Once upon a time in a valley far, far away…
After my mom and I moved from Johns house, we lived for several years in an apartment building.
The name of the building was “Gerrish Court” and had a nice big area out in front with a few trees and park benches and sidewalks, which gave me a big area to play in as the front yard.
I’m thinking that the ages I lived at these apartments were from around 4 through 6 years old. (That’s really just a guess.)
The front yard:
Sometimes I would have my mom pin a towel around my neck and I would put shorts on over my jeans and I would play outside in the yard as “Superman”. That was one of my favorite games since I loved to fly.
I would like to stand behind trees and then jump up in the air and out from behind the tree because I thought that people passing by would think that I had just landed since they hadn’t seen me standing there a moment before.
(I really liked Superman a lot. I remember years later when I was in my teens I found a picture I had once drawn of him. I found it very interesting to view it again since the whole perception thing had changed. I mean I remembered that when I was little that I really truly thought that my drawing had been a faithful reproduction of the Superman character, but interestingly enough I found that through the older eyes of the teen, that I saw a nice but rough crayon drawing of the character and not the faithful reproduction at all. I remember marveling at the obvious differences in perception from the toddler and the teen.)
(Another favorite game involved a big china cabinet we had. It had a big glass door on the front and sometimes I could get my mom to empty it out and lay it down on the floor which would transform it into my personal spacecraft.)
One summer I met a little red-haired girl in the front yard and we quickly became friends, but since she was only visiting someone in the apartments I never saw her again.
If one stood facing the building one would find that on the right hand side of the yard was a very long chain link fence which separated “Gerrish Court” from the neighboring yards.
One winter day while I was standing at the fence, I saw a dog in a backyard about 3 houses away.
We looked at each other.
I don’t recall how or why I thought of it but I decided to fall on the ground and lay very still just to see what the dog would do.
I was laying in such a way as to be able to observe the dog in the yard.
When he saw me fall over he became noticeably interested and then left my line of sight as he left his yard. And then interestingly enough after a few moments he appeared at the front yard to “Gerrish Court” looking at me. He was still pretty far away but it excited and scared me a bit so I would get back up when I saw him there. When he saw me get back up he turned back around and returned to his yard.
We did that about 3 more times. It was a fun game but I was afraid to let him get too close so I got up every time before that happened.
(As I write this a memory returns of my getting bit by a big German Shepherd. That event happened back when we lived at John’s house.
One day while I was visiting a friend’s house, I was trying to get my friends attention and tugged on his shirt and his dog jumped up and bit me on the hand.
I ended up going to the hospital emergency room with my mom. I didn’t like that. They washed the bite and probably gave me a tetanus shot.
I don’t really remember the shot but I sure remember the washing part. Ouch!)
The backyard:
The back was large since it was a parking lot, but not nearly as big as the front.
I remember there was a big pile of dirt in the back that I used to like to play on.
After I saw the movie “Moby Dick” I would sometimes lay on the pile of dirt and pretend that I was Captain Ahab tangled up in the harpoon lines, and trapped on the tail of the great white whale just like at the end of the movie.
I would have a screwdriver in my hand (my knife) and would stab the whale over and over as I rode to my inevitable death, hopelessly entangled in the harpoon lines on his tail.
Flashlights work in the daylight too.
Once on the back porch my mom wanted to get the attention of someone down the street and she used a flashlight to do it. I didn’t think it would work because it was daylight. But it did. I was surprised and learned something.
As I write this it seems that the back porch was kinda scary. Maybe it’s just a memory of my mom being concerned about me standing too close to the railing. I don’t remember now. I think we lived on the 2nd floor. Maybe it was her fear of me too close to the railing that eventually translated into my unease of high places.
I didn’t do it.
I remember once while in the backyard a kid who lived in the same building was playing with matches and somehow I got blamed for it since when he got caught he said it was my idea.
Which was a lie because I wasn’t even involved.
I’m happy to say my mom believed me. She knew I didn’t lie, and didn’t play with matches so she knew I was being truthful. But of course as far as I know she was the only one who believed me. It seems that a lot of people have a tendency to believe the first story they hear, and of course the true culprits mother wouldn’t want her son to really be the one to blame so I’m sure she wasn’t about to say her son must be lying.
I remember once I went with my mom to some kind of woman’s party at the apartments and I overheard this kid’s mother say something about needing to buy one of the products for her husband, “because he stinks”.
A lot of the other women at the party laughed at what she said and I wondered why she was with the guy if she thought bad things about him.
My Grammy.
At some point my grandmother moved in across the hallway from us. Sometimes I would visit her.
I called her “Grammy”.
I liked the big green stuffed chair she had in her living room. It was the kind that rocked and if I rocked it far enough backwards it would tip over which I loved, but didn’t get to do that very often since it wasn’t allowed.
I didn’t like eating at my grandmothers’ house ‘cuz she would always make me finish everything on my plate.
Flying Sneakers.
Once I got a new pair of sneakers. There were called “PF Flyers”. I thought I would be able to fly if I wore them. One day when my mom and I were out walking, I was running back and forth faster and faster and I knew for sure that I would be flying soon! I felt it! I knew it!
I ran up to my mom to see if she saw that on that last attempt that I almost made it!
“Did you see!? Did you see!? I almost flew that time!!!”
She then informed me that I couldn’t actually fly and that no matter how hard I tried, that it wouldn’t happen.
That was a very disappointing thing to learn and I must say that in later years I was more than just a bit upset that she shared that with me, since I deemed it as one of the things that I needed to “unlearn”.
Curiouser and curiouser…
I guess maybe it happened gradually but eventually my mom began acting quite strangely.
We started taking very long walks together. Very, very long walks…
And I recall that she would seem odd somehow. Sometimes the things she would say just didn’t seem right, even to my little kid mind.
I started trying to keep an eye on her to try and keep her from any kind of harm.
But sometimes she would wander off anyway…
Sometimes I would wake up from a nap and she would just be gone. Then I would have to try and find her.
It got so that taking naps was scary and I would try not to sleep because I was afraid that when I awoke she wouldn’t be there.
In those cases I would go out into the world and try to find her.
Sometimes I would find her easily enough, but then I still had to get her back into the safety of the apartment if I could.
Like the time I found her sitting on a bench in the front of the building talking to some of my little friends.
I don’t recall what she was talking about but it was easy to see that she was in that dream-like state that meant she just shouldn’t be out.
I kept trying to get her to come back inside but she didn’t want to and I started pulling on her arm and crying.
Then I recall she turned to one of the kids she’d been talking to and said something like, “See? Remember I was talking about pain? Look at him. That’s pain. Now that’s real pain.”
Another time I recall I kept going in local shops until I finally found her. Was it a bar? I don’t recall. I just remember that I had to keep searching until I found her. Maybe a few of the places I’d been before but also I know a lot were new and strange to me.
Anyway this time a vulture had attached himself to her. Some guy and he didn’t want to go away.
I finally guided her back to the front of “Gerrish Court” but the guy stayed right with us.
I didn’t like him. He didn’t feel friendly and he kept trying to get rid of me.
I think I won that time and managed to get rid of him instead.
But there then were the times that I couldn’t find her and I would just have to return to the apartment without her.
Yup nap time really sucked.
Black shoes, blue uniforms and shiny objects.
The apartment building we lived in didn’t allow black people and the rules were enforced, so I couldn’t have my friends visit me in the building or someone might call the police.
Which is what happened one night.
One thing led to another and the police decided my mother needed to be taken away because she was so obviously not too grounded in reality.
I was crying and holding onto her pretty tightly ‘cuz I didn’t want them to take her and in the background I could hear the police discussing how to handle the situation.
Apparently they were getting pretty impatient with my refusal to let go of her, and I overheard one say to just pull me off, but there was another one who said he had an idea and wanted to try it first.
He was a big black cop with a friendly smile and he showed me his pretty and shiny handcuffs and asked me if I liked them.
I said I did and he said he would give them to me if I just came with him for a minute.
I’m sure I hesitated, but the lure for the shiny prize was so strong and he just seemed so nice.
So I went with him down the hallway and into another room, where he then closed the door behind me and my grandmother held onto me while they took my mother away.
I realized I had been tricked but it was too late.
And I didn’t even get to keep the handcuffs.
I don’t really recollect what happened next. Following the shiny handcuffs down the hall and then being held by my grandmother in a room while the door closed and both the shiny handcuffs and my mother disappeared, is all I recall of that night.
My world continued to change in ways that were beyond my understanding…
I guess my grandmother wasn’t really too “kid friendly”.
I don’t recall how long it took before it happened but one day someone came and I was taken to the orphanage.
Dear reader If you enjoyed this posting please UPVOTE/FOLLOW it really helps!
Thank you. :-)
“I Pleiades” The True Story. Click the FOLLOW button today and watch the story unfold.
~PREVIOUS RELATED LINKS BELOW~
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work - The Beginning - 1.
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work - Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep - 2.
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work - Mountain Climbers - 3.
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work - John - 4.
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work - A Monster In The Night - 5.
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work - Days Of Future Past - 6.
Link to I PLEIADES - An Autobiographical Work.
Link to Looking For Followers -Autobiography-.