The Sounds of Silence

I was a clumsy teenager. In fact, I’ve pretty much been clumsy all of my life, but there was a short period in my teens when I was truly a walking disaster. My accidents became so routine people began reacting to them as if they weren’t extraordinary.

In my Senior year of high school I lived with my sister Caryl’s amily and worked Friday and Saturday nights for an inventory company. I usually came in about 2 a.m. Caryl stopped me one afternoon on my way out and said I needed to be a lot more quiet coming and going, or I was going to have to stay home, period — no more job. I couldn’t keep waking the whole house up in the middle of the night when I came in.

Okay. Sounded fair. Be quiet. No problem.

The boss dropped me off at the end of the driveway. I tip-toed up the back steps, carefully turned the knob and eased the door open. I tip-toed into the house and just as carefully eased the door closed. I took my shoes off and left them in the laundry room, then padded into the kitchen. I wanted a soda.

Our refrigerator was an old, rounded top monster with a pull-lever handle. Pulling that lever always made a loud pop. I put my left hand on the refrigerator door to hold it closed and slowly, slowly, slowly pulled the handle until I heard the click, then I eased the door open, blocking as much light as I could with my body. I reached in and gently lifted a bottle of Coke from the door. I tucked the bottle between my knees and reversed the door and lever process to close the refrigerator with only the faintest click.

I held the bottle of pop in my hand and stared at it. This was in the days before screw caps. I needed a bottle opener. I looked at the kitchen drawer. The junk drawer — full of all kinds of noisy crap. Great.

Using both hands I gently placed the Coke bottle on the counter. Using both hands I eased the kitchen drawer open, holding it up so it wouldn’t squeak. The only light I had came from a weak bulb over the sink. It was never turned off. I studied the contents of that drawer with my eyes only until I found the bottle opener, then I reached in and started carefully lifting things aside. Finally I had the bottle opener in my hand. I held the bottle on the counter with my left hand, placed the bottle opener on the cap with my right — and thought about the sound that was about to follow. If opened correctly, the sound would be minimal, but if either of my hands slipped, there would be a loud “pop” followed by the sound of the bottle cap bouncing across the counter.

I took the pop and the bottle opener, eased open the basement door, went halfway down the stairs, opened the bottle, then returned to the kitchen. Using both hands I gently laid the bottle opener in the bottom of the drawer. Using both hands I slowly closed the drawer. I went to the garbage can with the bottle cap, bent over and placed it in the bottom of the can. Finally I closed the basement door.

One last look around the kitchen — all was as it should be — and I walked into the dining room, where I stopped to take a sip of the pop and use Caryl’s lighter on my cigarette. Nobody knew I smoked, but nobody was up so who would know the difference? And since back then the whole family smoked, it wasn’t like anybody was going to smell it.

I took a nice long drag from the cigarette, exhaled, and tip-toed down the hallway. I hadn’t turned on a single light. The only glow in the hallway came from the end of my cigarette. I couldn’t see a thing and this was where I really needed to be quiet. The door leading upstairs was shut. I had to open and close it with extreme care because I was standing directly outside Caryl’s and Ken’s bedroom. I grabbed the doorknob with my right hand, placed my right forearm against the door, and braced my hip against that. My cigarette was dangling from my lip burning smoke into my eyes, and the pop bottle was in my left hand. I used my entire body to open the door, bracing it so it wouldn’t squeak.

I stepped onto the staircase and eased the door closed behind me. Safe at last. I reached for the light switch, then changed my mind. If I woke one of the kids, they would just toddle downstairs and wake Caryl and Ken, so it would have all been for nothing. The lights stayed off.

Pop bottle in my left hand, cigarette in my right, I started up the steps. About half way up the stairs, while taking a puff from my cigarette, I tripped over a Tonka dump truck. It and I went tumbling down the stairs, smashed up against the door and banged out into the hall. I slammed to rest with my head against the wall, my back on the floor and my feet on the stairs. I was covered in pop and had a broken, smoldering cigarette dangling from my lips.

The master bedroom’s door opened. Ken stomped out in his t-shirt and underwear. He looked down at me and snapped, “I thought we agreed you were going to keep it down out here!” Then he about faced into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

Right. Quiet. No problem.

Compassion Limited

I was sick. I was so sick the school nurse felt sorry for me, and even though no one from my house could come and get me, she knew I needed to go home, so she put me in her car and drove me there. I walked into the house through the front door. We normally used the back door, but I didn’t have the strength to walk around the house.

My sister, Caryl, also my legal guardian, was sitting in the wing back chair making a phone call. A dozen or so Blue Bird girls were chirping through the house getting ready to leave. One of them walked into the living room and right to Caryl’s knees. “Mrs. S.,” she said, “I don”t feel good.” Then she threw up right in Caryl’s lap.

Caryl has to have the weakest stomach in the world. In fact, just reading this story will make her gag. That being the case, when that child threw up on Caryl, Caryl threw up all over the telephone. Then she stumbled to her feet and heaved in the hallway as she headed for the bathroom.

I stood in the doorway, weak, trembling, cold and clammy from my fever, and wondered why I hadn’t stayed in school. I cleaned up both the crying babies — the 26 year-old and the 7 year-old. I walked the 7 year-old home because nobody from her house could come and get her. I walked myself back home, finished cleaning the living room, hallway and bathroom, checked on my sleeping sister, and made a tour of the house. Luckily the only children left in it belonged there.

I told the kids they needed to play quiet until their father came home — which would be in just a few minutes — and I took my trembling, shivering self upstairs to bed. Through the entire ordeal I never once threw up. My stomach lurched, my mouth watered, but I kept it together.

I was face down on my blessedly cool sheets when Kellie Lynn came into the room. She patted the back of my head. “Auntie Charlene, Daddy sent me to see if you’re okay.” I mumbled something at her. “I brought you a sandwich,” she said. I mumbled for her to put it down. I heard her leave the room and shut the door.

It didn’t take long for my fever to heat the sheets and I rolled over in search of another cool spot. Kellie had left me a tuna sandwich. She left it on my pillow and when I rolled over I put my face right in it.

That’s when I lost it, then I had to clean me up. Finally I crawled into bed wearing nothing but my father’s old, brown, stretched out pocket t-shirt, and my panties.

The next morning, Saturday, Caryl came upstairs to tell me how sorry she was that she got sick and left me all the clean up. She also said that she and Ken were going grocery shopping, and I could stay in bed, but the kids were playing at the playground, so could I listen for them in case they came home? I told her I would, while hoping they wouldn’t.

Not too very long after Caryl left, the back door slammed and I heard thundering foot steps on the stairs. Kellie and Kenny burst into my room, both of them talking at once and shouting things like:

“Come quick.”
“Lenny’s hurt.”
“Fell off the slide.”
“Poked a stick in his eye.”

I jumped from my bed and ran. I flew down the stairs, across the living room, out the front door and down the street. The school was three blocks away and I didn’t even pause to breathe until I got there – and saw Lenny safe and sound sitting on top of the slide.

Kellie and Kenny ran up and stopped beside me. They were panting hard from trying to keep up. “Lenny isn’t hurt,” I stated the obvious, glaring at them.

“I know,” Kellie said in a tiny baby voice as she shrugged her shoulders and stared at me all brown-eyed through her shaggy blonde bangs. She and Kenny both backed several steps away from me. “But he is afraid to come down.”

I walked to the bottom of the slide and held my arms out. Lenny slid right down to me. With the baby in my arms I turned back to Kellie and demanded, “Why did you tell me he was hurt?!”

She mumbled, “We didn’t think you would come if you knew he was just scared.”

“Of course I would have come!” I shouted, “But I would have gotten dressed first!”