1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: CUT, CUT, CUT

I cannot recall why I first started cutting the heavy plastic on the best chair ever; Mother had just recently had it reupholstered, a light gray vinyl material with a white crisscrossed pattern. We liked, no, we loved that chair with its weird, almost horizontal S shape, and handbrake. It was shaped like this ~ .

A kid could lie in that chair, rock it and get it going really fast, then slam on the brake causing the foot of the chair to be suspended 2 1/2 feet above the floor.

Moving slightly toward the middle of the chair,if the brake was left locked, would tip the whole chair forward, making the foot of the chair fall the entire distance to the floor, slamming the long chair downward and jerking the kid backwards.

Crawling further toward the foot of the chair resulted in being dumped on the floor while the back of the chair rose unnaturally in the air,like the back half of a bucking horse, the wooden feet slamming loudly to the vinyl tile floor seconds later.

The latter was the preferred way to "ride" the chair and always brought waves of laughter from observers, as long as they were about the same age as the chair rider.

It was great fun, something we did to entertain our friends, "riding" the chair as many times as possible until the telltale pop of the brake gave us away, and an adult or older sibling put an end to it. People older than we never seemed to understand the joy of it.

We always complained bitterly, and halfheartedly drug ourselves outside to find something else to do.

Even now, when I think of that day, I feel some sense of shame because really, the chair had been a good toy for us. It seemed like being mean to a good friend. And still, I can't explain why we did it.

I'd like to blame it on someone else, but I'm pretty sure I made the first cut. And after that, everyone wanted to make a cut in the gray material, forming the tic tac toe pattern we decided on. Vertical cut, vertical cut, horizontal cut, horizontal cut, and there we had it, tic tac toe. Only suddenly no one wanted to play tic tac toe.

The reality of what we'd done hit us, particularly when the cotton stuffing poked through the lines, and some fell out on the floor in a little clump- evidence, silently mocking us-there for anyone who entered the room to see.

The leather had felt so soft and pliable under the razor blade I had retrieved from my dad's shaving kit in the bathroom. Surely I planned it if I went to that much trouble, but honestly I can't remember. Maybe the regret of it clouded my memory.

The cuts were smooth and effortless. Each of us, Marie, me and I'm not sure who else, took turns. But the pleasure was so momentary, and the panic so overwhelming, that it was truly one of the worst moments of my life. It was right up there with the day Evelyn got so mad at Boy and me for redoing her wallpaper with crayon rainbows.

Marie and I looked at the chair, looked at each other, and wordlessly looked around for something to cover it up. I found a small satin doll blanket in my room and tossed it over the chair seat. The room contained no doilies, afghans, or pillows.

Our living room was strictly furniture and a few pictures on the wall. The only "decorative items" were ashtrays, one small one on the coffee table and a large one that sat beside Daddy's chair on an ornate gold metal stand.

A solitary yellow looped rug sprawled in front of the space heater, and I realized with a sickening feeling that it had replaced the rug that I had set on fire about six months before. I had been experimenting with a brown paper bag out of which I had just eaten the last lemondrop.

While the rest of the family innocently ate breakfast, I rolled the paper bag into a tight roll and stuck it into the flame in the grates of the spaceheater. It caught on fire, catching me by surprise and almost burned my finger, so I dropped it on the rug.

The rug seemed to catch fire instantly, and I didn't know what to do. I jumped up and silently stomped on the flames, but they wouldn't die. Just before I had to call for help, I smothered the flame by flopping the rug over on itself. Tiny wisps of smoke rose a few inches above the yellow loops. After I'd made sure the fire was out, I flipped the corner of the rug over to cover the burned part, and ran and hid behind the bed in Neila's room, right next to the living room.

In just a few minutes, the four older kids came to the front of the house to leave for school. Mother started calling me, so I knew she had seen the rug by the way she called me, with an upward emphasis on the last syllable of my name. "Fe-li-SA?" she called. I knew what the question was.

Now I felt that same desire to hide again. What would she think? What would she do? She would be so mad about the chair, especially since she just had it re-covered a month or so ago.

After we tossed the dollblanket casually over the hole, by tacit understanding we walked outside, looking for something to occupy us. We rode the bike outside on the gravel driveway. It still had training wheels and was hard to ride. Still, the big kids' bicycles were far too large to manage. They were all at school, and they'd probably get mad anyway, even if we could ride them.

We soon got bored with riding, and I suggested we go to the barn. It was two pastures away and contained a large walk-in freezer, now abandoned, which we had been sternly told to stay away from. Somehow, that dark space appealed to me just now.

Both of us pushed hard in tandem to open the gate nearest the house. I looked back and couldn't believe our good fortune. Mother had not called for us. She was probably rocking Jan for her nap.

We trudged past the toolshed, past the long low metal shed where my dad attempted an ill-fated mink raising business, and past the rough shingled building with attached wire aviary where he attempted an ill-fated parakeet raising business.

We passed through a second gate which was open and walked the quarter mile or so to the barn. We were both a little afraid to go in because it was dark inside. The dirt floor appeared wet and had patches of mossy growth in some areas. A plank shelf ran the width of the building. It had some interesting rusted metal items on it, so we stepped inside and picked several of them up and looked at them, trying to figure out what they were used for before they rusted.

The black boards of the enormous freezer loomed above us, and it took up most of the room inside the barn, with four foot wide trails to walk on around three sides of it. One side abutted the outside wall of the barn. It had been built in there, a black tomb about nine feet tall, maybe eight feet long and four feet wide, with a metal liner inside.

"We shouldn't be here," I said, the first sensible thing I had thought or said all day.

"Let's just look around a little," Marie said. "Why did your dad have this big freezer?"

"I think he put meat in here to feed the mink. But I think my older brother and sister did most of the feeding. That's what they told me. They hated it. They were glad when he got rid of the mink because they were mean and bit them."

"What do you do with mink?" Marie asked.

"Make mink coats, I guess." I answered. "But my mother never had one. I know they don't make good pets."

"Let's look in the freezer," she said.

"We're not supposed to. We're probably in enough trouble already."

"I want to see inside-please," she wheedled, getting on my frayed nerves.

It took both of us, but we got hold of the massive handle, braced our feet against the wood facing, and pulled hard. Finally, the lock gave way, and the door cracked open. Marie, who was definitely braver than I, wedged herself in the crack and heaved. The door moved slowly, pushing several layered inches of dirt back with it. Both of us pressed our hands against the inside of the door now and pushed hard. It opened almost all the way.

It was dark in the barn, but even darker inside the old freezer. A musty smell covered us and settled in our noses. We stepped tentatively inside and our eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was almost completely clean. Nothing of interest at all. Meatladen shelves stripped bare to feed those gnawing animals with their sharp teeth.

"Ok, there's nothing here." Marie reported, like I couldn't see for myself.

"Let's go," I said, suddenly feeling very uneasy.

We left the barn in a hurry, then decided to race to the house. We ran through the open gate, past all the failed business buildings and stopped abruptly at the gate near the house, both breathing hard. Together, we pulled open the tall hogwire gate with its tight spring and solid steel frame, and ran to the house.

"I went to the animal fair, the birds and the beasts were there,
The old baboon, by the light of the moon, was combing his auburn hair.
You ought to see the monk, he jumped on the elephant's trunk,
The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees and what became of the monk, the monk, the monk?"

I heard the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair; Mother was still singing to Jan. Had she not seen the chair yet? Ugh, I hated to think of it. Marie and I exchanged looks of dread just before we took hold of the handle and opened the back screened door.

Mother stood up and laid Jan down in the babybed as we walked in the back door, letting it slam behind us.

"Girls, come here just a minute." she motioned toward the living room.
We followed slowly, dragging our toes with each step. "Do you know anything about this?" she asked, lifting the doll blanket and revealing the ugly cuts on the naugahyde.

We just stood there silently, looking at what we'd done. I wanted to fold in on myself like the burned rug, covering the ugly parts, but I couldn't.

I'd never gotten a spanking, but I figured I was about to find out what it felt like. Our heads hung low like an internal rod had bent our necks down. We looked down at the floor, at our tennis shoes, at the tiny piece of cotton that had escaped from the chair and lay there, an evil mute witness, staring up at us.

"I don't know why you did this," Mother said quietly. "And I really wish you hadn't," she continued. I expected her to go for the belt now. "But I remember being a kid and doing some things just because they felt good, but knowing I shouldn't," she continued in a calm voice. "Are you sorry for this?"

"Yes ma'am," we said in unison.

"All right. Go play."

That was it. No recrimination, no reprimand. We were sorry, she forgave us. Criminals both, we got a pardon. I think from the sound of a discussion I heard later that night that my dad did not have the same sort of forgiveness as she did, but she prevailed. We were never punished for it, except in our own minds. And that, in this case, was enough. I never cut up another chair, and I'm pretty sure Marie didn't either.

My dad was pretty mad a few weeks later when he went to the barn and some possums had taken up residence in the freezer. I think they startled him. He did interrogations in shifts one night, asking all us kids about it, but no one confessed.

I think my mother figured it out, but she just smiled at me and didn't say anything. That was the least of the things I had done that particular day, and leaving a door open was nothing compared to cutting a tic tac toe pattern in an old friend.
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