Fragment: At A Trailer Park

When I was 5 or 6, my family briefly lived in a trailer park in southern New Mexico. I don’t remember why we were living there. Probably to run away from something or someone, usually bill collectors or repo men. It was easier to do that back then.

I was outside playing with the neighborhood kids. We ran around and raised hell. At some point we rested at one of those big, wooden picnic tables at the center of the courtyard. We talked for a while and began busting each other’s balls. One of the kids took it a little too far and began cruelly insulting the others. He turned his attention to me, called me names, made fun of my family. He jumped on top of the table and put his feet in my face. The anger welled up inside me and I saw stars. I couldn’t take the abuse anymore. I grabbed his ankles and yanked as hard as I could. The kid’s body slammed against the picnic table, and he made a loud thunk sound on impact–a sound that sound still resonates inside me to this day.

I guess I hurt him pretty bad because he started crying, tears ran down his face; his cheeks turned bright red. He wailed and wailed. Snot bubbled from his nose. The door to a nearby trailer swung open, and a big, balding man came storming over to us. It was the kid’s dad. The dad grabbed his wailing son and yelled at me to go home.

I don’t know why that kid’s dad didn’t hit me. It was one of those places at one of those times, and I suppose others in that milieu wouldn’t have thought much of a grown man beating a child, had the child deserved it. Maybe he knew my dad and didn’t want to start any trouble. Can’t say one way or the other. Can’t really say why I wonder about it at all.

Nothing came of it. I never played with those kids again. Soon after, we moved back to Texas. I guess the coast was clear.