The years between the age of twelve and fourteen is the time I can remember best. It was the cusp between boyhood and manhood. Innocence vanished and every mark that was left on my soul was indelible. I would never be the same.
We were on e of the first families to move into our new neighborhood. It was a subdivision that was built on what had been a large walnut grove. It was the first house we owned. It was a modest garden style. My parents also bought a new Plymouth sedan, creamy with with large tail fins.
My neighborhood was made up of families buying their first home on the GI bill. They certainly were not wealthy, and more often that not they were living from paycheck to paycheck. The Humbles lived across the street. Dwayne and Ernest were my age. Big boned with sandy blond hair, misshapen mouths and dull eyes, they had just moved to southern California from Missouri. Their size, not their wit, made them formidable. Every Sunday the Humbles would picnic in their front yard after church. My father, who never had any use for anyone unfortunate enough to be born south of Ohio and west of Illinois, said the Humbles had their picnics in the front yard to prove they could afford food. Strict members in the Church of Christ denomination, Ernest pulled me aside one day to tell me my parents were going to burn in hell for eternity. Their sin...drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes. The idea of losing my parents in a scene of death and fire confused and terrified me. Walking from Jefferson School one day I saw the brothers and with no warning I ran after and wrestled down the younger brother Dwayne. I fought blindly but the fury and rage helped me outlast the bigger boy. Outside of a few bruises and a scrape on my cheek the match did not change anything.
Later on that year one of the Humble boys threw a stick in the spokes of my bicycle tires. I fell in a heap and ended up with a concussion. Whenever I got into trouble later in life, my mother would always bring up the concussion. "Do you remember when that neighborhood boy threw that stick into your bike spokes and you fell? You got a terrible concussion. Sometimes I think you've never been the same since." For me, I've never met a Dwayne I liked. They all look like Dwayne Humble.
Another family moved on our street, the Delachellos. They were members of St. Thomas parish, but my father didn't want to have anything to do with them. I went to school with their youngest son, Frankie. Mr. Delachello moved to the United States from Italy at the end of the war and he spoke with a very broken Italian accent. His passion was gardening and he worked in his yard for hours on end. He wore, what we would call today a "wife-beater" tee shirt, and he rolled up his khaki shorts and fashioned a "hat" made from a wet handkerchief that he knotted up at the ends. The image of him in his yard was so foreign it looked like they had dropped his house in Italy onto our neighborhood.
I liked Mr. Delachello. I really didn't understand why my father disliked him. But as resentments are prone to do, they surface, for no apparent reason, at the the most inappropriate times. The blowup began to brew at a summer camp class at Jefferson School. The guys on my block were asked to come up with a project we could work on for "parent's day" at the end of the camp. We decided that we would do a skit about a battle in World War ll. We would split our group in half, choose sides, dress up in old uniforms and run around shooting each other. No script. But we would have an adult help us to become crack soldiers. And that was when Mr. Delachello got involved. He became the adult "advisor" to the group. Mr. Delachello organized practices, showed us how to dress properly, and shaped us into credible soldiers. In my excitement I told my father what we were doing. Oh God, that was not a good idea. He wanted to come to practice to make sure we were being "trained" properly. You couldn't believe the look on his face when he walked into practice and found out our "advisor" was Mr. Lenny Delachello. Dad began contradicting Mr Delachello at every turn. The practice labored on as dad tried to show us how "real" soldiers acted. The rehearsal became an ideological battlefield that strained under the weight of two generals; Mr. Axis versus Mr. Allies.
The day of the presentation quickly arrived. When it finally took place all preparation when out the window as we began acting like we were...kids. We were giggling and laughing refusing to fall down when shot. It was a blast. My father was predictably livid and blamed the fiasco on "that Goddamn Delachello." He ranted, "who the hell does he think he is claiming he can make my kid into a soldier." So that was what it was all about. Twelve years removed from World War ll and my father was still living it. And with his help it was playing itself out, albeit controversy, in the protected confines of California suburbia. The Allies versus the Axis powers. Fascism versus democracy. Mussolini versus Eisenhower. When it was all over and I was sitting in our driveway, all I could say was "Dad, we were just playing."
I never heard a sober word about "the war" again. The only time it came up was on weekends when my father came home drunk. He told my friends he taught "dirty fighting" in the "war" and he was going to show us how weak we were. What started out as instructional always became combative. "Come on you guys you"re young and tough, hit me." It quickly degenerated, " you're soft, tough guys," " you can't beat an old guy?" My mother would end up in the middle cushioning blows my father meant for me. The scene played out repeatedly like a slow mantra. My father struggled, spent, and muttering something unintelligible. Mom collapsed in a heap on the floor. My father passed out. I sat bruised, hating that man, stifling my rage and hoping he would die. I was thirteen years old.
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