As this is Things Men Carry, of which I carry death, divorce, losing my cushy job well into my 50’s to name a few–well, shit, I carry the following too. Even if I don’t quite remember any of it.
It really is all just a big blur to me now some fifty- something years later. Then again, is it really all that far fetched of a notion that I should be forever impacted, furthermore informed by the first few months of my existence, a time nobody is supposed to remember a day of, sure. But.
As possible evidence to the contrary, that I may just be off my rocker or meds I mean, there’s my young blood. In his first few hours, I laid my eyes on him getting the business of getting circumcised. He shows no signs today of being impacted by such a traumatizing event as being violently rent down there yesteryear, but let the record show that he does show a penchant for grabbing down there in a constant fashion. It’s what a lot of homies do, and it makes you wonder.
But that was a rather quick in and out. Doc took out what may as well have been a cardboard cutter and went to rip rip ripping down there to the chorus of young blood screaming himself to the color purple. “He’s probably just hungry,” Doc said. Young blood did turn purple when he was hangry for the record. But he returned to mama’s breast quicker than he could quit crying.
In sharp sharp contrast to young blood is yours truly. I ejected out the gate, and as long as it took to designate and assign me an already prearranged name was as long as I spent time on a bosom. I had to have gotten whisked away and placed who knows where. They were 60’s Catholic nuns, use your imagination.
I kid about it, and the more intense I kid about it, the less people take me seriously, which then makes me dig my heels in even more.
“You didn’t grow up in the hood of Bridgeport (CT),” they’ll tell me.
“You’re right, I grew up in the cribs of Bridgeport.”
It for sure has shaped who I am; I don’t care what anyone says. Think about it: if breakfast is the most important meal of the day, well, shoot, the first few days–weeks!– out the chute are the most important. What am I saying; try the first few hours!
I’m not making excuses. I take responsibility for all my actions and decisions like any real man. My station and stature in life are of my own making. I like who I am, plus who I’m becoming. For the most part, anyway. All I’m saying is if, for example, I still eat fast, it’s most probably the result of when I had to army crawl my way to the trough that the nuns ladled slop onto at chow every day, that’s all. If you didn’t wolf your food down in the pen, you pretty much didn’t eat. There were just too many pen mates to nuns, ratio-wise, for everyone of us to get scooped up and bottle fed. Shoot, getting burped was a special treat. We burped ourselves in the pen most days.
I might also have what you’d call some abandonment issues. Simple, I’ve been abandoned a few times. No, not by women. They’re a dime a dozen. Circle of trust people. The old man. A dear aunt. Those who aren’t supposed to exit stage left no matter the circumstances. Was it as bad as being abandoned on day one, hour one by your own mother?
Was it mean or ill spirited abandonment?
Hell, I don’t know. My mom either bawled her eyes out the whole way home or couldn’t wait to get out of the pen. Either way, abandonment’s abandonment. It’s just not something a one-minute old ought to have to cope with. Especially since he’s gotta get his jimmy peeled back a day or so later. Where’d I get plopped back onto after I got the cardboard business? The pen, where else.
It hardened me a little, not gonna lie. My mother was fifteen, sure, that was her excuse. As for would a lesser man cave to alcohol, drugs crime, suicide if his circle of trust cracked? Other, lesser men in fact do and have caved. I don’t mean to be so cold about it. I’m a product of my environment what can I say, and my environment is I spent time in a pen.
No reason to cry. The pen prepared me for a life that like many others would be beset with disappointment and loss. If anything, honestly, I think that stuff bounces or slides off of me easier than most and that my stable constitution is the direct result of an early childhood in the pen. I’m not bulletproof, but I am tougher than a lot. Thanks to my time in the pen, I’m one of the toughest sons of bitches I know. Laugh all you want.
So here I sit today, a solitary son of a bitch. I believe it’s a direct consequence of all that solitary in the pen. I’m not antisocial perse. I commune with my fellow man. I can commune with the best of them. I recently hobnobbed with my young blood’s university president not terribly long ago at parent’s weekend. We sat at a winery and got a little sauced. I wisecracked about this or that. He laughed with his mouth open. I kind of liked him, actually. But if he weren’t the president, I don’t know how long I would’ve stayed is my point. I really just socialize for the practice of it, not because I seek to get anything out of it. I feel like it’s my civic duty to be around people once in a while. Plus I remember reading or hearing about how socializing helps stave Alzheimer’s, or is it Parkinson’s? I can’t remember which now.
In a fate not guaranteed or granted every cribmate in the pen, I’d do my time, then ditch the nuns for a more loving, softly nurturing environment, where nature supposedly gets supplanted.
Orange is still my least favorite color, though.
-tmc
Things Men Carry 