Posted on by michaelwconrad

Guilty Bullets

I can’t imagine you will think well of me after what I am about to confess. Truthfully I’m not doing this to clear my conscience, I’ve made peace with the fact that I did some rotten things when I should have known better. I suppose I’m sharing this in an effort to create a more honest representation of my young life after the previous posts. Make no mistake, I was a thoughtful and sensitive child, but I was also a dumb kid capable of doing things that make me cringe in retrospect.

I had a partner in this, an older kid from around the corner. I was 12 at the time which would have made Shawn 15 or so. He was a big, rough kid who would have made a fine addition to our small towns struggling highschool football program, but Shawn had asthma that kept him from most forms of athletics. I was sensitive to this plight and when he would get gassed out I would hang back with him while the other kids in the neighborhood ran around, uncaring about the fact that medically Shawn couldn’t keep up. I say I did this out of empathy, but I was also using this opportunity to win favor with someone who normally would have dismissed me as a potential friend due to my age and nerdy qualities.

Shawn was cool, “wicked cool” as we would say, he was also a royal shithead. He had fought with my older brother, blown up toads with fireworks, taught us all kinds of “facts of life” stuff we had no business knowing, and was generally a bad influence. He was just one of those shitball kids who would later grow into a shitball man. As far as I know he’s still in that same neighborhood, in that same run down house, catching the occasional charge for dope slinging; really taking advantage of the opioid crisis that’s devastating huge portions of Southern New Hampshire. Like many quaint small towns across America without much going on, heroin has become the Great Pastime for once thriving commuter cities not far from major metropolitan areas.

Shawn grew to like me in those younger years, he taught me how to throw and catch, allowed me to look at the pornography in his tree house, he even once invited me to walk to the school to watch a baseball game with him. I became so excited by the idea and the permission granted by my mother (who, frankly seemed relieved that her bookish kid had an interest in something other than dragons) that I ended up not being able to go after all when I started throwing up all over myself. It was nerves. Similarly, not too many years later when I was to attend my first concert I became very anxious thinking that I would surely lose my virginity there. I had all of these strange notions about how life worked due to my sheltered upbringing. My parents exposed me to a lot of stuff, just not the stuff that would end up defining me as an adult, like film, music, and art. I had no idea that baseball games were boring, and that going to a punk show is not how one typically gets laid.

Anyway, Shawn kept coming around, while I was rarely allowed to leave the yard for extended periods this didn’t prevent Shawn from joining us in wiffle ball, or pitching around his Nerf football, one with a tail on it that would allow even an untrained arm to cast out long bombs that would spiral through the air like we knew what we were doing. My little brother, 5 years my junior would even be able to join, and along with him we added my direct neighbor Sammy.

Sammy was a pretty wild kid, foul mouthed and seemingly aware of life beyond his young age. He, like my brother, was barely old enough to be attending elementary school. He was the kind of problematic kid that had a spot with us only for lack of other viable options. There were plenty of kids around, but the aloof qualities that have been cited as the defining characteristic of my generation were already apparent in my local peer group. The other kids had stuff to do indoors that didn’t involve sweat, itchy grass, and hanging with the refuse of the neighborhood. For all I knew these kids had been instructed to stay away from me, perhaps through osmosis I had acquired the same reputation that Shawn was already developing in that little loop of stubby homes on the hill. 

Sammy didn’t have the kind of parenting that might protect him from kids like us. He and his parents lived with his grandmother and grandfather, but we rarely saw them. I had heard rumors that his father had shot a man a few years back. His grandparents seemed kindly enough, but they didn’t want us running on their grass, so my yard became the place we would do our thing. We were fenced in on one side, the backside barrier was a line of impossibly tall pine trees, with a bushy hedge on the other side. This backyard was all boxed in by the house and the garage that housed the hens. It was in many ways a perfect place to play, generally flat and soft enough that if you fell (and you would fall) the grass and soil would absorb much of the impact.

We did have the ongoing issue of fouling the ball off over the fenced side. The fence didn’t exist as part of our yard, it was a town requirement as there was an inground pool in the neighboring yard, owned and maintained by a woman named Michael, just like me. She was ok, but if we popped a foul and jumped the fence to retrieve the ball she would dress us down, admonishing us for trespassing. She rightly feared the lawsuit that would follow one of us falling in the pool and dying, or some other concern that seemed outlandish to us in our youth. She would tell us to knock and have her grab the ball, but if we were to take that approach we would have been at the place constantly. We ended up moving to the other side of the yard, but then the delight of a “homerun” became a collective groan from all as one of us would have to be elected to knock on Michael’s door. Eventually we tried to agree to a “no homers” rule that Shawn refused to follow, saying it was impossible for him to pull his swing, he was just too strong. Really though Shawn was the only one who would have needed to adjust, the rest of us too small and unrefined to hit a homer with any regularity.

Sammy desperately wanted to be respected so he was constantly jockeying for position, mostly by picking at my little brother Steven. He knew he couldn’t get away with much if he were to come at his older, bigger, playmates like Shawn and I, so Steve became his target. During football he would get rough with him, he would cuss him out, and at times get bold enough to try his hand at Steve in fisticuffs. Steve didn’t need anyone to defend him, already significantly bigger than Sammy (Steve now stands at 6’7” and had a beard fit for the Viking warship) and handy with the fists from having two brothers who would periodically test him in martial combat. But, being that this was my brother and that Sammy was just some shitbird kid that we hung out with out of some compulsory need to round out teams; I didn’t cut any slack and would often end up whooping on Sammy to remind him of his role in our backyard hierarchy. Shawn seemed to really enjoy such moments, egging on both sides equally until it became physical (usually briefly, with wrestling and choking being the primary violent engagement) and Sammy either retreated home or would cool his jets.

We all knew that Sammy, like Shawn was asthmatic. While Shawn got by with a couple puffs off of his inhaler, Sammy had this whole mask situation he had to do a couple times a day it seemed. It looked like an oxygen mask from TV and would puff out thick, milky, plumes of vapor. He needed to wear it for several minutes and more than once we left him behind, youthful impatience not allowing even a few moments delay once plans were set. If we did go out we would have to scamper off home by the time the streetlights came on, so time was a commodity we couldn’t spare, even if it meant leaving Sammy out entirely.

I don’t recall Sammy ever losing his wind like Shawn would, maybe that mask was something Shawn really could have used too, or maybe Sammy was just so damned determined to find his place in the pack that he refused to ever allow us to see such a thing. Sammy was actually kind of a bad ass now that I look back on it, a real turd maybe, but he was tough as hell.

One day he and Steve were starting to get into it and uncharacteristically Shawn broke up a scrum between the two. Incredibly he said was sick of the violence. He had something else in mind, a more gentlemanly way to settle the dispute. 

“We’re gonna do a decathlon.” Shawn said, like we were all supposed to know what that meant. I was vaguely familiar with the term, but I didn’t actually know what events comprised such a thing. “10 challenges, 10 tests of strength, endurance, and agility. Winner take all.” What the winner would take was never questioned and would remain unidentified. It was actually a brilliant way to end the fight because suddenly the three of us were all so enthralled at the idea of a decathlon that the dispute became unimportant.

“I’m gonna be Sammy’s coach and Mike is gonna be Steve’s.” Even then I hated being called “Mike” but whatever- DECATHLON!

“We go to 10, each one is worth 1 point. Who ever wins more events is the… winner.” Shawn continued, we were all glad that he was being thorough, it seemed like he knew exactly what he was talking about and we were glad to have someone so worldly in our clique.

“Now, before we start I need a coaches meeting, you guys start stretching out, we will be right with you.” Shawn said authoritatively, then grabbed me around the shoulder and pulled me along to the side yard by the oak tree that was a haven for the hated and reviled gypsy moth caterpillars.

“I’m gonna make sure Steve wins.” Shawn said with a wry grin, quietly so the guys couldn’t hear.

“How ya gonna do that?” I said. I didn’t think Steve needed any unfair advantage, but I was all ears.

“I’m gonna wear his ass out. His asthma will get him, it’ll be cake!” Shawn said devilishly, I just smiled back, unsure of what the plan was still but not wanting to look like I wasn’t keeping up.

We returned to our competitors. I didn’t know what to do so I just had Steve stretch out, meanwhile Sammy was kicking out burpees while Shawn, as his coach barked encouragement. The burpee is essentially a form of torture, if you’ve ever had the misfortune of doing them, you too will know the torment and toll it takes. After a couple sets of burpees Shawn saw fit to initiate the first round of the decathlon, a sprint to the end of the yard and back.

Sammy was visibly sucking wind already as he lined up against Steve, and the pair took completely untrained three point positions at the imaginary starting like. Shawn counted down from 3 and they took off.

Being bigger was a disadvantage in this event, but Steve was able to trounce Sammy without issue in what may have otherwise been a pretty close race. Back at the start Steve was awarded his first point and Sammy was commanded to do a set of 50 jumping jacks.

“You’re just not warmed up yet, now beat your face!” Shawn shouted, echoing something he had heard at football tryouts. In this case “beating your face” amounted to push-ups, it was a new term for me. Once Sammy could do no more, it was on to the next part of the decathlon which was the long jump. After Steve made short work of him in that one it was immediately followed by the triple jump, and again the already exhausted Sammy came up short, in one part due to having all the gas sucked from his tank, in other part simply by being physically smaller than my brother.

The events continued on and eventually the coaching sessions became even more intense, at times with all three of us shouting at him to do more and more strenuous prep work between events. To his credit Sammy was keeping up with the demands. Sammy didn’t win a single event, and as we celebrated Steve’s gold medal, Sammy slumped under that gnarly old oak tree panting like a dog, his face blotchy with reddened cheeks, and a very pale hue elsewhere. His lips were purple and he said very little. Sammy was right there on the edge of a significant asthma attack.

I don’t feel good about this, this is just one of those things that dumb kids do prior to the development of a well defined moral compass. At the time I felt no remorse, but looking back on it this was incredibly cruel. The very thing that enabled me to forge a kind of friendship with Shawn was being taken advantage of and I was unable to see how heartless and stupid I had been to allow such a thing to happen. Sammy recovered without a major medical issue, but it did take some time for him to rise and find his legs again. 

We continued to play and Sammy, being as young as he was, never realized how he had worked over by a couple of idiots. He was happy to have been coached by the oldest and coolest among us, and that is the way of kids. We just want to be seen, and in Sammy’s case I don’t know that he got a lot of that from his father. 

I didn’t learn anything from this situation at the time, there is no great moral victory here, and on the scale of bad things I’ve done it doesn’t really rank, all’s well that ends well right? Sammy didn’t get killed by the neighborhood kids… but this is one of those memories that pops up every once in awhile and chills me in the same way a close call with a bad car accident might haunt you, a dodged bullet.

This was not the last time I would be the bullet.

Posted on by michaelwconrad · 2 Comments

Dewey(?)

I hid it in my closet. I promised myself I wouldn’t look at it anymore. 

My memory is such now that I can’t even say for certain that it even existed and I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a Google search for proof of it actually being a real thing. I’m pretty sure my brother wouldn’t remember it so that’s a dead end too. In reality it doesn’t matter if it ever existed anyway, memories serve the purpose of informing future choices, and nothing- even a revelation that it was an item I simply imagined- could undo the idea of it. This is the kind of thing that comes to mind when it is idle, or at the precipice of sleep, times when the mire of the subconscious rises and floods over manufactured ideations of the self. This is fundamental now, it’s veracity is no longer relevant.

It was a coloring book, a cheaply produced and easily purchased means of keeping the kids tied up, even for a few fleeting moments so that my mother could have a second to attend to the other pressing matters of keeping the home. The book had a high gloss, color cover and ragged newsprint interior, the perfect vector for the broken assembly of crayons we kept in a snap-lid tupperware container. This book was a Huey, Dewey, and Louie theme, and it haunted my young life.

Crayons were a big part of my youth, and remain a medium that interests me. I love the chaos they bring to the table, and their versatility. These are especially valuable when you’re young because they’re cheap and don’t require much to keep them in use. One might use the plastic sharpener affixed to the large collections, the ones with the coveted metallic hues, but most of us didn’t have that did we? Upkeep requires only that you peel the paper sleeve back if they get too short, and some of us would remove those entirely. I’m pretty sure that the kids that removed the paper all the way are among those most likely to have sociopathic tendencies, or the types who buy cases of single use plastic water bottles, the ones full of water stolen from municipal sources and redistributed to wealthy. The removal of the paper was at times unavoidable, but to willfully do so (without intention of broadside fill applications of course) seemed sinful to me. Many of the cheap crayons I used would slide from their paper in their own rebellion, and this always caused me some dismay. I would make an effort to ensure that they remained paired, which was often impossible, as they would again escape the sleeve in the jostling of their container.

Melting crayons on a hot lightbulb was a whole other matter. Yes it was wasteful, but it was 1 part science and 2 parts art to my brother and I. The act was taboo in the Conrad house, but we couldn’t stop. The evidence was impossible to obscure, between the smells and the dripping stains left on the bulbs, we always got caught. I don’t recall any heroic efforts made by my parents to prevent such actions, but we must have been dressed down a time or two for our indiscretions, I simply cannot remember those reprisals.

  We had filled out a number of the pages, my brother being a couple years my senior, was able to stay in the lines and even incorporate advanced shading techniques. I emulated his touch, but often in an effort to complete the piece I would leave streaks of darkness where I had applied too much pressure, run fills of the wrong color on elements, and of course find my crayon dancing its way outside of the line art in ways that revealed my lack of fine motor skills. My mother was always supportive, and was bold enough to let me know that when I colored I could use any color palate I desired, and to remind me that the lines were mostly a suggestion. She was very kind, and while we weren’t exactly the “hang it on the fridge and give this boy a bow” kind of family, her support of the arts was as genuine as a tired mother of 2 (soon to be 3) could muster. 

I made a discovery though, one day, one that would require me to hide this book away and hope to never see it again.

I have been called many things in my now 40 years of life to shame me for my empathy. New England remains a bastion for machismo and gender bias, and while it wasn’t the hot topic then that it has become in today’s world, this too was something that my mother protected me from. She had her reductive moments, but when I would cry she would console me. When the other kids called me a “cry baby” or take shots at my sensitive nature, she would always remind me that the world needs more heart, and that I should never be ashamed to express my sadness.

Even with my mothers support I kept some of these expressions to myself. I knew that understanding had limits and that there were going to be times in life I had to march forward with the stoic knowledge that our existence is defined by pain and suffering. I was 5 years old and already learning unavoidable truths that stood like monoliths in my developing world view. I had become aware of death. I knew that when a baby was born there would be blood, and pain, and tears of both the mother and her child. I knew that this would be reflected in the end, having seen hardened adults weep at the loss of a loved one. I was beginning to see that while tragedy and sadness at times summoned tears, sometimes we cry for reasons mysterious to the world, and these tears often called for explanation.

I had to hide the book because it had made me cry and I didn’t believe that my expression of grief would be understood or accepted. I had to tuck it away under winter clothes and sundry storage items because I knew I would be unable to find the words to validate my cry baby showing. The book was hidden now and I would never have to look at it again.

But something strange happened and I did look again. In fact it became a bit of a preoccupation to sneak off to the bedroom, pop open the closet, dig deep for it and look at it, but only when I was alone and wouldn’t have to explain why I was crying. I didn’t enjoy the crying, and I’m not entirely sure what it was all about or why I insisted on revisiting this private pain, sometimes multiple times in a day. At times it felt like a compulsion, but it wasn’t as if I feared some malady if I didn’t look, or felt incomplete if I didn’t conduct the ritual. I think I was trying to make sense of what I was seeing and trying to conquer the empathy, or at the very least define it.

I guess I liken it to pulling out love letters from a former partner, or gazing at a picture of a departed loved one. Aside from rolling around in memories for comfort, this process seems to me a brave act of confronting pain rather that keeping it tucked away in the folds of a wounded heart. I have never been the kind of person who indulges in such activities routinely, but this situation with the Huey, Dewey, and Louie coloring book might have been my young version of such an act.

The cover was hard for me to look at.

We must have had that particular book for awhile before I noticed it, but when I did it bothered me in an exquisite way that I hadn’t felt in my short life prior to that. You see, we were a poor family, my mother would later tell me that we were not poor, we were just “upper-lower-middle class” which in a town of straight up middle-upper class folks felt poor. She was a writer, so her language was well honed and able to reframe our economic status in a way that felt less dire, but we were poor. We ate, we went to the doctors (sometimes) and were clothed and housed, but otherwise the struggle was there. We lived on a fixed budget, even food was, at times a commodity that proved limited toward the end of the week as my father awaited his paycheck. It was tight enough that I remember my brother getting chewed out for hiding a few slices of salami under his pillow- this stuff was for lunch, but he was hungry and only the mealy apples were to be used for snacking. We eventually got put on the free lunch voucher system at school to the ignorant ridicule of our peers, which only added to our hunger. We often opted not to use the vouchers for fear of harassment from our schoolmates who knew no better. It may have been this economic limitation that was contributing to my tears, but I suspect I was too young to understand all that. I just understood toys. If a toy became broken or lost it would be gone forever, there would be no replacement- maybe the tears were about death after all?

The cover showed the duck brothers playing with Matchbox cars. Having launched the cars off of a ramp two of the cars had collided, resulting in one becoming broken in the process. Two of the brothers laughed and smiled while the third Dewey(?) looked on in dismay at the destruction of his toy. He had a single tear squirting from his avian eye, a look and a tear that informed me that he would be left out as the other boys continued to play with their cars. That’s all. Was I crying over the idea of the loss of a material thing, something that in my adult life I have made an effort to not place too much stock in? Was I somehow preparing myself for the loss of my material goods? Feeling left out? Poverty? Death? Empathy? Sadness over the great truth that while some suffer others continue to laugh a play? Cruelty? The end? Lack of control? Why did I keep returning to this  painful meditation on losing something you love?

In a way it now feels silly to confess. While I say I was poor, I was taken care of. I wasn’t being raised in a dirty field under a corrugated tin roof, drinking befouled water from the creases left behind by a machine of war. I wasn’t watching friends and family get erased from existence by explosions and gunfire, or diseases long thought conquered by the developed world. I wasn’t scrabbling for government cheese, wearing shirts printed for the losing team of the Super Bowl. I was upper-lower-middle class, white, American, male, I had it easy by almost every metric of comparison, maybe I just didn’t know that yet. I had a coloring book hidden in my closet.

NOTE- So I did it with remarkable ease. I found the book in question in a single Google search and was surprised to find that Dewey(?) is in fact, not crying. I wonder now if that was an addition that my brother made, or worse, I may have been the one to do so. I could have added that and felt shame over what I did, which would only add to the bizarre quality of the whole situation. It’s entirely possible that over the years I tagged it on in my remembrance to give some context to my interpretation of what was going on with that cover to explain to myself why the book lingers on in my thoughts some 35 years on. 35 years of remembering SOMETHING, some pain I have never fully identified and reconciled. 35 years of self pity, or sympathy, or guilt, or fear. 

I don’t know what ever happened to the book. I suspect in time I grew tired of the routine, or my mother tossed it when the seasons changed and the winter clothes were moved to our drawers. Most likely it was trashed when my little brother was born and I moved to the basement, room was needed for the new member of the family and that seems to make sense to me.

When my brother was born I was 5, around the time of the coloring book and my secret crying sessions. I remember being woken early in the morning, night really, and being taken to my parents friends house not far from where my mother would go into labor. I barely remember the events of that morning, but I do remember speaking to my mother on the phone when my father came back to tell us that we had a new brother. I was able to call her before visiting the hospital later that day. I asked her if her tummy hurt. A picture once existed of me in my pyjamas, standing in some strange kitchen on a hardline phone holding my stomach as I spoke to her. She told me she was ok. She told me my brother was ok. I don’t remember ever seeing that book again after we all came home later that day.