Entry tags:
Me and the Devil Blues
Not long after I turned six, my family moved from near the centre of Cary (the old, brick-paved, small-town bit, not the sprawling suburban monstrosity it was just then starting to become) to what I like to call the county’s ‘country fringe’. That is, the area just a few miles beyond any town limits, about equidistant from Cary and Apex, a landscape of small farms and patchy woodlands—now, sadly, completely engulfed by the cancer that is Cary. Our little neighbourhood (seven houses, as I recall), included just one functional farm; one family kept horses, and another cows, but not for a living. About half of the residents were just suburban escapees like us.
I remember meeting Nicki at some sort of neighbourhood get-together shortly after we moved in. She was lean and aggressive, with a boyish haircut. I wasn’t sure, at first, if she was a boy or a girl (I remember wondering; I don’t remember caring). She was tall and a year older than me or anyone else, and she clearly called all the shots in that tumbling cluster of children; I was intimidated, intrigued. I couldn’t guess what her first impression of me was, but she soon took me under her spiky wing. The first time we went blackberrying, she showed me how to rub a certain plant on my arms and legs to keep the ticks off (I remember that day vividly: the tick I found on my belly that evening was the first I’d ever seen, and freaked me out something terrible). Still, we were fast friends.
We went to separate schools, but we saw each other often, as we and our younger siblings were the only available playmates in the neighbourhood. (The above-mentioned get-together was the first and last time I would see some of the other kids who lived there; the ones who lived in the big grey house with the row of pines and the spools out front, who no one ever saw and who reportedly went to bed at five o’clock.) I was a dreamy, contemplative child—living then, as I do now, mostly wrapped up inside my head. Nicki’s sharp, sparking energy fascinated me. She was bright-eyed and brassy; bold; confident; a bit brash and mischievous, and a thoroughly bad influence; a real Tom Sawyer. Every child ought to have such a friend, maybe. [On second thought, maybe not. As Tricksters go, Nicki was much more of a Loki than a Tom Sawyer. I mean, we're sure Tom Sawyer had a good heart; I'm not so sure about Nicki.]
Her little sister, Amy (a right Sid, but nice enough), was my age, and played with my little sister at girly games of dolls or whatever, while Nicki and I romped through the woods, adventuring. She was domineering, I was passive; I mostly followed her lead, objecting only if I felt particularly strongly about something. When Hurricane Fran blew half the forest down into tangled jungle of ready-made ‘forts’, “her” fort (a jumbled mass of leafy, springy logs, with one that could bounce up and down) was a little ways behind her house; “my” fort (an old, wide-branched tree artistically corpsed against a few young, straight ones—a steady, open design, and oft frequented by raccoons) was on the dry, relatively open slope in the woods midway between our houses (which stood at the ends of two perpendicular spurs of road); “our” fort—the best fort, tri-level, almost fully enclosed, with two low nests and a crow’s-nest for a lookout—was directly behind my house. But no matter. It was the best, that’s why it was ‘ours’.
My flatmate told me recently that some people are born to lead, and others to follow [and that that’s why Anarchism wouldn’t work—don’t get me started]. It’s an interesting, if oft-repeated idea. Was Nicki born to lead, and I to follow? Yet from the time I was small adults often picked me out as having ‘leadership qualities’; but I’m sure that’s only because I was quite precocious, and a bit bossy towards everyone but Nicki. I guess that’s how a lot of people think of leadership: as dominance and followers, the alpha and his pack. But at fourteen I learned—painfully enough—that leadership does not necessarily entail dominance; that, in fact, really good leadership is quite the opposite: enabling all members of the group to use their own best qualities or voice their opinions for the good of all. All in all a much better, but much more difficult sort of leadership. I’m glad I got cut down, though I am still trying to build up that lost confidence—however I suspect it was not really confidence to begin with, but a brazen desire for power, which is something else entirely.
But I digress. The year after the hurricane, when I was ten, we moved again, to a similar sort of neighbourhood a few miles away. The new place had loads of skinks—a favourite critter to chase—and a multitude of toads, worm snakes and tree frogs. But there were no other children. I’d thought that Nicki and I might keep in touch, but our relationship was never based on talking, and our parents didn’t have much time to arrange for visits. I saw her just a few more times after I left. We drifted apart amazingly quickly, I think within the year.
The last time I saw her, I was 12, and she was 13. We were just passing through and dropped by for a quick visit; I saw her only briefly as she was hurrying out to some appointment. She was wearing makeup. Not much, but makeup: her eyelids shimmered pale lavender over lashes softly coated with mascara; her lips were glossy, and parted in surprise when she saw me—but she was just on her way out, going to be late, glad to see you, sorry she had to go. I wondered, as I still do, what had happened to her. Had the androgynous Pan-child I knew finally submitted to the social pressures of femininity, and perhaps even to her devout Baptist parents? Had that Lost Boy found the Christian Flock? I may never find out.
I’m not sure I really want to find out (though I’ve just searched both Facebook and MySpace). I haven’t spoken to Nicki in years, but I think about her often. She’s become like a trope in my thought-life. Which, if I still knew her, if she were still a “real” person to me, would be a bit strange.
I remember meeting Nicki at some sort of neighbourhood get-together shortly after we moved in. She was lean and aggressive, with a boyish haircut. I wasn’t sure, at first, if she was a boy or a girl (I remember wondering; I don’t remember caring). She was tall and a year older than me or anyone else, and she clearly called all the shots in that tumbling cluster of children; I was intimidated, intrigued. I couldn’t guess what her first impression of me was, but she soon took me under her spiky wing. The first time we went blackberrying, she showed me how to rub a certain plant on my arms and legs to keep the ticks off (I remember that day vividly: the tick I found on my belly that evening was the first I’d ever seen, and freaked me out something terrible). Still, we were fast friends.
We went to separate schools, but we saw each other often, as we and our younger siblings were the only available playmates in the neighbourhood. (The above-mentioned get-together was the first and last time I would see some of the other kids who lived there; the ones who lived in the big grey house with the row of pines and the spools out front, who no one ever saw and who reportedly went to bed at five o’clock.) I was a dreamy, contemplative child—living then, as I do now, mostly wrapped up inside my head. Nicki’s sharp, sparking energy fascinated me. She was bright-eyed and brassy; bold; confident; a bit brash and mischievous, and a thoroughly bad influence; a real Tom Sawyer. Every child ought to have such a friend, maybe. [On second thought, maybe not. As Tricksters go, Nicki was much more of a Loki than a Tom Sawyer. I mean, we're sure Tom Sawyer had a good heart; I'm not so sure about Nicki.]
Her little sister, Amy (a right Sid, but nice enough), was my age, and played with my little sister at girly games of dolls or whatever, while Nicki and I romped through the woods, adventuring. She was domineering, I was passive; I mostly followed her lead, objecting only if I felt particularly strongly about something. When Hurricane Fran blew half the forest down into tangled jungle of ready-made ‘forts’, “her” fort (a jumbled mass of leafy, springy logs, with one that could bounce up and down) was a little ways behind her house; “my” fort (an old, wide-branched tree artistically corpsed against a few young, straight ones—a steady, open design, and oft frequented by raccoons) was on the dry, relatively open slope in the woods midway between our houses (which stood at the ends of two perpendicular spurs of road); “our” fort—the best fort, tri-level, almost fully enclosed, with two low nests and a crow’s-nest for a lookout—was directly behind my house. But no matter. It was the best, that’s why it was ‘ours’.
My flatmate told me recently that some people are born to lead, and others to follow [and that that’s why Anarchism wouldn’t work—don’t get me started]. It’s an interesting, if oft-repeated idea. Was Nicki born to lead, and I to follow? Yet from the time I was small adults often picked me out as having ‘leadership qualities’; but I’m sure that’s only because I was quite precocious, and a bit bossy towards everyone but Nicki. I guess that’s how a lot of people think of leadership: as dominance and followers, the alpha and his pack. But at fourteen I learned—painfully enough—that leadership does not necessarily entail dominance; that, in fact, really good leadership is quite the opposite: enabling all members of the group to use their own best qualities or voice their opinions for the good of all. All in all a much better, but much more difficult sort of leadership. I’m glad I got cut down, though I am still trying to build up that lost confidence—however I suspect it was not really confidence to begin with, but a brazen desire for power, which is something else entirely.
But I digress. The year after the hurricane, when I was ten, we moved again, to a similar sort of neighbourhood a few miles away. The new place had loads of skinks—a favourite critter to chase—and a multitude of toads, worm snakes and tree frogs. But there were no other children. I’d thought that Nicki and I might keep in touch, but our relationship was never based on talking, and our parents didn’t have much time to arrange for visits. I saw her just a few more times after I left. We drifted apart amazingly quickly, I think within the year.
The last time I saw her, I was 12, and she was 13. We were just passing through and dropped by for a quick visit; I saw her only briefly as she was hurrying out to some appointment. She was wearing makeup. Not much, but makeup: her eyelids shimmered pale lavender over lashes softly coated with mascara; her lips were glossy, and parted in surprise when she saw me—but she was just on her way out, going to be late, glad to see you, sorry she had to go. I wondered, as I still do, what had happened to her. Had the androgynous Pan-child I knew finally submitted to the social pressures of femininity, and perhaps even to her devout Baptist parents? Had that Lost Boy found the Christian Flock? I may never find out.
I’m not sure I really want to find out (though I’ve just searched both Facebook and MySpace). I haven’t spoken to Nicki in years, but I think about her often. She’s become like a trope in my thought-life. Which, if I still knew her, if she were still a “real” person to me, would be a bit strange.