I Remember
by
Michael Walker
3 Nov 1999
I remember teachers telling me I would
be a great writer some day and, as a result, knowing I would win the
Pulitzer Prize; what I don't remember is alabaster nights of human
breath and silk.
I remember my father's fury over my
brother's hair (a duck tail reminiscent of the King of Rock and Roll);
what I don't remember is the sequence of events that destroyed my
faith in humanity as a whole.
I remember sitting in Paris drinking
frightfully expensive cokes on the Seine in the 70s; what I don't
remember is living through the 50s and 60s.
I do, however, have two curious
memories that are separated by time and interlaced with innocence and
confusion. Both were interactions between one of my guardians and
myself and both related to my real mother, a woman who (according to a
yellow photograph I still have of her) had sparkly eyes and a slightly
crooked mouth that was frozen by the camera into an eternally rueful
smile.
The first memory is of a wide-eyed boy
of about five years of age. He
is sitting some place that is faint and thin and pale and deadly
silent. Yet, not far off, as if just behind the low sky or blue-gray
walls, there is a noise that sounds like the flurry of angel wings or
of dogs growling. His guardian is telling him that he is not her son,
that he really belongs to another woman, a lady who is his real mommy.
The boy looks as if he has been struck by a hammer and his eyes are
filled with awe and complete fear.
The second image is of a teenager in
his last year of high school. His guardian is picking him up from
school, just as she has done most days of his young life, and they are
sitting in a blue and white ‘58 Chevy. It
is warm, the windows are lowered, and his guardian’s scent hangs on
the air like day old rain. The woman is telling the young man that his
birth mother has passed away, possibly from a drug overdose or (the
memory is unclear on this point) tuberculosis. He is confused and
sorry that he never got to ask her about his birth father, about
whether he himself might to bald or die young.
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Copyright © 1999 by Michael Walker
Michael Walker is a freelance writer in Washington, DC. He is also the founder
and proprietor of
DREAMWalker Group.
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