It was light blue. Sitting on the top of a small hill over looking the bottom portion of the trailer park, surrounded by sand burs, and reeking of pet, that silly little dwelling laughed in our faces. It was home. Not just to me. The list of inhabitants was long. My mom, her boyfriend, my cousin, her mom and brother, my brother, 2 dogs, 4 cats, fish, and who knows what else.
There was one bathroom and two bedrooms. Me and Melinda lived in one room. We had bunk beds. I got the bottom, she graced the top. My mom and whoever she was shacked up with lived in her room. Everyone else had a couch, or a floor. Getting ready in the morning was a well choreographed masterpiece. You had to be quick, efficient. No doddling was tolerated. Dinner time was the same. First come first serve. Last come... might go hungry. We all managed to function around and on top of each other. There is a crazy phenomenon where people can exist in close proximity to each other and yet not smash together.
I see this happen constantly at work. We spin and twirl and quickly self adjust to avoid contact with one another. When so many people live together for so long, it gets hard. When someones elbow is always in your face and someones pet is always in your armpit... shit is bound to hit the fan. And it did... consistently. Though we are not actually blood related my cousins and I have a strong bond. It came from those living conditions. Like refugees from a Nazi camp, we survived in concert with one another, in spite of each other, and together as individuals.
The pressure in that house was tremendous. Thinking about it now I imagine the view from the road must have been of a tiny house with walls bowed outwards. That's not actually the case though. The thing that made it so difficult had to be the different tempers. Everyone has a breaking point, it seems that in such a situation everyone is always leaning on everyone Else's breaking point. It makes me laugh now to think about the stuff we used to fight about. One Thanksgiving I stayed up all night getting the meals set to cook. I finally passed out in the early morning. I woke up to my cousin Melinda playing matchbox 20. Howie was sent into the room to wake me up to eat with the family. Everyone else was to afraid to wake me. Howie crept in and naively stated it was time to get up to eat. The fuse was lit... tick tock... "are you coming?" BOOM! I silently got out of bed... briskly walked over tot he CD player... removed the CD from the disk changer... ninja star hurled it at Howie's head... yelled something obscene... then climbed back in bed to sleep.
Epic nonsense. I would never react that way now. But in that moment being woken up in that house was the worst damn thing that could have happened to me.
I had alot of friends who were always at my house. it got messy fast and I was never one to wait on other people, so I posted rules on our pantry door. Those rules actually said that if you stayed over night 2 days in a row you got chores. HAHA I was a genius! It cut back on the messes my friends would leave.
We threw some amazing parties in that tiny little shit hole. We would sit in the yard and talk about life, or drink on the porch, swing dance in the living room, vomit in the bathroom. Oh the good old days. If the measure of a friend is how far they would go to visit you... I must have been truly loved as that house was out of town a ways. If the measure of a families love is how long can you survive like sardines in a tin...I must have been truly loved as we were no doubt shoved in about as tight as a household could get...
My brother died in that house. My mom overdosed in that house. The good, the bad and the fantastic all occurred in that house. We slept in a pile like in the wild things. In the end we all scattered into our own destinies like dust in the wind. Hmmm so many more stories to come on this one guys. Stay tuned.
(this story takes place 1999-2001)
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