Landscape of Childhood

I grew up fast. Faster than most. It’s not that there was a particular reason for it. There wasn’t a specific world-altering even that rattled me into adulthood early. In some ways, a lot of people might perceive my childhood as pleasant. I remember living in the big brick house smack dab in the middle of the cul-de-sac with vine-encased handrails following me up the staircase. It always smelled like honeysuckle and sometimes I can still taste it when I think of home. There was a little creek in the backyard that my sister and I named Rock River. We didn’t have time to think of anything more creative; we were too bust collecting skinned knees. Sometimes Momma would bandage them up and sometimes Momma was too busy smoking cigarettes in her pink-wallpapered bathroom even though Daddy didn’t like it. If we made her angry he’d go an buy her a fresh pack even as he disapproved and shook his head when she started coughing. Momma smelled like baby powder and an ashtray all at once and her scent is a fair comparison to her personality. At least Daddy came outside. He watched me play basketball in the driveway by myself. When he left, I pretended to be a basketball star named Trixie. I would dribble the ball around the cracked concrete, pretending I knew a hundred tricks to confuse my opponents. I remember the path a pebble’s throw from the driveway that led to Mrs. Bull’s house. She was supposed to teach me piano but she mostly made me cry. Lauren lived over beside Mrs. Bull, and I spent hundreds of sunny afternoons rollerblading and biking in front of her stucco house on a hill. We pretended our skates were turtles crawling towards victory in a race. We pretended our bikes were ponies with names like Lady and Dizzy. Lauren’s dad was a dentist and he smiled a lot, which I guess makes sense. Lauren smiled a lot to. Maybe she inherited it, or maybe she was taught it. People were always telling me to smile. They thought I was so angry all the time. To this day, I slap on a big fat frown when strangers tell me to smile. Momma smiled sometimes, mostly next door in the garage of Mrs. Brenda’s pink stucco house while they each took turns lamenting their empty lives. Up the street, which was really more of a hill than a street, lived Ross and Stacy in the white house with red shutters. Ross shot bee bee guns and relentlessly teased Stacey. I recently found out that Ross shot himself in his bedroom where we used to play xbox. I can still hear the “pew-pew” of his little black gun that shot bee bees that only stung a little. They didn’t kill people. When Momma found out she cried and Daddy shook his head and told me to never consider What Ross Did as an option. His panic made me realize that he recognized how unhappy I was, that the thought had crossed my mind. I don’t feel that way anymore. Either way, the images of our silver sedan encased in crusty yellow pollen and the neighborhood pool filled with foam noodles and the dying rose bush in the front yard are still tinged with sadness in my memory.