We are the Gray — Chapter One
‘Cold-cold Water’- Justin Beiber
“Every step we clamber up is a moment either faced in desire, fear, or defeat. You can’t let your feet slide away in defeat like letting the patient’s heart stop during mid surgery.”
Neighborhoods are clusters of people trying to call themselves a community. Mine is a place straight out of a picture perfect movie. Huge houses with diamond picket fences, expensive cars, trashy pools, and greens beyond your imagination. If you were to pick pocket you would need to be thrifty in not getting caught.
Its not out of place for a poor home to hide itself like one of the rich ones with diamond fences around here. Actually, its become necessary to use blending tactics to prevent your neighbors from judging the groceries you bring into your home. Gossip is a weapon here. A weapon that buries secrets six feet underground.
Mom’s luck is an empty pot of gold. When Dad was around we couldn’t afford the luxurious life of white picket fences built out of diamonds, and sinks made of gold. Snakes of neighbors devoted time into judging her like she’s constantly walking down the red carpet.
I found it strange. She moved here to get a good drunk conversation on the phone kind of distance from her family. Her claim is that the move into this gate of hell neighborhood is for father’s job. But I don’t believe someone would just fold up their entire family for a pipe dream.
My mother made me doubt she was being loyal to my jerk of a father. At age five, I was watching daddy sucking up snow in his nose like a deer lapping up lake water. I wasn’t sure what the snow was till later in my years. But Mom continued to act as it life was normal. Everybody’s parents did it in these parts…
My brother ten at the time muttered under his breath every time Dad snuffed up more flakes of snow betraying the law enforcers he worked with. Dad shrugged it away. Nothing else mattered to him. Right Metallica?
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Our Mother tried hiding the snowflake poison pretending to guard our perfect image of family from the neighbors. By pretending it didn’t exist it couldn’t be a problem right? No one considers a police office would delve so low as to fall into the same addiction as the criminals he catches.
Days wept by with me playing outside learning how to hopscotch, or play hide and seek with the golden haired kids next door. My brother kept to himself working on homework or listening to music. Mom kept her hands over her eyes.
One day I was wistfully wandering the streets of Kingston as if they held stories my soul desired as a child. People bent down pleading with me on where my parents were, or asked if I was lost. Being a child all alone on these streets is like being candy for kidnappers one person told me. Every one of them got my silence as cold as an ice storm. I was looking for one person.
My tiny sky blue flip flops helped me kick a can at a crooked fence. If you asked me at the moment I would say that the only worry on my mind was if Dad’s fists would find their way to my face or back. Not much you can do against someone ten times your size.
Fingers interlaced with my thin frame as I kicked the can into oblivion once again. “Amanda!”
“Alana let’s go climb the statue in the middle of town again.” She suggested the words as a strand of sun-kissed hair fell between pools of the deep sea. Her home is in downtown Kingston with a few broken windows, and a possible roach or two crawling on the floor. We met in class becoming friends on the monkey bars — you know the ones that schools took away because people kept getting hurt.
Our school is out of style. The swings made a rattling noise, broke, and sometimes caused a traumatic incidence or two. We wondered why the school never replaced the playground. Turns out parents cared more about the shoes on the kids feet than what the kids did with recces.
Friendships are strange. Amanda and I are stranger. We lacked social skills making us bond as two unlike creatures would. Awkwardly with a tad humorous touch pretending to be Sailor Scouts from the new television series of girls who turn into Galactic heroines. We thrusted our fingers up into the air to chant “Moon prisim make up power.”
This labeled us as weirdos on the plays-cape of second graders. But the other kids pretended to chase make believe Pokemon and catch them. It was hard to determine who was weirder. Them or us. What else could we do but pretend to be the people we are not.
In class we would become two artistically troubled kids. I drew cats as circles with points and two dotted eyes, and she made stick figures. Music class nearly divided us. I could sing good. Good enough where my teacher pleaded with my mom for me to be the lead singer. But Amanda’s feelings would be cut. I will not lose the only the friend I have.
Computer programming class is a repetitive spelling course. Type as many letters, play a game, and try to sell lemonade out of a stand. One day looking out the window I caught blaring sirens flying up to the school. They picked up a boy who busted half his lip outside on the swings. He teased everyone. A playscape bully. Amanda’s enemy.
He got slips for misbehavior bragging about it all day. Suspensions were only for weaklings. Amanda’s disdain for him as clear as an all blue sky on her face. The two quarreled like birds over territory.
The years passed and in fourth grade our numbers multiplied by two.
