Finding Their Wings Inside a Glass Jar

It is a warm day outside, and I am running thru a trailer park side yard…someone has dug shallow holes in the earth every five feet or so, and each time I come upon one, I stick my bare foot in and try to keep running, playing some sort of dumb game with myself where there are no rules (there are only about 10 holes across the entire yard)…on the 7th one, as I am about to jab my foot in there, I catch a glint of something shiny and brown…the hole is full of broken beer bottles, but it is too late now to stop as my momentum carries me forward and I cut my foot into ribbons…

Because we live the self-contained bubble of our small cul-de-sac, life has an idyllic, suburban feel…this is the utopian promise of the suburbs, safe neighborhoods and birthday parties and mom in the kitchen pouring milk on a hot summers day…our family however is a little different, us kids living with our hope-to-be a rockstar dad and their high-flyin' step-mother (who is a flight attendant)…my father's hair is almost down to his waist, he has his right ear pierced, and dresses up in glitter for his nighttime concerts at local bars…this is pretty edgy stuff for the outer reaches of Chicago in 1973, and I watch in fascination as my father nightly applies a sequined scorpion to his face bead by bead, until he looks like some glam castaway…the finishing touches are a shiny silver woman's blouse tied at the navel, tall platform rattlesnake skin boots, and a full length fur coat…he disappears in a whir at night, leaving a vacuum when he goes…

Often my father practices with his band in the basement, which doesn't hold the sound in too well from the neighbors considering everyone is bunched up on top of each other in the townhomes…the neighbors don't really complain much though, because no one wants my father to see them as being uncool…I am not allowed to go down into the basement when they are rehearsing, even though I am just dying to…I watch them play thru a small storm window on the alley by crouching down low and putting my face to the glass, using a free hand to block the glare of the sun…however, it seems every time they get going good, they”ll stop and just start talking too much, joking around, or maybe waste 20 minutes smoking a joint…I live for the few moments that they play music because it sounds so good and is so exciting to watch…it is interesting to watch my dad and his band mates interact, for they clearly look up to my father…he appears to always be the one in charge, usually chiming in last as the final say on any matter…he plays so well that he often loses himself in the sound, and ultimately the band behind him in his wake…these guys are good, but my father is that much better…

These rehearsals become the talk of our little nestled street amongst my friends, because at that young age any live music, however small, seems like a huge rock concert…at first, I lead friends over to peer into the dark window so they can see what is going on for themselves…but then I get wise, and start to cover the opening up with a empty plastic portable pool…by leaning it against the wall, it blocks out the light and creates a barrier so now not just anyone can watch for free…for the rare privilege of watching the band play, I begin charging my friends 1 penny each, which is fine as long as the band keeps playing…but their normal 10 on, 20 minutes off routine screws up my whole plan, and the kids start complaining about getting their money back…

Just before the fourth of July, my father takes my brother and I out into the vacant lot that sits just off the other end of our row of townhomes for his own homemade celebratory display of independance…he has filled up a large bucket with water and dragged it out here for reasons that escape me…he then takes out his knife to dig air holes into a empty tin coffee can…after about 10 minutes of chuckling to himself, he gets it all just right…he digs an M-80 firecracker out of his pocket, lights it by sticking it to the lit cigarette in his mouth, drops it in some arcane fashion into the tin can, chucks it quickly into the water and proceeds to blow can and water some 40 feet in the air…

(WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!! VERY DANGEROUS)

…we 'ooh' and 'ahh' at this unexpected show of physics and force, so egged on my father willingly repeats the whole ritual about 7 times…I ask him a few questions about how it all works, and he calmly explains to me the force vs. water theory just as he blows another blast even higher…

the next morning, as I am up early and my parents are asleep, grab my brother to come outside because I've got a great idea…I have found some of my father's M-80's and shoved them into my back pocket, and I just need my brother's help to drag over the bigger bucket…the empty bucket and the carved coffee tin are outside in the back, and I just need to grab the garden hose to fill it up with water to about roughly the same height that my dad did…we clumsily drag the bucket to the vacant lot, pick ourselves a spot and set up shop…I have procured all the necessary materials, memorized the technique, and it is now just a matter of re-creating my father's methodology…I light the stick, hands shaking, pop the bucket in, cover my ears, stand back, and

*KA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM* (remember, do not try this stunt…very, very dangerous)

when my father pulled this off, it was in the middle of the day during a period in America when fireworks were legal, so no neighbors around turned an eye or said a word…but two children, ages 6 and 4, lighting a mini-stick of dynamite by themselves at 8 am on a Sunday morning?...it sounded incredibly, insanely loud and quiet all at the same time…the tin shot itself high, caught the wind, flipped bottom up and came down with a numb thud…I quickly grab the tin, light another bomb, and up she goes again…just as I am going to shoot up a third rocket, I see my father half-jogging towards up at a clip I am not used to seeing…I instantly know we are in trouble…but my first thought is that it is because we are out here way too early, before our 9am curfew…he says absolutely nothing, choosing instead to grab us by the arms and drag us home…I am surprised he is leaving the buckets because someone might steal them…he is walking very fast, and is twisting my arm in a way that makes it difficult to keep my balance…my feet are twisting and turning and dragging in the dirt, and then the gravel behind our house, and then up the stairs thru the back patio door…open whoosh, shove fall, whoosh slam! “WHAT THE FUCK??..%$*@....…”…it all phases out and then back in to the sound of screaming and condemnations and indignations and then the blows start raining in…we are basically backed into a corner bordered by the refrigerator and the back sliding glass door…there is nowhere to go, nowhere to run now, just wait for it all to stop…this is not the first time our father has beaten us, of course, but today, this seems to have a higher level of intensity than I am used to…my father is very quick, very strong, and he is hitting me harder than I have ever been hit before…I am sure he is going to break my bones…I can't even feel my brother beside me, but I know he is there…our father pauses for a brief moment, and we raise up against the fridge, sniveling…he is unbuckling his belt, again not the first time, but this is usually a sign that you have really made a big mistake…he rips the belt from his jeans, and instead of bending it in half like he normally does (and whacking us with the leather), proceeds to begin whipping us fiercely using the tail end, which has a large steel buckle on it…as he flails, the buckle begins slicing into our skin, concussing us wildly in the head, arms, legs, hands…it just goes on and on for forever until he accidentally misses both of us and rips into the refrigerator with a crack…he has hit it so hard that the pang of the metal on metal stops him cold, leaving a large slashing dent well in the door…I note the recognition in his eye that he has gone too far, because he looks afraid…he walks away without a word, leaving us to go upstairs and clean off the blood (the dent stays as a testament to that day and is never fixed…I see it every time I go to the ice box to get some milk)…

I love riding my bike, and because we live at the base of a fairly steep hill, enjoy speeding down all the way from the top with total abandon, stopping just in time at the before I run into some parked cars…some of the older kids on the block have taken to jumping their bikes off home-made ramps, and because they won't let me use theirs to jump my bike (because I am still too little), I fashion my own with some wood I dig out of a dumpster…using the natural speed of the hills decline (we ride up about half-way), a few of the younger kids and I start our own little jumps…the ramp sits at the base of the hill, right by our back driveway where it flattens out…at first, we practice small jumps, our distance only about a foot or so (we mark records with chalk)…as the days go by, we get bolder and bolder, emulating the older kids who are now jumping boxes…I decide to go for my own ramp's world record, a whole 5 cardboard boxes! I ride almost to the very top of the hill, correctly assuming I will need more speed to make this daring jump…I come wailing down the sidewalk at top speed, and as I hit the ramp attempt to pull the front wheel up…the force of my speed instead pushes the front wheel forward and down, so the effect is that I go sort of up a bit, straight, and then straight down, front wheel first…the tire collapses under me, twisting awkwardly from the full force of my weight…because I am moving at such a high velocity forward, I wipeout and fall face first into the gravel and am dragged about10 feet…my father, who is in the house, hears a wail from me that is so horrific he comes running out of the house as I come running in, bleeding everywhere…I am in a complete state of shock, and the next thing I know is my father picking gravel out of my face with his fingers…no one takes me to the hospital…

The townhomes across the lane mirror ours identically, with a small yard on the side that we play in…we tend to mess around more in the one across from ours because the sun shines there more consistently, and therefore makes the little grass flowers grow better…which means that this is where the bees hang out and eat…I am fascinated by bees because they are very beautiful, but the danger of being stung frightens me…it also means you cannot just catch them anytime you want…so we start simply by catching them with glass jars, urgently screwing the lids back on, and observing a bee up close as he buzzes about…once we figure out that they die without enough oxygen, we poke holes in the top using dinner knives, and this therefore means more observation time…but this too gets boring after a time, so we start trying to catch them by their wings…this is very difficult to do, but if you can manage, you can snatch them and tear their wings off easily and watch them up close without the safety of the glass jar…after mastering this trick, I decide that I am going to learn how to catch bees with my bare hands…if you line up exactly in line with the length of their body, so that their stinger is parallel to you, you can snap your hands shut with force and knock them out…if you are a wee bit off, or the bee shifts at the last second, of course you get stung (and the bee dies anyway)…I get the hang of this art eventually, bragging to my friends I can stun a bee anytime I want without getting stung…once I hit them flush, I then pull off their wings…if they are still alive, we'll watch them come to inside the jar, taking mercy on them by putting on a cap with no holes…