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Rudyard Rap10.7.97
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and
blaming it on you...
Every month or so Shelton checks in with me on the issue of whether or
not he will be spending the night in this house. Originally, months and
months ago, my answer was no. As time passes my answers have changed
somewhat--"Hell no, Gosh I don't think so, Nope, Not gonna happen,
Probably not, and, No indeed."
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for
their doubting too...
I thought we had resolved the issue when Shelton traded all potential
overnight privileges for the opportunity to shave with an old fashioned
razor (without blade) this past summer. I reminded him of this the other
night when he brought up the subject of an overnight visit. "To be
honest Shelton, I couldn't believe it when you traded so cheaply," I
said.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting...
Often over the months I have thought that if Shelton could memorize this
poem that I had to memorize when I was thirteen, I would let him stay
over for a night. But the poem was not readily available at the branch
library so I kinda forgot about it. I asked Mandy the other day if she'd
had any luck finding it on the Internet and she said she downloaded the
poem about six months ago.
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies...
So I gave the printout to Shelton last night and he sat on the porch with
Mandy, and after studying the poem for a few moments, he began crying,
and wadded up the paper and threw it on the sidewalk. Mandy tried to
coach him some and Shelton said he hated her.
Or being hated, don't give way to hating...
Tonight, he and Mandy are back on the porch, the poem wrinkled and soft
as tissue paper. Shelton runs in here every few minutes while I write
this and recites two or three lines at a time. On his third visit he
asks for a bowl of cereal. "Sure, go ahead," I say.
But don't look too good, nor talk too wise...
"You're gonna get it Shelton."
Erica's Barricade8.24.97
Last night I found myself alone on the porch with three-year-old Erica
Lewis. She cuddled up to me and said,
"Ga-ga-go get me a puzzle Mr. Jim."
"You want a puzzle to play with by yourself while I sit out here next to
you but don't actually have to help you?"
She looks at me like I'm a damn fool and says, "Get me a puzzle."
"Which one do you want?," I say.
"Ma-ma-Mickey Mouse."
So I go in and get the puzzle. Erica is not sure this is the particular
Mickey Mouse puzzle she had in mind but it will have to do her expression
tells me, and then she begins breaking up the 12 or 13 interlocking pieces and
spreading them out on the porch.
Between August 95 and, December, when we actually moved in, I would come
over here after work and spend a few hours a night renovating the front
half of this house. Mandy would join me on the weekends. We had nothing
covering the front bay windows and were able to appreciate about a 140
degree view of the street.
Three boys, probably Glynn, Fermin, and Shelton, and one toddler,
definitely Erica, are playing in the parking lot behind Jack's store.
The game they are playing is smash 'em up derby and they are using the
bottom half of a grocery cart for a vehicle. Erica is sitting
comfortably and confidently in this vehicle and is being given
instructions by one of the boys. Erica would be just shy of her second
birthday. I will not be able to describe this accurately but the
intensity of her eye contact with this older boy as she listened to his
instructions struck me as something from another world. This tiny little
girl has the bearing of a full grown woman with years of worldly
experience. A manner almost flirtatious and calculating.
I was very much glued to the set (as we have come to think of these front windows),
for the few minutes it took to witness this episode. I guess what I'm
trying to say about this child Erica is that even when you witness
something you have never seen before, there is always a tiny thread of
something familiar. But in the case of two-year-old Erica Lewis I can
honestly say I have never seen anything even remotely similar to the
visions I was having of her on this day.
The boy who was giving Erica instructions now gets behind the cart and
begins to push her full speed towards a barricade of boxes, and milk
crates, and scrap lumber stacked precariously high. At the point of
impact the boy pushing the cart ducks his head and turns his body to the
side in a defensive posture. Erica, on the other hand, is looking
straight ahead, chin up, and as the debris cascades down around her, and
the boys are jumping up and down, laughing, and high fiving, Erica cocks
her head a few degrees to the right, smiling at, and challenging with
her bemused eyes, these goofy ten and eleven-year-old uncles who can't
build no better barricade than that.
"I knew you could do that by yourself Erica, on account of, you're so
smart, and pretty too, I don't mind saying."
"Ge-ge-get me another one Mr. Jim."