I don’t know the special saint’s name for changing days back, but I need it to be Sunday again, real, real bad.
Though my head was buried snuggly under my pillow, I still managed to hear my big sister Kathleen flush the toilet bowl. I can’t believe it, it’s really Monday morning and it’s almost my turn. You’re killing me here.
“Kathleen, let’s go!”
Silence. Maybe my big sister fell asleep on the crapper?
“Kathleen, you out yet? Come on. Kevin’s gotta get in there!” It’s a damn good thing I was already awake, that high-pitched squeal mom calls a voice cut through the early morning calm like a good smack in the ear from Sister Mary Monster. “Momeeee, I’m out!” The torture is about to begin.
“Kevin! It’s time to get movin’.” This praying stuff doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe if I rub my forehead real, real hard, it’ll feel like a fever or a brain tumor or something. “Kevin, you up yet?” I got it. I’ll just lie real still and breathe real slow through my nose, mom will think I’m dead.
“Ma, I don’t feel too good. I got a earache.”
“Kevin, something’s gonna be wrong with your rear-end if I have to come in there.” It was definitely time to panic. Chicken pops. I need chicken pops. Something believable. Something contagious.
“Mommee! He’s still in bed!”
“Kevin, move it!” My excuse was dead and my big sister killed it.
At bedtime Kathleen and I slept together in the only bedroom in the house until mom and dad were ready for the sack, when Dad then carried us out and into the living room, where we dreamed undisturbed on the Castro convertible, until the crack of dawn, when my mom was suddenly screaming inside my brain. “Kevin, wash and brush right this instant!” Little Tommy slept on the hi-riser in the bedroom with the door closed.
The fear of my next encounter with the monster of Holy Cross was all consuming, like being awakened during brain surgery five days a week. “Let’s go. I poured the milk.”
I took a whiz, slowly brushed my teeth and shuffled back into the hallway. My dumb school shoes always managed to appear by the banister at the head of the staircase. Once again I prayed they’d disappear before mom was shaking clean socks under my nose.
Mom was in the kitchen standing at the ironing board putting the finishing touches on my stupid white shirt. “Don’t just look at ‘em, they’re not gonna walk to school by themselves.” Mom stood the hot iron upright and slid the shirt off the board. “See if you can manage to keep it clean for a few days.” I grabbed my warm shirt, slipped it on and turned away. Defeated. Traumatized. “Come back here, mister.” I looked over my shoulder as mom snatched my ugly Catholic school tie from a hook inside the hall closet door. “Don’t look at me like that.” Mom quickly tied the red plaid noose around my neck. “Ya have ta goda school.”
“Why?”
“You have a lot of questions, wise guy, but mostly because I say so.” That was the dumbest answer to that question since last Friday. It also sounded like the only one she had. That means it’s time for breakfast. You can’t send a little kid into the valley of death on an empty stomach. First a big old bowl of Cheerios in my Lone Ranger bowl. Then some Bosco in my big old Howdy Doody glass. Grandpa says I should look like a little colored kid ‘cause I drink so much Bosco.
“Ma, I’m goin’.” My sister was standing at the mirror at the top of the staircase. Kathleen buttoned her plaid coat at the chin, then she cocked her matching beret until it was just right. “Gimme a kiss,” insisted mom. I was already gazing into a bowl of yellow milk. Please, God, can you fill this bowl one more time, please, like You did with the loaves and fishes? It didn’t work. Maybe I’m missing a magic word or something.
My big sister was holding the knob on the banister, leaning over sticking out her stupid tongue. “I’m gonna get you,” I whispered. Kathleen spun around and hurried down the stairs. “Kevin, move your ass before ya late again!” Mom doesn’t miss a trick. Ten minutes ago I was working on a performance worthy of an Academy Award. Now she’s looking to push me out the door on my way to die. How come time doesn’t move this fast when I’m sitting in front of Sister Mary Monster?
I grabbed the bottle of milk with two hands and quickly gulped down another glass of Bosco. Then I went into the hall closet and yanked my ugly blue corduroy coat by the sleeve off the hangar. I hate my ugly school coat. When I backed away from the door, mom appeared with the dumb schoolbag. Where’s my guardian angel? Where’s grandma? Where’s my dad? I grabbed my school junk and shuffled towards the staircase. “Come back here, Mister.” I turned in hopes of an eleventh hour stay of execution. “Here, take ya lunch box and gimme a kiss and tuck in that shirt.” Not even the slightest hint of compassion. “It keeps comin’ out.”
“Well, if you stop running around here.”
“Whaddaya want me to do, walk real slow like old Mister Mulligan?” Mom gave me, the look. “Don’t be so nasty. Now, did ya brush ‘n’ go?” I nodded and mumbled as she spun me around, tucking the tail of my dumb shirt securely into my stupid pants. “Now gimme a kiss.”
“ I just did that.”
“No you didn’t. Do it again.” Then she put one right on the kisser. “I think you might need your raincoat for later,” she predicted. “It looks like rain.”
“What does rain look like when it’s not raining?”
“Don’t be so smart, I’ll give ya a good smack.” I looked her right in the eye and dared, “Go ahead, you don’t hurt me.” Mom tugged the lapel of my ugly school coat. “If it rains you better not get wet, mister. Now be a good boy, please?”
~
I was the biggest troublemaker in the first grade, maybe the entire school, so if mom really expected me to be a good boy, she’d gag me, throw my skinny ass in the hall closet and eat the key. But she didn’t do that. Not ever. Instead, she turned me loose on the world once again.
I slowly stepped into the frigid morning while mom prayed from the top of the staircase. “Please be a good boy today, Kevin. Stay out of trouble.” My usual attempt to calm her anxiety was already an exhausting ritual. “Okaaaay.” The effort was hardly worth the air that escaped from my little lungs.