Where I'm From

This evocation of my Midwest childhood first appeared in the East Bay Monthly in June of 2011.

Where I’m from, the Soap Box Derby ran down Jackson Street, plywood cars over rattling wheels, flying under leafy maples arching over the street and zipping past St. Anne’s Church to the finish line, backed up with bales of hay hauled from fields past the outskirts of town, not far away. My big brother Dave was a master builder, even before his voice cracked. The year he entered the Derby, he clearly had the best-looking car in the competition, a sleek blade of precise mitering and miniscule tolerances, shining with multiple coats of white paint and emblazoned with the Standard Oil logo faultlessly reproduced from the side of our dad’s truck. Dave lost that day to a guy who, we found out later, illegally weighed his car down with lead bars, which sling-shot him past Dave at the finish line. It was my first brush with justice not served, and the fever boiled my blood for days.

Where I’m from, the maples arching over the streets brushed their leaves together in the warm winds of autumn, like the washing of a thousand hands scraping off the green to reveal the red and yellow and orange of half a million waving palms and sounding like a lullaby in the sky. One chilled and breezy late fall Saturday morning, I approached the looming home of Mr. and Mrs. Musz, blank windows staring down at me from the second story. A rococo collection of leaves crunched under my feet as I climbed the worn wooden stairs. I was there to collect 25 cents` for the newspapers I had tossed onto the porch every day after school that week.

Mr. and Mrs. Musz were old and creaking, like the house, and the ritual was the same every Saturday. Mr. Musz would open the door, Mrs. Musz smiling over her husband’s shoulder. The warm, musty odor of old people and their yellowed photographs hanging in faded frames in the hallway would drift out. Mr. Musz would beckon me in, clutching a small coin purse. He would twist open the clasp and extract a quarter as if plucking a shining nugget from the cold waters below Sutter’s Mill. He would drop the priceless metal into my palm and I would thank him as if he had just erased the national debt. I would turn to go. He would call out for me to wait, I would stop and turn. One more gold piece to go. A forefinger and thumb into the coin purse, another slow extraction, an extra nickel pressed tightly into my palm.

This Saturday was different: no Mrs. Musz. Everything else was the same, until the end. “Cold out there today?” asked Mr. Musz, snapping his coin purse closed.  I affirmed the general temperature. “Are you staying warm?” asked Mr. Musz. I told him I guessed I was. He reached down, patted the zipper of my jeans, and asked, “And how’s your little friend?” I told him I guessed my little friend was okay, turned, and stumbled out across the porch.

When I got home, I told my dad about the events at the house of Mr. Musz. He roared, the Standard Oil logo over the pocket on his shirt appearing and disappearing as he doubled over and then rocked back in his chair, the laughter ricocheting like nuggets of ice off the kitchen windows.

Where I’m from, the winter winds blew from all directions across the fields, dropping their cargo of snow in town. I pulled my load of afternoon newspapers across the yards of my customers on a sled, through drifts over my knees, sweating inside layers of pants, shirts, coats, mittens, and scarves. The goal was to get home before 5:20 and settle in front of the television with hot cocoa to catch The Adventures of Spin and Marty on The Mickey Mouse Club. Marty was the dork you felt sorry for, but Spin was the guy you wanted to be. I knew every line of dialogue.

Late one afternoon a storm blew in, snow streaking through the pale yellow swatches pasted into the dark landscape by streetlights spaced like lighthouses on the coast of Maine. At the last house on my route, I stopped, panting, and looked at my watch: 5:20. I knew the kids in this house watched Spin and Marty. The living room drapes were open and the television looked back at me from the opposite wall. I stood out in the rectangle of light cast on the snow and watched Spin and Marty, mouthing every word.  When it was over, I stumbled out of the snowdrift, tugging my sled. The storm was worse, wind roaring through bare tree limbs, streetlights barely visible. I pushed against the slanting snow for home, which suddenly seemed miles, and hours, away. I stopped every few steps to catch my breath, alone in the howling landscape. Then, up the street, headlights poked through the maelstrom. Then the straining growl of a sound I’d been hearing my whole life: the engine of a truck I’d been riding in since I was barely old enough to climb into the cab, haul the hoses, or hold the gas nozzles. The truck stopped up ahead, a smear of sudden blazing red in a black-and-white world, the Standard Oil logo like a banner under the streetlight. The door to the cab opened, and a voice called my name.