Velvet Verbosity

Outside, a slate November sky hangs low, its belly resting on the rooftops of our neighbors’ houses. From this, I know to wear my blue parka, the one with the deep pockets and fake fur lining the hood.

I grab my red wagon and drag it, clattering, down the front steps. I don’t like the noise it makes as I pull it behind me down the sidewalk. I like silence, but the noisy wagon is essential to my walks.

Secretly, I am pleased that the street is empty. No people, no cars. Everyone is at church except us…my parents are atheists. My parents are asleep in their big brass bed that is as high as the tip of my nose. I am also thankful for that. Alone is how I like to be in the world.

A few feet in front of me I see her, laying stiff on the cement. I close the gap and squat down to look more closely. A mother squirrel, of this I am sure. No blood…how did she die here? There is something coming out of her that looks like yellow eggs. I think these must be her babies.

Tears spill, not for her death, but because she will never know her babies and they will never know her. Because I knew the place where she fell meant that something had taken her life, something human…man-made. Because she should not be left to rot on this street made of oily asphalt.

Carefully, I pick up her rigid body and place her gently into the wagon. I walk more slowly now, trying to avoid the bumps in the sidewalk. I look back to make sure she is not jostling too much, and I cringe when I see her furred body slide from side to side.

I bury the mother and her babies in the brown dirt beneath the bowed branches of our weeping willow. This is where my own mother plants bulbs every year. I won’t tell her…she would be mad.

Our elementary school was starting a band program. Everyone on the bus was all abuzz after the day’s assembly where the instruments were paraded out and played before our wondering eyes and ears.

“I’m going to play the flute,” says one girl, bouncing in her seat.

“Me too!” parrot several girls.

“Well, I’m going to play the clarinet,” declares Dotty (Snotty Dotty as I call her in my head).

She turns to me, “What are you going to play?”

Thoughts of a shiny silver flute held delicately against my lips flit across my inner vision. I feel Snotty Dotty’s eyes boring into me.

I shrug. “Probly the trombone,” I say casually.

Snotty Dotty bristles, “What? You can’t play that! The trombone is for booyysssss.”

I shrug again.

*****

And that, dear readers, is how I came to play the trombone for six years. The first year I had to use my foot to reach all the positions…yeah, I was that tiny.

In Shannock the best sledding hill is my backyard. On snow days all the kids from the neighborhood gather there, dragging their bladed sleds and blue saucers. The “hill” is an enormous bowl in the ground…a crater. So we have contests to see who can make a run down the hill and make it the furthest up the other side. Cheating is not tolerated and warrants snow bombs upon the perpetrator.

We are tireless, pushing the trails further and further up the other side of the hill. We sweat inside our snowsuits and our noses turn red and run. We soak our mittens and ignore frozen toes until it becomes unbearable. Then we go inside, our lungs full of winter air and our cheeks windslapped red.

My first bike crash is at the hands of our neighborhood bully. I am 4 or 5 years old, riding my red tricycle down the uneven sidewalk, back and forth between my front drive and the tree that marks the end of our property. She is there, behind the tree, waiting for me. She steps out as I approach, hands on hips and announces I can go no further. I pay her no mind as I try to move past. She knocks me off my tricycle and I run home, blood running on my knees and elbows. I get patched up and run back outside for another go. She knocks me off again and again and each time I go to my mother for bandaids. After three rounds my mother says, “no more”, and I feel the bully has won.
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It is the summer of my 7th year and I have my first two-wheel bike. The grass is vivid, soft and damp under my tires. My father runs alongside holding the back of the seat, and suddenly I am flying down the grassy hill of our backyard. I look back to grin proudly at my father and he grins back…one proud moment before the crash. My father is running but I am laughing…exhilerated.
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I am flying down the road, trees whipping past, a pack of my friends behind me on their bikes. We are so fast and I am leading them. Old Mr. Peabody is standing on the side of the road and his dog that yips all day and night sits on the other side, a white ball of fur and teeth. Mr. Peabody calls him just as I streak past. My front tire hits fur and bone and my face meets the pavement. Thankfully the four bloody teeth I spit out are baby teeth.
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Our driveway is a gravel paved U. I am still naive to the pitfalls of bike riding and do not realize that gravel gives way under fast, cornering tires. As I speed into the turn of our drive, the front tire jerks to the left and I cannot hold it. I crash in a great display of scraping and flying dust. When I pull up my shirt to inspect the damage there is gravel embedded in the angry red gashes across my ribs.