The Move (4/73)

Jack was a broad intimidating man. 6 foot 5 inches and at least 250 pounds with greasy jet black hair and even blacker eyes. He was vulgar, had no manners and acted as if he owned the world. Even though I was a young child I knew there was something just not right about him. It was something I could sense being around him but who would listen to the rantings of a 5-year-old child, surely not my mother. All she could see at that moment in her life was him. Jack had captured her heart and her complete undivided attention.

After the hockey game their relationship moved rather quickly. Almost immediately my mother stopped playing the field and was not seeing anyone but Jack. All her free moments spent with him. It became routine for me to see him at my kitchen table in his boxers with his big old belly hanging out, drinking coffee on Saturday and Sunday mornings as I ate my Fruit Loops. Soon those weekend mornings became weekday mornings too and then every morning.

Jack moved in with us at the beginning of spring that year. To all around it looked like my mother had finally settled down with her daughter, their dog, a new man and now they were moving into a house together as a family on the upper east side. It was a big older house with a huge back yard for my dog fluffy and I to play in. It took 2 long days for us to get completely moved in but we finally did with the help of family and friends. By the time we finished on the second day it was quite late at night. The house was in shambles, as to be expected. I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open when my mother decided to make up the sofa for me to sleep on for the night. After tucking me in she walked over to the front door to locked the dead bolt and chain for the night. Before leaving the room she turned back to me and asked me to wake her in the morning when I got up and not to under any circumstances go outside of the house. With in moments of her turning out the light I was fast asleep with my puppy cuddled up right beside me.

The next morning when I woke up nobody was awake. The house was silent. Instead of heading into my mother’s room to wake her up as she asked I headed into the kitchen to look for some breakfast. I soon became disappointed as everything was still packed and there was no breakfast to be found anywhere. So then I decided to go turn the TV on, but that did not end any better than the search for breakfast did. I pulled every knob and pushed every button on the TV but it would not turn on for me.

As I sat in front of the TV disappointed with the world I had remembered I had $5.00 in my jacket pocket from the day before. I then thought about how mother locked the door the night before but then realized that the chain on the front door was to high for me to reach all on my own.