~ America 250 ~
By Chris Deraleau
~ Part One ~ The Monster Room ~
As a younger individual, i did begin to gain an internal sense of pride about my own, be it family, home team or even my country, and that country to which i write of today... is America. be that as it was, i truly and innocently never gave much thought as to what it meant to be an american. if it meant anything more then a brand to put on a paticular area of land just to keep it relative, or if it was indeed more then just a name. if was something you could do, something you could be, and if so, what was it actually. in a age old evaluation, the situation being long past, even my dog Clover, who was a runaway stray, his name had a meaning. he would lay in the thick bed of clovers in the yard and roll around in them, he seemed to love that area in our back yard by the shed, so, i named him clover after a few days. he was such a happy dog, he brought me many great memories, and i miss him dearly. i wasnt there the moment he was hit and left there on the road, i was an hour away from maypearl texas and my father called the house i was staying at and told me he was hit. in a moment of pain and confusion, clover picked himself up and drug himself from the road all the way to our garage, panting, scared, blood leaking from his mouth, and his big brown eyes were no longer happy, but hurting... he was afraid. he was dying, and he could feel it. my father told me he was gone and i went outside and screamed. he said "he was looking for you son. everyone in the family was around, petting him, talking to him, but he kept turning his head, he kept making that noise he used to make to get you to look, he was trying to call for you to save him son, he wanted to see your face, to know he was alright, as if to say one more time, "i love you christopher, please help me, i got hit"... he fought hard, but he is gone son. he was a good dog, he fought so hard. i think of it now, and even his name had a pure solid meaning. my father buried him there in that backyard on greathouse road in maypearl texas, thats where my dog rests today. i miss you buddy, and i love you. we never knew his birthday, therefore we gave him one, that day is the 5th of july, and because that is my birthday, and that day is tomorrow. so, was the action of actually BEING an american a thing you could do, a thing you could feel. i never was able to focus much about things of that nature as a child. i was an outsider. i could hardly focus on things like school work, or any engagements of my youth in any way for my life at home was chaos, and every single person i knew in or outside of school, student or teacher or friends, were far behind the lessons i was learning within the battelfield that was my childhood home. school was not a focus no, it was survival as a young boy, and to my young mind, all the stories i heard from children around me was enough for me to keep even more quiet, and the smiles and bubblegum attitudes of these teachers were a part of a shiny world i could not relate to. my safe place, far away from the waging war at home between my parents, was the home of my grandparents in Dallas. its safe to say i spent the better part of my youth there, away from the violence, and also because of the violence. away from the screams and loud slamming doors that sounded like bombs in the night, and crashing sounds of objects being hurled throughout the house, and, from being smacked like a dog myself.. in those days, my grandfather was hardly there, he was a police officer in dallas, and there was my grandmother, the angel of my chaotic little world. she was my voice when i couldnt speak, and with very low tones and steel grey eyes, she could look into my father, her sons eyes and say, "that is enough, leave the boy, settle the tiff with you wife, then you can come get christopher. do not come back if theres any tension at all to get him. look up and tell me you understand. "with authority so powerful, that he would stop in his tracks and fall away like the receeding ocean tides. i couldnt believe how powerful her words were. she could speak, and move mountains. her name is, Josephine.. ill never forget her eyes and her smile. her love was my world. in her hospital bed, i can still see her, smiling, holding my hand. "dont be sad my dear, i will be with you always, wherever you go, whenever your sad, ill still be there. just talk to me baby say, mamaw, im sad and i promise i will be there to guide you, ill look in on you always and you might not hear my voice son, but ill be whispering to your heart. i love you christopher, and your troubles, your pain, it will all pass son, this too shall pass" she touched my chest and said, "right here baby, i will always be right here." that was the last time i ever saw her smile, and just like that, the strongest love i had ever known was gone... i still speak to her on nights where i can see the moon, or feel a warm calm come over my soul. ' i know you are near me, i can still feel you love me... i wish you could see me today, and speak to me. to wipe away my tears like you used to, to make it all go away.. just one more time.. to see your face, your smile, just one more time. there, in her home on wintergreen court in dallas, was a room... a room at the very end of the hall, round the corner to the left. a room i was forbidden to go into. i was warned of entry whatsoever for, there was in fact, monsters beyond that door. big devils, vampires, werewolves, and all with big eyes glowing red, blood red and razor sharp teeth and... waiting.. waiting to devour my small little frame in a single bite. to end little ol' christopher, once and for all... that room was called.... The Monster Room. none of us kids dared even to think of going into that room, and sometimes at night, if we needed to use the bathoom right next to that room, we'd wake eachother up, and say, 'come with me please, i need to go'. we all knew we couldnt let the other go down that long corridor without company, for it might be te last time we ever saw one another.. some times when id go alone, when i did dare to look at the door, i swear i would see the old golden knob... shift. i would get done and go to walk out of the bathroom and almost run out at times, just in case there was something waiting there in the dark. i would believe i saw claws under the door space, and envision a figure, big and hairy, pale like a worm, waiting for me, just beyond that thin wooden door, breathing, drooling.... waiting... to this day, i couldnt tell you why, though one day, while the house was still, the afternoon a slow sleepy texas sky outside, i came in from playing with midnight, the collie dog. she looked like Lassie from the old shows i watched as a child. my grandmother was in her chair resting, as she did rise every morning at 4 am, pray, then cook breakfast all before sunrise, a mid afternoon nap was usually in the cards for her. she was always very gentle with me, though that didnt mean when she said something, she could be pushed over. she never yelled. she never had to. i respected her always. even though that is true, that day, it was as if something inside me was calling as i walked out of the bathroom. something i had never heard before... something from wthin that forbidden room. The Monster Room.. today, i like to think it was the sound of an old record player, a music in which id never known, summoning me... calling to me. calling to my soul. make no mistake here in this writing, there was absolutely no music, for i speak of this internally, the summons wasnt musical, the music was simply spiritual, and deep within. it was a dare from an unknown, a walk between life and death... something inside me, a boy who watched fights between my parents, watched blood spill when my father would fight men in the streets, watched movies that i never knew the imaginary line was actually a real one, and the movies i was watching as a child, were not real. when other children were watching cartoons, i was looking for pennywise the clown from,"IT" to grab my leg from the gutter, or pumpkinhead to grab me and drag me into the deep texas woods as i sceamed and cried. i would think michael myers was outside of my window at night, or freddy was dragging his bladed glove over my screen.. i would look out my window some nights and hold my breath, hoping not to see that slimey evil ghoul that john lithgows character encountered on the wing of the plane in "the twilight zone", hanging off my window frame. i never knew what was fact or fiction back in those days, so when i write this i mean it when i say, i have no idea what it was that made me grab that doorknob and twist. maybe it was, id seen so much, i wanted to know...
i wanted to see if the world inside the monster room was any more terrifying, any more brutal and traumatizing then the one i actually was living in as a child. but for what felt like forever.... i could only stood there.. but after that pause, i did enter.... and this is what it was