W.Runyon St

W.Runyon St. Shadows From The Past

Chapter one

Shadows From The Past

Growing up in a city rampant with criminal activities is not a path to a promising future. That's what I wrote on a paper requested by my teacher when asked to describe the world through my eyes. Each day, I'd trudge through the front door of the basement apartment I shared with my mother and brother on W. Runyon St. in Newark, New Jersey. School days were grueling and filled with noisy kids and kindergarten teachers who would shout "Sit down!" at the slightest provocation. I breathed a sigh of relief when the day finally came to an end.

As I made my way home, memories of my empty and lifeless house flooded my mind, with Uncle Mickey sitting in the living room, waiting for me like a devoted spouse. I clenched my fists, bracing myself for what was to come, and chills ran down my spine. My heart pounded fiercely, and I felt my palms sweating. Suddenly, the doorbell rang, jolting me out of my thoughts, and I realized it was all a nightmare.

Rolling out of bed, I made my way to the door, with my son's frantic knocking growing louder and louder. The sunlight streaming through the windows adjacent to the front door gave me the impression that I had spent a long, restless night out drinking with my girlfriends.

"Mom!"

I could hear my son clamoring for my attention, his incessant banging on the door growing more intense by the second. Stumbling towards the door, I struggled to shake off the grogginess that still enveloped me.

"Will you please stop banging on my door like the police? I can hear you!" I snapped, feeling guilty for the outburst, yet seeking an outlet for the simmering rage that gnawed at me. Life can be harsh at times, and I found myself lashing out at innocent people, blaming them for everything, a product of a childhood robbed of its essence.

As I reached the door and flung it open, my son rushed past me, nearly knocking me off balance in his haste to reach the bathroom.

"OMG! Mom, what took you so long? You know I don't use the bathrooms at school. We had discussed this before," he exclaimed, exasperated.

Having grown up in the city, I knew better than to raise my voice to my parents, and I often reminded my kids of the rules of decorum. Nevertheless, they seemed unfazed by my reminders, and I realized that I had long since lost my "hood card." Life was different now, and I was a city girl living in the suburbs, trying to reconcile my past with my present.

As my children stormed through the door one by one, their voices melded together in a jarring cacophony. I could feel their frustration radiating off of them like heat waves.

"Mom, did you paint the house again?" my oldest daughter screeched, her expression one of utter disbelief. "What is wrong with you? You seriously need help, Mom. Every day I come home, and the house is a different color. I'm never even sure if I've entered the right house!"

Jacqueline, my second-oldest child, chimed in, "I know, right? It doesn't help that they all look alike either. Feels like we're living in a horror movie sometimes. Whose bright idea was it, anyway, to make all the homes look alike?"

My son grabbed an apple from the refrigerator, crunching on it with a sense of calm amidst the chaos. "I want to know," he said, his voice cutting through the commotion. "Which one of our parents chose this place? I bet it was Dad. He's a Marine and loves order, so it would make sense that he chose this neighborhood."

I hesitated, feeling a pang of guilt. "It was actually me," I admitted, sheepishly. "At the time, there weren't that many homes in the subdivision, and I designed this home. The builder loved it so much that he decided to make all the homes after this one look just like it."