The Field, the Plane, and War
Prologue: The House on House Street
Summers in Houston are always hot; but this particular year it just seemed hotter than usual. The sun, rising in a slow, lazy, almost vertical arch, would try its best to burn away the sticky and rancid layer of humidity that had settled heavily upon the crusted dry earth during the night. By mid-day, and when it was near its apex above the chalky shell laden streets of the poverty torn neighborhood called “El Crisol”, the stifling heat had finally pushed the old women out onto rickety wooden porches where they sat on squeaky chairs frantically fanning themselves with round paper fans; Jesus and Crespo & Sons Funeral Home, sharing equal duty on each side of the paper fans would take turns pushing thick moist air onto dull wrinkled brown skin. Someone brought out one of their most prized possessions, a small plastic portable radio, and tuned in to the only Spanish language station available in 1950 this far north of the border. So, carried on the occasional puff of hot dusty air were the tinny strains of accordions, guitars and the rat-a-tat-tat of German inspired Mexican polkas.
House Street, later renamed Kashmere Lane, is located a few miles east and north of the center of Houston. Running north and south it branches off of Liberty Road, a once heavily traveled thoroughfare-carrying traffic from U.S. 59N, eastbound to the rail yards and to the industrial factories in east Houston. In the 1950’s a large railroad yard owned by Southern Pacific Railroad was situated just to the south of Liberty Road. Besides railcar and locomotive repair, along with railroad ties, the many hundreds of thousands of long wooden poles needed by the city to string its ever growing network of utility wires, streetlights and phone lines were delivered daily to one of two large ramshackle warehouses on the rail yard grounds. In the first warehouse the poles would then be finished, sized, and piled outside the second warehouse. In this creosote plant the various wood products would be dipped into the boiling hot black tarry solution to weatherproof them against the mostly hot and humid Texas weather. The same process was used for the railroad ties.
Interestingly because most of the streets that branched off to the north of Liberty Road were shell topped and not paved; and they would receive a regular spraying of a combination of creosote and used motor oil to keep the dust down. The constant cooking of the creosote and its being sprayed on our streets created a permanent smell that permeated our entire neighborhood all year around. On the moist hot breezes sweeping gently from the south the pungent smell of creosote would ride over the dusty shell streets and threadbare yards, taking with it the contaminated and asbestos laced street dust. Slipping in through the open doors and windows it would permanently settle onto faded thin chenille bedspreads, mismatched long overused terrycloth towels and freshly hand scrubbed denim. Given that all of our houses had screened doors and windows commonly left open for ventilation it didn’t matter how often or how hard one scrubbed the floors or dusted the furniture, there would always be a light coating of white dust on everything. Since the creosote smell and the sticky dust were there all the time, the entire neighborhood just got used to it and never complained.
In hindsight I suppose the runoff from the occasional rains seeped down into our water supply and provided us with an and additional and unwelcome cocktail of harmful carcinogens with every glass of water we drank. Further, the flying street dust was certainly sucked into our lungs everyday and probably contributed greatly to my lingering case of juvenile asthma. On the positive side the Houston water was also naturally heavily fluorinated, and as a result I ended up growing a set of teeth that would go on to fiscally disappoint and amaze many dentists in my lifetime.
Because most barrios bore names like, “Magnolia”, “Second Ward”, and “Colonia Villa”, our neighborhood came to be known as “El Crisol”—a rough Tex-Mex, and somewhat convoluted, if not appropriate, derivative of the word, creosote.
Children of El Crisol, playing with rocks, sticks, and roly-poly bugs, and mostly having shed most of their clothes in the stifling heat, lay under the merciful shadows of a few ancient pin oak trees whose thick branches reaching out from their trunks had finally given in to gravity and the heat, and hung low to the ground in gentle submissive swaying bows. The singsong Spanglish conversations, sometimes erupting in angry soprano pitched yells, mixed with the spirited Mexican music were mostly carried up and away floating on the heat radiated by the sun’s rays bouncing off the dry Houston hardpan.
Away from the little groups of kids scattered here and there along the dusty street that fronted old frame homes elevated by cinder blocks, was I. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play with everyone else; it was more like they didn’t want to play with me. At eight years of age I was pitifully skinny, rib cage clearly etched on the front of my body, pyramid like shoulder blades rising like hackles on my back, and legs so thin that my knees could have passed for baseballs– minus the fancy red stitching. Thanks to a lack of proper diet, I carried that frightening physique all the way to my induction into the Air Force some ten years later, where my newly assigned drill sergeant would be shocked to note that at five feet eleven inches I weighed 127 pounds in my skivvies, and sported a twenty-six inch waist. Right then and there he would decide that his mission on earth would be to fatten me up and make me into a real and better human. He would succeed in fattening me up, but after six weeks of marching, drilling, and learning how to kill I don’t believe I was a better human—just a fatter one.
But, I digress.
Our house was located, oddly enough, at 5505 House Street. It was of similar architecture as all the other houses on that street, built with no particular plan in mind except that it was set back a full one hundred feet, or so, from the street. The lot our house was on was no larger than any of the other lots either, but because of the structure’s odd placement we ended up having a huge front yard. The backyard, however, was almost non-existent. Upon exiting the back door I would always have to be careful to make an immediate right or left turn as soon as my foot left the last step. Otherwise, I would have been inconveniently impaled on the chain link fence that ran the width of our backyard.
On one side of the house ran a four-foot high raggedy and wavy chain link fence that connected to the one in the back yard. It separated our front yard from a neighbor whose house faced in such a manner that the fence bordered his back yard. What landscaping we didn’t have he had in spades. Small trees, bushes, overgrown grass, honeysuckle vines all grew up to, and into, the fence.
On the other side was “Orosco Grocery” (Tienda Orosco). A whitewashed frame structure, long faded out, it had once been a rather large house (it actually fronted House Street and was set back a reasonable distance) and had been gutted of most of its interior walls then outfitted with shelves, counters and display stands. It was tended by Henry Orosco, (Enrique Orosco), a lifelong bachelor and brother to my Aunt Janie’s first ex-husband Guadalupe (Lupe) Orosco. It was actually owned and managed by Francisca Orosco, Henry’s mother and my aunt Janie’s ex-mother-in-law. She also owned a bakery (Panaderia Orosco) a few blocks south of our house and in front of Our Lady Of Sorrows Catholic Church, and a wholesale beer and soda business on the corner of Libery Road and Kashmere Lane (House Street).
Francisca could normally be found stalking around her grocery store with a notebook in hand containing each purchase members of the neighborhood had made on credit. She insisted that their tabs be settled on payday but was also known to have forgiven (forgotten) several families’ grocery tabs when illness or layoffs occurred. The store was where we would buy our staples, where I would hang out with my neighborhood buddies, and where at the age of fourteen on a steamy Fourth of July afternoon, I would come perilously close to having my life end.
When my parents first found the house on House Street they arranged to meet with the owner. During their first negotiating session regarding the possible renting of the house my father asked the landlord if he could do something a little different with the front yard. Well, the landlord wondered, what did he have in mind? The pathetic patches of grass spotting the front yard could be landscaped into something a little more decorative, my dad suggested. He said he had some ideas but wanted to make sure he had a free hand in whatever he decided to do. Imagining a small but positive rise in the value of this pathetic piece of dirt the landlord quickly agreed and sweetened the deal by offering to shave $5 off the monthly rental—effective upon completion of said improvements.
Having gotten the OK to press on and apply his landscaping skills to the front yard my dad proceeded to do what he really wanted to do in the first place: park his cars (all old, in various states of disrepair, and none actually running) in front of the house. In a very short time the mix of toxic chemicals found in gasoline, motor oil, anti-freeze, and brake fluid, leaking from various components of every car, all combined to do a real whack job on the few clumps of San Augustine grass that had stubbornly rooted to the hard dry gray dirt. The most effective weed/grass killer in production during that time could not have been more effective in destroying all rooted living plant life in that yard. In three months’ time the large area fronting the street had been transformed into a spotty gray greasy-sticky soil, in which no form of life could ever possibly survive. My father’s master plan had now been executed and the need to mow had now been effectively eliminated; along with any desire that my mom might’ve had for planting flowers—or anything else for that matter.
When the landlord saw the result of my dad’s “landscaping” he threatened to throw us out on our ear. But, as my father seriously asked, who would want to rent a house that had a huge environmentally challenged front yard? No one, he quickly answered himself. But, we would be happy to live there. And, for the trouble, he would add a crisp five-dollar note to each month’s rent, plus take loving care of the 2 foot by 35 foot strip of surviving grass that made up our back yard. Grudgingly the landlord agreed, and we were set.
Across House Street, directly in front of our house was a vacant field. It was a large rectangular piece of land, four blocks square, and as far as anyone knew no one or nothing had ever existed there. It was completely empty of anything save a low growing type of brush that apparently never needed mowing. No one seemed to know who owned it, or why it had never been converted to slum houses like ours. During the few times that I dared cross the street and investigate the field I found that it was fraught with loose stones, dry caked soil and snakes.
It was surrounded on the other three sides by little frame houses like ours, but the ones directly across the field from us held the greatest curiosity for the brown skinned children of the barrio. Those houses were occupied by black families, (we referred to them as “negritos”, or “little negroes”), and only on rare occasions did any House Street resident ever see any activity coming from those houses. To my knowledge no adult from our side of the field ever crossed over to those houses. It was as if the people who lived over there were residents of another planet.
But for the children, black and brown, that lived on opposite sides, the field existed for one purpose: La guerra—war.
The Field
Playing in the oily dirt that was my front yard on a hot and sweaty day in Houston in early 1949, I was completely unprepared for the sound I began to hear. It entered my consciousness stealthily and gently, and eased itself, slowly growing larger, into the empty living room of my mind. At first a hum, then an insistent and barely perceptible drone, rising ever so minutely in volume and tone, it grew and grew until it begged for my attention and I could ignore it no longer.
Even as a young child I knew I loved airplanes. As early as I can remember I would dream about them, imagine how it might feel to be in one, and then I would try to draw them. The drawings showed fat perpendicular wings outlined in blue crayon, raggedly filled in with jerky up-and-down strokes in green or brown Crayola, separated by a slug-like fuselage and finished off with an almost triangular and most irregular windscreen. Almost as an afterthought I would scratch in spooky looking stickmen pilots complete with enormously shaped eyes—their little stick arms waving against the imagined and vicious head wind. But I knew my airplane could fly. I saw it every time I closed my eyes. It would soar and dive and turn and spin. Its missing engines making such a mighty roar my throat would begin to itch and burn from the efforts they made in flight. Oh, the roar!
The droning sound was slowly growing into a soft roar. It was not coming from me, or anything near me, but from somewhere above and to my right. Deep in my imagination, feeling the salty trickle of sweat sliding down my back and making the backs of my knees sticky, I began to concentrate on that sound.
The field was wide and empty, yet full of mysteries as seen through the eyes of a skinny ten-year-old half French and half Mexican boy. There were days during the hot summers in Houston when I would awaken slowly, having dreamed of uncovering the field’s secrets that I knew existed, only to forget those dreams even before the cobwebs of slumber had fully cleared.
It was covered by a combination of short scrubby brown grass, hard packed gray soil and trash, and to my knowledge nothing had ever been built on it. No one in the neighborhood seemed to know who owned it, and I guess that at one time it may have served some purpose; but for as long as my parents and I lived in the neighborhood, the lot remained vacant and empty. In the squatty sun bleached wood frame houses on the far side of the field people who we had never met seemed to live out their lives in complete anonymity. Although similar in construction to our houses, they somehow seemed to look better kept than ours. From what I could see they seemed to have lawns, and a couple sported single car garages. And, oh yes, they were all black.
Sometimes the children that lived over there ventured onto the lot and headed in our direction. Perhaps they just thought us as strange as we thought they were and just wanted to meet us. But we with our limited imagination would always assume that their movement towards us was some sort of aggression and we took it as a challenge. Not to be outdone, and certainly not to show fear then would begin calling out to our neighborhood, “Allá vienen los negritos”. Here come the little Negroes, was the marshaling cry—and the battle was on.
How the next event developed, or which group was the first to pick up a weapon, I don’t remember. But, having reached a point forty or fifty feet from each other, both sides, would begin to arm themselves with “terromotes”, chunks of dried mud and clay, suitable for chunking. Steadily advancing on each other not a word would be said until each side reached that invisible line that we all knew existed. At that point forward movement would cease, and after sizing each other up and picking out individual targets both sides would launch into a fierce, chunking frenzy each hoping to score a direct hit on someone.
Rarely would the projectiles reach, much less hit, anyone or anything, but both sides, now miniature armies, having depleted their ammunition would retreat to the rear to reload. This would continue until one side, or the other would tire, lose interest or score a direct hit on someone’s noggin. If a hit were scored, more often than not, the injured party and his fellow soldiers would scream a few threats and eventually retreat home. They would back up slowly throwing whatever they could pick up, cast dirty looks and by head jerks and thrusting chins, would silently promise a rematch very soon.
We never thought to ask just who they were—los negritos, and I’m sure they wondered the same about us. During that time schools were still segregated so there was no real social contact with either group. What was certain was that the large empty field existed for me not only as a source of adventure and mystery, but also as a dividing line between two warring factions. We fought with the other side not because of any racial motives, but because they lived over there and we lived over here. Our battles occurred sporadically, never really increasing in violence or intensity until the inevitable finally happened. During a grand and particularly violent battle, and just when I thought the “other-siders” could never hit anything, I looked up and the lights went out.
Now the roar, just as it was getting louder began to falter; sputter, rise and fall in pitch. Its irregularity and increasing volume held my attention completely. Looking up, and to my right I was suddenly blinded by the sun’s harsh wall of light. I quickly looked slightly away, and blinking rapidly to regain my vision and shaking my head to make the bright red balls that had suddenly appeared in my vision slide to one side, I caught what seemed to be a sharp metallic glint. Trying not to look directly at the newfound object, and at the same time, avert my gaze away from the sun, I began to track a silver object that grew in size as its sound increased exponentially. My mind told me what it had to be, but I refused to believe the message. Not here, not now! Impossible!
Prior to the darkness I recall picking up what I considered a prize terromote; large, heavy—slightly dry, and caked on the outside but soft and full of moisture on the inside. Perfect. If I threw it with just enough arc and height it would come straight down and have a really good chance of landing on one of the other-sider’s head. That would be grand: to score a direct hit with the most perfect mud and clay projectile that mother earth could manufacture. I straightened up, drew back, and judged the distance between the nearest other-sider and myself. Having eyeballed the correct distance, I glanced up to pinpoint the exact spot in space that I would have to aim for to achieve the most accurate parabolic trajectory, and drew back. But while still solving the launch solution, and to my brief surprise, there was suddenly no sky to see. There was only darkness, and there with it a faint crunching sound that seemed to echo down through my bones. I tried to shake my head to reassess and resolve the firing problem, and again tried to look up into the sky. All that my efforts won me now was a dull searing pain somewhere on my face. Through the roaring that had suddenly begun somewhere in the back of my head, I could also hear my friends, and they didn’t sound like they were making war.
Any attempt to turn my head was rewarded with a wave of nausea and confusion. Fighting through the pain I began to concentrate on remembering how to open my eyes and find my vision. As in slow motion blurry figures seemed to be forming through the dark haze. Finally with a gargantuan effort I brought those figures into focus. Hmm, scraggly brown grass and weeds, and growing horizontally to boot! I slowly began to realize that I was no longer standing, and that in fact I was on my back, on the ground, and boy, did something not feel right on my face. My left hand slowly came up to clear the darkness and it found wet warm liquid, and a new third nostril. I began to panic.
My brain quickly sent an urgent message to my mouth and tongue: “Say something, don’t just sit there open and lolling.” The best that mouth and company could come up with was a pathetic and highly inefficient gacking and snorking sound—hardly its best work—even at this young age.
While all this was going on, and my left hand was gingerly exploring the wonderment of that third nostril, my ears heard one of my comrades ask if “he” was dying. That got my mental ticker tape smoking and I tried to sit up. Mistake!! A giant wave of nausea brought with it what was left of my bologna sandwich and RC Cola and delivered it to the back of my throat. Tongue, quickly sensing a reverse delivery, retracted and offered no resistance to the package so rudely delivered by stomach.
Having achieved a certain degree of success managing this operation I willed my eyes to open, focus and see. Hardly the stuff of miracles, but the lids did part and the eyes began receive data that consisted mostly of dark and floating shadows. My friends now slowly began to materialize in my field of vision, and my tongue, finally relieved of those annoying messages from the brain, began to involuntarily sweep out mud and clay from its daily resting place. While performing this menial task it sent back a message of its own: Gee, there’s blood here too.
The silver object in the sky now began to take form. An airplane! And it was coming down fast and noisy, wings rocking slowly up and down. It was headed for our field of battle: the lot. . And it was going to land!
Hands went up under my armpits and I was helped up. The faces that began to come into focus were full of interesting expressions: those of awe, fear and shock. It was then I tasted the blood. That third nostril was a rip in my nose that began on the left side, where nose and face join, and ran horizontally all the way to the other side. I had been hit dead-on with a giant terromote, square on the nose. One that had all the necessary ingredients and a few extra to boot: a good-sized piece of embedded paving stone.
As a young boy fascinated by airplanes I would regularly badger my mother for any loose change she had so I could save up enough to buy those plastic airplane models that came in forty or fifty pieces, and were to be put together with a liquid epoxy. I was mostly interested in military models, mostly World War II fighters and bombers. Since jet engines were still in the planning stages then, all my models came with the appropriate glue-on propellers. These, during the gluing process, would quickly become part of my fingers or hands, or if very lucky, be destined to forever be on the wing or engine of the model never to ever spin due to the glut of glue I had clumsily applied everywhere. But I knew my planes, and this one really looked like the North American T-6D “Mosquito” that I had just put together a few weeks before.
Now in full panic mode I turned and began to run back to my house. I could hear my friends yelling something to me, but I was so concerned with my injury and the blood now streaming onto my white t-shirt that I could not make out the words. I had to get home, fast. I took our front steps, two at a time, all the while yelling for my mother. Just as I reached the door I saw her, also in panic mode, racing across the living room coming towards me. Her mouth was open, her hair flying and her eyes wide, were focused on not my nose, but my used-to-be-white T-shirt. Now my panic did an immediate about face, disappeared, and was instantly replaced by wrenching fear. I had ruined my shirt and now my mother was going to kill me! My injured nose no longer was the focus of my pain and fear. I was going to die at the hands of my mother!
Yes, it was a T-6D! The box the model had come in said that the T-6, originally known as the Texan, was the sole single-engine advanced trainer for the USAAF during World War II. Silver, with a snub nose, short fuselage and extended cockpit, it was still being used by some training squadrons to train fledgling pilots. And it seemed about ready to touch down on the field. What was it doing? What was I seeing? My eyes blinked furiously and began to water, the moisture feeling slightly cool and sticky on the outside edges of my eyelids. For the first time in my life I felt my heart beating heavily, rapidly, and irregularly in my chest. (This event was a foreshadowing of what I would come to know as one of my body’s defective systems, and a source of much anxiety and fear in my later years.) The plane swooped down low, appearing to come within just feet of the roof of one of the houses bordering the right end of the field. Just then all sound coming from the plane stopped.
Through my now slowly swelling eyes I saw my mother reach out with her left hand. I flinched, began to duck, anticipating like a good boxer the punch coming from my right side. But the blow didn’t strike. Instead I was grabbed by the back of the head and drawn gently into my mother’s bosom. She was on her knees, her arms now wrapping around my neck and shoulders, drawing me close to her…softly murmuring, almost whispering, reassuring. I began to cry.
I had grown so accustomed to the irregular sound of the plane’s engine that when it quit the silence that it made was almost deafening. I heard the wind slipping through the drying brittle grass that covered the field, the soft rasping sound my calloused bare feet were making in the chalky petrified dust that was my front yard and the barely perceptible hum coming from the flies that insisted on tasting the salty crusting sweat quickly evaporating on my neck and back. The wings rocked a bit, up and down, and for the first time I saw the propeller. It seemed to spin clockwise, reverse quickly and go counterclockwise, and then it stopped all at once. I could make out the four blades, gray with red tips. And it was so large and so still.
Sobs came from the depths of my belly, and for the first time I became aware of the raw burning ache, on and in, my face. With involuntary hiccup-like gasps I tried to say that I was sorry for having ruined my shirt, sorry for having ruined my face and maybe we could just forget about the whole thing somehow and have some Kool-Aid. But words were not being formed in their normal manner. Oh, they were coming from my brain OK, but once they got down into the facial area they kind of got messed up. So, I pressed the side of my head harder into my mom’s chest and bawled.
She scooped me up and carried me through the door and into the house. She walked quickly, just short of a run, and with long gliding steps covered the area between the front door and our bathroom in land record time. I closed my eyes and hoped that her disposition didn’t take a turn south when she realized that I was bleeding onto her dress, her arms, and the worn linoleum floor. She stopped suddenly and I felt myself being lowered. I forced my eyes open and saw that she was placing me into the yellowed old porcelain tub with the squeaky faucet and the rusted drain. I lay on my side and she began to pull the t-shirt over my head. At almost the same time I heard the faucet shriek and then cold water splashed onto my head.
For a few seconds it seemed to hover, nose high and tail low. Then a quick cloud of dust flew up and around the wings as the small black wheels made contact with the gritty dry surface of the field. The wings looked as if they would generate enough energy to pick the plane up again on their own as they flapped crazily up and down as the plane traveled the length of the field. The tail touched the ground and also began to bounce in counter rhythm to the wings’ motion; all this time with the propeller at a dead stop. Slower and slower, until the wings, tail, and the sleek silver body finally stopped.
Through my tear filled eyes I saw the clear water quickly turn red and swirl rapidly down the rusty drain. At the same instant a sharp searing burning pain gripped my face and I tried to recoil and pull my head from my mother’s firm grip.
“Cálmate mijito”, she said. “Tengo que lavarte la cara y limpiarte la sangre.”
The faucet squeaked shut I was gently guided onto my mother’s lap. She positioned my head so that my neck was arched across her leg and a soft dry towel was gently placed on my eyes and nose where a throbbing dull ache was beginning to grow. My eyes had been closed but when the towel was lifted off my face I opened them long enough to see where a large deep red stain had soaked in. My mother’s face came into view as she intently focused on the center of my face.
“Le voy a hablar al médico porque parece que te quebraste la nariz,” she softly said.
The doctor had to be called to look at what she thought was a very broken nose. But, I worried deep inside, where would the money come from?
She folded the towel over to an unstained area and placed it back on my face. Picking me up again she carried me to my bed and gently set me down. Taking my right hand she guided it up to where the towel was and asked me to hold it in place. She whispered out of the room and out the front door to go to Henry’s Store to use the store’s phone.
I stood still in stark amazement at what I was seeing. The very same airplane that I had managed to mangle with glue and clumsy fingers putting its various miniature parts together was now sitting in the field in full size and with a real pilot.
Slowly at first, then into a trot and finally a flat out run, I crossed House Street and jumped the ditch bordering the field. Twenty yards in I came to a sudden stop. Sirens—lots of them began to shrill into my ears. Looking to my left towards the Catholic Church two blocks away I spotted red flashing lights growing larger and larger.
As I squinted in the bright afternoon sunshine I also noticed that a few of the local adult residents from all four sides of the field, shaken out of their afternoon doldrums by the sound of the aircraft’s engine, had begun to drift across the street and onto the field. They too had been abruptly frozen in their steps by the sound of the sirens.
Looking back at the airplane I saw the aluminum latticed cockpit canopy pop open revealing not one but two pilots. Ignoring the slew of oncoming black police cars that were rapidly bearing down on the scenes I started to walk towards the plane.
The sharp throbbing pain coming from the center of my face and radiating up and back into my head was beginning to fade slightly; not so piercing now, but mutating into a dull persistent thudding ache. The cool moist towel I had been holding over my face now felt tacky and warm.
Ever so gradually, a dreamy grogginess began to ooze over me, and a sleepy weakness slowly lapped over my barely conscious mind.
“¡FRANCISCO!”
The name yelled at such a volume that even the wail of a dozen police cars, motorcycles and fire engines couldn’t drown it out. Feeling a sudden stab of fear I turned back to see my mother, skirts flying and arms pumping, dashing across the street. My God! I had never seen her run, much less clear the ditch running between the street and the field in one gigantic stride. I planted my bare feet into the rocky soil and gave up any hope of outrunning her.
“¡FRANCISCO!”
Again. The name usually accompanied by a rage filled face, and used whenever a formal ass whipping was pending. I turned to face her and instantly knew what a bull fighter must feel when caught flatfooted minus a cape and sword by a stampeding bull.
“Aquí estoy, mamá”, was all I could muster at that moment.
She was now almost on me and I could see that she was angry and exhausted at the same time. Reaching out she grabbed me by the shoulder, and without a word began to march me back to our house.
“Pero, mamá, el avión— ¿no lo vez?” I tried to sputter out. How can she not see the plane?
Her response was short and sweet, “It’s none of our business, mijo” And off we went.
Trying not to stumble while being dragged we passed between two fire engines whose crews had left the engines running, Never having seen one up close I was admiring the sheer size of the machine when I noted my reflection in the incredibly shiny red surface of the powder-puff fenders. I saw a pitifully bony kid, skinny beyond belief, barefoot, and wearing only a pair of old khaki pants with the cuffs and bottoms completely worn off. Sporting an “outie” belly button the size of a biggie marble, I saw a slightly distended belly that only much later in my life I understood to be a symptom of malnourishment.
“It’s time for your nap”, my mother said in a matter of fact voice.
What? Now? Just as an airplane lands in our field I have to take a nap? Really? But there was no argument to be made when my mother was in her vicious mood.
Up the stairs, onto the porch, into the house and right up to my bed I was pulled.
“There, get in and take your nap. I’ll wake you before dinner.”
Faced with a choice of a nap or a whipping for disobeying, I reluctantly crawled in. Mom pulled the thin sheet up to my chin and said softly while slowly moving her head from side to side, “It’s none of our business, now sleep.”
And sleep I did.
As the layers of slumber began to softly slide away, an uncomfortable ache began to push in on my consciousness. Far off I sensed a throaty moist rattling sound coming from deep inside my chest. Breathy moans, then soft hands were cradling my head turning me gently this way and that.
“Ay, mijito”, a loving voice said. “Pobrecito. ¿Te duele mucho?”
“No mamá, it doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”
What? Now almost fully awake I slowly began to understand. “Well, a little I guess”, I whispered.
“Well, doctor Wilkinson is on his way so just keep your head down.”
Now I’ve got it. The fight in the field and me getting beaned right on my nose. And then blood, lots of it. And my mother, why didn’t she beat me to within an inch of my life for messing up my t-shirt so badly? I felt my mother’s hands push another pillow under my head, making the dull thudding in the middle of my face dial up a few notches. Ouch. I started to reach up to feel my face but my hand was intercepted by a strong grip on my wrist. My mother’s face came into focus.
“No. Don’t touch anything until the doctor gets here.”
“But mom, it kinda hurts, and it stings a little bit. And I can’t see too good.”
“I know. That’s the wet towel over your nose.”
My nose? That must be the soggy lumpy throbbing thing that’s hurting me.
“OK, can I have some water?”
“Well, no. But you can suck on this other towel. It’s wet.”
The “sucking the towel” was a special trick that my mother had learned when I had broken my arm at the age of five. After being set and encased in a plaster cast I was awakened from the anesthesia slumber I had been put under and was immediately gripped by a raging thirst. The attending nurse explained that if I drank water that soon after coming out of anesthesia I would vomit and be in danger of choking. Instead, she explained, it was advisable to soak a clean towel in cold water and let me suck the moisture out. Well ever since then anytime I got sick with a cold, got a vaccination, cut myself, coughed, sneezed or otherwise looked pale, out would come the soaking wet towel for me to suck on.
And here it was again.
“Mom, can’t I just get a glass of water?”
“What? And have you choke? No, señor—suck.”
A short time later doctor Wilkinson arrived in his little black Ford coupe. My mother hurried to let him in. Carrying his overstuffed leather bag and looking a little bedraggled, he shuffled up to my bed. Over the cool moist towel I saw him sit on the bed’s edge and reach down into his bag. Removing a stethoscope he draped it over his neck and softly said, “OK, let’s see what we’ve got here.”
He gently lifted the towel off my face and I saw that it was heavily stained with blood. He looked at it briefly then shifted his gaze back to my aching nose.
“Hmm,” he said pensively. “Can you breathe through your nose for me?”
“Dou”, I said.
“OK, let’s take a look.”
Broken nose, bruised eye, and injured pride made up the full the diagnosis. Although my two front teeth felt loose the doctor told my mom that they would tighten back up in a couple of days. There was a horizontal gash across the bridge of my nose that would heal nicely without stitches, and my nostrils were unceremoniously packed with cotton and gauze stoppers to help the break heal. After cleaning the open cut with wooden cotton tips soaked in some kind of liquid that had to be distilled from habanero peppers he covered it with a gauze and tape bandage. To further humiliate me he deftly rolled me over, pulled my pants and shorts down and stabbed me in the right butt cheek. Hard.
“Gaaaaa!!,” was all I could think to say. And in a few seconds I sunk softly and quietly into a deep dark place to sleep and to dream.
“Mommy!” The word was spoken in a soft whiney tone. “Mommy?”
I saw that I was still in bed sleeping soundly.
“Mama.” Is the plane still there? My mind was asking. If I could just pick my head up off the pillow and look out the window I could be sure. But, how? I saw that I was just lying there breathing noisily through my mouth—my nose covered with a white patch. My mind would not, could not, let my eyes open; but I could see me from above my bed. There, to my left was the window. If I could just make my head turn I could see. But it was too much. Drifting down now, closer to me, over me, then dark.
“Frankie”, was the sound parting the blackness. “Frankie!”.
“Uhmm”, I mumbled.
“Frankie, wake up.” It was my mother, demanding.
My eyelids strained to part, and when they finally did a sharp bright flash of light seared into me. Light fogginess began to clear and I focused, squinting, blinking, and saw her face.
“How do you feel”?, she whispered.
“Uh, I don’t know”, I managed to say. “Is the plane still there”?
“What plane, hijo?”
“You know, the plane that came down in the field”.
“Mijo”, you need to sit up and take this aspirin”.
What did she mean “what plane”? She was there! She dragged me back across the street back to our house and put me in bed.
“Mom, you know. You told me it was none of our business”, I pleaded.
“And it probably wasn’t”, she gently replied. “Now, take this aspirin.”
Turning my head sharply away from her hands, one holding an aspirin and the other an old Bama jelly jar with water, I looked out the window across our pitiful front yard towards the field.
“Hey, turn back around here and take this aspirin and water or I’ll call Doctor Wilkinson to have him come back and give you another shot in the butt.”
“But Mom,” I whined. “I wanna see what happened to the airplane.”
“Look,” she said sternly. “I don’t know what airplane you’re talking about. You probably dreamed it.”
Looking out the window and straining to focus on the field I saw nothing but knee high brown weeds gently waving in the hot breeze. Squinting through the dirty, slightly wavy glass pane, I saw the entire field—and it was empty. No plane, no pilot, no people, nothing. Gone were the shiny red fire engines and the men in yellow rain coats. All gone.
“Did they all leave while I was sleeping?” I asked.
Looking at me with her soft deep brown eyes she said, “Turn around here and take this aspirin and then I’ll tell you.”
As I drank I saw her eyes narrow ever so slightly and the shadow of a smile slowly appear on her face.
Epilogue: Dreams & Jerry
I
Growing up as an only child for the first eight years of my life set the stage for my life and greatly influenced the eventual development of my adult personality. Certainly there were many other events, such as my early and disturbing experiences with religion, that helped mold me and shaped my outer being into who I would ultimately become, but I am convinced that the very core of my soul and persona was mainly formed in those early years.
Mostly, I was lonely. Dreams were my escape and in my dreams I ran away every day. But I was never alone. Jerry was my friend. In times of joy and in times of sorrow he would always be there for me.
II
My very first recollection of life was when I was about thirteen months old. I was in a crib, shirtless, shoeless, and in a diaper. I recall standing on the mattress holding on to the top of the crib’s railing and looking out a window. I recall that I did that a lot.
There was a light switch on the wall to the right of the window and I know I must’ve spent hours flipping it up and down—but I didn’t know what it was. I think I flipped the switch mostly to hear the sharp clicking noise that sounded like the toy that my aunt had left in my crib. If you squeezed that toy very hard it would click. But squeezing it hard enough to make it click was really hard for me to do. But the switch on the wall was much easier, and it made the same sharp pleasing sound. Push up—click! Pull down—click! And it would make my mother come back.
The window let me see when my mother went up the stairs and through the door into the white house. She would do that right after she went through our door to the outside. While she was gone I would click and click, then wait to see when she came out through the door of the white house and down the steps. Click! Click! Our door would open and my mother would come in. Sometimes her voice was very loud and I would be scared and start crying. She would make me lie down, say “Ne ne” very loud, and make my bottom hurt. I would cry, then I would sleep. And Jerry, he would be there too, and he would cry with me.
Other times, before I could move over to make the switch click, she would come in and make soft sounds and hold me. Those were the times I would feel very happy then I would get a warm drink from the heavy hard bottle. I would sleep and dream and Jerry and I would laugh and play.
And so it was for a long time. Anytime I felt joy and happiness, like when my mother would tell me we were going “to town”, I would shriek and call Jerry to announce that we were going somewhere to have fun. He would run up to me and stare me in the face, and say, “No you’re not!”
“Yes, Jerry we are! We’re going on the bus to downtown and get a hot dog and a Coke, then we’re going to a movie, Jerry—a movie! How much fun will that be? And, you’ll be here when I come home, right? And then I can tell you what I saw and how much fun it was.”
I would look up to my mother to and point to Jerry and tell her he wanted to come too. She would laugh high and loud and hug me so hard it almost hurt.
“Aye que tonto, there is no Jerry. It’s just us that’s going downtown. Come on silly, let’s go.”
I would always feel just a little ping of hurt in my chest as I realized that Jerry would not be coming again. He never came with us. He was always left behind.
But then I would know that when I came home, stuffed to the gills with hot dog, popcorn and Milky Ways, he would always be there to greet me and to hear all about how grand the movie was, and how much fun it all was. And he would always say the same thing,
“I missed you so, Frankie. I was really lonely…but now you’re home so let’s play!”
And so it was for many child years. Just like that.
And then one day, Jerry was gone and never came back. At first I don’t think I missed him because I guess other things were now keeping me occupied. Not so silly things, but not so fun things. In retrospect I think it was not so much what I had found that had distracted me, but what I had lost. I don’t remember exactly when it actually happened, but Jerry knows the exact day that my innocence was lost; and on that day he left me forever.
III
Only when I was much older and after many things, both good and bad, had happened in my life have I finally realized what dreams really are and what they have meant to me.
I now understand that my dreams are fleetingly thin hopes and promises that have been hidden away from the light and life of my conscious mind. As a child my dreams were real things having substance and weight—so much that I could close my eyes and literally feel their life surging into my being. But as the years passed and I began to experience the harsh realities of life with its many disappointments and painful lessons, those dreams began to fade from my conscious memory. Oh, sometimes late at night—even now—when my mind is one step away from total slumber shutdown I think I fleetingly see my wonderful friend, Jerry. There he sits still playing, wearing that unendingly mischievous smile with his twinkling eyes sweetly calling me back. But in that instant when the cover of sleep slides over me I know that we both understand I can never return to where we both once lived. His world, still full of dreams, innocence, truth and love, and made of pure light and uncorrupted joy, can never be violated by one who has ventured so far away and now lives in a self made world of dark memories and sad regrets.
And so it is—as I can never again enter Jerry’s world of pure happiness of innocence, he can also never live in mine.