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There was another family living in the cellar, way to the back, separated by a long, gray hallway. I cannot recall ever seeing adults, but there was a boy who appeared sporadically. He appeared to be about my age. We interacted occasionally; but uncertain what games or activities filled our limited time together. And always at my end of the canyon. Most likely some board game. He invited me to visit his living quarters, which felt faraway and shadowy. I’m not sure which I feared most, being absorbed into nothingness, kidnapped, or breaking some unspoken rule.
He waved back from the end of a corridor hidden in the shadows, each side of the walkway stacked with tan cardboard boxes. Lives packed away. “Come on back.,” he encouraged. I couldn’t move, searching for some reasonable excuse to avoid his invitation. I just could not proceed, frozen by the unknown. The power of the unknown often held me back. I wave and exit to the known.
I broke THE cardinal rule; once. I wandered outside, alone, walking down the street inside a valley of row houses. I don’t recall the how or why, but here I was strolling along, checking things out. Buildings were side by side, with an occasional break just wide enough for a single individual to navigate. A pathway to the unfamiliar, some sinister secret space.
For the moment, it all felt right. It did, at least until I hear, “Keith Edward Maynard! What do you think you are doing?” There was no acceptable reply that would change my immediate future. I turned back toward her and froze. In her hand was the dreaded wooden spoon. I despised that wooded spoon! As the distance closed between us, the begging began, “no, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again, please no,” the inevitable, steps away. I broke the number one rule: never go outside the building. I was doing my best, begging, trying my best to produce a tear or two, but she arrived, grabbed an arm, and reminded me of the rule with a swat every single step back to the corral. “Never go outside the building.”
Why does it seem so oddly quiet? Keith was inside the apartment or just outside the apartment door, playing some board game with his friend from the adjacent apartment. He would never wander off.
“Keith?” I call. No reply.
Looked outside our doorway, “Keith?” again nothing.
Keith was obedient, compliant. He was not a wanderer; he knows the rules. Where could my 4-year-old son possibly be? I thought, slowly realizing something was amiss. As fear gripped me, panic rose, mixed with anger. The adrenaline rush washed over me, stole my breath, raised my heart rate and heighten my anxiety. Doubled checked the apartment, the hallway, my mind imagining the worst.
“KEITH, where are you?”
Quickly, bounding up the stairs, exiting the building, looking left, then right. Temporally blinded by the sun. There he was! He was strolling along, not a care in the world. With wooden spoon in hand, I charged down the sidewalk and yelled, “Keith Edward Maynard!”
“Keith, what do you think you are doing?” Trust me, this is one rule you will not break a second time. Swat, step, step-step, swat….
“Stop, please, stop.” Tears form as I plead in vain. I hear words but, they make no sense. I feel pain, that I understand.
Add to my duties, disciplinarian.
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