Chapter Text
Next to us was Pinky. A few years older, mean, and, as I later learned, never went to school. He was darker than me, a light brown color, not that I noticed back then. Across the street and to the left was Carlos, who was also older. He was nice. He was tan, but not the same color as Pinky was.
Behind us was another kid, older too, who would sometimes babysit Kevin and I. His parents did, at least. I brought a lemon over, once. His father juiced it for me, and I drank a cup of lemon juice. He liked Pokémon. The kid, not the father. He played video games, too. I think that, maybe, Kevin looked up to him a little bit.
On the other side of Pinky was a nice woman who also babysat us once. Kevin and I bathed there one time, and the water was filthy afterwards. Carlos’s house, or at least what I remember as his house, had some big, leafy plants in front of it.
The house more directly in front of us had a dog, though I don’t remember said dog. I only know about the dog because one time a tornado came through our neighborhood and wrecked the house across from us, the one with the dog. No one was home, luckily, and the dog was fine, though I’m not sure it was actually home at the time.
There were other kids, too. I remember playing with them, kind of. I remember watching in fascination as a swarm of ants cleaned a dead lizard right down to the bones. It was a skeleton when they were done with it, but we’d placed a bucket over it, before the ants picked it clean, to protect the thing until we could bury it. We had to go back home, I think, so we covered it with the bucket to bury the next day. It was a skeleton when we saw it again. I had watched the ants swarm it, fascinated, just like I said, but I didn’t watch the ants pick it clean. They’d already done that, so we, Kevin, Carlos, and a couple of other kids, I think, just watched as the ants swarmed the bones of the lizard. I don’t remember if we buried its bones.
I’d sleep in the same bed as my mom, and sometimes she’d leave the lights on for me because I was scared of the dark. One night a snuck down the hall to get a snack from the kitchen, and this green puppet frog thing stopped my way. I was scared of it. I wouldn’t go past it. I don’t think I got my snack that night.
Another time my mother and I were having a late night snack. A giant spider was on the wall in the kitchen, right above the counter. My mom was in the fridge. I said something. She stood beside me, and it took her a moment to see it. Neither of us would squish it. We were too scared. It crawled in between the wall and the cupboard, a very small space, and we never saw it again.
One night I was looking out of the window, my mom asleep next to me, the shades down, and thought I saw large animals retrieving smaller ones. I giant shadow of a frog getting a smaller frog. Other animals that I don’t remember. And a dinosaur. A tyrannosaurus rex. I played peek a boo with it, in a way. Until I saw it’s eyeball, and then I got scared, and went to bed. For a while after that I was utterly convinced that dinosaurs still existed. That some of them escaped mass extinction.
But another time, before bed, we were outside. It was still very bright out, despite being late, well, late for a five year old, at least. I didn’t understand why I had to go to bed. I was upset. I wanted to play more.
I learned to ride a bike in that place. The training wheels on my bike were taken off, and then so did I. Well, not really, but I was very good at it. I don’t remember falling. I just kind of got it. Pinky, Carlos and I went down to the little welcome center type thing to get lollipops once. I don’t remember much, except for that we didn’t get lollipops, or maybe we did, and apparently I was almost hit by an incoming trailer.
I first took medication there, too. I took it with peanut butter, but then one day it just stopped, no more medication with peanut butter, and life went on.
I tried to hit Pinky with my plastic toddler sized picnic table once. He was mean, as previously mentioned. He punched it, and it hit my nose. I was very upset.
There was a pool there, too. We’d go most days, and I vaguely remember there being a small playground there too. Right next to the pool. I remember the pool being drained once, cutting my big toe on the pavement there another time. I didn’t often wear shoes then.
One time, I wanted to help make dinner, so I tried to peel potatoes with a butter knife. I sliced part way through my thumb. It didn’t bleed, and I don’t remember it hurting, but I’m sure that I gave my mother quite a scare.
I didn’t realize that it was a trailer park until long after we moved out. It was just my neighborhood. The near identical little houses, as I thought of them, with the other kids, and the fun we had. The little poles with the overhanging thing right outside our door, like the high school has at the front doors, and a spider web, made by a spider so small that it could barely be seen, that we had to catch in the sunlight to make sure we didn’t walk into. It was nice. Things were simpler then.
No phones, not really, at least, most of the day spent outside, playing with other kids. We enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Even with the spiders, and the alligators in the lakes and rivers, and the bugs that could be poisonous so we just never touched any of them. That was my neighborhood. It was nice. Enjoyable. Warm.