I've been wanting to tell ever since what could be called the first date-- though perhaps it wasn't really a date at all and, regardless, not a successful one-- but every time I try the events become jumbled and I don't know how to proceed. Do you know how some things you remember just like they happened yesterday? This is not one of those sorts of things. The truth is I remember it-- but maybe it isn't even true. Maybe what I remember is the memory of memories worried out like trouble dolls again and again, and now I'm trying to describe where everyone sat at the tea party. Where and how to start, yes. But not just that. When I was studying French there was a tense, that totally baffled me (pluperfect or something), that was used for things that happened recurrently; the problem was that it wasn't things that happened recurrently to me, but rather, things that were supposed to happen recurrently according to the rules, which seemed random. Something like that, anyway, irregular. I guess that's what I'm looking for. The layers of use and reuse of memory haven't distorted it in a tape-of-a-tape-of-a-tape-sort-of-way-- it's really more like the conjugation of an irregular verb. What I don't want to do is exactly what I find myself doing. Then I get angry. Think I'm boring. Never tell the story.
So. Big deal. Who cares about some stinky old story, anyway?
Well, actually I do. I care about it a lot. I think it is essential, somehow.
How can it be when you don't even believe it? Tell me that .
I may not totally believe it, but I believe in it. Understand?
Like people believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?
No. Not like that at all. Like you believe the fairies are controlling the car when your father drives you around at night in the darkly wooded neighborhoods where rich people live because he takes his hands off the wheel and the car still goes.
He said the fairies are controlling the car.
Yes. And when all the trees have been cut down you will imagine them in the stylized linkin log lettering of the dive bar near where they used to be and wonder if the fairies died out like the fireflies they probably always were or if they moved on to happier hunting grounds, but you'll never actually go in to the dive bar, and then, when that's gone too...
Like when they cut down the tree in the yard and then I stood on the stump and could still feel the tree, but when they dug it out and planted flowers I couldn't feel the tree anymore?
Yes. Kind of like that. But with a lot more pretending.
Do you pretend a lot?
Yes. I think I do.
Are you pretending now?
I'm not sure. Would you play a game with me now?
What kind of game?
Would you take me on a tour? Nothing fancy. Just up to the park.
Sure. Here is the house where I live. It's my gran-gran and paw-paw's house. My daddy lived here when he was a kid too. He says they were the first house on the block to have a TV. Isn't that funny? This big pot here, this plant is called wandering jew.
That's why you like purple so much, isn't it?
My favorite color is red, not purple!
Sorry. I should have kept that to myself. I guess. Please continue.
This is called monkey grass. My paw-paw has a green thumb. So we have fancy grass. That's a crepe myrtle. That's a mimosa tree. The lady who lives across the street has lived there since my daddy was small and her name is Frances. Frances can be a girl-name or a boy-name and you say it the same, but you spell it different.
Can you spell?
No. But I know my a,b,c's. Want to hear?
Not right now. Maybe later. Right now I want to go to the park, but after, if you want we can go to the U-Totem and get a frostie root beer or a delaware punch. Those are your favorites, right?
Or coke. I like coke too. My gran-gran says coke used to be medicine or something and even though it doesn't have all the stuff that made it a medicine, because that stuff's illegal now, it's still kind of a medicine and good to drink if you have a tummy ache. If we go to the U-Totem can I go barefooted?
Of course. Is there any other way?
I like the way, the regular street is hot, it burns your feet and you have to hop, but there's this big bumpy stripe in the street it's all white and cool and you can walk right on it. That's my favorite part.
Can we take the alley to the park?
There aren't any mudpuddles to stomp.
I know.
That's not the way I go.
I know, but I was just thinking how I never see alleys anymore.
Do you know they used to deliver milk in bottles and leave them in that alley?
When did they stop doing that?
I don't know. My gran-gran just told me they used to. Maybe they did when I was little. I don't remember it though.
So can we go down the alley?
No. It has the best mudpuddles if I'm walking with my daddy, but I only walk in the alley when I'm with my daddy.
Well, that's probably safer. People might back their cars out without looking where they're going. But, this has been concerning me: do they really let you walk up to the park by yourself?
Yes.
I would not let you walk up to the park by yourself if you were my kid. How old are you?
I'm four years old. I'm not your kid. Why not?
I don't think it's safe. I think about the things that could happen to you.
One time I stepped in an ant bed and I didn't know I was in an ant bed and they started crawling on me and biting me and there were millions of ants biting me and my daddy was there that time and he put me in a puddle and washed those ants off me. You mean like that?
That wasn't really what I meant, but yeah, ok, like that.
But I was a little kid then. I know about ant beds now.
Nevermind.
So this is the direction to go to get to the park. Watch where you're going, because, see, the sidewalk goes up and down. That's because the tree roots push the sidewalk up. It's really cool. It's my favorite part of the sidewalk. Now we're about to cross the street, it's not a busy street, but you still need to look both ways. This is my favorite tree. My daddy lifts me up there and I like to sit right there. See?
I see. Can you see very far from there?
Not too far. I can see farther from the top of the side. I used to climb up there, but then I was scared to slide down. It's really tall. My daddy would have to climb up and get me. One day he got me to slide down, but I slid wrong and I fell off half way down.
But he caught you, right?
Yeah, how did you know?
He might have mentioned it.
And there are the swings. And there's the hill. And over there is the clubhouse.
What's the hill good for?
You can kind of roll down it, or you can lie in the grass and look at the clouds. I like the hill.
It's the hill I'm particularly interested in.
Why?
I remember some sort of gathering up on the hill.
The one with the big tent?
Yes, that one.
It must have been some hippie thing because I recognized some of my aunt e.e.'s friends.
And do you remember what they were doing?
They held hands and they danced in a big circle.
Around the tent?
Yes.
So, on that much we agree.
Yes.
Do you remember anyone giving you a sugar cube?
Here she just walks over and lies in the grass. She ignores me.
I remember a sugar cube. But the way the person looked who gave me the sugar cube changes. Sometimes. When I replay the scene the tennis court, which was subsequently built, is there, but it contracts out of the way and reforms when people move. I don't know how to integrate this information. The sugar cube seems tied to the tennis court somehow. This makes me think it is a later addition. But it might not be that simple. I always resented the tennis court for ruining my hill. My other aunt was excited about the tennis court, wanted to play, might have even paid for lessons for me, but I wanted nothing to do with the big ugly paved thing that had destroyed my hill.
The tent was a regular white pavilion tent, the kind they use for outdoor weddings.
It was striped and huge. It was a circus big top.
The hippies wandered up and under the tent.
There wasn't any music.
There weren't any speeches.
The person who approached me was a woman, a man with long hair, a clown, filled, with no malice, no intent to harm, nothing but love, no reason to fear.
I lie in the grass and watch the hippies join hands and run and dance around and around in a circle dance. They shimmer in the sunlight. The circle undulates, expands, contracts, everything seems to be breathing. The big top is breathing. There isn't any sound at all.
It lasts forever.
Then.
It's over.
The hippies leave as suddenly as they arrived. They leave in twos and threes.
I get up.
I walk home.
