aaron_the fall of America_chapter_03

Chapter 3

I'm not certain if I've been dreaming or remembering or remembering dreams. The difficulty of recollecting myself suggest an extensive scattering of my faculties. I can grasp some distant past and a little recent past but I can't get a handle on anything surrounding my present other than a musky smell.

If I had bought a mattress instead of sleeping on a couple of blankets over a sheet of chip board, maybe my spine would function. But as it is, I'm not sure if I'm in my bed. To know, I must count time until I'm certain night should turn into day. If there continues to be no light or church bells, I will know I'm not at home. Even at Richard’s, I can hear outside sounds.

One dream I either just had or just remembered, was a childhood dream. The dream involved the few of us remembering the time when several of us were killed by a man and his dogs. Many of our friends were lost this way. For the longest time we accepted the verity that he was the one who killed. There was nothing to do against things that were the way they were. Our only attempt at resistance was to hide or run away when we sensed danger.

But one day, when a dog was starting to chew off Jaime’s neck, I happened to have a fire poker in my hand. While the dog hesitated to find a better grip, I had enough time to plunge the fire poker through the canine's neck. The screams of the dying dog of doom beset a nefarious dread over our environment. The dog finally silenced as it gave its last writhes before death.

We hid in the corridors, behind walls and whatever other scenery the dream afforded us. It was futile. When the dog man called us in, there was nothing we could do but to go in. We knew we should have accepted Jamie's death and we knew what our punishment would be.

Still our spirits would not quit us. Instead of going in to accept what was expected of us, we went in prepared to do the unexpected. Because the dog man knew there was nothing for us to do but present ourselves humbly at his feet and willingly suffer our death sentence with fortitude, he was not prepared for our action against him. With relentless fury, we killed him and his neck chewing dogs.

Though I'm certain that the dogs were a dream, we had other methods for gaining battle scars. One method we used to increase our chances of blood loss was to chalk out a small oval race track on our street. We would tear around as fast as we could peddle. There was no official start or finish line. The undeclared winner would be the one who could wipe out his bicycle the best and earn the best wound.

Most of us managed to scrape up our bicycles, our elbows and knees but Jamie, although never on his neck, managed to wind up with large scrapes on his shoulders.

Other methods of gaining scars were less organised. I had a good supply of bicycle parts in my back yard under the patio deck. One day, with Kenny, I was taking apart a bike and managed to drop the frame on my bare foot. It was an accident of course; it was unacceptable for a scar to be purposely self inflicted. The sprocket jabbed into my foot so that it looked like a shark bite. That's what I told people it was.

Another clever method for getting scars on the feet was to play with a large hunting knife. Chicken and stretch were our two games. Because it was more appealing, we usually played stretch. A boarder slightly larger than we could stretch our legs was marked out.

Mike and I were playing in my back yard and we were both stretched close to our limits. Our feet were near to each other in my top left corner. Mike's right. He had all but a few inches covered. I figured if I could force him to go those few inches, his groin would give out. I concentrated and threw straight into the spot, straight into the spot on my foot. I pulled off my rubber boot to see the blood and estimate the grade of scar it might turn out to be. I shouldn't have been wearing boots.

For foot scars, Kenny received the best one one winter's day. Tim, Ken and I went for a snow storm adventure in the industrial area. The wind was whipping a blinding blizzard and there was snow to our knees before we set out. Rather than discouraging us, bad weather increased our sense of excitement for a classic adventure. It was a typical quest for Hulk, Superman, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Conan the Barbarian and of course, an in-house look at our two dimensional girlfriends.

The distribution company had put an eight foot barbed wire fence to protect their trucks and contents from people less courteous than ourselves who merely came to scavenge waist. Reaching our bunker of books was more difficult with the new barrier but barbed wire never stopped us on a mission. It was easy enough to climb where the fence and the gate met.

We dug through the pile of magazines and collected comics in the safety of our metal hideout until we decided it was time to go. We climbed up out of the trap door with our treasures and down to the ground. Tim climbed the fence first, then we handed him all the comics. Ken climbed over next. His climb was flawless but his decent came to a howling halt. Before our gaping eyes, Kenny was hanging with one foot jammed between the post and a large cold bolt. It was a good stunt but he wasn't enjoying his performance. I was still on the illegal side of the fence so I could do nothing. Tim stood stunned, holding a load of comics. "Help him!" I yelled. He looked confused. He observed how the comic books kept his hand from being useful. "Drop them!" I commanded when he looked up at me. He seemed to have trouble discriminating between the two tasks as to which was more important. Luckily for Ken, Tim snapped into action. He dropped the comics as he rushed over to lift Ken up so that he could free his foot.

The trauma passed quickly. I climbed the fence and we marched home. It was a long painful walk for Kenny but because it was so cold, he didn't bleed extensively. We trekked onward through the storm like three heroes in a war movie. It wasn't until we left him to his mother in the warmth of his house that he started to really bleed. The next day we found out how bad it was from Kenny's mother. A few days later we learned how good it was from Kenny. It left likely the best big purple scar any of us would achieve as children.

An odd thought just occurred to me. I may have been mistaken for dead by someone and buried without embalming. Or I may have crossed someone who thought they should kill me by burying me. That would explain why I sense nothing but a musky smell. I'm probably in an old box and smell myself. It all makes perfect sense, except that I don't remember anyone disliking me enough to go to such bother. But if I thought I was dead or dying, I would want to run through my memories one last time.

Although I don't revel in the idea of being buried with the outside world thinking I'm dead, it may have some advantages, though none come to mind. But if I'm buried, I'll soon enough be dead without air, food or water.

If I'm not dead, I should find a way out of the darkness. It would help if I could make my limbs function.

I wonder if anyone misses me. If they do, would they look for me here?

I remember once when we were young and playing hide and seek, I hid so well that I wasn't found. When I finally crept from my hiding place the game was long over. Someone's disturbed father had come storming out of his house to lecture us. He told us we shouldn't play on the street in front of his house. This we found odd since we hadn’t gone on his property. We hid only around our own homes. We observed him in silence, wondering at his madness on such a warm and pleasant summer's evening.

He grabbed Andy a little violently and told him he wasn't supposed to play on this side of the street. "Play on your own side of the street!" he shouted.

Andy's back yard attached to my back yard so we had never doubted his eligibility to be our friend. In fact, we had been completely ignorant of the border problem. Until then, we hadn't understood that Andy's foreign status made him unsuitable for our company.

After the law was handed down, the mad father went back into his aluminium house to watch his television and ignore his wife. We mocked him and made declarations such as had he. In our fever we decided to send Andy back. It was the only thing to do. Or so it seemed.

Unfortunately for Andy, he lived on a busy street. He had to play by himself in the traffic. He was struck by a speeding motorist that hadn't seen Andy playing tag alone. "I'm it. I'm it. I'm it," he kept repeating as he was taken to the hospital.

After some skilful surgery and a year of therapy, Andy was able to walk. We had missed him. We worked together to provide Andy with a new identity. My grandmother was prepared to claim that he lived with us if things got rough. It was good to have his talents back on our road hockey team as well.

But wait. If I were buried and still alive, the space would be so small that I would sense the walls around me. I would hear my breathing and my heart beat. So unless I'm already dead, and I can't imagine perceiving such a state, I must be somewhere. I have plenty of musky air to breathe, much more than a box would hold, so I must be alive and relatively well.

There is nothing to suggest that I know where I am. It's exciting to think I may have done something really dumb. Probably, even against my own better judgement. Whenever I think I'm about to make a relevant discovery, I'm occupied with scattered memories or the pointless meditation of uncomfortable sleep.



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by Joanne B. Washington

© 2001 | the jose wombat project