My first memory was a dream. I can only guess that I was at least three, but I'm certain I was less than five. And I can only deduct that it was my first memory.
One night, I dreampt I was flying.
I was gliding above our house. Soaring over the yard, of green grass, so thick and so tall it was hard to pull your foot free of it. The wind was blowing to beat the band. I looked down on the peach tree, the clothes line, and some building called the garage, although we couldn't get in there.
Then Mom came outside, yelling for me. I didn't it know it then, but I later learned that she always talked to herself when she was looking for us, she say it over and over, “God, I'm going to kill 'em.” In the dream she looked up and saw me flying around. She shielded her eyes from the sun. I heard yell, “That's great! Keep flying!”, and she ran back into the house.
Now, I know we didn't have a phone. Nor did we ever make a trip to a neighbors house to use a phone. But she went back into that house and made a phone call. You could do that when you were young. If you wanted something bad enough, sometimes it would just appear, so why not a phone for a grown-up, who needed grown-up things.
Soon, a car came driving up to the house, a trail of dust following it for miles. A strange man got out, which was no surprise because I didn't know the car either. He started taking pictures of me right away with a Jimmy Olsen style camera with the big flash bulbs. He was a reporter from the big newspaper in town, way down the hard road. After he took a lot of pictures of me posing in mid-glide, eyes focused ahead, as my will to fly shooting out of my eyes was the only thing that keep me afloat. Then we started waving me down. “That's great kid. Come on down so I can talk to you.”
I started down, but I lost control. I couldn't land; I tried to go back up, but I couldn't. I was free falling. And I woke up, terrified.
This dream gave me an awareness of my first house. The first house my mom lived in that ever had electricity. It was house that had a name. Although, it's been torn down and plowed under for years that corner of the field is still called, The Old Hurie House. The grass of it's yard, which bordered an oil road out front and three straight hard lines of open field all around it.
I still think fondly of peach trees and peaches, despite this other memory. Mom had just finished baking a peach pie from that tree. She set in the the middle of the kitchen table to cool. She ordered me not to get into it. I don't remember getting into pies before, and I don't remember where she'd set them before, but I do remember thinking: this, middle of the table spot was new, and designed to make it impossible for me to dig my hand into it and start eating away like Yogi Bear.
It did pose a problem; I knew I couldn't reach it. The other problem would take care of itself. It always did. Any time I wanted to do something my mom didn't want me to do, she would, sooner or later, invite me to do it. She'd leave me alone. And then she'd even start making noise, to assure me that she'd be away for quite some time. That when I pulled one of the chairs out. Climbed up into it; stood up and turned around; and climbed up onto the table.
Yes, I was going to get into this pie and have something good. If you wanted something bad enough it would happen. I could take several hand fulls out of it and the crust would look good as new if I really, really wanted to eat some it now. That's the way things were.
I was crawling out to the middle of the table when the middle fell to the floor and ends came flying up over my head. The racket was incredibly loud. The pie broke. And I was hurt.
Mom stormed in. She started crying and then she grabbed me. The don't remember the other times this happened, but I remember I knew what to expect. I was going to get a beating. They were always the same: intense heat; soon I'd be standing in a fire with flames over my head. And I would run! Run, run as if I willed it I could run straight up a wall of flame that was taller than my head. I never gave thought about it being impossible, or that I'd always failed before, I just knew that I had to try. After all, this was still of age before consequence and the laws of physics, this was the stage the age of magic and wonder.
Time still didn't make much sense. Maybe it was hours later, or minutes later that Dad came home. We always ate supper as soon as Dad came home. But tonight, when Dad got home he was greeted by mom yelling. And then Dad started yelling at me. I know I couldn't always hear what they were saying because the heat radiating off them scared the senses right out of me. Dad grabbed me and I started running for that wall of flame for all I was worth.
Afterwards, I remember watching Dad work on the table. There was no getting around it; he had to fix it before we could eat. I remember thinking, how can he possibly fix that broken thing. And I remember thinking, no matter how much he wants that table to fix itself and no matter how much we all want to eat right now; it's not going to happen until Dad gets the table fixed. I truly felt sorry for him.
If that had been my first memory I don't think I'd be so keen on peaches. Or anyone ever being proud of me.
Nearly thirty some years later I wrote a poem about that dream. I was talked into burning it, by some second ex-wife, and now I try to reassemble it:
A howling kite's take of human soul
A clothesline hung from a peaches hall
and the Justice Department
eats grilled cheese sandwiches.
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