Good and Evil

...

That could be part of the reason I had to improvise in that department
too. Unfortunately my grandmother didn't have any devil statues lying
around that I could use for my bad guy, but her strawberry-red hair
brush did the trick. It was just about as big as the Jesus statue and
the wispy hairs in its bristles made an eerily distorted face, which I
thought was appropriate--as long as I squinted hard enough to see it.

Atop the high peaks of the dresser, nightstand, and television, Jesus
and the Devil fought for the freedom of humanity. The stage was set,
it all came down to this. Somehow these battles, between a color-faded
Jesus statue and a plastic comb-devil seemed more intense, like the
skies above were watching with interest for the outcome of the
struggle. I had more of a responsibility to make sure things ended up
right.

"You will die!" I said for the Devil, moving the comb handle down the
dresser towards Jesus. The comb, though, emanated hatred. It wasn't a
comb. Once committed, my child eyes saw no comb, only the shapeless
figure that made up the Devil.

"You will never prevail," Jesus responded triumphantly, sending his
foot in a sideways ninja kick that met the Devil mid-stride. The red
comb bounced back toward the precipice of the dresser, the highest
area of the room. Below, the floor, a bottomless pit of nothingness
loomed as the Devil struggled to hang on to the edge.

"Damn you," the Devil sneered, slipping off the ledge and into the abyss.

There Jesus stood, victorious and humble, his expression unchanged. I
did this kind of thing on multiple occasions, sometimes in front of my
grandmother while she napped, hoping, for some reason, to give her
dreams of the dramatic duels.

"Did you have any dreams while you were sleeping Grandma?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so," she said. "I can't remember them though."

I smiled to myself.

June 6 While Falling Asleep...

Before I had my Power Ranger action figures, I had to improvise. In my grandmother's upstairs bedroom, she had a small statue of Jesus: white robed, red scarf, long brown hair and a pale-white face. Without real toys of any kind or my Legos, I used 'our savior' as the good guy in my dramatic fights.

My grandmother went to church all the time, and always told me about Jesus. How I should pray every night, go to church every Sunday, thank god for everything I had. My grandfather never went to church with my Aunt Steffie and grandmother on saturday nights, he watched mass on television every morning before The Price is Right came on.

I tried to take the example and do all the things a young catholic boy should do, after all, I did go to religion class on Tuesday nights to learn how God wanted me to behave, learned about angels and the devil, communion and confession.

However long I tried to follow the rules and suggestions of the priest, it never seemed to stick. I remained too busy on my Legos and the important events surrounding the hero of my adventures, Johnny Thunder. Riding my bike and playing with my neighbors across the street took up a lot of my time as well. After all, I noticed fairly quickly that most of the people I saw in church were old white-haired men and women. I'd have time for praying, now wasn't it. I'd have plenty of time to make it up.

Religion gave me my first 'bad guy,' in the form of the devil. I heard during some of the Sunday morning services about the story that Satan (apparently 'Devil' was only his nickname) had been an angel at one point. The seriousness of his betrayal and what that meant for mankind was always stressed by the sweaty, angry looking priest. No one, though, could ever give me an accurate description of what the devil looked like. I even heard that he changed form if he wanted to sneak around or trick people, so he never had a set form. He looked like whatever he felt like.

Aunt Steffie Part 2

Few things rivaled the complacency of those moments. Sitting in some comfortable corner of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant filling my belly, eating with my grandmother and Aunt Steffie, two people that loved me more than I could have known at the time, and eagerly awaiting the short trip to Toy Works right afterwards.

3) Once at Toy Works (every so often Toys R Us), I walked excited but casually to the location of the desired item.

I found myself explaining the intricacies of the blue ranger and the back story of all the others, sometimes even going as far as the events going on inside my head and the 'episodes' I had going with my action figures. My explanations made it clear that I needed the blue ranger. I began getting really effective at logical persuasion, my aunt understood this every time.

4) If I ever felt torn between which one to get, or if I felt especially spoiled, I could try and delay for as long as it took to get my aunt to give in, "Okay, get 'em both. Let's go." It usually always worked.

I couldn't have guessed the transparency of my plan at the time, but I could always hear it in my Father's voice when he found out I got something new--again.

"Boy you're lucky," he'd say in an almost disappointing tone, realizing what 'I' put my aunt up to. "Did you say thank you?"

I always had.

My Mom was happy for me when she saw me playing with my new toys. She loved seeing me happy. Sometimes she took an interest in what they bought me, asking me about it and seeing what the new toy did and how it worked.

Aunt Steffie Part 1

When I ran up to see my Aunt Steffie, my grandmother called it running through the 'woods,' even though it was only a few trees at the bottom of the hill where the two yards met.

My yard had woods. Our small backyard sloped down into what most would call forest. I could see the neighbors house and lights on the next street over, more clearly in the winter months, but the space in between crawled with vegetation, bugs, and poison ivy.

Other times they called it 'running up the hill,' which made more sense to me. Every once in a while I ran up the hill with a mission; they went a little something like this:

1) During conversation, but only 'in passing,' mention the new toy that I want.

"I have three out of the four power rangers now," I would say, referring the my action figures. "I think that Toy Works has the blue ranger now, Mom didn't get it for me though."

1 1/2) If she didn't get it at that point, another couple of hints always did the trick. I couldn't just come out and ask, that would be rude...

2) Soon, my Aunt Steffie offered to take me out for dinner with Grandma, then to Toy Works afterward. After her offer, I would give some shocked reaction to her gracious offer.

We usually went to Saints in the next town over for their famous hot dogs or Tony's for greasy delicious pizza.
....

More Slowness...On my Brothers and I

In early spring, after the snow thawed, my brothers and I played kickball in the backyard.

From the center of the yard, we rolled the purple plastic ball up the slight incline to the back porch where the kicker stood ready to swing their leg at the bouncing ball.

Along with tag, chase the monster, and hide and seek, we played kickball every so often throughout the summer into the cold autumn days before it snowed again.

When my brothers were six yeas old, my grandparents bought an automatic pitching machine, a plastic one that pitched wiffle balls. The bat that came with it was red, with an adjustable handle that my brothers and I swung with intensity. We waited for the machine to hum and click and release the ball, each time only about eight to ten feet from where it sat.

More on Brothers

My brothers grew and before long the small wooden stand that held magazines behind Pop Pop's recliner got replaced by a play pen. I remember holding on to the padded, baby blue railings and staring down at my baby dome-headed brothers. They crawled around pointlessly and batted their little chubby hands at the nylon screen, as if looking for a way to escape their new environment.

Jason laid on his stomach and held out his hands and legs like a skydiver would in free fall. Nick observed Jason most of the time and attempted to recreate his bizarre sounds and actions.

Once in a while, between helping my grandfather and watching cartoons, I would catch my brothers in conversation, baby conversation. They held out their tiny arms and motioned frantically back and forth while chattering and shrieking. Eventually they would stop, both finding some unknown look or sound funny, and fall to their stomachs laughing encontrollably until their faces turned red. This made everyone smile.

Tickling them also elicited the red-faced, feet kicking laughter. They looked back at me after I tickled their belly or rubbed their armpits, wondering if I would bend back down to get them again.

When my grandmother lifted my brothers up and put them on a blanket on living room floor, they never stayed put. The need to explore wasn't just reserved for me. Jason, a least, would think about listening when asked to stop. Nick ignored any attempts my grandmother made to call him back. When really excited, either one of my brothers could spontaniously break into a turbo crawl, yelling, giggling, and outright laughing as their little arms and fat legs bounced back and forth wildly.

My grandmother and I always had to make sure the door to the garage level was closed when Nick and Jay were out and about. I helped my grandmother keep an eye on them when they tried to climb the steps to the upstairs, or play with the wires behind the television. I saw early on how much work it took to take care of two little kids, and how little time remained for me.

Ice Cream and Consciousness

"Do you want some ice cream, sweetheart?" my grandmother asked me as I watched the game in my grandparent's living room.

"Sure," my grandfather answered with a straight face from the couch.

"Oh shush," she reprimanded.

I added that I wanted ice cream too. My grandmother turned and disappeared into the kitchen. I looked to my grandfather and we chuckled quietly to ourselves. His belly bounced up and down as he held off louder laughs.

Outside, the sun humidified the afternoon. Across the street seemed submersed in a cloud of summer haze. The mountain further back had been gone since late morning, hiding somewhere behind the humidity. Inside though, the giant, wall mounted air conditioner in the dining room chugged away noisily and kept the house at a cool sixty degrees.

The ice cream came in its usual form: a wafer cone in one of three colors (plain, a dull red or a light green color); and a hard, nearly frozen solid mix of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream stacked with as many scoops as easy balancing would allow. Perfect for a hot summer day.

My grandfather and I sat licking and biting into our ice cream in front of the TV. The Yankees were winning again. My grandmother sat behind us at the dining room table playing 'beat the devil' as she always did.

Little did I know then how precious that moment was. From about that age, ten-years-old, I consistently heard the older people in my family tell me how I should appreciate the moments I have and be happy that I'm young, "You're living in the best years of your life," and, "Enjoy life while you're young, Jonny," were just a few. But when your young you don't have time to be happy about it, the excitement of your youth distracts from the slow, rational and calculated thoughts of an adult. Kids don't have the receiver to pick up that frequency. They don't even have radios. And when they finally figure it out, finally graduate to an age that permits them into the 'club of growing up,' they realize it's too late, and there's nothing else they can do except prepare to warn the next generation about the speed trap their own life already passed through.