Its the Little Things

A Memoir by Lanea Young (A1)

Giving Them 40 Whacks

We all live in our own personal "La La Land". How we view things in life determine who we are. If you believe that life is full of cute puppies and rainbows, chances are you'll be a happy, caring, nice person. If you believe that life is full of monsters and cruel things that lurk around the corner, chances are you'll become an overly paranoid nervous person. If you believe life is a chess game and the only way you'll win is if you plan your moves to the letter in order to defeat your opponent, you'll most likely be a calculating, manipulative person. And if you believe life is filled with constant work and chore that will get you nowhere, then you'll probably become an overly lazy deadbeat. These personal "La La Lands" are what I like to call shells. While they can some poor soul tried to break you out of your shell. Most people react badly, lashing out in both anger and fear. Others smile, nod as if they understand, them immediately disregard everything they just heard. There are precious few people willing to allow their shells to break. Often it takes some huge catastrophic event (at least in their point of view) for them to even allow a few hair breath cracks to show. Most keep their shells all their lives, more often than not never allowing cracks to form, and even then they're usually in their late thirties or forties.

I was only eight years old when my shell started to crack.

It started so innocently, I never saw it coming. It was October, and Halloween was coming up. I was walking down the sidewalk, minding my own business and humming to some tune I can't even begin to remember, when I passed my next door neighbor's lawn. They decorated it with tombstones for the holiday and to my eight year old mind, it was seriously creepy. So I turned around and began walk-running back to my house, purposely turning my head to the right in hopes that I wouldn't read the writing on the fake stones. I just knew it would give me nightmares. But I was a Reader, a person who couldn't help BUT read whatever came across my path. Despite my brain telling me to, "Turn around you idiot, the house is right THERE!", I stopped and took the time to read the tombstones on my neighbor's lawn.

It wasn't bad as I feared. It said stuff like, "Here Lies Frankenstien" or "She Was So Young When The Ghouls Came". Cheesy stuff like that. I was beginning to relax, even laugh a bit, when my eyes came across the final tombstone. It was a poem.

"Lizzie Borden took an ax And gave her mother 40 whacks Once she saw what she'd done She gave her father 41"

Looking back, it doesn't seem that scary. But I was eight; I didn't exactly have the highest scare tolerance. Even though I felt as if spiders were crawling up and down my spine, I shook it off and went home, figuring that I would just forget about it after some mindless TV.

Only I didn't.

No, that poem stuck to me like a fly to a decaying corpse. I just couldn't get it out of my head. No matter what I'd be doing, the poem would somehow sneak into my thought processes without me knowing. Its was frustrating, and I found myself in front of my neighbor's house, reading that stupid cardboard tombstone over and over. It was drawing me in, haunting my mind. The harder I tried to forget, the more it hammered at my mind. Finally, I gave in. Three days after reading the stupid poem, I went up to my mom while she was cooking and asked her.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Who's Lizzie Borden?"

She took her eyes away from her cooking to give me a funny look. The exact same look she gave me when I asked her who Hitler was.

She absently wiped her hands in her jeans. "And where exactly did you hear this?" She gave me a squinty-eyed look.

Danger Zone. I have to tread carefully on this one. "I heard it somewhere at school. You know who she is?"

"That depends. How much do you know?"

"That she killed her mom and dad with an ax."

She shrugged her shoulders and went back to her cooking. "Well, that's pretty much it."

I frowned. "That's it? What do you mean that's it?"

"I mean, that's it. I really don't know much more than you do."

"Come on Mom! You're old! You must know something!"

Unlike most women, my mom isn't afraid of being called old. So instead of smacking me upside my head like most black mothers would do, she just gave me an exasperated look. "What do you want me to say?"

"Why did she do it for one."

Mom sighed. "Well, apparently she wasn't treated so well as a child or something. And those weren't her parents, I don't think."

"So were they her aunt and uncle?"

"No, I think they were her step parents or something. All I really know is that she never got caught."

My eyes widened. "She didn't?"

"Well she did, but no one ever believed it, so they let her go. It was way back when honey, they didn't think a woman was capable of doing something like that. So could you let me get to my cooking? I need to make dinner."

I walked into the living room in a stupor. I barely noticed my brothers running into the house, screaming like they were on fire, or my mother's yelling. The cracks in my shell were widening. I simply couldn't comprehend how such a bad person could go free. She killed her parents and they let her go free because she was a girl?! I didn't know what to be angry at; the fact that a killer went free, or the fact that people let sexism get in the way of such important things.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. It was as if the world was fading before my eyes. Gone were the carpeted floors and comfortable couch. Gone were the voices of my brothers and mother. Instead, I was in a broken down wooden cabin in the middle of winter. The snow was falling gently outside and the fire had long since gone down. I was wearing an old fashion pioneer dress complete with a bonnet and buckled shoes.

It was dark. I could barely see. I was wet, soaking for some reason, and I had a strange feeling as if it didn't matter. I was holding something long and heavy at one end that was made of wood, and that didn't matter either. My breath was heaving, like I had run a mile, and my arms were aching. I felt like laughing for some reason, throwing my head back and howling like a wolf. I had just achieved a great feat, something both fantastic and undeniably horrible at the same time.

The moon, big and full at this time of night, shined through the open window on something across the hall. It looked like a huge lump, and I began walking toward it, lightly giggling all the while. I let the thing I was carrying drop in one hand, dragging it across the hardwood floor. My feet made squishing sound when I walked, filled with some unknown liquid. I didn't look down at myself, only looking forward at the huge lump that was getting more and more defined the closer I came. I stopped and looked down.

I was covered, head to toe, in blood.

It splattered across my white dress, bright and notice able. It oozed down my legs, filling my shoes and socks with the horrible liquid. The silent drip, drip, drip, as it lightly fell on the floor. I looked as my blood covered hands, and finally got a good look at what I was carrying. It was an ax. A bloody, really sharp, ax. The lumps, I discovered, weren't actually lumps, but bodies. Two bodies, a man and a woman, eyes wide in horror. My step par

Wait.

My eyes snapped open. The cabin and the corpses disappeared, replaced with my same old house and my same old family. The phrase "step parents" echoed in my mind, over and over. I began to remember what my mom told me, when I asked her why Lizzie Borden killed her parents.

"...she wasn't treated so well as a child..."

Lizzie Borden wasn't the criminal, I thought. She was the victim.

It all made sense. She killed her step parents not because she was a psycho, but because they deserved it. She was trapped, all alone, and the only way she could escape was if she got rid of her jailers. She did what she had to do. None of it was her fault; she was just defending herself. All this time people pegged her for an evil woman, when in reality she was just a scared little girl. After all, they were her step parents. Everyone knows that step parents are always evil.

And just like that, everything was back to normal. Satisfied with my version of the events, I stopped obsessing over the stupid poem and went on with my life. I conveniently ignored the fact that I didn't know the whole story, or that my information was based on the vague ramblings of a woman who had her mind on other things at the time. I ignored the fact that just because people are mean to you, doesn't mean you could take things farther than they should. I paid no notice of how my theory on step parents was based on fairy tales that my mom used to read to me at night. I ignored all of that, and settled back in my shell, content with my own version of "La La Land".

But the cracks never went away.

They just seemed to get wider and wider over time, as if Lizzie Borden herself was giving my shell her own 40 whacks.

I sometimes dream of her hacking away, a small smile on her lips as my personal defenses grow weaker and weaker. Until finally, with one final "WHACK", my shell shattered into pieces at my feet.

Things My Dad Never Told Me

My dad is a very complex person. Even at the age of five, I knew. At times hed seem like a big kid; constantly joking around, never taking anyone (especially my mom) seriously, always willing to mess with someone and never knowing when to stop. Then the next second its like the years seemed to catch up to him, and hed turn into the old man he really is, as if hed been to hell and back and lived to tell the tale. Hed seem wise beyond his years, able to handle any situation with a sense of grace and dignity. He always seemed to perplex me. Even though Ive known him my whole life, it still feels as if Im just getting to know him. I always end up finding hidden depths that, quite frankly, astounds me.

Dad never talked about his childhood when I was younger. I never thought much about it at the time; I was a kid and were quite known for our short attention spans. Then I got older, and I started to notice things about him. A small comment, a glancing look, how he sometimes danced around certain subjects. The clues were there, but I just couldnt seem to connect the dots. Then Mom, without any warning, just told me.

Your father used to be abused.

It all came together. I couldnt believe I didnt recognize it before. The way Dad would look at Grandma Millie during the holidays, as if he could barely stand to look at her. How he never once mentioned his father. How he talked about getting punishments as a kid. It all added up to a picture that I really didnt want to see. My dad was in an abusive family.

I could have slapped myself. All those times when I was little, where I would moan and groan about having it tough, how other parents didnt treat their kids like I was being treated. I dont know how Dad could have dealt with me, being as bratty as I was. I felt awful.

I never confronted him about it. Though it may seem cowardly, I firmly believe in the phrase Let sleeping dogs lie. Dad already seemed to make peace with his rotten childhood if Grandma Millie was any indication. He never harbored any resentment towards her: he just couldnt stand her some times. So why drudge up the past?

Dads always been a very open person. If I ever asked if he was abused, he would have done what Mom did, and just straight up tell me. He was never afraid of talking about himself or stating his opinion on certain things. I respected him for it. His lack of fear was a trait that I often took comfort in at the worst of times. If I asked something, he wouldnt embellish the truth or lie. He would give me an honest answer. But at times, his lack of restraint could be a little mortifying. It seems dear old Dad never quite knew what Too much Information meant. Asking him questions could be a safety hazard since he would often go into detail. Waaaaaaaaaay too much detail. Which was why I never asked about the abuse. I just didnt want to know every little thing that happened to him. It would make me cry.

Though Dad never mentioned his childhood to me or my brothers, he did often talk about his time in prison. When I was little, it was a common occurrence to mention his jail time at least once or twice a month. In the beginning, he never went into specifics; he didnt tell me why he got sent to prison, for how long, or how old he was at the time. Most of the time, conversations talking about Dads mysterious criminal record went like this:

But Daaaaaaaaaaaaad! Mat called me a bad word! Can I beat him up pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

You cant always resort to violence, Na. If you keep getting into fights, youll end up in jail like I did. Its not a fun place, it has all kinds of bad men. Do you want to go to jail?

do they have McDonalds there?

Sigh. No, they do not have McDonalds there.

no Dad, I dont wanna go to jail.

It was pretty obvious that he was using his criminal record to scare my brothers and me straight. I dont blame him, my brothers and I used to be little monsters as kids.

After a while, the scare tactic got old, and my Dad never mentioned it again. Sometimes I got curious, and would ask him why he got sent to jail. To my annoyance, it was one of the rare times

he never went into detail. I dropped it after I while. I figured it was just like the child abuse thing. Way too personal to talk about.

Then he surprised me one day. We were talking the Dont Do Drugs seminar that I had at school when he said, out of nowhere,

Drugs can really [censored] a person up. Why do you think I got sent to jail?

It was like a slap to the face. I truly did not see that coming. My dad doing drugs? It seemed so unbelievable. Even though he acted like a goof sometimes, I always thought he was smarter than that.

In hindsight it made some sense. He always said that, as a teenager, he was a punk; getting in trouble with neighbors and his parents, stealing stuff and breaking public property. He explained that he wasnt as nice as he is now and knowing he took drugs that eventually landed him in prison just painted a complete picture. The abuse from his childhood really messed him up.

Then I realized how far my dad came in life. He rose above the abuse he had as a child and struggled to find his way in life, before finally settling down with a wife and two kids. To Dad, it was all completely worth it. He went from a confused, disobedient boy, to a man wise beyond his years. To him, he doesnt have to be the richest man or the smartest. He doesnt need fast cars, a high paying job, or even a nice house. And yet to him, he is the happiest man on earth. He rose

above the obstacles in his way, learned from his mistakes, and sought to better himself. He never let anything keep him down.

I may not show it much, but I really am proud to have him in my life.

The Stupid Movie That Totally Ruined My Life

I never watched horror movies. As a kid I was overly scared of them, to the point where I would walk out of a room whenever one was playing. If I ever accidentally watched one, I would have nightmares. My brothers would always make fun of me for it. It was depressing, really, because in a way, it set me apart from the rest of my family. After a while, I didnt care. I always knew, in the back of my mind that these were just movies; there was no real blood and gore. Even though I always kept that in mind, I still never took the chance. When I was ten years old, I found this movie on On Demand. I was bored and there was nothing else to watch, plus it had good reviews, so I decided to watch it. It was about this telemarketing woman during the 30s that came home to find her ten year old son gone. The police looked for her son and found him, but it wasnt really her son, it was some other kid. I was entranced. The story line was so original and the actors were so realistic. I didnt want to miss a moment of it, and even skipped dinner just to watch. It was during the middle of the movie that the gory parts started. I almost wanted to turn it off. This was the type of thing I always avoided. I made it a priority to NEVER watch a horror movie, since the nightmares would make me never want to sleep again. But it was such a good movie, I really wanted to know how it ended. Did the lady ever find her son? Did the serial killer get to him first? I pressed on, and watched the whole thing. As the credits rolled across the screen, I relaxed. It was over. Id probably have nightmares for weeks after this, but at least I watched the entire thing. I lounged on my bed lazily, watching the end credits roll across the screen and idly wondering if there was ice cream still in the freezer, when I say it. Just before the screen faded to black, there, in the middle of the screen were the words: BASED ON A TRUE STORY And just like that, Lizzie Bordens ax broke my shell completely. Understand, at that age, I was a bit nave. I didnt know how the world really worked. To me, the good guys always won, God always protected the innocent from harm, and nothing bad would ever happen to kid, because everyone loved kids. There was always a happy ending around the corner for those who deserved it, and we would all find our one true love. The police would always have your back, and you wouldnt get blamed for something you never did. I grew up thinking this. This was my personal La La Land, my shell. And in one swoop, the ax fell, and smashed it to smithereens. Everything I thought was true was a complete and utter lie.

The good guys didnt always win. The mother who lost her son wont ever see him again. People, regular everyday people, are capable of doing brutal and disgusting things for absolutely no reason at all. People arent always willing to look after your best interest. The police arent always on your side. The world is full of cruelty and horror, and were just pigs awaiting our eventual slaughter. Were lucky to even last a day, let alone our entire lifespan. I just never knew until now. I was never the same after that. I became overly frightened and paranoid. I could no longer sleep in my room by myself. I would lay awake at night, frightened out of my mind, and jumping at the slightest sound. I would only fall asleep when I was so exhausted I could barely move. I pulled all nighters, where I would stay away for two or three days straight before I finally collapsed when I got home from school. I was jumpy. At the slightest noise, I would jump and hit anyone or anything within range. My brothers thought it was funny, and would repeatedly jump out at me just to see my reaction. Unfortunately, my brothers pranks only increased my ever growing paranoia. I began checking closets, under beads, in small cabinets for things that were never there. It became common for me to triple check the house every night, locking doors and barring windows to shut people out. I never left the house. It used to be that I would spend most of my time outside, playing with the neighbors. The outdoors was a place of fresh air and freedom. Not anymore. Now the outdoors was a place of evil and cruelty. Who knew what was out there? At any point in time some maniac could try and kidnap me, and I would never see my family again. I avoided the outside like the plague. I lost my friends. Really, I never had that many to begin with, but my increasing paranoia only isolated the few I had left. I though it was a good thing. I had grown to distrust the people around me. The only ones I trusted anymore were my family. Even though I was paranoid, I knew I could count on them. It lasted for two years. For two years I was looking over my shoulder, barely getting enough sleep, and trusting no one. My family never figured it out. It wasnt because they were bad parents or anything; I just hid it pretty well. Of course, they werent completely clueless. They had some idea of what was going on. So they took action. They never spoke about it out loud. It was a subconscious thing, something they knew instinctively to do. They were a pack and one of their own was injured. They needed to take action, or else their member would die. My family helped me the only way they knew how. They loved me despite my faults. When I was scared at night, they held me close. When I was jumpy, they calmed me down. When I never left the house, they tried to make me have fun regardless. When I lost my friends, the showed me how to be independent and strong. Through all of their small actions and silent encouragement, my family sent me a silent message:

Its gonna be alright. And slowly, through to love and affection from my family, I pulled through. I slept better, knowing they were there for me. I wasnt as jumpy and I no longer looked over my shoulder constantly. I was independent and I no longer needed friends. I took walks outside, admiring the world around me. Though my paranoia isnt completely gone, I no longer believe the world is as cruel as it used it be. As long as I have my family, I know everything will turn out just fine.