askchapo

being eight-ish years old, bouncing on my parents bed while eating marshmallows. I decided to start throwing marshmallows into the light fixture while It was on, of course. My mom found me on the bed, halfway through my jump shot and just about beat the brakes off my ass, with her flip flop. Afterwards I had to help remove the fixture, clean the caramelized sugar off of it, and then reinstall it. The whole time, tears just running like a river.

One time I was at my great grandmothers house visiting family I had never met (I was five or six). My great grandma lived out in the boonies in north Mississippi with no electricity, no running water, outhouse on the edge of the property that moved locations once its current spot had no more room. She had a cuckoo clock in the hallway and I was afraid of it. I remember sneaking down the hallway where it was, and when it went off I screamed and started crying. I remember telling my mom that her Uncle Erskin and her Uncle Claud both beat me. I remember her uncle Claude calling me a derogatory term from the late 1800s, used to demean black men particularly. It took me 30 years to remember the term correctly, and then look it up to see wtf it was. Fuck you Claud. Greatest Generation my ass.

I remember not being able to convince my mom to let me have ice cream for dinner so I held my breath till I nearly lost consciousness, fell down and cracked the back of my skull hard enough that I got mildly concussed and had to get a half dozen stitches on my head to fix it. I don’t remember how old I was then, but I’m 46 now and I can still feel the scar on the back of my head.