A Man Named Dave

subject. “I don’t understand. I –”
    “Don’t act so naive. The woman who visited the house, when your mother dressed you up and paraded you around, I know all about it. And who do you think purchased that bike of yours that last Christmas before you were taken away? Your mother sure as hell didn’t do it, I can tell you that! She had new bicycles for all the boys, except Kevin; he was too young. Your mother said she simply forgot to get one for you, and by the time she remembered, well, she was over budget. Or so she said. I didn’t have to get you one, you know. I paid for it in more ways than you could know.”
    I was overcome with shock. Of all people, my grandmother, who had just adamantly stated, “What happens in someone’s house should stay in their house,” was the one who initially called the authorities. As I sat in front of her, I could not believe my ears.
    I remembered that bike, too. As a child in Mother’s house, my only possessions were the ragged clothes that I had washed by hand in the basement sink. Even though I was allowed to ride the candy apple red Murray bicycle only a couple of times that winter, the thrill of freedom was still phenomenal. I had no idea; I had always thought, that Christmas of 1972, Mother, out of kindness, had broken down and purchased the bicycle.
    I smiled and thanked Grandmother for calling social services. But then Grandmother, like everyone else, had always known how I was treated. On one visit Grandmother found me standing in front of the bedroom mirror yelling at myself, “I’m a bad boy! I’m a bad boy!” over and over again. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I had confessed how sorry I was for making Mommy upset. Another time Grandmother, the overly stern disciplinarian, had cupped my face with both her hands, saying, “You’re the sorriest child I ever met! Quit feeling so sorry for yourself and do something about it!” At the time I didn’t know that what was happening to me was wrong – I simply thought I was a bad boy.
    Although I had an impulse to reach out and hug Grandmother for all the times she had silently helped me, I held back. Still not one word of compassion or sorrow had escaped Grandmother’s lips about the past. She never showed or expressed to me any remorse about Father’s death, what my brothers had been put through, or whatever I had suffered by the hands of her own daughter. Maybe, I thought, from Grandmother’s point of view, life was full of suffering. You couldn’t engage in self-pity, but rather had to do whatever you could to get out of bad circumstances, no matter how young. And, I guessed, you became hardened from the process.
    What had made Grandmother the way she was? What was it that had hardened her heart? In her day, I assumed, she had to be rigid just to survive the times. However spiteful she may be, at least she was a self-reliant adult.
    Maybe after dedicating a majority of her adult life fighting just to survive as a widow, while raising two children, she was worn down and fed up with how hard life could be. Perhaps that was one of the reasons Father advised me, before I enlisted in the air force, when I had brought up my childhood: “You’d be better off forgetting about it. The whole thing. It never happened.” At that time I thought Father was ordering me to sweep the family secret under the rug. But maybe he was protecting me from taking on a lost cause. Maybe that’s why Father had become a broken man. As much as he might have tried, his efforts were futile. That might be the reason, I assumed, why Grandmother always referred to the past as Pandora’s box – once opened, uncontrollable agony of human suffering would follow. And in the end nothing would change. The back of my head began to throb from the overload. Maybe, I told myself, I just think too much.
    “Well,” I announced as I stood up, stretching my legs, “I’m off to see Russell. I should only be gone a couple of hours.”
    “Oh no, you’re not!” Grandmother said. “You’re not to go there. I don’t want you seeing her.”
    “It’s okay, Grandma,” I calmly corrected, thinking she had misunderstood. “I’m not going to see Mother. I’m only going to see Russell. It’s all worked out; Mother won’t know. It’s okay, honest,” I reassured her.
    “You’re not to see her. I forbid it!” Grandmother choked up. “You’re not here. Ron’s away. Nobody knows; I’m all alone. All she does is call – all the time, night and day. I’m surprised she hasn’t phoned