For some reason, my father chose to move into a house, on the North West side of Oklahoma City. As memories of the house are recalled, my Mother will say the move was motivated by his want to be as far away from her side of the family as possible. Built in the 1940's, I remember walking through the house after we closed, I'm four or five, and believing every part was absolutely magical. I do not think I had ever seen an attic before. Dad will renovate, nearly the entire property, but my favorite parts remain the spaces that were a bit sketchy. Mom let us roller-blade in the house and as you went from one end to the other, a significant slant downwards would give you a good amount of momentum. The living room had a beautiful, huge, double pane window, that would fill up with water, like a fish tank, when we got rain.
There was a large mulberry tree in the backyard, under a wood fort we would make mud pies with miniature wild onions, even though we were only minutes from downtown. Dad fell off of a large oak tree as he was pruning the branches once, no one felt any particular way about the fall, as he may have been drinking. I will bring him the telephone out, one day, in the same front yard and see the whole thing up in flames, with him standing there with hose, he may have been drinking then as well.
This house was painted white when we got there, and sat in the middle of an eclectic mix
of cultures, races, economic backgrounds, so on and so forth. When we
rode our bicycles there was the rundown apartments down one block. I
dunno if we were explicitly told to stay away from them, but we did.
Another adjacent block led down to another set of apartments we
avoided.
Our neighbor to the West of the house committed suicide while my mother was
doing laundry one day. She heard the shot, walked to look out the window and saw blood all over the front porch. Our East side neighbors were always new, in and
out, transient in nature. My mother threatened to call the local news on
the landlord after repeated requests to fix a sewer line were ignored. With the threat, he complied. If a ball went over the fence, to the ever-changing rental's backyard, an eruption
with the same proportion of the movie Sandlot ensued, not as loudly, but
just as reticent. Our across the street neighbor took his young daughter
hostage once, barricading himself into his house. I remember police officers
triaged in our house, using the restroom, as my mother really is that
courteous. I also remember playing and riding bikes with the daughter, as her Father happily sprayed water in the air to cool everyone down from the hot summer air.
A gay couple resided directly across from us and were mysterious
to me only because of the enormous amount of trees and landscaping that
shielded the majority of the house. Beside them was an old
lady, Henrietta, we would go over to eat ice cream with, but I never really enjoyed
myself, because the flavors were all sugar free. And the house had an over arching theme of a mausoleum. A few houses down were
Asian families we never spoke to, Mexican families as well. A hippie
white lady, whose son we sometimes played with, once caught a bird and
offered towards my sister and I to pet, we later are admonished by my mother
about mites, I am still skittish about birds to this day.
Our bikes got stolen. Tires from our car were stolen. We would come home one day, surprising burglars, one was smoking a cigarette in our kitchen, it was still burning, after being discarded on the counter. I think they were able to make off with a T.V. We randomly are brought home baby chicks one year for Easter, inhumanely dyed themed colors, and without any real potential home within ours. We also randomly owned bunnies, we begged
for, but over sometime, they would magically disappear, after Dad came
home from truck driving. We still, lovingly, joke about how he
murdered them; and their remains are in the backyard to this day.
We were chased by dogs; I have a lot of memories of being terrorized by loose animals. We would climb up metal grating on our own front porch to escape a potential bite; I remember a cousin climbing on top of our Honda to escape dogs. A loose dog almost got into the house from the backyard, as Mom slammed the glass sliding door shut, she would also slam a finger between the frame. My mother would redistribute, seemingly, a baker's dozen at a time, kittens. There were fleas everywhere, we would check our socks on the front porch before we walked inside the house. I remember getting new light up Sketchers and walking our driveway at dusk, delighted in the colorways. Then picking fleas off my very 90's, white, athletic style socks.
Once, I stop riding my bike in front of the house and understand that a rather large blow up between my mother and father is about to explode. I will instruct my sister to grab a stuffed animal for comfort, as I sensed we would not be returning to the house for the night. As I clutch on to my own brown teddy bear we walk down the blocks from our house, my mother sobbing, us following like Christmas elves behind. Blocks turn over and over, eventually a lady pulls over her car to ask us if we are OK.
After my Father tells Mom that she will wait to get a new car, she will
hang up the phone, purchase a vehicle under her name only, just to prove
a point of bitter independence. I remember the light purple Civic sitting in the drive way, representing the colorway of middle fingers. A little ways North, up Indiana street, my mother, nearly totals the same Civic into a parked car, apparently reaching for falling mail on the dash board.
I go on my first middle school date while in this house. Maybe without realizing that I am, in fact, on a date.
Eventually, Dad would place light blue siding on the outside of the house. And, golly, sure as the sun, multiple houses on 31st street follow suit. All of what happened on that block was completely normal to me. Our interracial family was clearly not the cherry on top, in comparison
to our neighbors, or any other circumstance in proximity to us. While many of the formative experiences I had, all the way up until the eighth grade, were for the most part, outside of the many warm memories we had inside the house, one thing remains.
My mother never lambasted any of it, at least, not in front of us. She certainly wasn't the block's matriarch either. And I trusted all that was around me to be normal; seeing the commonalities woven through each one of us.
If you are someone in your life is feeling suicidal, immediate help is available, call to speak with a counselor now at 800-273-8255
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
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