My dad scooped me up off of the blanket spread on the floor where I slept so that I would not accidentally touch my mother’s breast. He lifted me directly into the thick layer of smoke. I coughed and couldn’t see. I tried to push my way out of his arms so that I could run to safety myself. He was too strong.
He kicked the gate open and put me on the sand.
“Stay here. Don’t move. I have to get your mom,” he said sternly.
It was dark, and I could hear the waves lapping against the sand, but I could not see the ocean. I couldn’t tell how far away it was. I could see our burning cottage.
I watched as my dad rushed back into the smoke and pulled my mother to safety. She saw me, but didn’t come to me. She stood facing the burning house. I could sometimes see my dad hitting the flames with my blanket. I heard the explosions and saw him ducking. He threw some things outside to burn and other things further out on the sand to not burn. Finally, the fire was out.
In the early morning, my mother leaned close to my ear and used her most menacing voice, “Don’t you dare say a single word. You strictly can’t even talk. Don’t tell them anything. As far as knowing anything, you strictly know nothing.”
I didn’t. A light exploded on a box a man looked through. It would be years before I understood that it was a camera. Later, another man said something about a gas explosion. I thought he was talking about the light that exploded.
After all of the people left, I watched my dad pace back and forth on the beach while holding a piece of paper up to the sun.
“Ya gotta know how to play the system,” he repeated often.
My dad was handsome. He looked like Elvis Presley; I was told when I was older. I agreed… especially this version of my dad before Sissy arrived. Later, he would be compared more to Captain Kirk of the original Star Trek series. His handsomeness made my mother look even uglier. Now, she had an ugly bump on her stomach that matched her humpback. Dad walked over to her and waved the piece of paper at the bump on her stomach and yelled,
“Did you hear that little one? You gotta learn how to play the system.”
The green chest was open on the beach. Next to it was a pile of my cans of milk. Some had exploded in the fire. My job was to find the cans that were still full of milk (if that is what it was) and dry the milk off the outside and put them in the green chest. My mom dumped them right in the sand, so the sand also stuck to them because of the milk.
Mom had screamed at me about “tracking sand” into the house so often that I had learned how to use a towel to wipe off the sand and then get it out of the towel before my next wipe. I usually used the technique to wipe sand off my arms and legs. Now I used it to clean each can and put it in the chest.
The chest was made of spare pieces of plywood and the hardware that held the pieces together didn’t match. It was painted a uniquely ugly color of green. It was not Christmassy (although we later used it to store Christmas ornaments—and the photo album that contained my birth certificate). It was not a pine green or any kind of color in nature. It was just an ugly green. I have never seen anything painted that color since—except my grandfather’s pauper casket. We’ll get to that in about eight years.
Dad came over to supervise.
“That almost became your casket,” he said.
I didn’t know what a casket was. He sensed it and picked me up and laid me in the chest.
“See, you fit perfectly. If I hadn’t gotten you out of that fire, you would go to sleep and never wake up. We would have buried you in this chest.”
He gently lifted me out. I went back to cleaning cans.
“Now we have enough money that you don’t have to be buried in a pauper’s cemetery.”
Of course, I heard, “popper’s cemetery.” I figured that if I had stayed in the fire, I would have popped like some of my cans of milk. Then, I wouldn’t need an ugly green chest to be buried in.
On the train, my mom embarrassed my dad by talking too loudly and complaining about me being near her boobs or belly bump. He held me for a while but was then relieved by a nice older couple.
“As far as being allergic to milk, he is strictly allergic to milk,” my mom warned them.
They looked at her strangely and asked, “Is he allergic to cookies?”
I had my first animal crackers. Later, I would associate animal crackers and Cracker Jacks with my grandma. For now, it was the first treat I had on that train. I managed to “show off” and get handed around to everyone who had treats to offer. Even the conductor stopped to play with me and let me wear his cap for a while.
I managed to be let down and walked up and down the aisle making new friends. I’m sure grandma and grandpa were on that train, but I don’t remember them. Maybe they didn’t come yet, but they were back in California but living in Sacramento a couple years later when we visited from San Pablo… North Sacramento.
And that was our immediate destination. I don’t remember it, but Sissy was born in Sacramento. She was born on August 8, 1966. I never compared her footprints to her birth certificate. I suppose it is possible they switched her at birth too.
James D. Brausch shares this excerpt from his recently published memoir, I am Jimmy. You can email him at his personal address at jamesbrausch@proton.me and, since he is in prison, he will likely respond to your email.