The Sleeping Giant:
At four or five years of age I was certain and accepting of the fact that I had a set of slightly shorter hands that hung on my back. When I swung my two regular hands front to back, clapping, I was sure of the other set of hands, which would clap my regular hands every time I swung them. I never put into consideration that when I sat back, I could not feel the pressure of my other hands. I never thought that I was weird because other kids didn’t have another set of hands and I did. I just thought of myself as a regular kid with a set of extra hands to think about every now and again.
When I played with the other kids, I forgot about my other hands and continued to skip down the street with the rest of the kids while the Sleeping Giant watched us from his mountain blanket. Mama says the Sleeping Giant watches children who play down below to make sure no one is getting out of hand. So I folded my extra set of hands before forgetting them so that he would know that I didn’t get out of hand. But they would spread in delight when something interesting happened, like the time I found a tiny bright yellow snake with black spots in the back yard of my friends Shaun and Corey, while looking for wild onions for their mama, Caroline. Caroline said I could call her Caroline because she didn’t have any daughters so I was special; special enough to find wild onions for her spaghetti.
Caroline’s boys were rumble-tumble but well dressed. Corey cried a lot whenever we left him out of our affairs. Our activities always included hide-and-seek, digging holes, playing on the swing set, teasing my neighbor’s dog, Corkey, and lifting rocks to see what was under them. I pushed Shaun into the closet to kiss him one day, not because I found him particularly attractive as a five-year-old, but because I was just curious of the big deal that people made about kissing. Shaun got bashful and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.
When not gallivanting in our Giant-watched neighborhood, my brother, my mother and I would take drives to various places. In the summertime, the windows would be rolled down from our Toyota Corolla hatchback and would blow so hard from the car’s acceleration that my eyes would tear up and I would see unfocused splashes of light and green from the sun flashing through the trees. If we were on our way to the Duck Pond, we would always pass a rocky part of the hillside where a small tower peeked from the trees on the top of the hill. We called it Castle Berry-Toe, where the Sleeping Giant lived sometimes. My brother’s eyes would become big and he would open his mouth wide in wonder, displaying white teeth with gaps where some fell out to make room for grown-up teeth. While at the park, we would feed the ducks and geese crackers and bread. The geese were the most demanding, and would sometimes chase us around the picnic tables honking. They seemed to hiss: More bread! More crackers! Of course we were obligated to give it to them, because angry geese probably could bite off a finger if given ample chance.
If we were on our way to New Haven, we took a different route and Castle Berry-Toe was only seen in the distance, and the Sleeping Giant disappeared so that I could unfold my extra hands. New Haven meant either Nana or Great Granddaddy. Legend has it that when I was a baby, I cried when anyone would pick me up except for Great Granddaddy, the apple of my little eyes. Even as a little sprout I loved him and his great big hands. I just knew that those hands could do anything, and make the Sleeping Giant less ominous if given the chance. His wife’s name I can never recall, but I distinctly remember seeing her, standing in the kitchen with her one leg, even though she died before I was born.
Great Granddaddy’s house itself was a personage. It is now the property of Yale University, that bought it to make offices or for student housing. It was exactly the same as I remembered it when I visited four years ago. When walking up the deep mahogany-painted stairwell to the main floor, the smell was a sweet, aged mildew mixed with old paint and a dusty metallic smell. That was my favorite part of the house because sometimes I would inhale the sweet odor, and other days I would hold my breath as I went up the twisted stairwell to the different dimension of Great Granddaddy’s house. The stairs opened up to the kitchen. The kitchen was small and I only recall a stove and a refrigerator. On this refrigerator, I placed a sign that said “No Smoking” because Great Granddaddy smoked and I thought that he should stop. I found out later that not only did he stop but also the sign still hangs on the refrigerator. Every time we visited, Norman immediately greeted us.
Norman was the cat. A large gray tabby, scruffy and old, the match of my Great Granddaddy, his little other. He stalked through the house and meowed in a rusty catcall whenever he pleased. When Great Granddaddy would pet the cat, his hand would completely cover Norman’s head, as if he were holding a gray furry egg and Norman would put his rear in the air and twitch his striped matted tail and purr like a Harley. Norman disappeared one day. Great Granddaddy said that sometimes Norman liked to go off by himself for days at a time. But days turned into weeks that turned into months and we never saw great Norman again. Great Granddaddy never got another cat.
Nana lived on the other side of New Haven in an apartment of mirrors with a Shetland sheepdog named Rinnie. Nana hates all animals, so when Rinnie was introduced, everyone must have looked up from whatever they were doing when they heard this and blinked inquiringly. As the folktale goes, one winter day when Nana was a little girl, she killed a puppy and buried him in the snow in her front yard. Nana turned out my mother’s shepherd, Rusty, onto the freeway when my mother went off to college. But Rinnie never knew any of that, and wagged his beautifully combed tail and smiled like only a dog can whenever she entered the room. Rinnie was perfumed and fabulous, clearly Nana’s dog.Whenever we came to visit Nana, she would hurry outside with her arms outstretched and smile at the fact that we were wearing the patent leather shoes that she had bought for Marcus and I for Easter. Then she would usher us inside the apartment, the walls lined in mirrors, stuff our cheeks full of blue cheese, kiss us directly on the mouths, and set us out on the Penny Hunt. Marcus and I knew that Nana was rich. She had pennies and nickels just lying around the house and she would give us a cup each to find them all. So as she would talk with my mother, sitting in the living room, cross legged with cigarette smoke swirling about her face, Marcus and I would set to work to gather Nana’s fortune that hid under couches, in corners, under and on her water bed. The waterbed was the fun part. It was an ocean and when we jumped on it. I could only imagine that it was exactly how the real ocean felt if it were set with gelatin.
At four or five years of age I was certain and accepting of the fact that I had a set of slightly shorter hands that hung on my back. When I swung my two regular hands front to back, clapping, I was sure of the other set of hands, which would clap my regular hands every time I swung them. I never put into consideration that when I sat back, I could not feel the pressure of my other hands. I never thought that I was weird because other kids didn’t have another set of hands and I did. I just thought of myself as a regular kid with a set of extra hands to think about every now and again.
When I played with the other kids, I forgot about my other hands and continued to skip down the street with the rest of the kids while the Sleeping Giant watched us from his mountain blanket. Mama says the Sleeping Giant watches children who play down below to make sure no one is getting out of hand. So I folded my extra set of hands before forgetting them so that he would know that I didn’t get out of hand. But they would spread in delight when something interesting happened, like the time I found a tiny bright yellow snake with black spots in the back yard of my friends Shaun and Corey, while looking for wild onions for their mama, Caroline. Caroline said I could call her Caroline because she didn’t have any daughters so I was special; special enough to find wild onions for her spaghetti.
Caroline’s boys were rumble-tumble but well dressed. Corey cried a lot whenever we left him out of our affairs. Our activities always included hide-and-seek, digging holes, playing on the swing set, teasing my neighbor’s dog, Corkey, and lifting rocks to see what was under them. I pushed Shaun into the closet to kiss him one day, not because I found him particularly attractive as a five-year-old, but because I was just curious of the big deal that people made about kissing. Shaun got bashful and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.
When not gallivanting in our Giant-watched neighborhood, my brother, my mother and I would take drives to various places. In the summertime, the windows would be rolled down from our Toyota Corolla hatchback and would blow so hard from the car’s acceleration that my eyes would tear up and I would see unfocused splashes of light and green from the sun flashing through the trees. If we were on our way to the Duck Pond, we would always pass a rocky part of the hillside where a small tower peeked from the trees on the top of the hill. We called it Castle Berry-Toe, where the Sleeping Giant lived sometimes. My brother’s eyes would become big and he would open his mouth wide in wonder, displaying white teeth with gaps where some fell out to make room for grown-up teeth. While at the park, we would feed the ducks and geese crackers and bread. The geese were the most demanding, and would sometimes chase us around the picnic tables honking. They seemed to hiss: More bread! More crackers! Of course we were obligated to give it to them, because angry geese probably could bite off a finger if given ample chance.
If we were on our way to New Haven, we took a different route and Castle Berry-Toe was only seen in the distance, and the Sleeping Giant disappeared so that I could unfold my extra hands. New Haven meant either Nana or Great Granddaddy. Legend has it that when I was a baby, I cried when anyone would pick me up except for Great Granddaddy, the apple of my little eyes. Even as a little sprout I loved him and his great big hands. I just knew that those hands could do anything, and make the Sleeping Giant less ominous if given the chance. His wife’s name I can never recall, but I distinctly remember seeing her, standing in the kitchen with her one leg, even though she died before I was born.
Great Granddaddy’s house itself was a personage. It is now the property of Yale University, that bought it to make offices or for student housing. It was exactly the same as I remembered it when I visited four years ago. When walking up the deep mahogany-painted stairwell to the main floor, the smell was a sweet, aged mildew mixed with old paint and a dusty metallic smell. That was my favorite part of the house because sometimes I would inhale the sweet odor, and other days I would hold my breath as I went up the twisted stairwell to the different dimension of Great Granddaddy’s house. The stairs opened up to the kitchen. The kitchen was small and I only recall a stove and a refrigerator. On this refrigerator, I placed a sign that said “No Smoking” because Great Granddaddy smoked and I thought that he should stop. I found out later that not only did he stop but also the sign still hangs on the refrigerator. Every time we visited, Norman immediately greeted us.
Norman was the cat. A large gray tabby, scruffy and old, the match of my Great Granddaddy, his little other. He stalked through the house and meowed in a rusty catcall whenever he pleased. When Great Granddaddy would pet the cat, his hand would completely cover Norman’s head, as if he were holding a gray furry egg and Norman would put his rear in the air and twitch his striped matted tail and purr like a Harley. Norman disappeared one day. Great Granddaddy said that sometimes Norman liked to go off by himself for days at a time. But days turned into weeks that turned into months and we never saw great Norman again. Great Granddaddy never got another cat.
Nana lived on the other side of New Haven in an apartment of mirrors with a Shetland sheepdog named Rinnie. Nana hates all animals, so when Rinnie was introduced, everyone must have looked up from whatever they were doing when they heard this and blinked inquiringly. As the folktale goes, one winter day when Nana was a little girl, she killed a puppy and buried him in the snow in her front yard. Nana turned out my mother’s shepherd, Rusty, onto the freeway when my mother went off to college. But Rinnie never knew any of that, and wagged his beautifully combed tail and smiled like only a dog can whenever she entered the room. Rinnie was perfumed and fabulous, clearly Nana’s dog.Whenever we came to visit Nana, she would hurry outside with her arms outstretched and smile at the fact that we were wearing the patent leather shoes that she had bought for Marcus and I for Easter. Then she would usher us inside the apartment, the walls lined in mirrors, stuff our cheeks full of blue cheese, kiss us directly on the mouths, and set us out on the Penny Hunt. Marcus and I knew that Nana was rich. She had pennies and nickels just lying around the house and she would give us a cup each to find them all. So as she would talk with my mother, sitting in the living room, cross legged with cigarette smoke swirling about her face, Marcus and I would set to work to gather Nana’s fortune that hid under couches, in corners, under and on her water bed. The waterbed was the fun part. It was an ocean and when we jumped on it. I could only imagine that it was exactly how the real ocean felt if it were set with gelatin.
posted by Anisa @ 6:41 PM
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