8 Flash Memoirs

I remember first grade.

I remember red tiled roof and scratchy white stucco.

I remember Pablo throwing up all over the pavement as we waited in line after recess.

I remember my first friend, Steven, and my first crush, Lexie.

But most of all, I remember marbles. It seemed like my first grade year was the year that marbles were the thing. Everyone had marbles in their pocket and would tout them and brag about them at the drop of a hat. It wasn't so much about the games, so much as it was about the having them. We'd trade them and talk about whose was best, fastest and best looking, and heap scorn on the kids who had the audacity to try and pass off a ball-bearing as a steelie.

The teachers got in on it too. I remember my first grade teacher, Ms. Burkhart, who managed to captivate and motivate us, her underlings, by keeping a large jar of marbles on her desk. The best marbles. Marbles like none of us had ever seen. She promised us that if we were good, she would place marbles in the jar. "If our class fills the jar," she would say, "we'll have a pizza party." If we were bad, those marbles would vanish into a baggie in her desk drawer and the ever elusive pizza party would escape us again.

I knew a thing or two. I knew that any "party" promised by an elementary school teacher would be overwhelmingly lame. My classmates, however, were infatuated with the idea. They were content to work towards the pizza party. I had other ideas.

I wanted those marbles. I craved those marbles. One in particular stood out to me--it was as bright and yellow as the sun. It shone into my first grade mind and I lusted for it. I had no doubt that obtaining those marbles would be the culmination of my young life. And so the heist began.

I was careful, I was cautious. I knew that a first grade classroom contained no lack of aimlessly wandering eyes. I had to do it right.

And careful I was. In a series of brilliant heists, I did it. I robbed the jar. It was as well-orchestrated a heist as any ever perpetrated. I'd loiter at Ms. Burkhart's desk as my class went to recess, my hand would snatch from my pocket to the jar to my pocket again and I'd be out the door for recess, laughing and playing with the other kids. I knew that taking too many marbles at a time would arouse suspicion, leading to a manhunt that would undoubtedly result in my expulsion and execution. I had to be careful.

Over the course of several weeks, taking only one or two marbles at a time, I managed to acquire the more spectacular of the marbles, leaving the dark, uninteresting marbles behind. I knew that Ms. Burkhart's desk drawer which contained the true haul was too dangerous to hit, but I had a plan to deal with that as well.

If I was very good and inspired my surrounding first-graders, Ms. Burkhart would compliment us and place more marbles into the jar. New marbles. Better marbles. The next big score.

Before long, I had become something really special on the playground. My marbles were unmatched. Everyone asked where I'd got them, but of course I couldn't tell. I always bragged about one that was the most special, one that was more impressive than any they had ever seen. I promised that one day, I would show the world this secret marble.

I had made the mistake too many criminals make--I had got a big mouth. I talked myself into a corner. I had promised to show the best marble at Cerra Vista Elementary and I eventually had to keep my promise. On a fateful fall morning, with a healthy crowd gathered, I pulled the sun-like marble out of my pocket. Everyone oohed and aahed. It truly was spectacular.

I hadn't been so foolish as to bring it back to school; I knew that it could have condemned me if an investigation into the missing marbles began. It was too distinct, too beautiful to be ignored.

It didn't take long before I realized I had made a terrible mistake.

"Hey!" Anthony Alvarez was in my class and a fellow marble connoisseur. "Ms. Burkhart has a marble just like that in the Pizza Jar! Or...or she did..."

I saw the gears turning in his head. I saw the suspicion on his face.

"Oh..." I sputtered. "D-d-does she? I, uh, hadn't noticed!" The marble went back in my pocket.

And then I saw the future. Anthony would squeal. The class would string me up for betraying them. Ms. Burkhart, in a fit of rage, would smash the marble jar and scream that I would never see the light of day again. I would be dragged, a damned soul, to the deepest abysses of hell reserved for first-grade marble thieves.

I had a day, maybe more to return the marbles to the jar. It was either that or take my prizes and leave the country. That afternoon, with skills honed from weeks of marble kleptomania, I returned the sun marble to the jar. It was the most distinct, and Anthony would be looking for it.

Over the course of the next few days, I paid back my marbles in full. I felt past the whole marble fad. I'd had my fun. And within two weeks, the class had accumulated enough marbles to earn themselves a few jugs of Tampico, some cheap pizza and Dennis the Menace on VHS. And as I munched on pizza and enjoyed the finest knock-off Home Alone hijinks the 90s had to offer, I had to admit, it felt pretty good.

It felt good enough that I decided not to retire from the marble jar game just yet. I didn't care for marbles any more, but they had a pretty good exchange rate and I had the skill to do something with them.

My class had something like 5 pizza parties that year. I still remember Ms. Burkhart's slightly perplexed face as our class cheered another full marble jar.

In hindsight, things ended up about as well as I could have hoped. My class got to eat a lot of pizza and watch terrible movies. Ms. Burkhart ended up with more marbles than she started with. And me? Well, I learned the most important lesson anyone can learn in first grade: if you're going to do something morally wrong, keep your head down and your mouth shut and you'll do well for yourself.

Oh come on. What else was I supposed to learn from all this?

_________________

"I think I'm in love with you."

I blinked.

Love? A few double dates, a basketball game, a box of Goldfish crackers, those were all well and good. But love? I wasn't sure.

We'd held hands, snuggled like so many good Mormons girls want to. We'd even kissed. Not the reckless, feckless high school kisses, but timid, polite kisses. The kinds of kisses that belied uncomfortable romantic history.

But I knew hers and she knew mine. She'd been dating feverishly since she'd been back from her mission, and I'd merely been testing the water since mine.

A week ago, she told me she wanted to "take things slow." But tonight she loved me?

I don't swear. But gosh I really wanted to.

I knew that there was a window in which I needed to respond. Too long in silence and that would be my answer. I wish there had been some kind of violent distraction, but it was just the two of us sitting in my car, quietly idling in her apartment parking lot.

It was cruel, it was cold, but I didn't want our casual relationship to be over. I was having fun. Not love, per se, but I felt like we were in a good place. We laughed a lot, went out to our favorite ice cream parlor, played frisbee with mutual friends, talked about a couples road trip with some old mission companions.

My window had shut. She was looking at me with a slightly concerned affection.

I opened my mouth, still unsure as to what I was going to say. I took her hand. I was trying to buy myself more seconds with body language cues.

"I...think I love you too."

Damn.

______________________

Textures.

Salt and warmth of homemade play-dough. Don't eat it, don't eat it. Heavy green mugs. The cold basement floor, the scuffed, damaged plastic on a tricycle wheel.

The narrow wooden stairs. The giant spinning chair. The way everything creaked.

New brother. Me. Sister's Oscar the Grouch piggie bank.

The good.

The collie. Cherry 7up. Easter eggs. Fireflies. Catch them, find them. Fruit Loops for the first time. Mom waits for spring tulips. Pine needles on the Christmas floor. Train sounds. VCR tapes. The zoo. New shoes, Velcro straps.

And the bad.

The plate on my foot, the bee in my ear. Crying, crying. Those wooden figurines on my father's office shelf. Forbidden, forbidden.

Cherry 7up again. The snake. New shoes, soiled. The narrow stairs. Falling, falling. Peter and the Wolf. Tornado sirens. Run and hide, run and hide.

Opa died. Back in a week, Dad said. Back in a week.

The decisions.

Tear the pages of every book. Kiss your brother, show you care. Jump on mom's bed, blow out brother's candles. Shout in the basement, know you're real.

Such joy to decide, to say and to see. The novelty of sensation, the power to do. I didn't know why or how, but I knew I had to because I could.

The words, the finding. Desperate to know, desperate to understand. Spelling out words in church. Whisper, whisper.

Connections. Pass the library to get to sister's school. Shampoo bottle looks like a baby. Chocolate grahams fit in the VCR player.

And me. Always wants, never needs.

Everything was.

But there was so much wrong. Josh was too big. No more brothers and sisters. Mom was sad, but didn't say so. Dad was gone a lot.

I should have seen it. Or maybe I did, but didn't know what to do about it.

In any case, nothing changed. Nothing, nothing.

________________

I've always flirted between thinking that I was uncommonly special or especially common. 

I'm probably one of them. I don't know what else I could be.

There was a time when I thought I may have been some kind of superhero, beginning to discover that I had mutant powers. Nope. Puberty.

I also assumed that everyone was in constant pain. But then I learned that chronic migraines aren't the norm either. 

My parents helped with the mixed signals. I was told I was great and smart, but only after I had a day in which I felt completely normal, if not substandard.

Some people have insecurities and some people have superiority complexes. I suppose my problem is that I'm insecure about whether I should have a superiority complex.

There always felt like there might be some safety in being normal. I used to pray that God would let me be dumb like other kids. I asked my parents if I could watch more TV so I could be like the other kids.

But along with wanting to be like them, I also hated them for what they were because they didn't have my interests. They didn't seem to have interests at all.

I grew out of it, grew out of worrying whether I was something or not. My childhood was something of a dud, spent watching National Geographic Explorer instead of cartoons, too polite to burp the ABCs.

Today, I try not to care. Because if I care too much, I wonder whether it's normal or extraordinary to spend so much time worrying about it. And around I go again.

_________________

I don't think it's irrational. Seems like a rational fear to me.

There's even a word for it: "emetophobia:" the fear of vomit and throwing up. I've had it as long as I can remember. My brother throws up and I spend the night on the couch. My sister throws up and I leave home until she stops. One of my parents throws up, and I'm moving out.

Worse, however, is when the tingling starts. When my own stomach starts doing roiling. When my mouth starts watering and the world starts spinning. I feel it coming and I can't escape from my own body.

I try a variety of tactics. I focus on little swallows, shallow breaths, wiggling my toes. I start negotiating deals with God, praying for it to pass. I lie as still as I can, pretending that I'm not nauseous, pretending that I just need to wait a bit and it will pass.

In fairness, sometimes it works. And sometimes it's Christmas 2003. My brother had the flu all week, but was better in time for Christmas Eve. Nobody else had been sick. We had dodged a bullet.

After our seasonal feast of German steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and butter rolls, we settled in for some board games.

But something wasn't right. The old symptoms were back. My face felt flushed. My throat felt full. The contents of my stomach seemed to be swaying, ponderously, planning their next move.

My family asked if I was feeling okay. I'm fine, I lied. Just need to take a nap.

I held as still as I could on our new leather couches. It would pass. It had to pass. I couldn't be sick on Christmas.

I wasn't sick. I wasn't going to be sick. Everything was fine.

God, please don't let me. Bless me. Work a miracle. Whatever you have to do.

My stomach churned threateningly. My body tensed. Sniff, exhale. Sniff, exhale. Focus on your toes.

It passed. I relaxed.

And then promptly puked what seemed to be everything I'd ever eaten all over myself, the new leather couch, and the heirloom blanket on the couch.

Nothing was fine. Christmas was ruined. My family went into damage control, my dad crying "not the couches," my mom crying "not the blanket," and my siblings sitting in mortified, horrified shock on the floor, still dazedly holding their "Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit" tokens.

It was a Christmas never to be forgotten, for all the wrong reasons. I slept in the bathtub that night. The next morning I was too sick and weak to open presents.

That's it. That's why I'm an emetophobe.

Anything capable of ruining Christmas seems like a rational fear to me.

_________________

I don't remember moments, I remember consequences and words.

The stash of Dad's Winterfresh gum was in his desk drawer. I don't know when I found it, but I remember when he found me with it. That's when I learned the word "theft" and was placed on my parents' watch list. I was banned from his office. And any room with drawers.

I wouldn't have any reason to remember the first snowstorm of my time in Utah. Except for my brother's incessant crying after I pelted him with the first snowballs of my (or his) life. Which also led to my mom using the word "assault" as she spoke to me. And I was assigned to shovel snow alone for hours. Another consequence, another new word.

And then there was the time Dad caught me watching "The Simpsons," which had been previously forbidden. "Lewd" was the word of the day and I returned to my parents' watch list. It took months of deliberately being caught watching Animal Planet before some kind of trust could be re-established.

I also remember getting "The Talk." Dad said I had installed too many games on the computer and that it was my fault it was running so slowly. Dad spent the few hours defragging the hard drive teaching me all kinds of words. Words I didn't want to know. Yikes.

I guess I have my parents to thank for my memories. And my vernacular. And an undesired familiarity with human anatomy and potential jail-able offenses.

___________________

I'll be fine, I said.

Just going to stay home and read some books, I said.

They all left to see the new house. Mom, Dad, Kate, Josh, the family car, all gone. For a few hours, they said.

Yeah, right. I wasn't going to read. That simply wasn't going to happen. There were video games to be played.

After a few hours of Jedi dismemberment, I calculated that my family was surely on the verge of coming home, and I didn't want them to see me still on the computer. I picked up a believable book and plopped myself on the couch.

After about another hour on the couch it was getting dark and I was starting to get worried. And hungry.

One of those I could fix. After a few string cheeses and a handful of tortilla chips, I was only worried.

With a bit of food, my imagination went into overdrive. The grueling silence was beginning to echo around the unfinished basement. Darkness was creeping in the blind-free windows.

I needed to do something. I went around the house, turning on lights. I flipped the TV on and cranked the volume. Ambient noise buzzed through the house.

Having turned on every light in the house, I went upstairs and sat in the living room. Waiting.

Didn't help. I couldn't stop thinking. What if they were bloody and dead, their car a burned-out husk? Who would tell me? Who would inform the family (me)?

The police. The police would come to the door, just like in the movies. "I'm sorry, son," they'd say. "It's about your family."

I had just moved to Logan: I didn't know anyone. I'd have to find some phone numbers of family members. I'd have to call and ask to be adopted by some other family--maybe my uncle. I saw myself in a black suit, standing by four caskets.

I paced the house, moving from room to room. It wouldn't leave my mind. I was panicking. My breathing intensified. My heartbeat was stuttering.

I should have gone with them. I could've saved them. I could've changed things.

Phone numbers. I needed to know which extended family members to call. My hands were shaking as I rummaged through the basket of bills and phone numbers my mom kept next to the corkboard in the kitchen.

I took that deep shuddering breath that always precedes some serious crying. She had always done bills, but it was past-tense now. She was gone and nothing I could do would bring her back.

I had led to the deaths of my family members because I wanted to play some stupid video games. My lie had been the difference between life and death.

The only thing left to do was to get the confirmation. I was crying now. I picked up the phone next to the now-scattered collection of bills and paperwork. Hands still shaking wildly, I punched in the numbers.

"911 Response, please state your emergency."

I was sobbing into the phone. "I'm home alone and. And. And."

The respondent was all business. "Remain calm. What's your emergency?"

I couldn't ask the question I wanted to ask. I needed to ask.

"Are any of my family. Are. Are. Are."

The front door opened.

They were all there. I was standing next to the kitchen counter, holding a phone, sobbing uncontrollably.

My mom hurried to me. "What's wrong?"

Nothing, I lied. Nothing at all.

Yeah, right.

________________________

There are moments of clarity from my childhood, moments that seem particularly meaningful or significant, even if they're not.

It was springtime and I was on the swings. Not that it was like it wasn't always warm enough to be on the swings, but I remember how green it was. The hills around the school had changed from winter brown to promising green—the promise that summer was almost upon us. It felt good.

I was alone. That wasn't really news either—seemed like I was always alone. Not that I bothered too much. Normally I just sat on the playground, waiting for recess to end. I was the reserved, too-smart type, unable to converse with my peers without giving myself away as a flaming intellectual.

I don't really know what I was thinking about, but I was certainly distracted. So much so that I didn't immediately recognize that a dark-haired boy was talking to me. He had a goofy grin on his face, the kind that hinted at some illict, ill-gained secrets.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you know Lexie?” the boy asked.

Of course I knew Lexie. I'd been in her class for the past four grades. She had beautiful skin, dark eyes, perfect hair and lived not far from my house. What was more, she was brighter than I was. In my mind, I imagined that we were destined to be together, we abandoned intellectuals. My schoolwork was mainly aimed to impress and keep up with her. She made my elementary school world go 'round.

“She LIKES you!” the boy blurted out, in a mix of revulsion and excitement.

My elementary school world stopped.

It wasn't that this was something I hadn't ever thought about, ever fantasized about. Now that the moment was here, however, I didn't know what to do.

Lexie ran over. Suddenly, I knew even less what to do. She took one look at the other boy, one look at me, and we were all on the same page. A horror and a misery crossed her face.

“I don't! I—I” She was sputtering, trying to recant and undo the three words of the other boy. She began to hit him repeatedly in the arm, berating him by name. For the life of me, I can't remember his name. At such a critical juncture in my life, I was paralyzed by the incomprehensible potential of the situation and unable to process everything happening around me.

Lexie had finally turned to me. “I don't like you! I don't! I mean, you don't like me?” It wasn't a statement. It was a question. This was the moment.

I opened my mouth.

And it just kind of hung there.

I had been a different kind of caught. So I did what I needed to to gain some kind of control on the situation.

“No. No! No. Of course I don't.” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

All three of us just kind of waited for something to happen. I realized that I wasn't swinging anymore.

Looking back, that was the last conversation I ever had with Lexie. My family moved away that summer. I've always wondered what other outcomes that conversation could have had. More than that, however, I've tried to understand what made me lie.

It is a subversive, backwards kind of control that makes someone lie. It's that desperation that makes someone shelve their morals, ignore their better self and put their credibility on the line all in pursuit of the upper hand in a situation.

Lying, then, isn't a habit. It's not just a pattern and a rut a careless someone gets into – it's an addiction. I would not realize it until later in life, but my lies embodied a craving for control and my instinctive urge to fabricate an out for myself. In hindsight, Lexie was the first social casualty. I wish she had been the last.

___________________________

I was small. And I suppose that deep down, I feel like I still am.

At no time in my life was it more apparent than the day I went over to "play" with the Mendes family. The Mendes' were one of the only families in my neighborhood that attended the same church as my family, which meant that my mother had a ready-made friend in Mrs. Mendes with which to drink coffee with. I mean, if she drank coffee.

When mom and Mrs. Mendes got together, it usually meant that I would read a book or watch TV in another room. On one occasion, however, Mrs. Mendes' son Adam was home. Adam was a teenager, a good three years older and approximately ten years bigger than me. He was a burly, curly-haired football player and I was content to quietly sit and read. I had neither the size nor the temperament to be a bully. Adam had both.

In hindsight, I don't really know what the moms were thinking, trying to put us together. But at their insistence, I went outside to join Adam on the trampoline.

Adam didn't want a playmate. Adam wanted an exercise in adolescent dominance. I learned this very quickly. And for the first time in my life, I felt the fear of being in real physical danger.

Adam wanted to wrestle. His wrestling involved plenty of punches, shoves and knees in the back. I remember his arms around my throat, I remember trying to get off the trampoline and getting dragged back onto it, I remember feeling the most helpless I had felt in my life thus far. My wits, words, smarts--nothing could get me out of the situation.There was nothing I could do, nothing at all.

"Shut up you wimp! Fight me! Wrestle me!"

Eventually I managed to get to the other end of the yard. I remember crouching by some small trees, crying. My arms hurt. My chest and neck hurt.

Adam crouched in front of me. "You don't tell anybody about this." I nodded. I wanted to be done.

Before long, my mom came out the sliding back door to collect me. It was time to go home.

As we drove home, it became clear to my mother that I had been upset by something. "What's wrong, honey? What happened?"

I sniffled a bit. "Nothing. I just..."

In that moment, I had the most control I had in the entire situation. I could tell the truth and...what? What would've happened? I would've made an enemy. I would've appeared even more helpless. I would've given a bully another motive.

So I lied.

"Nothing." There were no visible marks, no bruises. I had no cuts, no wounds. If I just kept my mouth shut, I could pretend that the whole event had never happened and nobody needed to know.

And nobody did know. I thought that my lie would make it okay. And for all parties involved, it did.

Except for me.

When I got home, I saw that the screen on my new watch, the watch I had received for my birthday, the watch that had 3 different kinds of alarms and a Magic 8 Ball feature, had broken.

And then I cried.