When I was younger my dad told me that he could hold up the world on his shoulders if he wanted to, and I believed him. I imagined him bent over with the earth on his spine, and this image stuck with me.
I remember being small enough to fit in his arms. When everything was going our way he would take me out for ice cream in his baby blue Impala, and I felt like royalty atop the white leather seats. When we came back to our car there were teenagers walking around it with videocameras, and to be the kid who got to sit in it and watch their faces disappear was such a wonderful thing to be.
Years later I was in my grandparents' backyard when I saw the baby blue car under a blue tarp. Half of the parts were missing and the seats were empty. I remembered being the girl with the ice cream on the warm, damp night with wonder soaking my bones. I left the ghost car.
***
I was 12 or 13 when my dad and his girlfriend, Jen, bought their first house. Jen painted the whole thing peach and lavender, with a big purple star on the front of the house. The inside was olive green, which she said gave the house good chi, and the bathroom walls were painted like the sky.
Jude, her son, and I would sit on the roof and watch the suburban neighborhood until the sun went down. I was a few months older than him but he was always the cool one. He'd take me to Dunk'n Donuts on the back of his electric scooter, and we'd have to push it on the way back because it'd run out of power by then.
Sometimes we'd go to the rollerskating rink if we had the money. I was always awful at it, and he was reluctant to bring me but I'd tag along anyway. He and his friends would talk to slutty girls while I'd shuffle around on the carpet outside of the rink. Sometimes I'd venture onto the hardwood, and stay close to the wall while people zoomed past me. The walls were covered with sweat. The place was hot and dark and full of people, but I really did love the music and the lights and the freedom. By the end of the night someone would have started a fight and everyone would have to leave, which I was usually thankful for.
***
When Jude and I were kids, our parents (my dad and his mom) would go to meetings at the church, which left us to play wherever we wanted. I remember being on the swing at the playground when we got into an argument over something stupid. I got up and punched him really hard in the privates, and he countered with a punch to my gut. We were both sobbing when Jen came to get us. He yelled that that was the most painful place I could've hit him, and I told him that his punch hurt just as bad. Jen kissed us both. We sat on opposite sides of the car on the way home.
***
The worst days were the ones when there were fights. The earliest that I can recall was when I was about six or seven. My dad and Jen were arguing about something in the car, and my dad slammed the breaks in the middle of the highway. He got out and threw Jen's keys as far as he could. She started crying and he started yelling and I looked over at Jude and he was crying too. Jen told us to get out of the car and run over to the building across the road. It was from there that we watched the rest unfold. Cars were piling up behind them and Jen was searching frantically for her keys. My dad beckoned me to him, and lifted me onto his shoulders. He walked away. Jen cursed and cried at him, my grandma came to pick us up.
***
I was sitting in the back of my grandma's car one day when a piece of wood fell from the dashboard. I picked it up and saw that it was a plaque. "In Memory of William Gibson" was printed on the front in gold letters, and beneath it was a poem about a mother who's baby was taken away too early.
"Mommom, who was this?" I asked her.
She told me that when she was a teenager, her house caught on fire. Her little brother, Willie, didn't make it out. She said that he was 5 years old, and her mother had written that poem after the accident. She told me she loved him dearly. I thought about Willie for the rest of the car ride and cried as quietly as I could in the backseat. I couldn't stop thinking about what it would feel like to lose a brother.
***
Halloween was always the best time of the year. Jude wanted to set up a haunted house in our tiny home, so we were sifting through boxes of Halloween decorations on the couch. Jen pulled out one child-sized black glove with a skeleton hand on one side and said, "Hey guys check out this cool thing! Eet eet eet!" And pretended to stab us with a plastic knife. I still laugh at the memory and her ability to find the magic in the smallest things.
Jen's mom and brother, Jamie, lived in the same neighborhood. Her mother was plump and had a short blonde bob and smoked the strangest cigarettes I've ever seen. They were almost as thin as toothpicks and smelled sweet. She'd often be sitting at the dining room table, with clip-on earrings and smoke billowing around her head. She reminded me of the witch from Howl's Moving Castle. She always hated me and I didn't know why.
Jamie lived on the bottom floor of his mom's house, and he was a really funny dude. When he was 17 he got shot on the street and was paralyzed for life.They had an elevator installed in their house and sometimes he'd take Jude and I for rides in it. When we were in third grade he took us to a 76ers game and we got to sit on a high platform because he was handicapped. That was the first time I'd ever been to Philadelphia and the city blew my 9-year-old mind.
When we'd stay at Jen's mom's house, we got to sleep on water beds and eat rice pudding. The bedroom where we slept had glass shelves full of masquerade masks and fancy purses. I wanted all of it. Before we left on one visit, Jen showed me a drawer full of stones and neat trinkets. She pulled out a clear crystal with a chip in the middle and gave it to me. Years later I sold my entire rock collection to a shy Spanish girl at a yard sale for $5, and forgot the crystal was inside.
***
My grandparents live in a huge brick house with a big backyard and two decks, one on top of the other. When my dad was a kid, he lived in a town where he had lots of friends and felt at home. He grew up with four brothers and said he used to love going to school. When their house caught on fire, they lost everything. It amazes me that my grandma suffered from two house fires in her life. I never asked about the causes or the details.
After that, my grandparents decided to move away from their town to a rural part of Delaware where they could build their dream home. This is when my dad started to fall apart.
Having to leave everything he knew behind was exceptionally hard for him. He struggled to make friends and would stay out late. The trouble began when he was a teenager. He found out where some rich jerk at his school lived, so he decided to steal his bike and mess with him. Because the kid's dad was a powerful politician, he was sentenced to six years of prison for stealing a bike.
After that, he was angry at the world and was in and out of prison for years.
***
My grandparents had an old boat by the shed in their backyard for as long as I can remember. My cousin and I used to climb and play in it, and pretend we were falling off into roaring waters. The seats were sun bleached and splitting and there was a compartment at the front of the boat that you could climb in to. This was my favorite place.
On one afternoon we were on the way to my grandparent's house, and my dad was driving recklessly.
"Babe, slow down. Matt, please," Jen would say, clutching the handle above the car window.
My dad got angry and started yelling, "OKAY JEN, YOU WANT TO DO THIS RIGHT NOW? YOU WANT TO F-ING DO THIS RIGHT NOW? OKAY, LET'S DO THIS!"
She was apologetic and tried to tell him that she just wanted him to slow down, but he kept yelling and he made her cry. He was still cursing when he pulled into the driveway and Jude was silent. I felt sick. As soon as the car came to a stop I opened the door and ran to the boat with blurry eyes. I crawled into the hiding place and my dad shouted after me but they didn't come. I hugged my knees and cried in there for a while.
Now the compartment is overgrown with plants. I'd like to think they grew from my tears.
***
When Jude and I were really small, we would visit Jen's step-mom, who he called Nona. She was a dog-trainer and an author, and she had a big blue house that seemed to exist in its own little world. In her art studio, she had colored pencil pictures of birds and animals. She handed us each a book entitled Red Knot- A Shorebird's Incredible Journey. She had signed the inside cover and hoped we'd like them.
If you went up lots of stairs, there was an empty tower that Nona promised she would turn into a secret house for Jude and I. We left with smiles and empty promises in our heads.
***
