Tag: Joliet

What Happened to the Days?

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When I was a kid, life wasn’t like it is now.

Everything was different. So very, very different.

It all started on Saturday morning. Or was it Sunday? Hell if I know.

Back then, I lived at my grandparents’ house. Joliet, Illinois. Corn capital of the world. I didn’t have any bills. I didn’t care about mortgages, cars, money, or girls. I didn’t care about anything, really. Well, I mean…other than my grandparents.

I was seven-years old. Life was good.

No, not just good. Life was f**king idyllic.

Back then, unlike now, I was happy as a clam to wake up at 5AM. Before sunrise? Yeah, I was up. Before everyone else in the entire city? Yep. You bet. It’s not like I had to commute to work. Or commute to anywhere. I had absolutely no plans for my life.

None. Zero. Zip.

F**king idyllic.

What about school? Well, what about it? I didn’t dread school back then. I mean, we had hour-and-a-half recesses back then! And long lunches. And small classrooms. And kickball, lots of kickball.

And you know what?

The world felt right. Life was easy. My deepest worries were which brand of cereal I would eat, what kind of candy my grandma kept hidden in the dresser, and whether or not we had lemonade in the fridge. In hindsight, I think I could’ve lived ten centuries in that life and never questioned it.

It wasn’t just that I was having fun. Or that I had the truest form of freedom. Or that my grandma made pancakes every morning for breakfast.

No. It was something else.

It was in the air. In the water. In the clouds, the trees, and the giant stalks of corn blowing in the field behind our house.

It was in the snow. It was hidden in our spooky garage. It lived in the cracks in the sidewalks which ran between our house and playground at the street’s end.

It was pure f**king joy.

Sometimes, when I’m lying in my bed just after waking in the morning…

Or when I’m out walking in the woods with no one else near…

Or when I’m driving at night, no music playing, nothing but me, the lines on the highway, and the stars wheeling…

I can still remember.

I can remember being in elementary school. Sometimes, just sometimes, my grandfather or my dad would show up in the middle of class. To the other kids and to the teachers, it must’ve seemed bizarre. But my grandpa or my dad would say something like, ‘Jeremy’s leaving school for the day.’ The teacher would protest, but moments later, much to everyone’s shock, I’d be sitting in the car, windows down, the world rushing past. Why’d I get to leave early? Sometimes it was to drive up to Chicago to see a Cubs’ game. Other times we’d ride out to the countryside, out in the spaces between cities (back when such things existed) and we’d just drive. Just ride toward freedom.

No goals.

No needs.

Just us and the wind.

And I swear, every once in a while, I can close my eyes and feel that same wind on my face. It doesn’t feel like adult wind. It’s kid-wind. It’s otherworldly. It’s f**king sorcery. Know what I mean?

But it wasn’t just the wind. See, back then I played baseball. Not the super-competitive, worried-about-my-fastball-velocity stuff I worried about when playing semi-pro ball as an adult. No, not at all. On Saturday mornings (usually cloudy, misty, and cool in the Midwestern springs) my grandma would drive me out to the ballpark. I’d meet a few coaches and plenty of kids, and we’d play ball under the racing clouds. Sometimes it would rain. Sometimes it’d even storm. But most of the time we’d run around out there on those green, green fields for what felt like days. How long did it really last? I don’t know…maybe a few hours every Saturday. But it felt like forever to us kids.

Forever.

And if I close my eyes, I can still smell the grass. I can still see those clouds. I’m almost there. God, how free we were. How I miss being so free of worldly care.

In remembering it, in traveling backward through my modern adult mind, these things are just not the same. Not quite. The grass back then was kid-grass. The clouds were magic. I try to go back there in my heart, but I can’t. It’s too far away. Those days lie across an ocean of time. And if I think about it too long, it feels tragic. I could almost curl into a ball and weep with my full-grown eyes until they’re empty.

How many of these moments can I remember?

Almost all of them.

The whir of my grandparents air-conditioning (one of those in-window metal boxes which blasted frigid air into our kitchen.)

The roar of my grandfather’s lawnmower, a beastly thing which terrified me.

My grandmother’s voice lulling me to sleep.

The sound of wiffle balls flying off my plastic bat and landing in the cornfield.

The mournful, but achingly soulful winter wind buffeting our tiny house.

The time I was sick for seven days on the couch.

The way Halloween seemed to last hours and hours…and hours.

The thousand times I woke up early, treated myself to two bowls of Captain Crunch, and watched cartoons while nestled on the floor in front of the TV…all before the sun had even dared to think of rising.

It never ends, this spiral of memories. I’m betting it’s the same for most of you.

When I think back to these moments, they are far, far away. Not thirty years, but thirty centuries in my weary adult heart. And that’s the tough part. It doesn’t matter how hard I ache for them, they escape me. They existed in a world before bills, before jobs, before assignments, grades, and homework. They were king long before late fees, back taxes, damaged friendships, and shattered hearts.

These things were pure.

No, not just pure. Sacred.

And how many things are sacred? Really and truly? So, so few.

We live under great burden these days, don’t we? Isn’t that what life is? Heavy. Hard. Expensive. Go ahead. Count the cost of all your pain, all your loneliness, and all your struggles. You’ve survived, obviously, since you’re reading this, but you’re far, far removed from your freedom as a child. Aren’t you?

The price of our great technological advancement? The cost of convenience? It’s greater than we know. I can see it in my son. He’s seven now (God, how quickly they grow up!) but his childhood is nothing like mine. He carries weight…already. He knows things of which I was ignorant at his age. So many things.

He knows about bills. About politics. And divorce. About broken hearts.

And for as much as I’d like to shield him, my effort would be useless. I can no more stifle his knowledge than I can stop the sun from rising tomorrow.

The loss of innocence is a quick thing. Quick…and silent…and irreversible. And perhaps even tragic.

And so I hope, hope beyond hope, actually, that when you close your eyes and dream of your faraway days, the green grasses of your childhood, and of your grandma’s pancakes (hopefully she made them) your memories are sharp. I hope, if only for a moment, you can go there. That you can forget what it’s like being an adult.

And that for one moment in your mind, every so often, you can be a kid again, and your heart is whole…

…and unbreakable.

*

J Edward Neill writes fiction and philosophy books, and he usually makes them tragic.

 

That time I almost got murdered by an old guy in a Chevy

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I’m nine years old, and life is pretty good.

For an early September day in the ‘burbs outside Chicago, the weather is stunning. The winds are milder than usual, and the great northern chill has yet to descend. My classmates and I adore it. A mob of us have just walked a few miles to school. We pour into the hallways just before opening bell. It’s a private school, and so the boys are dressed in matching gold shirts and dark pants, while the girls wear classic plaid skirts.

We look pretty slick, all things considered.

But…

The moment we pile into our classroom, we can tell something’s up. Miss Calvin’s late, and she’s never late. I hear people talking out in the hall. One of the voices comes from a man, a tall man. He’s wearing a police uniform.

That’s weird, I think.

After a few minutes, Miss Calvin and the policeman enter our room. No one asks us to settle down; we’re already quiet.

“Morning, kids,” the policeman says. He towers over Miss Calvin. He towers over everything.

“I’m from the JPD, the Joliet Police Department. Your principal and several of your parents have asked me to talk to you today.”

This is no big deal, I figure. We’ve had police visitors before. The message is always the same: don’t do drugs, don’t talk to strangers, look both ways when crossing the street.

I almost check out.

Almost.

“Kids, I’m here for a special reason today,” the officer continues. “You see, there’s been some trouble, and since so many of you walk to and from school, we think it’s important to have a little talk.”

At this point, the class is riveted. Even I, the class clown, am itching to hear what he’s about to say.

“Two children from the public school have gone missing.” He drops the bomb.

Gasps.

Open mouths.

Incomprehension.

“Both children were nine years old, and both were last seen approaching a late model Chevy Nova. It’s a smaller model, olive green. Other children have reported that the man driving this vehicle called the kids into his car while they walked home from school.

“And neither of the children has been seen since.”

He lets it sink in.

And then he goes on to explain that if any of us see a green Chevy Nova, we’re to get away as fast as possible. Most of us don’t know what a Nova looks like, but he describes it in detail:

“Small.”

“Sporty.”

“Loud engine.”

He also describes the alleged man inside the car. I’m only half listening anymore. Being a young kid, I’m sure this whole event will end up having nothing to do with me. I’m afflicted with the same sense of invulnerability most nine-year olds feel.

The only thing nagging me: the officer never tells us anything about the missing kids.

Not even their names.

The officer departs. The rest of the day is normal. We work on our multiplication tables. We play kickball. I manage to not get into any trouble. Everyone’s whispering about the man in the green Nova, but only for a while. Without knowing the missing children’s names, it’s hard for us to be afraid. The kidnappings are a thing that didn’t happen to us.

They happened to someone else.

We’re safe. Right?

A few days pass. Everything goes back to normal.

The weather stays nice. In fact, it’s perfect. We can’t remember the last time September stayed so warm, so sunny, and so ideal for walking to and from school. Late in the month, the same as every afternoon, I decide to walk home with my friends, Stephanie and Brenda.

We’ve walked this route hundreds of times.

Only…we’ve never walked it with a green Chevy Nova trailing us.

As we turn onto Lilac Lane, it’s Brenda who spots the car. Stephanie and I are too busy plotting out our afternoon’s mischief. We’d never have noticed a thing.

“You guys…” Brenda shakes us out of our daydreams. “Look.”

We glance to our left. There, just beyond a row of young oaks, gliding along the street at maybe five miles per hour, we see the ugly green car. We can’t believe it. It’s almost not real.

Brenda doesn’t wait for Stephanie and me to make up our minds. She bolts away from the road, skirt swishing as she vanishes between two houses. Within seconds, she’s gone.

Brenda’s pretty smart.

The car rolls closer. I’m trying to play it cool, as if my indifference can save me. Stephanie says something to me, but I tune her out. I think she’s shouting my name. It doesn’t matter. She takes off in the same direction as Brenda. Her house is the opposite way. I’m not worried for her. Everyone in our neighborhood knows everyone.

She’ll be fine, I figure. She’ll get home.

Still in disbelief, I finally give the ugly green car a good look. The man inside is older. He’s wearing a hat.

He looks exactly like the creeper the policeman warned us about.

I think I see him stop and start rolling down the passenger side window.

And I’m gone.

I’m a fast runner. Faster than Brenda and Stephanie. Faster than anyone in my class. In my neighborhood, among houses I know better than anyone, the old man has no chance of catching me. I’m gone in five seconds. I don’t even know which way I’m running. What’s important is that he’s gone, too.

You’re not stuffing me in your trunk, buddy, I think.

Not today. Not ever.

The next morning at school, we hear the announcement over our classroom speakers:

The man in the green Nova has been caught.

He’s in jail now, charged with several kidnappings. Not just the two kids from the public school. Several more.

The streets are safe again. Brenda, Stephanie, and I agree never to tell anyone about what happened.

But the thing that nags me for several weeks afterward:

No one ever says the names of the missing kids. I’m sure it’s mentioned on the news, but at our school, within our insulated bubble, no one ever speaks of it again.

It’s as if those kids never existed.

As if, because we didn’t know them, their lives weren’t as important as our own.

* * *

The story above is true.

Want more like it? Read Reality is Best Served with Red Wine.

J Edward Neill