I remember a time when the three of us moved to Belmont as a family unit for the first time. Mom and I had relocated from Irving Street in Watertown and you from Beech Street. We moved to that green tri-level duplex on Waverley Avenue right down the road from your Beech Street address. I think it was 1991, which means I would’ve been around eleven years old, almost twelve.
Twenty-four years ago the three of us lived right next door to a kid named Brendan who I ended up hanging around with for awhile. We weren’t great friends, but we did get into trouble together from time to time. For example, do you remember the toilet paper wars Brendan and I used to have between the two houses? I can recall some of the details: I’d get home after school, drop my book-bag on the ground, and begin the ascent to the third story, the musty attic-turned-bedroom that I called mine. Remember that house? The place I poked holes in the exposed shingles from the inside because I wanted to see out and get some fresh air? Holes you filled with tar from the inside and told me that they’d probably leak because shingles shouldn’t have holes poked in them? Well you were right, they did leak, so you probably had to fix that, too.
I remember this house fondly; it had the fire-escape in the back that went to the second level guest-room. I always remember sort of coming and going as I pleased, even when mom tried to set rules and curfews, and this applied to every place that we lived, and to be honest I didn’t do it with any purpose other than the fact that I wanted to.
At any rate, after coming home from school and settling, I’d hear the familiar thud sound that wet toilet paper makes as it hits aluminum siding. I’m not sure who initially started the whole war between us, but I can remember retaliating against Brendan’s house many times. I’d stick my head out of my third-story window to see if I could catch Brendan. He was no doubt waiting for me to run out of the front door and inspect the impact zone so he could watch with satisfaction, a lesson I learned after a few of our initial skirmishes. I couldn’t see Brendan’s entire house from the third-story window because the window faced the back of the house, the side with the fire-escape. Regardless of whether I’d catch Brendan or not, (sometimes other kids were involved on either side) I’d head to the bathroom for ammunition. Actually, I remember that there were concerns about the quality of the ammo seeing that TP is a bathroom product used for the removal of human waste. I remember the primary concern was if the TP had been used prior to employment, the creation of a biological weapon of sorts. I can attest, at least from my camp, that the TP was pure and unsullied. So, I’d grab a huge handful of “ammo,” run it under the sink for a second, which was just enough time to thoroughly saturate the wad, and then I’d run downstairs with water dripping down my elbows, kick open the door, and fire the soaked wad at Brendan’s house. Splat!
Brendan’s house had wood siding, so the sound of wet and wadded toilet paper on wood was much different than the metallic-thud our aluminum siding made. On an interesting side note, my attic-room had a secret compartment in the floor. I noticed it once when I stumbled on a loose floorboard. I used to stash all kinds of stuff in there, adult magazines and cigarettes mostly, both items of which I hadn’t any idea how to use properly, (if such a skill even exists).
Back to the story: On a day during one of our wars Brendan lured me out of the house. He darted past me when I made it outside and he locked himself in our entranceway. I got pretty angry. I yelled and yelled at him to open the door, and when he didn’t I simply broke the window and unlocked it myself, (only after which did Brendan say that he was just messing around. Well, so was I). But here’s the important part of the story: I learned that the concept of responsibility included a whole slew of associations that were previously unforeseen on my part, especially when I was told that it was my responsibility to replace the window.
You took me to a local glassworks facility, a place you found by reviewing the Yellow Pages, and there we, or I rather, purchased a piece of glass. I’d never been to a glass-handling facility before, even though I’d certainly had my share of rapidly disassembling lots of glass things. You and I stood at a counter and told a middle-aged man briefly what I’d done. After a light admonishment from the gentleman, we told him what measurements we needed the new piece of glass to equal and he said ok. I remember being pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive our piece of glass turned out to be. Seeing that my being responsible entails my financial responsibility too, I had to dip into my allowance to pay for my playing the hopeless (and hapless) locksmith. But the price wasn’t a thing at all because I knew in my heart that I had to pay for what I had broken.
I think the glass ended up costing a little more than two dollars, which was great because my allowance had left me with a crisp new five dollar bill in my wallet. So I paid, and then the clerk disappeared. The cool part was watching the clerk cut our piece of glass to size. I had never seen glass being cut before. I didn’t even know it was possible until I saw it for my own eyes. So, when I watched the clerk reappear with a small piece of glass, which was larger than we needed, take a soaked rag from a bucket, and squeeze the rag over the glass I was pretty intrigued. As the clerk wiped the glass down he grabbed a spray bottle and gave the glass a quick spritz with some concoction unknown to me. I was hooked. I was waiting for some crazy glass cutting contraption to manifest itself before us, but instead I watched as the clerk then took a small tool from his workbench and scarred the spritzed glass. After that the man picked up the glass and folded it like cardboard. At this point I was amazed. The cut looked clean and smooth to me. He then walked over to another area and quickly polished the cut edge with some belt-driven, bench-mounted mechanism. I don't remember what it was, but the machine was very noisy. The clerk then wiped down the newly-sized glass, inspected the edge, nodded in approval, and gave the piece to me.
Now, a lot of the memory has faded from time, but that few minutes is still pretty clear to me. I’ll never forget how cool it was to watch the clerk cut that piece of glass for us. It’s funny what bits of time-space we deem significant enough to store in our brains. To me that was one of them. And there are countless others.
When you and I got home we broke the new piece of glass within minutes. I don’t think you were upset when this happened. In fact, I feel as if you had almost anticipated the new glass breaking as a potential thing, so within those same few minutes without any hesitation or complaint we were off to the glass place, again. This time I expected the cost, but since you broke the new glass attempting to install it, I did not anticipate that I was to eat the cost of the second pane, too. I don’t remember exactly what you said, but I remember you explaining to me that though you had broken the new piece the whole thing was ultimately still my responsibility. I probably didn’t agree with you at the time, but I also probably got over that feeling pretty quickly because I knew it was the truth.
I don’t remember which car we took to the glass place. It could’ve been your brown van. On several occasions you’d take mom and me out in that beast. I loved that thing. I remember the light-brown carpet and those comfortable reclining seats in the back, the table with holes for beverages, and James Taylor singing to us as we’d head out somewhere, maybe to the ocean or maybe to the mountains for some R & R. It didn't matter. I’d stretch out in the back as wind spiraled through the front windows and brought with it a peacefulness that as I look back now seems euphoric. I've been thinking about the past decades recently. In fact, this is how I've been going to sleep at night: reminiscing and remembering and trying to recall as much of the sense information from the past as I can, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the textures, etc. And, merrily merrily we row our boat, gently down the stream.
No comments:
Post a Comment