SAVING ANIMAL

…laying on the top bunk and looking out of the finger hole I created by pressing through the plastic that my father had covered my window with. Frozen water in the near distance and the stillness of a loan crabapple tree just off to the left were about the limits of my restricted view.

Our home was centered between two bars. To the left was Wealands, a beer garden of sorts for the older guys and to the right The Drift, an establishment catering toward the younger. Not more than forty five feet from the north wall of the living room was “State Route 224”. The wooden walls of our home shook often with the passing of heavy traffic or a gust of strong wind off the six hundred acre lake that was only a stones throw away.

Back when the highway was constructed, our home and the one that was temporarily placed next to us “up on blocks”, were both to have been relocated permanently to another location, that never happened.

The elderly couple who homesteaded next door had no foundation or plumbing. A hand pump for water and a short walk out the back door was all they needed. Later I’d learn that such conditions were not normal or welcomed outside of our neighborhood, thankfully our home needed for neither.

Peeking south through the hole and into the parking lot that separated both bars from one another — along with providing the space between our home and the waterfront — I scanned over the white dirty snow till my eyes were locked onto what seemed to be a pile of color in the tire tracks under the only street light in the lot.

Red, yellow and blue along with some sort of metallic surface, maybe fabric like I had seen on one of the puppets on the Muppet show the night before. The colors were all a mound of wonder to my eyes and the reflective silver surface had my young mind captivated.

I loved watching the Muppets and I’d count the days in my head till the night the show was on. Laying on my belly and propped up on my elbows, not more than a foot from the screen, absorbing all I could from both the show and possibly the radiation from the TV set, I was in heaven. “Nicholas Roberts move away from that TV or I will shut it off…” Every week my mother would bellow almost the same words over her cloud of cigarette smoke and into the ear of her sister on the other end of the phone. I’d then back away only to slide back up when she was not looking.

Now on my top bunk and gazing through the hole I was enamored by red, yellow, blue and what the hell was that shiny metallic thing? Half in and out of sleep, exhausted from crying, I studied the object and came to the only conclusion a seven year old active mind could, There was no question that it was in fact one of the Muppets from the Muppet show!

How “Animal” was now left to his own devises, apparently abandoned in the snow covered lot and huddling in a tire track, was not my concern. What was important to me was how I was going to get out of my room to rescue “Animal”. I was certain Jim Henson would reward me, maybe even make me his assistant?

Slowly sliding off the end of my bunk, climbing down with the intent not to make a sound, legs still stinging, my butt still warm from my fathers belt, the plan was to go down the steps and out the front door.

Pain meds and Pabst Blue Ribbon are not the best combination, unless the plan is to sleep and again my father was experiencing that combination’s side effect. Creeping to the front door I’m interrupted as my mothers voice softly whispers over the heavy breathing on the couch. “Nicholas Roberts what are you doing? Come here.”

In the kitchen, bathed by the light of the range, I softly explain to my mom what I could see from my bedroom window finger hole and that Jim Henson needed my help. As always, or as often as she could, my mother would indulge my imagination. Being the middle child in a poor home along with being a child with what would later be called ADHD, my mom knew that I was not like her other two kids. Mom accepted that I had an wondering mind, along with a knack for forgetting stuff, thus the most recent whipping. “Nick do not put your finger into that plastic!” Said warning fell on deaf ears or a mind that was distracted.

When dad drank he had two targets, both of whom were now bundling up to go and rescue “Animal”. The beating one of us or both would get had he known what we were doing would be rather severe. Confident dad was not only asleep but passed out, mom and I pushed into the night and over into the lot.

Junk food wrappers, cold feet and disbelief were all I found. “Nick you have an amazing mind and I can see why you would think this were Animal” That was how my mom saved me from feeling stupid. “Nick you always see and feel so much more than the rest of us”.

…

Home from my most recent trip to the west coast only to find that the car issues I had had just before leaving were not only bad but a bit uglier dollar wise than I had expected. Planning to move to NYC and with no real need for a vehicle I opted to just let time pass and to not fix the jeep. Prior to being vehicle-less I had daily driven my two corgis to go for a walk in another neighborhood. The reason for not walking near home was simple. My yard is not fenced in and my boys were trained to not go near the sidewalk.

No car and the boys still needing to walk I opted to just start taking them off the property via the back vacant lot and NOT on a sidewalk near the front. Down the side street and into an area that I never really noticed, we walked and greeted neighbors whom I’ve known for years yet only talked with in passing at the gas station.

Uhler Avenue here on north hill is a unique street as it is brick. Until recently the only thing I really liked about Uhler was the sound it made when driving up the hill.

Off to the side of north hill there is a stretch of Uhler, between Memorial Parkway and Cuyahoga Street, that has an almost park-like feel. Here the street is nearly four unneeded lanes of red brick wide and edged in a cut limestone curb. Both sides have an open lawn that stretches from top to bottom.. The west side is open yet wooded as it falls off into the little cuyahoga. To the east there is a tree line that hides the back sides of the properties from above. This area is almost what one might call a throw away piece of real estate as its mostly unusable for anything other than a covering for the unnatural end to the properties above as they stop and drop abruptly to the area below.

Walking with the guys almost daily on the red brick of Uhler and then up to the edge of the “throw away area” I began to recognize the beauty that many miss by speeding past. Among the discarded appliances and car tires that were pushed off the back of their owners property I found the simple elegance of the many older trees whos branches reach for the sky and created a canopy over what looks to be a natural pond. Natural if one were to look past the fact this pond was obviously fed by a storm drain from above and truly is unplanned as a large amount of trash had gathered further down and thus created sort of dam preventing complete drainage from the area.

Laying in bed and glancing through my minds eye to the “storm drain pond”, I am quick to imagine this discarded area as an early 1920s planned public garden. This hidden garden would contain fountains and pools, concrete stairways and balusters, statues and outdoor rooms, all separate from one another yet all part of the same.

Often for me I have relied on my ability to imagine, to think past what I’m told is right or acceptable and to find for me what is pleasing in the moment. Either by distracting myself from the pain of forgetting to “NOT push a hole into the plastic” and its reprecussions, to distracting my mind from what some call the reality of a car that needs more repairs than its worth and the current situation of being almost stranded at home.

Telling a new story, finding the wanted parts of an event and leaving out the unwanted has served me well. My mom was right, being a person who is sensitive to much, who feels many different things and sees all the colors of the entire pallet is really a gift. To be able to see a puppet in a pile of “junk food wrappers” or a park in a “thrown away area” is the ability to see outside of the box and to find pleasing when there is no pleasing to be had. Telling a new story as you wish it to be, moving past what is and embracing what you wish life to be is the first step to creating your own reality, the first step to creating your own world.

Enjoy today and reach to be more tomorrow

-nick r.