Boys Bleed

My 4th birthday was uneventful until my Father arrived home from Fort Devens. There were presents. I remember two of the presents.

One was a Fisher-Price educational toy that consisted of a plastic weighing balance with weights in the shapes of digits. The weight of each digit was proportional to its value. So you could learn adding by discovering that 2 and 3, for example, exactly balanced 1 and 4, but not 8 and 9.

One was a Raggedy Ann doll. I really despised that one. It looked like an evil witch to me. I hated her almost as much as "Teddy", the bear my Dad gave me on my first birthday, the birthday that by now was a nightmare best forgotten.

I didn't get long to play with the presents because my parents said that for another present they were taking me out to a nice dinner. The self-serving aspect was obvious to even to me, the 4 year-old. But I shrugged it off, knowing that I was going to be leaving for Hawaii. Or half of me was.

My Mother was slow getting ready. She had to "put on her face." So Dad and I went out alone to the car. He got in the driver's seat. I slid into the back seat from the right side. Alaka'i assumed control, and said, in Hawaiian, a short speech he had composed and memorized. The gist of it was, "Father, though we have had our difficulties, you are an honorable man. So it is right I tell you I leave now for Hawaii. Keiki Kona will stay, so you won't be losing a son. I am sorry to have to leave, but since we can't get along, this is for the best for both of us."

Alaka'i's idea was that he would give the speech first in Hawaiian to give my Father an opportunity to show off his knowledge of that "beautiful language", and then, only if necessary, translate. Translating became urgent when my Father turned red and screamed, "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK LIKE THAT! YOU SPEAK ENGLISH AND SPEAK IT NOW!" He jumped out of the front seat and ran around to the passenger side of the car.

So Alaka'i said, quickly, in plain English, "I'm going back to Hawaii. Goodbye, Daddy."

As the words left my mouth, Dad was at the passenger-side back door and hauled me out. He shouted, "YOURE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! YOU'RE NOT TALKING TO ME LIKE THAT! NO KID OF MINE IS TALKING TO ME LIKE THAT!"

My Mother walked up, face intact, in time to hear that and see him draw his fist back and give me a roundhouse punch on the left side of my head. The force threw me to the ground, where my right temple struck a large rock jutting up from the earth.

I sprang to my feet immediately and ran from my parents around the front of the carand south along the long driveway in front of the house toward Leominster Road. I would escape yet running that way. I got about 100 feet and felt a wetness and heard my Mother scream "LOOK AT THE BLOOD! HE'S GOING TO DIE!"

I thought she couldn't mean me. I was alright. I stopped and turned around to see who was going to die. When I looked back I noticed out the corner of my right eye that a fountain of blood was striking the dirt to that side. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized it was my fountain of blood, from my temple.

My mother had been bringing the dog Koko out to go with us. She was preparing to put him on a leash. In the excitement he got free and ran toward me. He ran up and found the puddle of blood that I was creating, and he began lapping it up.

My Mother couldn't take the sight of that. She could demand my Father kill me, over and over again, but she couldn't deal with anything as gross as the dog licking up my blood. I can't complain. I'm alive today because of her revulsions.

She started yelling at the dog now. "You horrible, horrible, animal! Get away!"

She ran up to us and chased Koko away from me, just as I dropped to my knees dizzy from the loss of blood. I said, "Please don't hurt him. Let him drink, he's just a dog, he doesn't understand." At the same time I saw the car's tires spin gravel out as my Father drove off by himself, and turned back once more to see him leaving.

The car with my Father driving passed Koko, who was by now twenty feet from my Mother and I. Koko was standing there looking back at me and my Mother, and she yelled at him, "GET AWAY, YOU MONSTER!" and he ran off at top speed in the direction of the receding car as if in obedience.

I was left alone with my Mother. I passed out, relieved at the thought that I was dying, and that Koko had also gotten away.