Tricks Aren’t for Kids

My earliest memory of my father occurred at age four, when he almost killed me for the second time. Thankfully, I don’t recall the first. When I was two, he poured paint thinner in my Tommee Tippee cup, and I drank it. For that, I held no grudges. That sort of accident could happen to anyone whose dad needed a small container and grabbed the nearest one, then forgot he’d set poison on his kitchen counter.

The second time, though, my dad’s affront was intentional. He hadn’t aimed for me to croak. He simply wanted to expose me to the fear of death, I guess. By then, I’d forgotten that whole stomach pumping episode. Most likely he perceived his joke as educational. In a sense, it was.

On that Halloween night, Mom tied the white strips on the back of my Casper the Friendly Ghost costume and sent me into the darkness alone. In 1958, unaccompanied preschoolers were of no particular interest to police unless they appeared lost or injured, and I was neither. My mission to collect candy from the house kitty-corner to my residence couldn’t have been less worrisome. A more Rockwellian setting would have been difficult to find.

Our two-bedroom bungalow, the color of weathered wood, stood like a sentry at a T intersection in Emerson, Texas, a town where cattle outnumbered residents—and sometimes drew greater scrutiny. Passing trains and wandering heifers comprised the bulk of Emerson’s traffic. Out-of-towners motored through on holidays to visit extended family, but we seldom entertained guests from afar. All Dad’s relatives lived within five miles of us. Mom’s kin resided in Florida, which, from a visiting standpoint, might as well have been Australia.

Our single-story clapboard home, built in 1910, featured a screened-in front porch my father had added. Plum trees dotted our one-acre yard. On both sides and behind the back fence, livestock grazed in open pastures. Across the street lived my great-aunt Georgia, a sedentary seventy-something-year-old with waist-length pewter-gray hair and a penchant for As the World Turns. Hers was the only house I visited on that memorable Halloween.

I exited our porch through the screen door that remained accessible to everyone, including strangers. No one ever latched that door for any reason. Sometimes I wondered if a thief might make off with my red rocking horse stationed there, though the odds seemed pretty steep.

Mom waved me on my journey. I glanced back at her only once, which was useless anyway. I couldn’t see well. Casper’s eyes and mine didn’t align, so the mask obstructed my view. To remedy that problem, after I’d collected the Tootsie Rolls, Lifesavers, and Double Bubble from Aunt Georgia, I shoved the plastic contraption onto the top of my noggin and made a beeline for home. My mother, I imagined, had been monitoring my every step.

The stretch between Aunt Georgia’s house and mine engulfed me in blackness. About a mile to my right, near the cotton gin, existed a mysterious place my parents called “Colored Town.” Neither provided a definition for that confusing term.“Don’t go down that way,” Mom had instructed me. I didn’t ask why. Maybe child snatchers lived there, I surmised. I’d never walked that direction to find out. Right then, darkness prevented me from seeing my feet, much less a kidnapper. I hastened my steps, listening as rock cinders crunched beneath my scuffed sneakers.

The chill night air induced a shiver, though it couldn’t have been colder than sixty degrees. What earlier had felt like a quick jaunt now seemed like a half-mile hike. I longed for Casper’s powers to levitate and fly. With relief, I glimpsed our roof’s silhouette and, directly beneath it, the welcoming porch light. Almost there. I needed only to traverse a two-foot drainage ditch that tunneled under our caliche driveway to reach safe ground.

Crossing the expanse, I sought my mother’s profile, but she had disappeared. I looked left and right in search of her, fearful of spying an abductor. Behind me, a menacing growl erupted, followed by sounds of shuffling footsteps. If friction between two objects sparks fire, my sneakers should have ignited. At a decibel normally reserved for tornado sirens—which didn’t yet exit—I screamed, “M-o-m!

My feet churned through dead Johnsongrass and gravel, our lawn. As I sprinted, the wind caught Casper and burst the thin elastic cord looped around my neck. The mask took to the skies as if inhabited by its namesake. I honed in on the screen door, seeking somebody, anyone, who would save me from the pursuing beast.

The snarling grew louder.

“MOM!”

Aunt Georgia was hard of hearing, so I knew not to count on her. Yet I was aghast when neither Mom nor Dad came to my rescue. Perhaps that was my punishment for being a difficult child. Internally, I vowed to behave in the future if only somebody would help me. Never again would I pull the dill plants from the garden, mistaking them for weeds, an infraction for which I’d been belt whipped. I wouldn’t break the blossoms from the plum trees and fashion them into bouquets again either. I would even stop inspecting Mom’s scarlet lipstick, if only she would save me.

Like a cartoon calamity, I expected the chase would end when I reached home. Monsters can’t exist in bright light. Can they? Barely outpacing my assailant, I lunged for the screen door and yanked the metal handle. It didn’t budge. I tugged again and again, but the latch had been secured.

I whirled to calculate my escape options. He stood no more than five feet away. Shoulders hunched, he lurched like an ape, his eyes, nose, and lips all compressed into a hideous blob. Black hair matted the beast’s forehead. Shrouded in a dark cape, the creature beckoned me toward him.

Deploying the only weapon at my disposal, I released a series of ear-piercing screams capable of reviving the vegetative. Between my bloody-murder shrieks, Mom appeared. Casually, as if she were stepping outdoors to stargaze, she unlatched and opened the screen door.

The animal trailing me might have continued growling. If so, I couldn’t hear him over my mother’s cackling fits. Seizing her skirt, I buried my face in her dress and wailed. Speech was impossible. I could barely breathe. My overtaxed heart felt like it might explode at any second.

Mom hee-hawed. “It’s only Daddy,” she cooed.

I raised my head from her Donna Reed-inspired skirt folds. The disfigured primate persisted.

“Ayyy-eee-uh-huh-huh-huh-huh!” I didn’t want to look at him. That monster is not my daddy. No, no, no!

The flat-faced ogre straightened his posture. He dropped his cloak, which at a second glance, looked like a familiar blanket. From his neck and face, my father peeled a black nylon stocking and guffawed.

While my parents slapped their knees and doubled over, I stifled the urge to find a new family. It would be the first of many similar compulsions. Dad attempted a hug, but I shied from him. Still laughing, Mom led me indoors. I didn’t want to hold her hand, but I did anyway. I had nothing else to grasp.

By morning, I’d forgiven my parents for their cruel trick. Dad offered me an individual-serving-size bag of potato chips, my favorite childhood snack. We sat inside the family car, a sapphire-blue Renault, a French sedan that achieved its fame as one of the “fifty worst cars of all time.” The vehicle rested in our driveway, where it performed best.

For unknown reasons, my mother and I exchanged seats. She sat in my normal spot, and I in the front passenger position. Such foreshadowing seems difficult to ignore now. Possibly Mom was savvy to Dad’s ploy. But in my mind, the change of seat order—and the chips—indicated a peace offering. I still smarted from Dad’s Halloween scare.

Grasping the snack, I prized the top despite the odds of a successful open. Someone always had to assist me with packages. Neither parent immediately offered.

Dad studied me. “Would you like me to give you even more potato chips?”

My attention whipsawed from the treasure in my lap to his proposition. I nodded, my head bouncing like a bobblehead doll’s.

He smirked, a red flag I mistook for parental approval. “Would you like a thousand potato chips?”

The subject of Dad’s spotlight, I basked in the temporary glow. I hadn’t yet learned that light emits radiation. I wondered how many bags a thousand potato chips equaled. A hundred? “Yes!” I cried.

Dad’s eyes flashed. “Okay. Hand me the bag.”

Briefly, I reconsidered. Unless he was a magician, I couldn’t see how would he increase the serving size. I could think of no way in which returning a gift would be beneficial. Maybe he planned to open the bag and count the chips. That way, he would know how many more packages to buy. Extending one arm in slow motion, I relinquished the goods.

Mom peeked around the passenger seat to get a better view. I waited for Dad to say “Abracadabra!” Instead, he tossed my chip bag into the air and smashed it between his palms. The seal burst open, spraying chip fragments onto the dash, his lap, and the floorboard.

Dad brayed like a donkey and pitched the half-empty bag to me. “Here you go! Now you have a thousand potato chips.”

Mom’s laughter joined his in a mocking duet.

Tears dotted my pink gingham smock. I stared at the sack and refused to touch it. I no longer wanted any potato chips.

As much as I would like to report that Dad showed remorse and Mom discouraged further teasing, neither happened. Dad proudly recounted “the potato chip story” at future family gatherings. And with each iteration, he concluded by jeering at me, “The look on your face!”
 

Excerpted from the soon-to-be-released memoir, Clarity.