Chapter 5 – Tom
We lost Dad somewhere near the beginning of the house of mirrors. You’d think he’d try harder to stay with us. Then again, maybe it makes sense that he wouldn’t. The maze seemed to be completely empty except for us and Ken, of course, with all his questions. We did run into one other lady. We found her in a room of distorted mirrors. Unlike some of the other distorted mirrors, these made you look better than you did in normal life – which was still a lie, but seemed a nice one. The lady proved that was definitely wrong.
Mom approached her when we found her in that room of mirrors. She had sat down to smile at herself in the mirrors. “Can we help you?” Mom asked. “Did you get stuck here? Would you like to come with us?”
The woman looked up at Mom in surprise. “Stuck?” she asked. “No, I’m not stuck. I like it here. Everything is nice here. Just the way it should be.” She nodded and continued to stare at her beautified reflection in the mirror. She seemed to have a hard time taking her eyes off of it to give us even a passing glance. I suppose it took a lot of work to keep the illusion real for her. Eventually she ignored us completely and wouldn’t respond to any of our questions.
It gave me the creeps. Why would you want to stay in a make-believe world? Where was her family? Didn’t she care? Didn’t she want to check and see if they were really alright? They probably needed her. Kids need their parents. This I knew. I didn’t even want to want to be with my parents and I still did. It was enough to rip me apart. A lot of times it did.
We gladly left the room with the vacant-eyed woman and found ourselves in another room of twisted mirrors. I groaned, “Enough already. When are we going to get out of here?”
“It’s fun!” Brittney piped up.
“It is not fun!” I hissed at her. “These halls go on forever and my feet hurt and I am sick and tired of seeing myself twisted and squashed and otherwise completely messed-up!”
Brittney backed away from me and in her eyes, for just a second, I saw the same look in her eyes that I have seen in my mom’s eyes when she is scared of my dad. I froze in horror. I looked in the mirror and it was still me looking back at me and not my dad. Still, I knew what I had seen in Brittney’s eyes. Was I turning into my dad?
I was six when Brittney was born. I was used to having mom and dad to myself. I had watched her carefully for some time after she was born to see what she was like and whether I would like having someone else be part of our family. One day some kid had teased me at school and I came home still hurting from what he had said. I remember looking over the edge of Brittney’s seat when I got home from school that day, watching as one of my tears fell on her blanket. That was when she reached up and wrapped her little hand around my finger. I looked at my finger and her hand and then at her face and that was when I knew that having a little sister was wonderful. Someone had picked up this baby and put it in this family and given me a pocket of love.
Mom had walked by us then and said, “Be gentle with Brittney, Tommy.”
“I will,” I had murmured. “I will.”
I remember another time. I was in my room. It was night and I should have been sleeping, but my dad was yelling at my mom about something. That was when I was used to feeling the most alone – the most aware of what would happen if the universe exploded around me. Then my door cracked open just the tiniest bit, and three-year-old Brittney’s tiny feet came hurrying across my floor and suddenly she was at my bed struggling to climb up the side. I reached down and lifted her into bed with me. She buried her head in my shoulder and wrapped her arms tightly around my neck.
“Shhh, Brittney,” I had soothed “It will be all right. You can sleep with me.” Again I felt that having a little sister was wonderful. I was no longer alone! Mom found us the next morning sound asleep with Brittney’s arms still locked around my neck.
Why are things more complicated when you grow up? I don’t know. Things just seemed to get worse and it seemed so unfair. I went from being angry sometimes, to being angry all the time. I can’t remember a day in the last six months that I haven’t been angry at somebody for at least half of it.
It was when I tried football that things fell apart between Britt and me. I hate football. I’m angry that I ever had to play football. I played football because my mom asked me to do it for my dad. So I alternated between being angry at my mom for asking and being mad at my dad for not noticing all that I was sacrificing “for him.” One day I came home from practice sore and muddy and emotionally bruised from the coach’s yelling. As I walked in the door, my dad saw me and said, “Go get cleaned up! You’re filthy.” It was like twisting the knife, you know? That was when I noticed that Brittney was curled up next to Dad. He had his arm around her and as I watched, he went back to reading her a book. How come Brittney could get attention from Dad just by bringing him a book and here I was killing myself on the football field and all it earned me were his sneers.
I went to my room and took off my football gear for the last time. I was done with football. I was done with trying. And I was done with Brittney. That was that.
Ken wanted me to be honest, did he? That was the only way to find our way out, was it? I turned fiercely back toward Brittney and Mom. “I hate how Dad always yells at you, Mom, and I hate how you just sit and take it. Why can’t you stand up for yourself?”
Mom’s eyes widened and started to fill with tears. My heart twisted inside of me. ‘Yeah Ken, this honesty thing is really helping tons. What a great idea!’ I had already started, though, and this was no time to stop.
“And you, Brittney!” I steeled myself as she flinched away from me. “How can you cozy up to Dad like you do? I hate seeing you all lovey-dovey with dad! It makes me wish you had never been born!”
Mom gasped. I closed my eyes to block out Brittney’s face, but I was too late. I saw it crumple in on itself. I put out my hand to steady myself against one of the mirrors, but instead I found that there was nothing there and suddenly, instead of standing in the house of mirrors, I was falling.
**
We fell into cold water with a loud splash. I worried that it wouldn’t be very deep, out here in the cornfields. It was, after all, a traveling carnival, but I plunged into the water and didn’t touch the bottom. I swam upwards beating my arms and legs until my head broke the surface and I took in great gulps of air. On either side of me, Mom and Brittney broke the surface, as well and gasped in the air.
I looked around. We seemed to be in a cave, although I couldn’t see an opening and it didn’t seem to be closed at either end. No. It must be more of a tunnel, I decided. Also, the water was moving, although you almost couldn’t tell because it was moving so slowly. Still, that would make it a river we had fallen into. It was one more clue to where we might be.
“It’s the Tunnel of Love!” Brittney said in triumph. I looked around at the walls then, and noticed for the first time, that although it was dark, you could make out a faint glittering on the walls and the shapes of hearts here and there.
“How appropriate,” I thought miserably. I was still throbbing from the guilt of having hurt my mom and sister just moments before. Any shred of hope I might have once held in this carnival had now left me with only bitterness and disappointment left in its place.
“You guys alright?” We turned to see Dad swimming toward us. I felt relief at seeing him again and then felt angry at myself for that familiar desire to be with him. I tried to steel myself and lock myself up tight once again.
“Brittney says we’re in the Tunnel of Love,” Mom said to Dad as he joined our little group.
“Very perceptive, Britt,” Dad said. “I’d say, you’re right.”
The light wasn’t very good, but Dad looked different. Abashed almost. Almost like he was afraid to be with us, or that he didn’t quite know how to act around us. That was sure different. And different was good. What had happened to him in the house of mirrors? Maybe it had gone better for him than it had for us. Hope flared traitorously up in me again, before I smashed it back down and secured the lid.
“I saw a boat go by a few minutes ago,” Dad said. “I swam toward it hard, but I couldn’t reach it in time before it got away.”
He looked around speculatively. “Maybe if we swim over towards the middle, then we will already be in its path when another one comes. Then we can hang on or climb in. Who knows what other surprises might be around the bend?”
Friday, November 9, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Chapter 4 - Part 2
It was gloomy inside and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the low lighting. When they did, we were surrounded by a path of mirrors set at odd angles and seeming to trail on in an infinite number of directions for an infinite number of miles.
“We’ll never find our way through here,” Sonya moaned behind me.
Brittney giggled, “This’ll be fun!”
I started forward. I could see in the mirrors that the others followed me. When I saw Sonya turn, I turned to follow her, but smacked my nose into the mirror in front of me. I turned again trying to find the opening, but saw four different places where my family all seemed to be leaving at once. I chose one, but again smacked myself in the nose. I turned again, but now I could see no one. That is, I could see no one but me reflected back hundreds of times in the mirrors around me.
“Great!” I sighed. I put my hand out to feel the walls. When I came to an opening I took it only to be surrounded by reflections of myself once again. The difference in this room, though was that the mirrors were distorted in some way, making my head look grotesquely large, my chest tiny, and my waist large. It made my stomach turn for real. Where was Brittney and her child’s sense of humor when I needed her?
I started forward and smacked my nose again before I remembered to put my fingers against the wall. I traveled around the room and then traveled again. Of course, I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that I had been completely around the room twice – that would mean I had made it around at least once for sure. Still, I found no opening – not even the one from which I had entered. The hundreds of images of my distorted head were making me physically sick. I closed my eyes and leaned back against one of the mirrors. When I finally forced myself to open my eyes again, I was no longer alone in the room.
That man was there. What had he said his name was? Ken. That was it. I reached out my hand to see if he were real or just another illusion of the room. I touched the softness of his shirt and his voice boomed out in a mighty laugh. “Afraid I’m not real are ya’ Sam?” he asked.
I looked at him warily. “It wouldn’t surprise me in this crazy place.”
“Oh, I’m real,” he assured me. “I’m very real.”
“Great!” I said, “Then you can tell me how to get out of here.”
“Of course!” Ken said.
I waited but he said nothing more. “But . . .” I ventured, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“I could,” he said, “But you already know the answer yourself.”
He smiled. I shook my head.
“It’d be a lot easier without all these distorted mirrors,” I grumbled.
For some reason, Ken looked pleased when I said this. “It would! Wouldn’t it?” he asked. “Why would it be easier, Sam?”
“Why do you ask so many questions?” I shot back at him.
“How else will we find the answers?” he replied with wide-eyed innocence.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. It would be easier to get out of here without the mirrors because I can’t see where I am going!”
“Don’t the mirrors reflect reality back to you?” Ken asked again.
“Yes, Mr. Smart Cracker, but not exactly as it is. These mirrors distort the truth. Even the ones in the other room were set at such odd angles that they reflected things that I wasn’t looking at – or that I wasn’t meaning to look at. What I mean is, I thought I was looking at one thing and found that I was looking at another.”
“And that makes it hard to find where you are going?” he asked.
“Extremely,” I said keeping my eyes locked on his so that I didn’t have to see the wavering image of myself on all the walls.
“Are we sometimes like mirrors to one another, do you think, Sam?”
“Like mirrors to one another?” I repeated.
“Do you ever check your reality with the reality of another person?” he asked.
“I suppose so,” I said thinking of the little boy I had once been who was forever shunned from his mother’s side.
“Then, wouldn’t it follow that we should be very careful that what we reflect back to other people be as honest as possible -- to avoid distortion, that is.”
I thought about that. Here in the house of mirrors, that was absolutely true. But in the real world, honesty was complicated. Honesty could get people hurt. Not to mention, things could be true for you one moment, and not true the next.
Ken was watching me carefully. Suddenly, the room changed from mirrors to a sort of movie screen and on every screen was a reenactment of the last time Sonya had sung. My heart melted to see her sing again. She was so beautiful Just as quickly, my heart seized up in my chest as I saw her singing with that man. My face hardened and I turned away. At least I tried to turn away, but there she was on the other wall as well. I turned again and again. I crumbled to the floor in front of Ken with my head in my arms.
“You didn’t really want Sonya to stop singing, did you Sam? Tell me honestly – tell yourself honestly, what did you feel at that recital?”
I could feel sobs building up in my chest. “How could I tell her that? How could I tell her that when I saw her with that man, I saw what she meant to me and I know what I am. It makes no sense for her to choose me, but I need her and I can’t let her get away. I can’t! It would kill me. It would kill me.”
Ken waited a moment as I sobbed into the quiet. Then he said, “Now that, sir, is emotional honesty. But you reflected something different to Sonya that day, didn’t you? And when you did, you distorted her path, so that when she tried to follow you, she was lost. You created the maze that lost her. Even if she suspected your real feelings, how could she talk to you about them when you were not being honest with her – when you were not being honest with yourself?”
I sat up and wiped my eyes. “How can I find her again?” I realized that I was no longer talking about the maze of mirrors in Ken’s carnival, but about my own life.
“Who caused the problem?” Ken asked.
I had a co-worker once who said that only fools confess. I was past that now. There were other things more important. “I did,” I said.
Ken reached down and offered me his hand, pleased with me again. “Then who has the responsibility to make it right?” he asked.
I took his hand and stood up. “I do,” I said and when I did, I realized with wonderment that I felt a sense of power that I hadn’t felt for a long time.
“Why does it feel good to say I’ve done something wrong?” I asked Ken.
“Have you been avoiding responsibility?” Ken asked me. “Have you been breaking your commitments?”
Suddenly the mirrors changed again only this time they showed Tom and I in the car before his first day of football practice. He looked so scared. Why hadn’t I noticed before? He certainly hadn’t distorted anything for me, but I hadn’t been looking, had I? He was asking for my promise that I’d come pick him up after the practice. I watched as I promised him.
This hurt, too. I hate that kind of hurt – that kind of disappointment in me. I pushed it away. “I had a meeting,” I told Ken. “No one should be held to commitments that are not fair.”
Ken looked at me for a long minute. “Do you want to have a boy who trusts his dad – a boy who knows his dad is telling him the truth to lead him the right way through the maze of life?”
“It was just a stupid football practice!” I hollered at Ken.
“Was it?” Ken asked. “Or was it a broken promise? A lack of integrity? What did it mean to your boy?”
“Enough!” I roared. “Enough!” I swung around to plant my fists through the screens, the mirrors on all sides, but found instead, to my amazement, nothing to stop my momentum and suddenly I was falling – falling through the floor.
“We’ll never find our way through here,” Sonya moaned behind me.
Brittney giggled, “This’ll be fun!”
I started forward. I could see in the mirrors that the others followed me. When I saw Sonya turn, I turned to follow her, but smacked my nose into the mirror in front of me. I turned again trying to find the opening, but saw four different places where my family all seemed to be leaving at once. I chose one, but again smacked myself in the nose. I turned again, but now I could see no one. That is, I could see no one but me reflected back hundreds of times in the mirrors around me.
“Great!” I sighed. I put my hand out to feel the walls. When I came to an opening I took it only to be surrounded by reflections of myself once again. The difference in this room, though was that the mirrors were distorted in some way, making my head look grotesquely large, my chest tiny, and my waist large. It made my stomach turn for real. Where was Brittney and her child’s sense of humor when I needed her?
I started forward and smacked my nose again before I remembered to put my fingers against the wall. I traveled around the room and then traveled again. Of course, I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that I had been completely around the room twice – that would mean I had made it around at least once for sure. Still, I found no opening – not even the one from which I had entered. The hundreds of images of my distorted head were making me physically sick. I closed my eyes and leaned back against one of the mirrors. When I finally forced myself to open my eyes again, I was no longer alone in the room.
That man was there. What had he said his name was? Ken. That was it. I reached out my hand to see if he were real or just another illusion of the room. I touched the softness of his shirt and his voice boomed out in a mighty laugh. “Afraid I’m not real are ya’ Sam?” he asked.
I looked at him warily. “It wouldn’t surprise me in this crazy place.”
“Oh, I’m real,” he assured me. “I’m very real.”
“Great!” I said, “Then you can tell me how to get out of here.”
“Of course!” Ken said.
I waited but he said nothing more. “But . . .” I ventured, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“I could,” he said, “But you already know the answer yourself.”
He smiled. I shook my head.
“It’d be a lot easier without all these distorted mirrors,” I grumbled.
For some reason, Ken looked pleased when I said this. “It would! Wouldn’t it?” he asked. “Why would it be easier, Sam?”
“Why do you ask so many questions?” I shot back at him.
“How else will we find the answers?” he replied with wide-eyed innocence.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. It would be easier to get out of here without the mirrors because I can’t see where I am going!”
“Don’t the mirrors reflect reality back to you?” Ken asked again.
“Yes, Mr. Smart Cracker, but not exactly as it is. These mirrors distort the truth. Even the ones in the other room were set at such odd angles that they reflected things that I wasn’t looking at – or that I wasn’t meaning to look at. What I mean is, I thought I was looking at one thing and found that I was looking at another.”
“And that makes it hard to find where you are going?” he asked.
“Extremely,” I said keeping my eyes locked on his so that I didn’t have to see the wavering image of myself on all the walls.
“Are we sometimes like mirrors to one another, do you think, Sam?”
“Like mirrors to one another?” I repeated.
“Do you ever check your reality with the reality of another person?” he asked.
“I suppose so,” I said thinking of the little boy I had once been who was forever shunned from his mother’s side.
“Then, wouldn’t it follow that we should be very careful that what we reflect back to other people be as honest as possible -- to avoid distortion, that is.”
I thought about that. Here in the house of mirrors, that was absolutely true. But in the real world, honesty was complicated. Honesty could get people hurt. Not to mention, things could be true for you one moment, and not true the next.
Ken was watching me carefully. Suddenly, the room changed from mirrors to a sort of movie screen and on every screen was a reenactment of the last time Sonya had sung. My heart melted to see her sing again. She was so beautiful Just as quickly, my heart seized up in my chest as I saw her singing with that man. My face hardened and I turned away. At least I tried to turn away, but there she was on the other wall as well. I turned again and again. I crumbled to the floor in front of Ken with my head in my arms.
“You didn’t really want Sonya to stop singing, did you Sam? Tell me honestly – tell yourself honestly, what did you feel at that recital?”
I could feel sobs building up in my chest. “How could I tell her that? How could I tell her that when I saw her with that man, I saw what she meant to me and I know what I am. It makes no sense for her to choose me, but I need her and I can’t let her get away. I can’t! It would kill me. It would kill me.”
Ken waited a moment as I sobbed into the quiet. Then he said, “Now that, sir, is emotional honesty. But you reflected something different to Sonya that day, didn’t you? And when you did, you distorted her path, so that when she tried to follow you, she was lost. You created the maze that lost her. Even if she suspected your real feelings, how could she talk to you about them when you were not being honest with her – when you were not being honest with yourself?”
I sat up and wiped my eyes. “How can I find her again?” I realized that I was no longer talking about the maze of mirrors in Ken’s carnival, but about my own life.
“Who caused the problem?” Ken asked.
I had a co-worker once who said that only fools confess. I was past that now. There were other things more important. “I did,” I said.
Ken reached down and offered me his hand, pleased with me again. “Then who has the responsibility to make it right?” he asked.
I took his hand and stood up. “I do,” I said and when I did, I realized with wonderment that I felt a sense of power that I hadn’t felt for a long time.
“Why does it feel good to say I’ve done something wrong?” I asked Ken.
“Have you been avoiding responsibility?” Ken asked me. “Have you been breaking your commitments?”
Suddenly the mirrors changed again only this time they showed Tom and I in the car before his first day of football practice. He looked so scared. Why hadn’t I noticed before? He certainly hadn’t distorted anything for me, but I hadn’t been looking, had I? He was asking for my promise that I’d come pick him up after the practice. I watched as I promised him.
This hurt, too. I hate that kind of hurt – that kind of disappointment in me. I pushed it away. “I had a meeting,” I told Ken. “No one should be held to commitments that are not fair.”
Ken looked at me for a long minute. “Do you want to have a boy who trusts his dad – a boy who knows his dad is telling him the truth to lead him the right way through the maze of life?”
“It was just a stupid football practice!” I hollered at Ken.
“Was it?” Ken asked. “Or was it a broken promise? A lack of integrity? What did it mean to your boy?”
“Enough!” I roared. “Enough!” I swung around to plant my fists through the screens, the mirrors on all sides, but found instead, to my amazement, nothing to stop my momentum and suddenly I was falling – falling through the floor.
Chapter 4 - Part 1
Chapter 4 – Sam
One of my earliest memories is about my brother, Clyde. It’s a simple memory really. Maybe too simple to be a real memory, anyway. I know the feeling too well though to doubt that it is true.
I was young – maybe three or four – and I was standing behind the table where I couldn’t really be seen. My mom was working in the kitchen – cleaning up dishes or preparing food – I don’t know which and it really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Clyde came in the room and hugged Mom’s leg from behind. Clyde was just a year and a half older than I was and there wasn’t much difference in our height so at first she thought it was me.
She said, “Sam! I’m busy! Go play!” Then she looked down and saw her mistake. Her voice completely changed. Even at that young of an age, I knew tenderness when I heard it. And this is what she said, “Oh! It’s you Clyde! How’s my big boy today?” And she stooped to hug him back.
I can still feel the pain of that day. I was just a little boy and it doesn’t mean anything. I remember after Clyde left the room, I brought Mom one of the dirty dishes from the table – trying to do something to help – to get the same kind of affection she’d given to Clyde. It didn’t work though, and it never did and never would. Looking back, I should have thrown the dishes on the floor, then gone to find Clyde and smothered him with a pillow. Hindsight is always 20/20.
**
I found a hot dog stand and managed to get everyone fed. I hoped we wouldn’t have to stay in this place long. If the crazy rides didn’t kill us, the food definitely would.
I watched my family as we all ate in silence. We had found a small table with benches that seemed to have been plopped down in the middle of the rides. We hadn’t seen any people since the last madhouse mob had swept us into the bumper cars. Even the hot dog stand had been deserted. The hot dogs were hot, though, and the buns fresh, so after hollering to see if any one would come help us, I settled on just taking the hot dogs and leaving some bills on the cart. Not that they deserved to be paid. If they’re going to trap us in this silly carnival, then they may as well provide our food.
Tommy sat on the edge of the bench facing away from the rest of us. Sonya sat next to Brittney with her arm around her. Our family meals hadn’t always been this quiet. Tommy used to talk a lot and Sonya would laugh and look at me with her smiles to draw me into the conversation. Even after Tom withdrew, Brittney could still sometimes chatter along about things. Not today, though. Today everyone was quiet.
Perhaps I had finally pushed too hard. I know not heading home was madness. What was I planning? We would have had to turn around sometime. I just couldn’t seem to face it right then. Sonya always doing stupid things like not giving back my keys and Tom being all sulky, not talking to anyone at the reunion and being mean to his sister, even Brittney made me mad. What did she mean by yelling that I was leaving them? For crying out loud. Can’t a man get some alone time in his car without everyone freaking out? So, when I got to that turning point on the highway, I just couldn’t face more of it. I didn’t want to go back home. It’s always the same and it’s getting worse and I just felt there had to be a different place to go or I’d scream or explode or dissolve, maybe, into thousands of little pieces and be lost in the coming storm -- forever.
It didn’t help, of course. How could it help when everyone who was making me mad was still right there in the car with me? Maybe Brittney hadn’t been so off-track. Maybe I had meant to leave them. Maybe that would be better for us all.
**
Sonya and I used to go out together every Friday night. It was easier, of course, before Tom came along, but even after that we still got a babysitter and spent those evenings together. Sonya loved concerts. I never liked them much before I met Sonya, but with her they seemed different – almost magical. Sonya used to make everything seem magical to me. I look at her now and see how she cringes from me. I see the fear in her eyes before I speak when she is waiting to see if I am mad at her or not. I see all that and I wonder where my beautiful, happy Sonya has gone? Then the anger rises in me again. Life has taken all that is good away from me.
After Sonya gave up singing, she didn’t want to go to concerts anymore. I was still so mad about how much time she spent away from our family at her singing lessons and singing recitals that I didn’t care at first that she didn’t want to go to concerts. I was glad she was giving up all that music. It was what she should do for her family. It wasn’t until later that I realized that a light had gone out of Sonya’s eyes and that not only was she not singing for her teacher anymore, but she also no longer sang in the kitchen or around the house – she no longer sang for me. Life was stinking backfiring on me again. Not only that, but I realized that I missed the concerts, too.
Still, we continued to go out on Friday nights, even after Brittney came along. Not every Friday night like we used to, but occasionally we’d go out to eat or for walks through the city parks. We always seemed closer after those nights.
Then Tom pulled that stunt coming home stone drunk. He did it just to show that he didn’t care about my authority. Some kids, I know, get so mad at their fathers that they actually hit them – punch them in the stomach or in the jaw. I’m not stupid. I know that is what Tommy did to me – just with alcohol instead of his fists. How am I supposed to not retaliate to that? He’s showing me hate. Well, I’m an expert on hate. I can show hate right back.
One day, when I was a kid I had a really sore throat. It was so bad that it hurt to swallow. Even when I wasn’t swallowing, it ached from the back of my throat clear into my jaw. A friend of my mom’s was at the house and said that what I needed was some cayenne pepper. She poured a couple of swallows of orange juice into a cup, doused it with red pepper, and then handed it to me to drink. I’ll never forget the burn as that went down my throat! But I learned that she was right, it was better to feel the burn than to feel the pain.
Sonya and I were supposed to go on a date that Friday – the Friday after the thing with Tom and his stupid, messed-up life – but Sonya said she had a headache and didn’t want to go. She had a headache the next week, too, and the week after that. Finally, I stopped asking. I guess that was the end. It was the end of our Friday dates, but it was the end of so much more than that.
**
Gradually, we all finished our hot dogs, crumpled the papers and put them in the garbage can that was next to the deserted hot dog stand. Sonya and Brittney and Tom all looked different directions, none of them wanting to look at me and none of them wanting to decide what to do next.
I shook my head. “Fine,” I said. “We’re at a carnival. I guess we should go on the rides.”
I turned around and took in our surroundings. The bumper cars were behind us, still and dark. The hot dog stand was to our right and the prize booths lined the pathway to our left. At the end of the row of prize booths was a large tent with a door. It said, “HOUSE OF MIRRORS.” It seemed to say something else underneath it, but we were too far away for me to make it out clearly.
I started walking toward the house of mirrors and everyone else followed. The tent that held the house of mirrors was striped, as I suppose all good carnival tents should be. This one was red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, blue. How nice. Primary colors. When I got to the door, I looked up. It said, “If men were completely honest, their lives would heal themselves.”
Tom said, “What is that supposed to mean?”
I glanced back. I had forgotten for a moment that they were all with me. “Same kind of foolishness as the rest of the carnival, I suppose,” I said.
I looked around. At least this carnival thing was different from the same old path of misery we seemed to keep treading everyday. I had gotten a bit of my wish. Even if turning the wrong way, away from home, had been madness, at least I had done something different. Maybe that would really be all it took to have something different happen.
I sighed and looked at Brittney. “What do you think, Britt? Should we try the house of mirrors?”
Brittney’s eyes glowed. Brittney was such a comfort. A child could still find fun in things that adults had long ago ceased to notice. “Yes!” she said, “I love the house of mirrors!”
“Then, let’s go,” I said and led the way through the door.
One of my earliest memories is about my brother, Clyde. It’s a simple memory really. Maybe too simple to be a real memory, anyway. I know the feeling too well though to doubt that it is true.
I was young – maybe three or four – and I was standing behind the table where I couldn’t really be seen. My mom was working in the kitchen – cleaning up dishes or preparing food – I don’t know which and it really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Clyde came in the room and hugged Mom’s leg from behind. Clyde was just a year and a half older than I was and there wasn’t much difference in our height so at first she thought it was me.
She said, “Sam! I’m busy! Go play!” Then she looked down and saw her mistake. Her voice completely changed. Even at that young of an age, I knew tenderness when I heard it. And this is what she said, “Oh! It’s you Clyde! How’s my big boy today?” And she stooped to hug him back.
I can still feel the pain of that day. I was just a little boy and it doesn’t mean anything. I remember after Clyde left the room, I brought Mom one of the dirty dishes from the table – trying to do something to help – to get the same kind of affection she’d given to Clyde. It didn’t work though, and it never did and never would. Looking back, I should have thrown the dishes on the floor, then gone to find Clyde and smothered him with a pillow. Hindsight is always 20/20.
**
I found a hot dog stand and managed to get everyone fed. I hoped we wouldn’t have to stay in this place long. If the crazy rides didn’t kill us, the food definitely would.
I watched my family as we all ate in silence. We had found a small table with benches that seemed to have been plopped down in the middle of the rides. We hadn’t seen any people since the last madhouse mob had swept us into the bumper cars. Even the hot dog stand had been deserted. The hot dogs were hot, though, and the buns fresh, so after hollering to see if any one would come help us, I settled on just taking the hot dogs and leaving some bills on the cart. Not that they deserved to be paid. If they’re going to trap us in this silly carnival, then they may as well provide our food.
Tommy sat on the edge of the bench facing away from the rest of us. Sonya sat next to Brittney with her arm around her. Our family meals hadn’t always been this quiet. Tommy used to talk a lot and Sonya would laugh and look at me with her smiles to draw me into the conversation. Even after Tom withdrew, Brittney could still sometimes chatter along about things. Not today, though. Today everyone was quiet.
Perhaps I had finally pushed too hard. I know not heading home was madness. What was I planning? We would have had to turn around sometime. I just couldn’t seem to face it right then. Sonya always doing stupid things like not giving back my keys and Tom being all sulky, not talking to anyone at the reunion and being mean to his sister, even Brittney made me mad. What did she mean by yelling that I was leaving them? For crying out loud. Can’t a man get some alone time in his car without everyone freaking out? So, when I got to that turning point on the highway, I just couldn’t face more of it. I didn’t want to go back home. It’s always the same and it’s getting worse and I just felt there had to be a different place to go or I’d scream or explode or dissolve, maybe, into thousands of little pieces and be lost in the coming storm -- forever.
It didn’t help, of course. How could it help when everyone who was making me mad was still right there in the car with me? Maybe Brittney hadn’t been so off-track. Maybe I had meant to leave them. Maybe that would be better for us all.
**
Sonya and I used to go out together every Friday night. It was easier, of course, before Tom came along, but even after that we still got a babysitter and spent those evenings together. Sonya loved concerts. I never liked them much before I met Sonya, but with her they seemed different – almost magical. Sonya used to make everything seem magical to me. I look at her now and see how she cringes from me. I see the fear in her eyes before I speak when she is waiting to see if I am mad at her or not. I see all that and I wonder where my beautiful, happy Sonya has gone? Then the anger rises in me again. Life has taken all that is good away from me.
After Sonya gave up singing, she didn’t want to go to concerts anymore. I was still so mad about how much time she spent away from our family at her singing lessons and singing recitals that I didn’t care at first that she didn’t want to go to concerts. I was glad she was giving up all that music. It was what she should do for her family. It wasn’t until later that I realized that a light had gone out of Sonya’s eyes and that not only was she not singing for her teacher anymore, but she also no longer sang in the kitchen or around the house – she no longer sang for me. Life was stinking backfiring on me again. Not only that, but I realized that I missed the concerts, too.
Still, we continued to go out on Friday nights, even after Brittney came along. Not every Friday night like we used to, but occasionally we’d go out to eat or for walks through the city parks. We always seemed closer after those nights.
Then Tom pulled that stunt coming home stone drunk. He did it just to show that he didn’t care about my authority. Some kids, I know, get so mad at their fathers that they actually hit them – punch them in the stomach or in the jaw. I’m not stupid. I know that is what Tommy did to me – just with alcohol instead of his fists. How am I supposed to not retaliate to that? He’s showing me hate. Well, I’m an expert on hate. I can show hate right back.
One day, when I was a kid I had a really sore throat. It was so bad that it hurt to swallow. Even when I wasn’t swallowing, it ached from the back of my throat clear into my jaw. A friend of my mom’s was at the house and said that what I needed was some cayenne pepper. She poured a couple of swallows of orange juice into a cup, doused it with red pepper, and then handed it to me to drink. I’ll never forget the burn as that went down my throat! But I learned that she was right, it was better to feel the burn than to feel the pain.
Sonya and I were supposed to go on a date that Friday – the Friday after the thing with Tom and his stupid, messed-up life – but Sonya said she had a headache and didn’t want to go. She had a headache the next week, too, and the week after that. Finally, I stopped asking. I guess that was the end. It was the end of our Friday dates, but it was the end of so much more than that.
**
Gradually, we all finished our hot dogs, crumpled the papers and put them in the garbage can that was next to the deserted hot dog stand. Sonya and Brittney and Tom all looked different directions, none of them wanting to look at me and none of them wanting to decide what to do next.
I shook my head. “Fine,” I said. “We’re at a carnival. I guess we should go on the rides.”
I turned around and took in our surroundings. The bumper cars were behind us, still and dark. The hot dog stand was to our right and the prize booths lined the pathway to our left. At the end of the row of prize booths was a large tent with a door. It said, “HOUSE OF MIRRORS.” It seemed to say something else underneath it, but we were too far away for me to make it out clearly.
I started walking toward the house of mirrors and everyone else followed. The tent that held the house of mirrors was striped, as I suppose all good carnival tents should be. This one was red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, blue. How nice. Primary colors. When I got to the door, I looked up. It said, “If men were completely honest, their lives would heal themselves.”
Tom said, “What is that supposed to mean?”
I glanced back. I had forgotten for a moment that they were all with me. “Same kind of foolishness as the rest of the carnival, I suppose,” I said.
I looked around. At least this carnival thing was different from the same old path of misery we seemed to keep treading everyday. I had gotten a bit of my wish. Even if turning the wrong way, away from home, had been madness, at least I had done something different. Maybe that would really be all it took to have something different happen.
I sighed and looked at Brittney. “What do you think, Britt? Should we try the house of mirrors?”
Brittney’s eyes glowed. Brittney was such a comfort. A child could still find fun in things that adults had long ago ceased to notice. “Yes!” she said, “I love the house of mirrors!”
“Then, let’s go,” I said and led the way through the door.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Chapter 3 - Part 2
We picked our way around the deserted bumper cars and exited the pavilion. I didn’t have to check for Brittney, she had already pushed next to my side and gripped my hand. I felt a wave of emotion for that little girl. What would I do without that hand to hold?
I looked around for Tommy. I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, just to connect us again, just for a second, but he had wanted none of that for a long time now. He was so distant and so angry – a lot like his father. He had not always been that way. I remembered the little boy who curled in my lap waiting to be read just one more book and the preteen who would use me as a sounding board for all his new knock-knock jokes. I wondered, not for the first time, if there was some way of bringing him back. I sure hoped there was. Maybe this carnival could help.
I shook my head. Now I was really grasping at straws.
**
It was only a few months ago that the school called and told me that Tommy had been caught with alcohol on school property. I had sunk into a chair next to the kitchen sink. “No, Tommy. No.” I whispered. “Don’t let it be true.”
I drove the short blocks to the high school to pick him up – the school having suspended him for the rest of the day. I pleaded mentally all the way there that it wouldn’t be true or it wouldn’t be so bad. When I finally had him in the car, I asked him to tell me what happened.
“Sheesh, Mom! It’s not that big of a deal. It wasn’t even mine. It belonged to Boozer. I was just holding it for him.” With a name like Boozer, that seemed easy to believe. Besides, I wanted to believe it so badly.
Still, I tried to press it further. “Have you been drinking, though, Tommy?”
“Don’t call me Tommy! It’s Tom, okay? And no! I haven’t been drinking.” With that he turned his face to the window and wouldn’t talk to me anymore.
So, I did believe him, though it may seem ignorant in light of the things that followed. But, what was I supposed to say? I asked him point-blank and he told me no. You can’t get any plainer than that.
One week later he came home undeniably and unabashedly drunk. Sam was home and boy was he livid. He took Tom by the hair and told him what a no-good lout he was and how he wouldn’t ever make himself into anything worth two beans and that he (Sam) and I (his mother) had wasted our efforts on him.
I really felt bad for that last sentence because I didn’t feel that way at all. I never stood up to Sam, though, and I watched with growing sorrow as Tommy just nodded his head and agreed with every bad thing his dad said.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” He finally roared.
Tommy just grinned – the foolish smile of the hopelessly drunk – and said, “Of course not. You’re always right, Dad.” Then he threw up all over Sam’s feet.
I talked to Tom the next day, when the throbbing in his head had gone down some, but when the little boy I loved could do nothing more than peek at me through the mask of the man’s hangover. “Why, Tom? Why are you drinking?” I had asked him.
“You don’t know how it is!” he had hollered and then held his head as he remembered his awful headache. “There was just this girl,” he said stiffly. “I wanted to impress her. I want to sleep now, Mom. Do you mind?”
“Just promise me, Tom. You’re so much better than this. Don’t do it again.”
“Sure, sure Mom. Whatever you say.” Then he put his pillow over his head and turned away from me.
I told Sam that Tom had promised me he wouldn’t do it again and that I trusted him to keep his word. Sam said that if I believed that then I was dumber than he thought. I was such a fool. I even felt the long forgotten feeling of rebellion well up inside of me over his words.
He did do it again, of course. A lot. I didn’t know if I was more upset that he was drinking or that he had lied to me or maybe just crushed from being humiliated in front of Sam, again. Shouldn’t a son help you with that? Shouldn’t he be on my side?
**
I watched Tom walk next to his dad now. I saw how Tom had reached his Dad’s height and might just surpass it sometime in the next year. Or maybe not. He might stop growing altogether. I cocked my head, considering.
Brittney brought me back to the situation at hand by tugging forcefully on my arm. “Where do we go now, Mom? Ken didn’t say!”
I looked down at her. “Ken?” I asked her.
“Yeah, Mom. You know, the guy we met in the bumper cars. The one who said we could learn everything we need to know right here in this carnival!”
I smiled at her. “I know who Ken is, dear, but I really thing that our first priority needs to be finding the car and getting it fixed. Maybe we can come back after we know everything is alright.”
Brittney’s face darkened. “Nothing will be alright ever again if we leave this carnival now!” I sensed a trantrum coming on.
I looked up to see Sam and Tom turned around to watch us. Sam came back toward Brittney. “Your mom’s right, Brittney. We’ve got to get back to the car.”
“No we don’t!” Brittney protested. “The car is broken and it is raining out there! It’s not like you were even taking us home! We don’t have anywhere to go!”
Sam took Brittney by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. I tensed. Brittney was the only person in our family that Sam could talk to with tenderness, but even that had limits.
**
I remember once, when Tommy was nine and Brittney was four, catching sight of Sam as he stood in Brittney’s doorway watching her sleep.
She had fallen during the day and scraped her knee as little children often do. I had been busy with dishes and had only taken the time to kiss her quickly on the head. When she kept crying, I told her to go find her daddy.
I found them later sitting in the big chair in the living room. Brittney was sitting in Sam’s lap and Sam was reading her a book. It was a book of fairytales and they were reading of Hansel and Gretel whose step-mother wanted to leave them in the woods because there wasn’t enough to eat. I always skipped that part when I read to the kids, preferring to tell them that they had gotten lost then to make them face the evil that could come from self-centered thinking coupled with a lack of love – especially to shield them from seeing that in a parent. Suddenly Brittney interrupted her dad, “How come there is always an evil mom in the stories and not an evil dad? You know, like Cinderella and Snow White . . .”
Sam looked down at Britt. I wondered what he would say of the hurt he’d felt in his own life from a mother who didn’t love him right and how that might affect how Britt looked at me. My heart constricted in my chest. He held such a big part of me there on his lap.
He didn’t say anything about moms, though. Instead he tried to find examples of mean dads. “What about the big bad wolf?” Sam asked.
Brittney giggled at him. “That is not a dad!” she said.
“Dad’s can be big, bad wolves!” he insisted and he started to growl.
Brittney shrieked playfully, but then she took his face in her two little hands and said, “Don’t be a big, bad wolf Daddy.”
He looked into her sweet little eyes, then kissed her on the forehead and finished reading the story. By the time he was done, she had fallen asleep.
I came to stand by Sam as he watched her in the doorway to her room. “I don’t want to be a big, bad wolf, Sonya,” he had said.
I leaned my head against his arm. “I know, Sam. I know.”
**
Now I watched as Sam told Brittney, “We’re headed for the car, little lady, and that is that!”
Brittney glared after her father but she knew better than to protest. We trailed after Sam and Tom as they walked purposefully toward the edge of the carnival. We passed a Teacup ride and a Haunted House. It wasn’t long, though, before we saw the bumper car pavilion once again. “What?” Sam said in consternation.
Then he turned and went the other way. We passed the prize booths and the House of Mirrors. Brittney pulled on my arm again to point out the Tunnel of Love. I smiled at her, but when I looked up again we were back at the bumper cars.
Sam stood and stared at those bumper cars for a long time. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Fine! We’ll play your game!” he shouted at the pavilion.
Then he turned back toward us. “Let’s go see if we can find something to eat!”
I looked around for Tommy. I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, just to connect us again, just for a second, but he had wanted none of that for a long time now. He was so distant and so angry – a lot like his father. He had not always been that way. I remembered the little boy who curled in my lap waiting to be read just one more book and the preteen who would use me as a sounding board for all his new knock-knock jokes. I wondered, not for the first time, if there was some way of bringing him back. I sure hoped there was. Maybe this carnival could help.
I shook my head. Now I was really grasping at straws.
**
It was only a few months ago that the school called and told me that Tommy had been caught with alcohol on school property. I had sunk into a chair next to the kitchen sink. “No, Tommy. No.” I whispered. “Don’t let it be true.”
I drove the short blocks to the high school to pick him up – the school having suspended him for the rest of the day. I pleaded mentally all the way there that it wouldn’t be true or it wouldn’t be so bad. When I finally had him in the car, I asked him to tell me what happened.
“Sheesh, Mom! It’s not that big of a deal. It wasn’t even mine. It belonged to Boozer. I was just holding it for him.” With a name like Boozer, that seemed easy to believe. Besides, I wanted to believe it so badly.
Still, I tried to press it further. “Have you been drinking, though, Tommy?”
“Don’t call me Tommy! It’s Tom, okay? And no! I haven’t been drinking.” With that he turned his face to the window and wouldn’t talk to me anymore.
So, I did believe him, though it may seem ignorant in light of the things that followed. But, what was I supposed to say? I asked him point-blank and he told me no. You can’t get any plainer than that.
One week later he came home undeniably and unabashedly drunk. Sam was home and boy was he livid. He took Tom by the hair and told him what a no-good lout he was and how he wouldn’t ever make himself into anything worth two beans and that he (Sam) and I (his mother) had wasted our efforts on him.
I really felt bad for that last sentence because I didn’t feel that way at all. I never stood up to Sam, though, and I watched with growing sorrow as Tommy just nodded his head and agreed with every bad thing his dad said.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” He finally roared.
Tommy just grinned – the foolish smile of the hopelessly drunk – and said, “Of course not. You’re always right, Dad.” Then he threw up all over Sam’s feet.
I talked to Tom the next day, when the throbbing in his head had gone down some, but when the little boy I loved could do nothing more than peek at me through the mask of the man’s hangover. “Why, Tom? Why are you drinking?” I had asked him.
“You don’t know how it is!” he had hollered and then held his head as he remembered his awful headache. “There was just this girl,” he said stiffly. “I wanted to impress her. I want to sleep now, Mom. Do you mind?”
“Just promise me, Tom. You’re so much better than this. Don’t do it again.”
“Sure, sure Mom. Whatever you say.” Then he put his pillow over his head and turned away from me.
I told Sam that Tom had promised me he wouldn’t do it again and that I trusted him to keep his word. Sam said that if I believed that then I was dumber than he thought. I was such a fool. I even felt the long forgotten feeling of rebellion well up inside of me over his words.
He did do it again, of course. A lot. I didn’t know if I was more upset that he was drinking or that he had lied to me or maybe just crushed from being humiliated in front of Sam, again. Shouldn’t a son help you with that? Shouldn’t he be on my side?
**
I watched Tom walk next to his dad now. I saw how Tom had reached his Dad’s height and might just surpass it sometime in the next year. Or maybe not. He might stop growing altogether. I cocked my head, considering.
Brittney brought me back to the situation at hand by tugging forcefully on my arm. “Where do we go now, Mom? Ken didn’t say!”
I looked down at her. “Ken?” I asked her.
“Yeah, Mom. You know, the guy we met in the bumper cars. The one who said we could learn everything we need to know right here in this carnival!”
I smiled at her. “I know who Ken is, dear, but I really thing that our first priority needs to be finding the car and getting it fixed. Maybe we can come back after we know everything is alright.”
Brittney’s face darkened. “Nothing will be alright ever again if we leave this carnival now!” I sensed a trantrum coming on.
I looked up to see Sam and Tom turned around to watch us. Sam came back toward Brittney. “Your mom’s right, Brittney. We’ve got to get back to the car.”
“No we don’t!” Brittney protested. “The car is broken and it is raining out there! It’s not like you were even taking us home! We don’t have anywhere to go!”
Sam took Brittney by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. I tensed. Brittney was the only person in our family that Sam could talk to with tenderness, but even that had limits.
**
I remember once, when Tommy was nine and Brittney was four, catching sight of Sam as he stood in Brittney’s doorway watching her sleep.
She had fallen during the day and scraped her knee as little children often do. I had been busy with dishes and had only taken the time to kiss her quickly on the head. When she kept crying, I told her to go find her daddy.
I found them later sitting in the big chair in the living room. Brittney was sitting in Sam’s lap and Sam was reading her a book. It was a book of fairytales and they were reading of Hansel and Gretel whose step-mother wanted to leave them in the woods because there wasn’t enough to eat. I always skipped that part when I read to the kids, preferring to tell them that they had gotten lost then to make them face the evil that could come from self-centered thinking coupled with a lack of love – especially to shield them from seeing that in a parent. Suddenly Brittney interrupted her dad, “How come there is always an evil mom in the stories and not an evil dad? You know, like Cinderella and Snow White . . .”
Sam looked down at Britt. I wondered what he would say of the hurt he’d felt in his own life from a mother who didn’t love him right and how that might affect how Britt looked at me. My heart constricted in my chest. He held such a big part of me there on his lap.
He didn’t say anything about moms, though. Instead he tried to find examples of mean dads. “What about the big bad wolf?” Sam asked.
Brittney giggled at him. “That is not a dad!” she said.
“Dad’s can be big, bad wolves!” he insisted and he started to growl.
Brittney shrieked playfully, but then she took his face in her two little hands and said, “Don’t be a big, bad wolf Daddy.”
He looked into her sweet little eyes, then kissed her on the forehead and finished reading the story. By the time he was done, she had fallen asleep.
I came to stand by Sam as he watched her in the doorway to her room. “I don’t want to be a big, bad wolf, Sonya,” he had said.
I leaned my head against his arm. “I know, Sam. I know.”
**
Now I watched as Sam told Brittney, “We’re headed for the car, little lady, and that is that!”
Brittney glared after her father but she knew better than to protest. We trailed after Sam and Tom as they walked purposefully toward the edge of the carnival. We passed a Teacup ride and a Haunted House. It wasn’t long, though, before we saw the bumper car pavilion once again. “What?” Sam said in consternation.
Then he turned and went the other way. We passed the prize booths and the House of Mirrors. Brittney pulled on my arm again to point out the Tunnel of Love. I smiled at her, but when I looked up again we were back at the bumper cars.
Sam stood and stared at those bumper cars for a long time. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Fine! We’ll play your game!” he shouted at the pavilion.
Then he turned back toward us. “Let’s go see if we can find something to eat!”
Monday, November 5, 2007
Chapter 3 - Part 1
Chapter 3 – Sonya
I used to love to sing. In college I took singing lessons and I loved them. I used to think that my ability to sing was partly why Sam fell in love with me. Maybe it was. I don’t know anymore. There’s a lot of things I don’t know anymore.
What I do know and what I can remember is that Sam and I met at one of my voice recitals. I sang, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” as well as some other welll-known ballads. I finished with, “The Rose.” I remember looking out at Sam and seeing the way he was looking at me and suddenly knowing just exactly how it must feel to be in love.
He came and talked to me after the recital and we started dating after that. It was a fun time – a good time in my life – in his too, I think. We laughed and talked. We talked a lot. We went to plays and concerts. I thought I had caught hold of a monumental happiness – one that was so significant, that it would never leave me, and that I would never again be without it.
I guess I should have known how hard it would be. I mean, everyone always tells you that relationships take work and that it is not all roses and love songs. That is not exactly what I mean. I should have known how hard Sam would be.
After we had dated for a couple of months, Sam took me to meet his parents. I came out of my room to meet him wearing some jeans and a nice shirt I had borrowed from my roommate. I thought I looked pretty good. He said to me, “You’re wearing that?”
After I could get him to talk to me again, he said, “I thought you cared about me, Sonya.”
“I do!” I protested. “I do!”
As I look back, that was the first time I groveled for him. I thought I just had misunderstood him and needed to do my best to make things right. I have groveled more times than I can remember now. At least I recognize it for what it is. I see my children’s shame when they watch me, but now it is far too late. It has become a habit that I don’t know how to quit and it started on that day when I didn’t immediately demand that he speak to me without accusations. I should have taught him to treat me with respect back when I was worthy of it.
He continued. “Then how can you go to meet my parents and not do anything to try to look nice? Don’t you think my parents are important to me?”
“I’m so sorry, Sam. Of course! I will go change!” I started to hurry from the room.
“Wait!” he said, “What are you going to wear?”
I don’t remember now what I said, but I remember that it wasn’t right either. Eventually he told me exactly what to wear and even then seemed unhappy with me. My clothes had never been an issue before and now not one of them seemed to please him.
The evening went from bad to worse. I couldn’t do anything right. I thought his parents were gracious and polite and I did all that I knew to respond in kind, but Sam used every chance he could get to correct me – to tell me to sit up straighter or to say thank you again for the wonderful meal. Over and over, again and again. By the time Sam let me off at my apartment and sped away, my head was in such a whirl that all I could do was lay on my bed and sob. I didn’t know what I had done wrong. I didn’t know what had happened to the Sam that I loved and who I thought, loved me.
The next morning, my eyes still puffy from having cried myself to sleep, Sam swept into my apartment looking joyful. He grabbed me in his arms and spun me in a circle. I looked at him in utter confusion, but he didn’t seem to notice me at all. He just walked back and forth across the small room of the apartment with his arms in the air. “They liked you!” he said with glee. “They really, really liked you!” and he let out a loud laugh. I ventured a tentative smile. “Let’s go celebrate!” he said.
And that was it. We never talked about it. He never explained nor apologized for how he treated me that night or for what I must have gone through. He didn’t seem to think of it all. In time, I learned to stop thinking about myself, too. But for that day and the rest of our courtship, I was just glad. Glad that my Sam was back and that we were happy again.
I was so naïve. I know that I was not the real reason that Sam was agitated that night and that is probably true of all the times that Sam has been agitated. But it affects me, doesn’t it? And if I thought about it, even for one second, would I have wanted a relationship that had the potential to hurt me so very much?
Of course, it doesn’t matter now. I married Sam and now I have to make the best of it. It’s just that it gets harder every year, you know? He gets agitated more often and he looks at me with those admiring eyes less and less often. Perhaps there really is nothing left to admire.
When Tommy was born, Sam didn’t want me to take singing lessons anymore. He wanted me there for Tommy all the time. I think I would have chosen to be with Tommy, too, but by then I had stopped making any of my own choices anymore and a tiny, rebellious part of me wonders why Sam couldn’t have taken care of one small baby for just an hour once a week.
I did give one last recital and did a duet with a male student who had the same vocal teacher as I did. It was completely professional and I didn’t even talk with him except to practice the song. Still, as much as Sam glowed in that first recital where I met him, he glowered in this one. He stormed around the house and didn’t speak to me for a full month. It wasn’t until I begged and cried and promised I would never sing again that he finally took me in his arms and said he forgave me and said to stop crying now because it wasn’t so very bad as all that.
I used to love to sing. In college I took singing lessons and I loved them. I used to think that my ability to sing was partly why Sam fell in love with me. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But I don’t sing anymore and it is because of him.
I used to love to sing. In college I took singing lessons and I loved them. I used to think that my ability to sing was partly why Sam fell in love with me. Maybe it was. I don’t know anymore. There’s a lot of things I don’t know anymore.
What I do know and what I can remember is that Sam and I met at one of my voice recitals. I sang, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” as well as some other welll-known ballads. I finished with, “The Rose.” I remember looking out at Sam and seeing the way he was looking at me and suddenly knowing just exactly how it must feel to be in love.
He came and talked to me after the recital and we started dating after that. It was a fun time – a good time in my life – in his too, I think. We laughed and talked. We talked a lot. We went to plays and concerts. I thought I had caught hold of a monumental happiness – one that was so significant, that it would never leave me, and that I would never again be without it.
I guess I should have known how hard it would be. I mean, everyone always tells you that relationships take work and that it is not all roses and love songs. That is not exactly what I mean. I should have known how hard Sam would be.
After we had dated for a couple of months, Sam took me to meet his parents. I came out of my room to meet him wearing some jeans and a nice shirt I had borrowed from my roommate. I thought I looked pretty good. He said to me, “You’re wearing that?”
After I could get him to talk to me again, he said, “I thought you cared about me, Sonya.”
“I do!” I protested. “I do!”
As I look back, that was the first time I groveled for him. I thought I just had misunderstood him and needed to do my best to make things right. I have groveled more times than I can remember now. At least I recognize it for what it is. I see my children’s shame when they watch me, but now it is far too late. It has become a habit that I don’t know how to quit and it started on that day when I didn’t immediately demand that he speak to me without accusations. I should have taught him to treat me with respect back when I was worthy of it.
He continued. “Then how can you go to meet my parents and not do anything to try to look nice? Don’t you think my parents are important to me?”
“I’m so sorry, Sam. Of course! I will go change!” I started to hurry from the room.
“Wait!” he said, “What are you going to wear?”
I don’t remember now what I said, but I remember that it wasn’t right either. Eventually he told me exactly what to wear and even then seemed unhappy with me. My clothes had never been an issue before and now not one of them seemed to please him.
The evening went from bad to worse. I couldn’t do anything right. I thought his parents were gracious and polite and I did all that I knew to respond in kind, but Sam used every chance he could get to correct me – to tell me to sit up straighter or to say thank you again for the wonderful meal. Over and over, again and again. By the time Sam let me off at my apartment and sped away, my head was in such a whirl that all I could do was lay on my bed and sob. I didn’t know what I had done wrong. I didn’t know what had happened to the Sam that I loved and who I thought, loved me.
The next morning, my eyes still puffy from having cried myself to sleep, Sam swept into my apartment looking joyful. He grabbed me in his arms and spun me in a circle. I looked at him in utter confusion, but he didn’t seem to notice me at all. He just walked back and forth across the small room of the apartment with his arms in the air. “They liked you!” he said with glee. “They really, really liked you!” and he let out a loud laugh. I ventured a tentative smile. “Let’s go celebrate!” he said.
And that was it. We never talked about it. He never explained nor apologized for how he treated me that night or for what I must have gone through. He didn’t seem to think of it all. In time, I learned to stop thinking about myself, too. But for that day and the rest of our courtship, I was just glad. Glad that my Sam was back and that we were happy again.
I was so naïve. I know that I was not the real reason that Sam was agitated that night and that is probably true of all the times that Sam has been agitated. But it affects me, doesn’t it? And if I thought about it, even for one second, would I have wanted a relationship that had the potential to hurt me so very much?
Of course, it doesn’t matter now. I married Sam and now I have to make the best of it. It’s just that it gets harder every year, you know? He gets agitated more often and he looks at me with those admiring eyes less and less often. Perhaps there really is nothing left to admire.
When Tommy was born, Sam didn’t want me to take singing lessons anymore. He wanted me there for Tommy all the time. I think I would have chosen to be with Tommy, too, but by then I had stopped making any of my own choices anymore and a tiny, rebellious part of me wonders why Sam couldn’t have taken care of one small baby for just an hour once a week.
I did give one last recital and did a duet with a male student who had the same vocal teacher as I did. It was completely professional and I didn’t even talk with him except to practice the song. Still, as much as Sam glowed in that first recital where I met him, he glowered in this one. He stormed around the house and didn’t speak to me for a full month. It wasn’t until I begged and cried and promised I would never sing again that he finally took me in his arms and said he forgave me and said to stop crying now because it wasn’t so very bad as all that.
I used to love to sing. In college I took singing lessons and I loved them. I used to think that my ability to sing was partly why Sam fell in love with me. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But I don’t sing anymore and it is because of him.
Chapter 2 - Part 2
As I got closer, I saw that she had the old cone from a wad of cotton candy and was drawing pictures with it in the dirt. She didn’t look up at me when I got closer, but she spoke.
“Dad didn’t want to go home. He still doesn’t. We’ll stay here, I guess, until he does.”
I frowned. “Don’t you like carnivals?” I asked.
Then she did look up at me. She was dirty and it looked like she had been here for a long time. “We tried the rides when we first got here. Dad didn’t like them, though. Neither did Mom. Still, they keep going on them over and over.”
She looked hard at me sadly for a minute, then she shook her head and went back to drawing in the dirt. “You can try the rides,” she said. “They sure didn’t help us.”
Suddenly Tommy was by my side. I nearly jumped as he demanded, “What does she mean ‘the rides didn’t help us?’ Rides aren’t supposed to help you. They’re just for fun.” He shook his head and scowled at us.
Tommy is nearly always angry. I remember when he wasn’t, but I don’t think he does.
I stood up from where I had crouched to talk to the girl and shrugged my shoulders. I really didn’t know what she meant, but I didn’t like how she was all alone and how sad she was and how she seemed to blame the carnival for making her sad – or blame her parents for not taking her out of the carnival or something! Either way, I had about decided that I’d like to see as little of this carnival as possible and get back to familiar things – like even the broken-down car.
Tommy seemed to feel that way too. He shivered. Then he turned around. “Let’s go find Dad and get out of here!”
I hurried to Mom’s side and took her hand again. We walked past the prize booths and once we were around the corner, we saw Dad walking toward a group of people waiting near a covered pavilion.
“Sam!” My mom called out and we started hurrying toward him. Just then we got nearly run over by a crowd of people coming from behind us and heading for the ride in the covered pavilion. This was weird, too, because, as I mentioned before, we hadn’t seen anyone at all before this except for the little girl and now there was a mob of people all heading for the same ride?
I didn’t have time to think about it, though. I was too busy trying to keep up with Mom and not get my feet knocked out from underneath me. “Holy Cow!” I thought as someone plowed past me, bumping my shoulder and nearly knocking me to my feet. “Don’t these people care about how their actions hurt anyone else?’
We were carried along by the crowd up to the covered pavilion and inside. I had completely lost track of Dad and Tommy, although I was still holding tightly to Mom’s hand. As we got inside, I saw a smooth oval floor that stretched from one side of the pavilion to the other. Around the edges were small, individual-sized cars with rubber rings fashioned securely around them. “Bumper Cars!” I whispered and paused just a moment to look.
As I paused, an insistent stranger pushed his way forward and Mom’s hand was ripped from mine. I scrambled after her, pushing my way in between people and found myself in the arena. I looked around frantically. I could see Dad and Mom and Tommy were all in different cars. I wanted to get closer to them, but the lights started to flash. I knew that meant the ride would start soon. I jumped into the car closest to me and quickly fastened the toy seatbelt. I guess we were going to try the rides afterall.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as a loud, clanging bell rang overhead and power suddenly surged into my car and all the cars around me. I pressed on the gas and jerked forward. It always took forever to get used to bumper cars! They always moved too fast and steered too slow. A car pounded me to the right. I veered to the left and pounded another car I hadn’t seen over there. I really wanted to get back by my family, but I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to get there with all these cars banging back and forth in front of me, behind me, and into me!
I gasped as another car hit me from the rear. I cranked the wheel of my car as far to the left as possible and jerked forward as I hit the gas again. I made about four feet before I pounded into another car in front of me. I would have put my head down on the steering wheel in resignation if I hadn’t been afraid of being banged by the steering wheel when I got hit by another car – which was bound to happen, even if I stayed perfectly still.
Just then the lights flashed again and the bell clanged it’s noisy signal and all the cars slid to a stop. I hadn’t realized it until then, but I had been holding my breath. I let it out gratefully. I rested my eyes shut for just a minute in relief. I opened them to see everyone – that whole mob of pushy strangers – leaving just as quickly as they had come. Within minutes the pavilion was deserted. I looked around to see my mom and dad and Tommy following the retreating crowd with their eyes, as well. I got out of my car and went over to where their cars were clustered together. I had thought we were alone, but as I looked out of the arena, next to the turnstiles of the pavilion, I saw a man.
He was walking slowly toward us. His hair was grey, but he was big and seemed strong. I worried that he would be dirty and sad like the little girl we had seen, or worse, maybe he would seem to not see us at all like the crowd of people who had come to the ride and just left. He was neither. He was smiling as he came toward us in a white shirt and a tie and his eyes seemed to twinkle especially when they settled on me. I liked him immediately. He was the first thing that seemed human in this creepy, weird, weird carnival. I knew he could make sense of things for us. He would help us find a way out.
“Bumper cars are interesting things, aren’t they?” he said as he reached the place where we were standing.
My dad ignored his question. Which he would never let me do, but which he does all the time. “Look, do you know where I can find a car mechanic to come take a look at my car? I’d pay him well, but I need him to come look at it now. I don’t have time for all this . . . ” at which point Dad waved his hand vaguely around the room at the bumper cars, and I imagine he meant it to be a wave that would take in the rest of the carnival.
“I’m sorry, Sam. There are no car mechanics here – only life mechanics. But we do our job fairly well.”
Sam? How did he know Dad’s name?
He was still smiling. Tom was not. “What is this place? How do we get out of here? I’ve seen enough!” Tom was climbing out of his bumper car as he made this declaration.
“Oh, young man! I am afraid you have not nearly seen enough.”
Seen enough? What was it that little girl had said? Something about the rides being able to help us? Sometimes, at school, our teacher would let us ask questions before a test. She would always limit the questions to three. So, if someone forgot and asked if they could use the bathroom or sharpen their pencil, then our questions got wasted. She said it taught us to focus.
Somehow, I thought the same thing was going on here. My mind scrambled back, trying to remember the first thing he had said to us. My mom was in the middle of trying to describe to the man how our car had broken down, when I turned to him and said as loud as I dared, which turned out to be pretty loud “Why are bumper cars interesting things?”
My mom broke off in the middle of her sentence and the whole family looked at me in shock. I do not usually interrupt or really do anything very forcefully. This was important, though.
The man, whose smile had been fading, brightened right back up now and turned to face me. “Would you like to talk about bumper cars?” he asked.
I nodded vigorously. My voice failing me now, being scared of its own self probably.
“How about you?” the man asked as he looked at Dad.
Dad stared back at him in amazement. Then he threw his hands in the air in exasperation and said, “Sure! Why not? Let’s talk about bumper cars!
“I don’t want to go home, anyway,” he mumbled to himself.
“What do you think of bumper cars?” the man asked Tommy.
Tom shrugged. “They’re fun,” he said.
“Are they very good at getting you where you want to go?” the man asked again.
“No!” Tom said in disgust. “There’s always someone in your way or someone banging into you from the side. You can’t ever go in a straight line.”
“What would you need to move in a straight line?” This time the man turned to face Dad.
“Well, if you wanted to get from one place to another, you don’t get in a bumper car arena, you would go on a road where there are rules everyone should follow and the rules keep one car out of the way of another car and the cars stay within the lines and they follow the lights. You are driving for a different reason.” Dad said this really frustrated -- like he was talking to a little kid.
The man only continued to smile, though and nodded.
“So, would you agree then, Sonya,” he said, turning to my mother, “that in order to get from one place to another, we all need to obey the same rules?”
“Y-yes,” my mom faltered. I think she was worried the man was tricking her, but she also tries very carefully to not say anything that will make Dad mad. She says I’m sensitive to people’s emotions, and I say it takes one to know one.
“But,” she continued looking nervously at Dad, “the rules have to make sense and be rules that benefit everyone.”
“Wonderful!” boomed the man. “I agree!”
Dad continued to scowl. “What’s your point, mister?”
Instead of answering, the man turned to me, “Brittney, if someone is nice, does that mean that they are also good?”
I looked at him in surprise. “No fair!” I said.
“What’s no fair?” he asked. My whole family turned to look at me with interest.
“I got the hard question!” I complained. This made my family, if not exactly laugh, snicker a little bit. In any case, they stopped looking quite so nervous and mad. That was good, even though, what I said was true. He did give me a hard question.
“You know the answer, though. Don’t you Brittney?” the man asked as he winked at me.
Sure I did. Anyone who went to school did. Last year, I met a really nice girl in my class. She always shared the treats her mom packed in her lunchbox and liked me best at recess and when we had to pick partners in class. It wasn’t long, though, before I realized that she was cheating on all her tests – including looking off of my paper if I was the closest. I told her not to and she said she wouldn’t and then I caught her doing it again! Also, sometimes when we were together, she would say mean things about other people or about our teachers or her parents and then act all sweet to them later. I didn’t like how she made me feel. Eventually I made new friends and so did she.
I looked at the man again, “No,” I said. “Nice is not the same as good.”
“Excellent! So what is going on –“ the man said pointedly to Tommy, “is that we must discover the rules, or the principles as I like to call them, that when we follow them will get us to where we want to be going. That will tell us,” he said turning toward me now, “how to recognize who is good and how to be good ourselves. And then,” he said turning toward mom and dad now, “you will find not only how to get home, but you will find the desire to go home, as well.”
He smiled warmly at us again, looking at us each in turn and then he turned and started walking away.
“Wait!” I shouted, jumping up from the car where I had sat down.
He stopped and looked back at me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He smiled and said, “Ken.”
“Dad didn’t want to go home. He still doesn’t. We’ll stay here, I guess, until he does.”
I frowned. “Don’t you like carnivals?” I asked.
Then she did look up at me. She was dirty and it looked like she had been here for a long time. “We tried the rides when we first got here. Dad didn’t like them, though. Neither did Mom. Still, they keep going on them over and over.”
She looked hard at me sadly for a minute, then she shook her head and went back to drawing in the dirt. “You can try the rides,” she said. “They sure didn’t help us.”
Suddenly Tommy was by my side. I nearly jumped as he demanded, “What does she mean ‘the rides didn’t help us?’ Rides aren’t supposed to help you. They’re just for fun.” He shook his head and scowled at us.
Tommy is nearly always angry. I remember when he wasn’t, but I don’t think he does.
I stood up from where I had crouched to talk to the girl and shrugged my shoulders. I really didn’t know what she meant, but I didn’t like how she was all alone and how sad she was and how she seemed to blame the carnival for making her sad – or blame her parents for not taking her out of the carnival or something! Either way, I had about decided that I’d like to see as little of this carnival as possible and get back to familiar things – like even the broken-down car.
Tommy seemed to feel that way too. He shivered. Then he turned around. “Let’s go find Dad and get out of here!”
I hurried to Mom’s side and took her hand again. We walked past the prize booths and once we were around the corner, we saw Dad walking toward a group of people waiting near a covered pavilion.
“Sam!” My mom called out and we started hurrying toward him. Just then we got nearly run over by a crowd of people coming from behind us and heading for the ride in the covered pavilion. This was weird, too, because, as I mentioned before, we hadn’t seen anyone at all before this except for the little girl and now there was a mob of people all heading for the same ride?
I didn’t have time to think about it, though. I was too busy trying to keep up with Mom and not get my feet knocked out from underneath me. “Holy Cow!” I thought as someone plowed past me, bumping my shoulder and nearly knocking me to my feet. “Don’t these people care about how their actions hurt anyone else?’
We were carried along by the crowd up to the covered pavilion and inside. I had completely lost track of Dad and Tommy, although I was still holding tightly to Mom’s hand. As we got inside, I saw a smooth oval floor that stretched from one side of the pavilion to the other. Around the edges were small, individual-sized cars with rubber rings fashioned securely around them. “Bumper Cars!” I whispered and paused just a moment to look.
As I paused, an insistent stranger pushed his way forward and Mom’s hand was ripped from mine. I scrambled after her, pushing my way in between people and found myself in the arena. I looked around frantically. I could see Dad and Mom and Tommy were all in different cars. I wanted to get closer to them, but the lights started to flash. I knew that meant the ride would start soon. I jumped into the car closest to me and quickly fastened the toy seatbelt. I guess we were going to try the rides afterall.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as a loud, clanging bell rang overhead and power suddenly surged into my car and all the cars around me. I pressed on the gas and jerked forward. It always took forever to get used to bumper cars! They always moved too fast and steered too slow. A car pounded me to the right. I veered to the left and pounded another car I hadn’t seen over there. I really wanted to get back by my family, but I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to get there with all these cars banging back and forth in front of me, behind me, and into me!
I gasped as another car hit me from the rear. I cranked the wheel of my car as far to the left as possible and jerked forward as I hit the gas again. I made about four feet before I pounded into another car in front of me. I would have put my head down on the steering wheel in resignation if I hadn’t been afraid of being banged by the steering wheel when I got hit by another car – which was bound to happen, even if I stayed perfectly still.
Just then the lights flashed again and the bell clanged it’s noisy signal and all the cars slid to a stop. I hadn’t realized it until then, but I had been holding my breath. I let it out gratefully. I rested my eyes shut for just a minute in relief. I opened them to see everyone – that whole mob of pushy strangers – leaving just as quickly as they had come. Within minutes the pavilion was deserted. I looked around to see my mom and dad and Tommy following the retreating crowd with their eyes, as well. I got out of my car and went over to where their cars were clustered together. I had thought we were alone, but as I looked out of the arena, next to the turnstiles of the pavilion, I saw a man.
He was walking slowly toward us. His hair was grey, but he was big and seemed strong. I worried that he would be dirty and sad like the little girl we had seen, or worse, maybe he would seem to not see us at all like the crowd of people who had come to the ride and just left. He was neither. He was smiling as he came toward us in a white shirt and a tie and his eyes seemed to twinkle especially when they settled on me. I liked him immediately. He was the first thing that seemed human in this creepy, weird, weird carnival. I knew he could make sense of things for us. He would help us find a way out.
“Bumper cars are interesting things, aren’t they?” he said as he reached the place where we were standing.
My dad ignored his question. Which he would never let me do, but which he does all the time. “Look, do you know where I can find a car mechanic to come take a look at my car? I’d pay him well, but I need him to come look at it now. I don’t have time for all this . . . ” at which point Dad waved his hand vaguely around the room at the bumper cars, and I imagine he meant it to be a wave that would take in the rest of the carnival.
“I’m sorry, Sam. There are no car mechanics here – only life mechanics. But we do our job fairly well.”
Sam? How did he know Dad’s name?
He was still smiling. Tom was not. “What is this place? How do we get out of here? I’ve seen enough!” Tom was climbing out of his bumper car as he made this declaration.
“Oh, young man! I am afraid you have not nearly seen enough.”
Seen enough? What was it that little girl had said? Something about the rides being able to help us? Sometimes, at school, our teacher would let us ask questions before a test. She would always limit the questions to three. So, if someone forgot and asked if they could use the bathroom or sharpen their pencil, then our questions got wasted. She said it taught us to focus.
Somehow, I thought the same thing was going on here. My mind scrambled back, trying to remember the first thing he had said to us. My mom was in the middle of trying to describe to the man how our car had broken down, when I turned to him and said as loud as I dared, which turned out to be pretty loud “Why are bumper cars interesting things?”
My mom broke off in the middle of her sentence and the whole family looked at me in shock. I do not usually interrupt or really do anything very forcefully. This was important, though.
The man, whose smile had been fading, brightened right back up now and turned to face me. “Would you like to talk about bumper cars?” he asked.
I nodded vigorously. My voice failing me now, being scared of its own self probably.
“How about you?” the man asked as he looked at Dad.
Dad stared back at him in amazement. Then he threw his hands in the air in exasperation and said, “Sure! Why not? Let’s talk about bumper cars!
“I don’t want to go home, anyway,” he mumbled to himself.
“What do you think of bumper cars?” the man asked Tommy.
Tom shrugged. “They’re fun,” he said.
“Are they very good at getting you where you want to go?” the man asked again.
“No!” Tom said in disgust. “There’s always someone in your way or someone banging into you from the side. You can’t ever go in a straight line.”
“What would you need to move in a straight line?” This time the man turned to face Dad.
“Well, if you wanted to get from one place to another, you don’t get in a bumper car arena, you would go on a road where there are rules everyone should follow and the rules keep one car out of the way of another car and the cars stay within the lines and they follow the lights. You are driving for a different reason.” Dad said this really frustrated -- like he was talking to a little kid.
The man only continued to smile, though and nodded.
“So, would you agree then, Sonya,” he said, turning to my mother, “that in order to get from one place to another, we all need to obey the same rules?”
“Y-yes,” my mom faltered. I think she was worried the man was tricking her, but she also tries very carefully to not say anything that will make Dad mad. She says I’m sensitive to people’s emotions, and I say it takes one to know one.
“But,” she continued looking nervously at Dad, “the rules have to make sense and be rules that benefit everyone.”
“Wonderful!” boomed the man. “I agree!”
Dad continued to scowl. “What’s your point, mister?”
Instead of answering, the man turned to me, “Brittney, if someone is nice, does that mean that they are also good?”
I looked at him in surprise. “No fair!” I said.
“What’s no fair?” he asked. My whole family turned to look at me with interest.
“I got the hard question!” I complained. This made my family, if not exactly laugh, snicker a little bit. In any case, they stopped looking quite so nervous and mad. That was good, even though, what I said was true. He did give me a hard question.
“You know the answer, though. Don’t you Brittney?” the man asked as he winked at me.
Sure I did. Anyone who went to school did. Last year, I met a really nice girl in my class. She always shared the treats her mom packed in her lunchbox and liked me best at recess and when we had to pick partners in class. It wasn’t long, though, before I realized that she was cheating on all her tests – including looking off of my paper if I was the closest. I told her not to and she said she wouldn’t and then I caught her doing it again! Also, sometimes when we were together, she would say mean things about other people or about our teachers or her parents and then act all sweet to them later. I didn’t like how she made me feel. Eventually I made new friends and so did she.
I looked at the man again, “No,” I said. “Nice is not the same as good.”
“Excellent! So what is going on –“ the man said pointedly to Tommy, “is that we must discover the rules, or the principles as I like to call them, that when we follow them will get us to where we want to be going. That will tell us,” he said turning toward me now, “how to recognize who is good and how to be good ourselves. And then,” he said turning toward mom and dad now, “you will find not only how to get home, but you will find the desire to go home, as well.”
He smiled warmly at us again, looking at us each in turn and then he turned and started walking away.
“Wait!” I shouted, jumping up from the car where I had sat down.
He stopped and looked back at me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He smiled and said, “Ken.”
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