My Childhood Memories Essay Example
I was a lost boy, one that was always searching the world high and low, looking for someone to keep me company inside an empty house. Tinker-bell supplied my mother with pixy dust everyday to sprinkle on Lonnie, so he can fly like Peter-pan. Captain Hook became the evil spirit inside of Javier, who always tried to ruin our fun. As for my dad, he loved Wendy more than us, so we spent most of our days in Neverland. In every boy's childhood, there comes a best friend within their lifetime. Although their body will wither away, and their spirit carries on, as long as we write down our memories together, it will help us remember what we will never want to forget.
Always Remember The Good
Only 11 months apart, and practically looking like twins when we dressed alike, the Registered Nurses at Rady Children’s Hospital called Lonnie and I, the Irish twins. We are 90’s babies, that grew up on transformers, video games, and each-others time. Although our days were numbered, they were savored just like any other ordinary day from the book of our adolescent years. Mother would be in the kitchen frying us pancakes in her blue pajamas, only this time she left the pancakes on the stove. She vacated the restroom, and I knew since the door barged open. Beep, beep, beep!
The fire alarm sounded, as black smoke fumigated the atmosphere causing it to smell like burnt tires inside our small yellow cottage home in North Park, San Diego.. “Wina, what did you do now?,” verbalized Javier. “It looks like you set the house on fire,” he further implied. Mom’s boyfriend, Javier, walked outside the house that same instant for his usual shenanigans. Usually, he strolled over to the neighbors house to speak about his prison experiences, or was conspiring to earn some income by participating in anything simple. His head was shiny like a lightbulb, due to a skinned cut, and wore baggy loose Levi’s jeans, had a pair of brown Lugz boots, with tattoos covering his arms. Most importantly, Javier was not Javier without a buttoned up short-sleeved shirt.
He was a light skinned man with green eyes, like the hispanic version of the “Green-Goblin.” And us Irish twins? Usually sitting on the big comfy couch, with our faces glued to the screens of our Gameboy Advance SP. I owned the game called “Pokémon Emerald,” but the variation between mine and his, was that Lonnie’s game called “Pokémon Sapphire,” had Kyogre as the legendary Pokémon. Click, click, click, click! Buttons after buttons were pressed, until you were prompted to read the large text stating “Torchic fainted.” The fingers of our hands would cramp, and slip from the buttons when pressing them, due to our sweaty palms and preoccupied minds concentrated on attack combinations.
Our harmonized motions of finger pressing had sometimes overlapped to repetitively sound like typing, or a bootlegged pencil beat from tapping on a desk. Damn I was amateur at gaming, and Lonnie knew it too, since he smirked. Oftentimes his teeth would show, revealing the gap of his crooked smile, and his brown eyes would have tears of joy. “My Treeko is already level 28!,” Lonnie exhaled with hot breath. The kid was a better gamer than I, hands down; I mean he anticipated to sit for hours, and would only stop playing when it was bedtime, or when he wanted to wipe the sweat off his hands. “Give me a baby wipe,” he yelped while feeling accomplished. I sighed, “Yup, OCD watermelon looking as..” “Tino watch your mouth!” As mother passed by, she shouted at me to cut me off. “Hahaha! You’re a dumbass,” elaborated obnoxious Lonnie.
Mom said nothing, as she handed us our burnt pancakes on a plate with dried soap scum on it. Lonnie grunted, “This looks gross, I’m not eating it.” Naturally, our taste buds were sensitive to our keen eyes of discomfort, causing the atrocious dissent stemming from our nostrils. Mom would always say, “Eat it or starve.” It humbled us, since we learned to consume everything, or at least attempted to. My mom enables my brother to slide on thick ice with his rude remarks, and curse words like an ice skater doing figure eights. Probably because Lonnie was then first-born, but his only defense mechanism was his mouth, after all he was paralyzed. The boy’s long dark curly hair, and dark-brown skin made his smile more pleasant to look at, so mom would let him off the hook after her heart melted. But don’t let him fool you! He had devious ways, and I too had embarked on those adventures with him as well.
Creating Mischief
The misadventures of the newton brothers, is what I would call our mischievous activities. Oddly enough, Lonnie and I had both woken up on the wrong side of the bed, in a foul mood. After speculating the world around us, we urged to disrupt the peace of the neighborhood around our peach apartments in North Park, California. I clenched my hands onto the handles of Lonnie’s power-chair, and placed my feet just above the back wheels so I can ride as a passenger. The sun was at its highest peak of the day when we found our first victim in our game of “Chair-patrol.” “Lonnie, circle around one more time!,” I blurted. Centrifugal force almost caused me to whiplash off of his chair when he did a quick donut to head back in the opposite direction. “Ok Tino!,” uttered a soft voice in innocence.
There he was, posted outside on the porch of our neighbors house, the soon to be victim, Javier. “What are we going to do Tino?,” Lonnie said as he jolted to a complete stop. I glanced at the center mole above his nose, then I spake, “Wait here, when I’m done, I’m going to hop on your wheelchair as you speed away as fast as you can!” Ding! A lightbulb lit up above my head as I hatched an idea. I called out Javiers name as he was conversing with the neighbor Bob, who was standing dead center of the doorway to his torn-down blue apartment. Ironically, he appeared as Bob the builder, since he wore blue jeans, and a simple plaid t-shirt. The old pale man resembled Santa Claus's beard of snow, and his hair was as white as salt.
Apparently, they had been exchanging cigarettes, since I witnessed Javier took a drag of his newly sparked Newport 100, and passed it to Bob like a blunt. “I’m talking to someone. It’s rude to interrupt adults, and you cannot be around smoke,” Javier told me as he exhaled a cloud like dragons breath. Immediately I said “Shove it up your as..” Beep, Beep! Lonnie’s horn on his power-chair had honked, so I hadn’t completed the words I was eager to speak. “Hurry up Tino!,” Lonnie hollered at me.
Javier pivoted his head in an angry gesture to remind Lonnie ``Keep being disrespectful and I’ll tell your mom to ground you!” Genius! I thought to myself that this diversion was perfect for our deviant act. Right beside me was a garden containing a three-foot plant, holding a single tomato perfectly colored the shade of bright red, it was round, ripe, and plump. Quickly, I plucked the tomato. Snap! The sound alarmed both Javier and Bob the builder to look towards my direction as I began sprinting towards Lonnie’s power-chair for the clean getaway. The stem was all that was left in his garden, as it wilted in a leftward direction. It looked like a green vine, crippled and drooping in pain. “You damn kids, I’m going to call the police,” shouted Bob from his doorway. Javier quickly apologized, “I’m sorry, these kids never know how to behave. I’m tired of them.
Give back the tomato Tino!” I looked back at the dismantled faces of their furious rage. “Hahaha!,” I laughed as I tossed the tomato, like a suspect were to drop his possessions before getting a 4th-waiver search. Splat! The tomato was juiced all over the sidewalk, and was oozing like blood. The tomato saw the last of its days, as it melted in the sun. Lonnie was already riding down the block towards the house, so I caught up to him, and hopped on the back of his wheelchair to evade the heat of the crime. In the distance, you could hear them yelling gibberish. Who cares? We didn’t have our dad around, and when we lived with him, it was for a short time.
The Promise
The green sign read “Potomac Street,” and our home on that block was a downstairs two-bedroom apartment located in Paradise Hills, San Diego. To the front corner of our apartments, stood a storefront of a drive-in liquor market, with white jail gates that surrounded it. Recently, it had closed down, but that was predictable since the store owner “Ralphie” was not good with customer service. He scared a lot of customers away from his abnormal selling tactics and behaviors. Ralphie once told people, “Buy this beer and when you come back I’ll give you a discount.” Ralph-man was Chaldean, and always smelt like alcohol or cigarettes when he spoke. For goodness sake Ralphie, keep your shirt down! Is what I would think to myself, when he would try to show that he had a six pack.
Our Stepsister Charisma said “Ewww! He’s flabby!” Ordinarily, Lonnie, Charisma, and I would sit inside the family car for hours, it a white 2001 Jimmy with the grey interior. Anna, my Dad’s wife and Charisma's Mother, Maleficent, would step out of the SUV causing the ground to shake just to conversate with Raphie while my Father was working under the table as a stoker. “Apache!,” shouted my Dad. “Ahh!, Lonnie screamed. The loud shout had startled my brother, and caused my ear to twitch like when my Dad flicked my ear to get my attention. The truck had turned off, and the tinted windows were rolled up, so it was dark outside and the glass fogged up from our hot breath. Suddenly, the motion detector had set off the security lights, and a man’s footsteps had echoed throughout the drive-thru as if Michael Myers was skipping towards our car with a sharp knife in hand.
Clap! My Dad approached the man to greet him, as he gave him a firm handshake. The man appeared to be Indian, had dark skin, grey hair, and tribal braids, hence the reason why he got the name “Apache.” Yup, that’s what it’s like to live in the hood, and your dad is like the friendly neighborhood “Spider-Man.” Charisma was not always there, but when she was, she would bump the radio on max and jam to Paula Deanda. Rehearsing the lyrics, she once forced me to sing along with her to the song “Too Much.” “I’m leaving messages and voicemails telling you I miss you, baby am I doing too much?,” the radio played. Luckily, this was a different time, so we don’t have to recall that embarrassing moment. “When do you think we’ll be home Tino?,” Lonnie said irritatedly. I took a deep breath, as my dad said to his friends “I got to go home soon, so this is my last cigarette.”
Anna was a pet dog, she never spoke but when she did it was always irrelevant or simulated a bark. “I’m going to wait in the car with the kids,” Anna uttered under her breath. She opened the car door, and shook the car when she sat down. All the cold air rushed in, it felt like frostbite on our skin. Soon after, my dad did the same causing the steam to disappear completely. After we all clicked on our seatbelts, Anna started the car and bent the corner, to drive into our tan apartment complex. Soon after we settled in, a few hours were left for us to play outside. Zipping up and down the parking lot, the power-chair was sometimes too wide for the narrow gaps in between cars, but Lonnie was ruthless and did not mind scratching or scraping the paint.
The boy seriously needed a license, but it wasn’t a requirement. Skrrrt! Worse than a scrape or scratch was a baseball sized dent pounded into the left door panel of a Black Nissan Sentra SE. We both knew that we wouldn’t hear the end of the punishment for at least a month, so we immediately rushed home for bed, before getting accused of vandalism. That same night while San Diego slept, Lonnie and I were awake far past our bedtime. We shared a room that had four white painted walls, a dresser, twin beds standing side by side, and a ceiling full of glow in the dark stick-on stars.
The room light would always flicker on and off, we assumed it was due to a short fuse, just a simple mention of ghosts freaked-out Lonnie into hyperventilation. Laying in our bed while silently staring at the stars on the ceiling, my brother excreted a monotone voice “Tino are you awake?” I opened my eyes and looked over the shoulder to my right side, then voiced my thoughts,“Yes Lonnie.” An exhale of air from his lips rushed to my face like a gust of wind when the leaves danced. “Tino when I die, I’m going to touch you like this so that you know it’s me,” Lonnie whispered. He crawled his fixed fingers onto the skin of my arm and gently rubbed against my wrist. I was confused as to why he would tell me this, so I gazed at the ceiling. “Ok Lonnie, I will remember that,” I whispered. I know that humans are not immortal, and not everything in life goes according to plan, but only time would say otherwise.
Once Upon A San Diego
The big red bus we called it, only it was like a moving red LEGO block on wheels. Our shiny Red Ford F-250 Van with gray pin-striping across the circumference of the vehicle, was roomy. You could fall asleep on the seams of the benchlike seats. I remember resting my head, since unusual days like these always ended sweaty, or tiring. “There’s no parking” my Mother had announced, “We will circle around one more time, and then leave if there aren’t any spots.” Thump! I hit my head, after waking up to my mother’s voice, and when I rubbed my eyes; I began looking around. My Mother wasn’t very cautious when driving, and the backseat was full of springs. A simple speed bump will have you bouncing like a trampoline, and skyrocketing into the patted roof. We were still in the car, driving through the center of the San Diego Downtown Gaslamp District.
There we were, the family who looked like the mexican “Brady Bunch,” only the females dominated our family. Present was my brother Lonnie, my mother Justina, grandmother Terri, my uncle Bear, and younger sibling Peanut. It had nearly been an hour of just sitting in the van with windows rolled up, it was hot and humid; the typical San Diego weather. Just a glance around us, gleamed our eyes when looking outside the window, since there was so much commotion and live festivities. Comic-Con they called it, a once a summer event packed with thousands of people draped in make-up and decked out with costumes from head to toe. Lonnie was determined to get out of the vehicle, and experience the world beyond the home-setting.
Oh how a blessing it was to not become too dependent upon San Diego’s MTS system for personal assistance. We weren’t fond of the long bus rides, since the people on it always had unpleasant looks upon their faces, as if they were being tortured. Long waits for that small bus from year in and year out had tended to become physically draining and depressing; but it was more so for Lonnie who was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. “Ok Mom” he squealed, with a sorrowful look upon his sunlit face as he exhaled a breath of air from his ventilator.
Lonnie had been longing to go to Comic-Con, and the one year we had a chance, our internet server crashed when buying tickets. He dreamed of riding around inside, and obtaining a collectable weekend pass, though it never occurred. In just 60 seconds after the tickets were released, Comic-Con sold out. “If we don’t find parking then I’m sorry Lon, maybe next year,” replied my Mother in pity. After circling the Gaslamp District one last time, the van came to a complete stop at a red light. “What should we do?,” my mom mumbled. My Grandmother had then spun like a ballerina in the passenger seat, and announced “Don’t worry Lon, we’ll do something else today.” Despairingly, our day concluded with YouTube videos and carne Asada fries ordered from the Oscars taco shop in La Mesa, San Diego. As we began to head home; silence poured into the van as if one of the family members were about to ask “Who died?”
Lonnie’s An Angel
On the night of my brother's death, I laid in a cold sweat on top of my comfortable bed while praying out loud. I spoke in solidarity to God in the name of Jesus Christ. Instantly, I had a lucid vision of my brother's resurrection. A beam of light shined on my face, revealing Lonnie in transparency. He was taller than ever before, standing in a pure white gown, surrounded by the clouds of heaven, revived, and appearing very happy. I was blessed, and since we were both baptized on the same day, we are spiritually bonded through the Holy Spirit. I knew that this was my gift from God, to see into the spiritual realm while laying fully awake. The luminous light shined all around him, but his face was so clearly revealed, that I was blinded by the shining celestial occurrence.
His small round head with a mole in the center of his forehead poked out of the sky, the same smile with a gap in between his teeth that melts your heart every time sparkled a pearly white, his eyes was the color of amber like a glazed donut, and his black curly hair filling the scalp of his brown skin flowed shaggy in the wind. The vision only lasted 30 seconds, before it disappeared. I said to myself, “Am I trippin? No.” Overwhelming joy came upon me, and I began shaking as if I were naked in snow. Lonnie could stand! After spending his entire life inside a body with limited functions, He was an angel! Flying around with wings, so free and vibrant as a child who just learned to walk. My ignorant self tried to grab his hands one last time but I failed, since I’m not a spirit. I began balling my eyes out; I felt like we are separated by a million different dimensions. So I rolled over on my bed, and closed my eyes. “Rest In Peace big brother,” I gasped, as I drifted asleep.
His Spirit Lives On
Every thought of my best friend stings the pain of a thousand heartaches swelling over and over again, like a heart attack on a rainy day. My tears shower the floor with puddles of misery, and my clothes drench from the teardrops of a clown’s self-pity. What’s hard to fathom is that Lonnie left me behind on 10-23-2018, the day that my heart was ripped out of my chest, and my storybook is inked from my blood to begin a new chapter with anemia. My life experiences play like the movie clip of a well cherished Disney story, one that had become the living reality of my childhood. These are the memories that are killing me softly as I mature into my adulthood. Gone but never forgotten, his spirit lives on, and these short stories are just the spirit from a memory, like a never-ending script that an actor plays. Fly! Peter-pan! Fly! You’re in Neverland!
