Memory: Age 6 "Poison Berries"

I am 6 years old and we are at the cabin. It’s cloudy and cold, but it’s supposed to be summer. The wind is blowing off the lake and that’s why it’s cold, mom says. I have to wear a winter coat, and it’s puffy and uncomfortable. I can’t put my arms down.

Mom and dad are inside the cabin talking to the other grown-ups. I’m outside with my cousins. They are almost grown-ups too. They are lots taller than me. Sometimes they say swear words and tell me I’d better not tell anyone or they won’t let me go with them anymore. Sometimes I get to go with them for walks up the beach and they smoke cigarettes, but I’m not supposed to see that, cause they pretend to see squirrels. “Look, Krissy!” They yell and point, but I don’t see any squirrels. All I see is smoke coming out of their noses when I turn around, and they tuck the smokes under their arm. I know its smoking cause dad does it too. Sometimes he blows smoke rings, but you can’t put your finger in them cause they disappear. I won’t tell the grown-ups that my cousins smoke, because I like going for walks with them. They are funner than grown-ups cause they never make me go to bed, and they let me hear bad words, and they tell each other stories about all the things that they do that they get in trouble for and that they get away with, and they let me eat lots of ketchup chips. I like hearing about teenager things.

But right now my cousins are being boring and they’re whispering and won’t let me hear what they’re talking about, so it must be something really good. I try to hear, but they are good at whispering. Instead I pick blueberries from the bushes around the cabin. They aren’t really blueberries yet though, cause they’re still green. Do you call them green berries if they’re still green? I put one in my mouth and crunch it between my teeth. It isn’t soft like a blueberry and it tastes yucky, like grass, or when you accidentally put your sandwich down on the table that mom just sprayed with cleaner. I chew it up a little bit and make a face and spit it out on the sand, then I try it with another one and another one, but they all taste yucky.

Kenny and Mark walk over by me. They aren't very much older than me, but they are still big kids. “What’re you doin’, Krissy, b’y! You’re not supposed to eat the green ones, ya goose!” Mark says.

“I likes to. I likes to pick berries.” I say, putting more green berries in my cupped hand.

“If you pick them all now, there won’t be any to pick later when they’re supposed to turn blue.” Kenny says.

“I wants to pick them now though.” I say. I drop the few berries in my hand when I see there’s a tiny spider crawling on them.

“Hey, Kenny? Do you know how Bandit died?” Mark asks. I turn around and look curiously at them. Bandit was our uncle Pat’s big German shepherd dog. He was a pretty dog, but I was afraid of him, cause I’m afraid of dogs. I got bit two times by dogs and it hurts a lot and I cried, so I don’t like to go close to them.

“Nope.” Kenny replies.

“He ate green blueberries and it poisoned him.” Mark says.
All of a sudden I feel like the ground is wobbly and my chest is tight like when mom makes me wear party dresses. “No!” I yell at them. “blueberries aren’t poison! I eats them all the time. Nanny says only dog berries and choke cherries are bad for you!”

“that’s blueberries, not green ones.” Mark says. Kenny is smiling. I think they might be joking, but I don’t know, cause sometimes teenagers laugh at things that aren’t funny, like tying your socks together while they’re still on your feet.

I throw the green berry in my hand away into the trees and run into the cabin to find my mom and dad. I don’t tell them I ate green blueberries cause I’m afraid they will get mad at me. They told me to stay away from poison things and we put “Officer Ugg” stickers on all the things in our house that I’m not supposed to touch.

For the next few days I think that I might die at any time from the poison berries. After a while I realize that I must be okay cause I’m still alive and okay, but I don’t ever eat green blueberries ever again, I don’t even touch them, and I always make sure that my blueberries are super blue and ripe all over.

The Ballad of Katie Lee OR How my Brother and I Broke my Sister's Brain

Just after my eighth birthday my parents informed my five year old brother and I that my mom was going to have a baby. Being an old pro at siblings, having already gone through the pregnancy and birth of my brother, the new baby jealousy, and just having to deal with him every day, I was excited. What was one more kid? With three we would finally outnumber the parents! Plus, this baby might be a sister!

Oh how I had longed for a sister! To not have to clip rainbow coloured Goody buckles into my brother’s too-short brush-cut, or force him to wear a headband and let me call him Sally. I was sure this baby would be a sister. The wonderful, awesome, super baby sister that I had always wanted to be my playmate! Someone who wouldn’t cry if I didn’t play dinkies and WWF Wrestlers with them.

I frantically began drawing Crayola Crayon pictures of my new sister. She would be the greatest person ever. I couldn’t wait for her to show up. We were going to have the most fun ever in the world!

When Jenna was born on the fourth of June, 1991, I was so ecstatic! The sister I had wished for was here! There were two of us now! We would be best buds and play together all the time!

Except you don’t really realize when you’re little that when a baby is born, it’s awfully small. And it can’t really play. All it can do is poop and cry and throw up on itself. Mostly a baby is just drooly and stinky. But that was okay. She might not have been exactly what I had expected, but at least she was a sister!

Not long out of toddler-hood it became apparent that Jenna wasn’t just your ordinary kid, she was something special. Now maybe it was because my parents are both the youngest in their families too, or maybe it was because she was just a sweet little darling baby angel, but everything Jenna did was adorable. Or at least my parents and all other adults thought so.

Not only was she adorable, but she was the exact opposite of my brother and I. Danny and I, we were kids that liked to play in the dirt and run around outside. I was a somewhat quiet and introverted child who liked to draw and talk to stuffed animals. My brother was loud and a talker and tended to drive both my parent insane with his non-stop chatter or if he didn’t have anything to say, sound effects.

Jenna on the other hand, was a natural born performer. By the time she was three years old she would belt out show tunes, perform one woman plays, and choreograph her own dance routines. She proclaimed that when she grew up, her chosen profession would be “Ballerina-Skater-Nurse” Anytime she acquired new clothes it was a chance to put on a New York Fashion Week style high fashion show in the middle of the living room. All this would have been fine except that she would FORCE everyone in the house to watch everything she did. Not only would she beg you to watch, but considering our parents found every movement she made so frikken’ adorable, they would goad us into watching her too.

One day my brother and I were sitting in our living room watching a particularly enthralling episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when Jenna Ruby, The Sugar Plum Fairy herself, came plié-ing into the living room and arabesque-d right in front of the television screen.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY, JENNA!” I yelled.

“ MOOOOOOM! JENNA’S IN FRONT OF THE TV AGAIN!” my brother wailed, but it was all in vain. Not only would mom simply reply with an answer such as “Oh, she’s just little, and she’s so cute! Plus, TV just rots your brain anyway!” but no one tells you ahead of time that when your sister is four and you are twelve, you can’t just slug her when she’s being a turd.

We put up with her for a while hoping she would soon tire out and go find mom in the kitchen but as it turned out, mom was wrist deep in hamburger meat making a meat loaf and couldn’t clap for or provide the enthralled audience Jenna needed. We were going to have to deal with her, and she was going strong today. The new ballet lessons were obviously paying off for her, and she was going to get her tutu’s worth.

After about 10 minutes, a brilliant idea struck me.

“Hey, Danny? Do you remember Katie? She was so great.” I said in voice with just a touch of nostalgia.

My brother looked up at me like I had 10 heads. I shot him a quick look, that look that only lasts for half a second that says “GO ALONG WITH THIS.” One great thing about my brother and I is that we were such smart asses, and even though Jenna may have been the family

performer, my brother and I had definite improv skills.

“Oh, Oh yeah! Katie!” Danny agreed “She was cool.”

“Yeah!” I said “She was really awesome, just the best ever.”

You see by this time, it was not only apparent to my dancing sister that we were ignoring her, but we were now having a conversation in her presence that she was not a part of. We had piqued her interest and the dancing was slowing as she listened to us talk.

“She was the best sister ever.” I said. “Too bad she’s gone.”

“Oh yeah” Danny agreed, now grinning hugely at me. “Best sister I ever had! She was so nice and kind and she never ever danced in front of the TV.”

“Yup!” I said. “Never danced in front of the TV, and she never sang songs, and she never ever deleted our Donkey Kong games.”

“Not even once” Said Danny. By now Jenna had stopped entirely and was looking at us incredulously.

“It’s too bad what happened to her. I always liked Katie” I said.

“Yeah, too bad.” Danny agreed as we both tsk tsked and put on our most mournful looks.

“What happened to Katie?” Jenna asked; brown eyes wide and full of wonder.

“Mom and dad got mad at her cause she was always singing all the time.” Danny replied. “First they liked it, but after a while it started to drive everyone crazy.”

“Yup. At first they thought it was wonderful. But one day, they got tired of it, so they cooked her for supper and we had to eat her.”

Now maybe this wasn’t the most believable thing I could have come up with, but you have to remember that Jenna was just four years old at the time. In her world, a purple dinosaur hung out with a bunch of kids after school, Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy were somewhere out there in the world probably enjoying latte’s together, there were monsters of unspeakable evil under the bed that could be kept away by pulling a blanket over your head, and “Ballerina-Skater-Nurse” was a viable future profession…

Of course she wasn’t going to believe it without question.

“NO!” she screamed at us “NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! NO. NO, THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN! YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANOTHER SISTER. NO! NO YOU DIDN’T! The more “No’s” she said, the more she revealed just how unsure she really was.

“I liked Katie” my brother said “but she was even better with gravy.”

The fact that at age nine, he said this with such an utterly flat expression, no hint of a giggle, no smile, just as if he was reminiscing on a particularly delicious meal, dug the shovel in deeper.

“She was great. I miss her. She tasted a lot like chicken.” I replied. Danny nodded solemnly. We could have won Oscars.

“NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! THAT’S NOT TRUE! NO! NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! MOM! MOM, THAT’S NOT TRUE, HEY? THERE WASN’T ANY KATIE, HEY MOM!? NO! NO THERE WASN’T!

Now see, the thing is, even though my parents thought my sister was adorable, and they rarely let us mess with her, I think they were a little intrigued by our story and as to where we might take it. I think they were a little amused by it, even though it was undoubtedly horrible.
I think they thought it was just unreal enough, that they let us have it. They let us keep our story. They didn’t shut it down by saying “No Jenna, there is no Katie, You’re brother and sister are being mean.” Once Jenna got thoroughly flustered they would stop us by simply saying “Okay guys, that’s enough.” And we’d stop talking about Katie, the cannibalized fourth Lee child, but at no time did they ever EXPRESSLY State “There is no Katie, there never was a Katie, Katie is not real” or any such statement, leaving the window of belief open just enough of a crack for us.

So on the day that we created Katie, we managed not only to horrify my little sister, but she stopped dancing in front of the TV and fled from the living room.

Katie may not have ever really lived, but in our imaginations, she was larger than life. Oh the adventures we had with Katie! Of course these stories only ever came to light when Jenna was doing something incredibly irritating while in our presence. Katie would be slipped so subtly into our conversations so as to make it seem like whatever Jenna was doing reminded us of Katie. But oh boy! Katie was a sister that anyone would have wanted. We would tell these stories just until Jenna started wailing and left the room.

You know how sometimes the stars align just right? Well that happened to us one day while visting our Nan and Pop. Nan’s brother had a little granddaughter. Blonde haired and blue eyed, who had just had her photos taken and Nan’s brother had given her a framed one that was sitting on the shelf amongst Nan’s pictures of her grandchildren. We were sitting in the dining room eating bowls of ice cream when my sister saw the new picture and said “Nan, who’s that in the picture?”

Nan looked up at the picture and smiled “Oh, that’s Katie!” she replied.

I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

Nan’s brother’s grandchild’s name was Katie, and now there was a picture of Katie sitting on my grandmother’s shelf next to the pictures of me, Danny and Jenna, and my cousins. If you could have seen the look of abject horror on my sister’s face, surely you would have picked her up and cradled her, stroked her hair and told her that her sister and brother were evil, evil children, but my brother and I, we just looked up at her and nodded ever so slightly.

And that’s how my brother and I broke my sister’s brain.

The Wasp's Nest

We are crowded around my uncle’s shed like a group of angered peasants attempting to oust a monster. Hefty rocks clenched in our tiny fists, my brother with the stolen handle of our mother’s broom, fervor and bloodlust in our eyes as we stare up at the three grey dome shaped paper mache treasures hanging on the eve of the shed.

We haven’t been up here in a few days and the wasps have set up house, once again forgetting our previous brutality in pillaging their villages.

“Once I saw my Uncle Ed spray stuff into the little hole in a wasp nest while he held a lighter up to it and it burned all the wasps inside, and the ones that tried to fly out got their wings burned off.” I mutter aloud as I examine the nests and plot out how to effectively demolish them.

“We can’t do that!” My cousin, Tonya squeals. “We’ll burn down my Dad’s shed!”

“I know that,” I mutter exasperatedly. “Beside, we’re not even allowed to have matches and your mom would see us out through the window and get us in trouble anyway.”

It’s true. We are disciplined on a daily basis based purely upon acts that we are caught in by Aunt Vonnie. We have searched the back of her head for the eyes that she claims she must posses in order to mind us.

“I have matches…” My cousin, David pipes up, pulling a crumpled blue packet of water proof matches from his jeans pocket. His green eyes are sparkling with intrigue.

“No.” I say with the decisiveness that only the oldest of a group of children can get away with. “We’re going to do this the usual way. Let’s get the big one first.”

The four of us stand and take aim. I give the count down and the rocks fly, most thud against the press board side of the shed chipping away great chunks of pale yellow paint, but one is a direct hit, crumpling the side of the nest and tearing half of it away. We cry out in excited panic as we scatter in different directions, sneakered feet pounding fast on the hard packed earth in order to escape from the buzzing fury spilling out of the partially destroyed nest. We sit on the side of a hill watching from afar, arguing over whose rock was the one that connected until the wasps fly away.

When we are sure that they’ve dispersed we creep back toward the shed to survey our damage. We are careful to watch for any stragglers who might be sitting and waiting for us. I take the broom handle from my brother and use it to knock the rest of the nest down to the ground.

Now we move on to nest number two.

I pass the broom handle back to my brother. “Danny, you should hit it with the stick.” I advise.

My cousins agree and under our recommendations my brother, the youngest and most easily influenced of us all, steps up and we step back, readying ourselves to run.

He is short and has to reach up with the broom handle in order to hit it. His first swing is wild, missing the nest completely, as is the second. For the third he steadies himself, carefully aims and jumps as he swings. Like a baseball the nest flies through the air, landing about 10 feet away, which gives my brother enough distance to safely escape to our perch on the hillside.

The third nest is small. We contemplate whether or not to take it down using rocks, or just hit it with the broom handle like before, and we decide it is better for everyone to launch their rocks simultaneously like a barrage of canon fire. The third nest is demolished in record time and we go off in search of better things to do.

Because we haven’t filled our day’s quota with danger and excitement, we decide on bee races. Much like destroying wasp nests, the reward for winning a bee race is not getting stung. We scour un-mowed gardens filled with dandelions and capture fat yellow bees in baby food jars left over from our baby sister’s meals, shake the jars vigorously, then smash them on the ground and run like hell. Bee races can provide hours of quality entertainment when you are 9 years old.

Later that day, when the thrill of hazardous insects has worn away, we are playing near my cousin’s house. We are playing a particularly quarrelsome game involving baseball bats, hockey sticks and a tennis ball. At some point the ball bounces away and my brother runs to retrieve it. He does not notice a new wasp nest; this one built on the ground, because it blends in too well. He does not hear the agitated buzzing over the crunch of driveway gravel under his feet, or notice the single warrior hornet flying under the hem of his light blue baseball jersey.

Suddenly he is screaming and crying, thrashing and flailing, and running as fast as he can up the road toward our house.

We stare incredulously for a few seconds, then follow after him.

Inside our porch my brother is standing shirtless and wailing, with three angry red welts rising on his pale torso. Mom comes bustling toward us holding an aerosol can that she sprays on the welts. My brother gasps as the first cold blast hits his skin.

“You were at the wasps again weren’t you?” She says scolding. We deny it, but my brother nods his head yes, as he wipes his hand across his face, leaving a trail of tears and snot across his cheek.

Later when my uncle gets home from work we tell him about the wasp nest in his back yard because we have been ordered not to go near it ourselves. He walks up to the nest and places his giant steel toed work boot on it, crunching it into the ground and scuffing his foot into the dirt producing a sense of finality. It is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.