When I was in the second grade the only friend I had to
play with on my street was a girl named Vicky Jaeger. Vicky once
slammed my forehead with a croquet mallet. Sent me to the hospital
for eight stitches. It was just a dumb accident. Vicky was
okay but she was more of a tomboy than I was and she didn't
totally dig Barbies the way I did. But what can you do? She was
the only kid my age on my street. The real problem with Vicky, though,
was not so much Vicky as her brother Greg.
Greg was two years older than
us, the same age as my sister. Greg was one of these loudmouthed
blowhards, who even at the age of 10, you could tell he was going to be
impossible as a grown up. Not many people liked Greg,(I guess because
his personality really stunk) but that just seemed to make the situation
worse.Anyway, one day Vicky and I were playing in her basement and Greg came
down to bother us, as he was wont to do. Sometimes he'd try throwing his
weight around by pushing or shoving, and sometimes he could get pretty rough.
This day was different.
This time he came downstairs carrying a rifle.
I have no idea what kind of rifle it was. If it was a B-B gun? Or a
target rifle, or a shot gun? And I'll never know if it was loaded.
I just know it was no toy gun. So Greg backs me up against the cinder
block wall of their unfinished basement and puts the rifle barrel up against
my forehead and says "I'm gonna blow your brains to kingdom come."
Vicky started screaming and ran to get one of her parents but she was gone
for what seemed like eternity. I asked him to put the gun down but he
clearly got delight in seeing the fear on my face so he refused.
I might have begged him, I can't really remember how the whole thing finally
came to an end. I only remember running out of his basement and down the
block as fast as I could. No parent ever came. And I never even told my
parents about it. To this day I don't know why.
Greg and Vicky's parents are both dead now. And I heard that Greg was
living in Oregon with a wife and five children! How about that?
* * * * *
(c)Mars Tokyo 1997
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