The Road Of Faith

The Road of Faith By Alisa M. Ben-Olander Our home was on a 3-mile road that was called Faith community. I used to stand on the road beside my cousin and my brother that little guy with the socks to his big knobby knees that covered his entire bird legs, and the one with the small straight teeth with the pigeon-toed walk. It was on this road that we got a glimpse of what living was all about. I used to think the road went up and down. I used to have faith. I used to imagine that I was standing in place running while the road moved. I used to test the laws of the Earth’s spin by standing still to watch the ground as a car passed to figure out whether the car was actually moving, or the road was being pulled underneath it. The road where we watched grown overweight men exhaust in a three-mile jog to potential fitness. My brother’s bird legs peddling briskly up and down beside my beaten father in the marathon, watching me on the other side of the tired men, grinning from ear to ear as we left the grown overweight men behind on our Huffy’s. The same road that bruised and scratched our scrawny knees when our Huffy’s threw us to the gray-rocked ground was the foundation of our childhood, our life. I used to only have two friends and I thought our life was the world; my cousin and my brother were my alliances. My cousin had to wear the wig when it was his turn to be the woman when we played house. My brother was the little guy; the little guy with the socks to his big knobby knees that covered his entire bird legs, and the one with the small straight teeth with the pigeon-toed walk. I was the boss; call me Bruce Springsteen.

© 2001 Alisa M. Ben-Olander

I was the one that punched my cousin simply out of spoiled anger and made him say he ran into a door knob. I was the one that went first, and the one to change my mind frequently. I was the little girl walking around in the summer with her shirt off. The one referred to as “long legs.” You might say I was the Angelica of the Rugrats. I remember getting lost as a child at an outside flea market; unable to find my mother through the masses of people. I remember being so small; too small to see above me and too small to comprehend anyone but my mother and comfort. I grabbed my mother’s leg out of fear and as my mother looked down I realized it was not my mother. I grew frightened and started to panic when my mother picked me up and held me. It was easy to put my feet back on the ground, and not worry about where I stood because I had faith. I used to be naïve to any exterior forces because those I knew were my family. I honestly thought I was stuck hanging out with my little brother throughout my entire life. I don’t recall my little brother and me fighting much during this time, but that would come much later--WWF style. My brother had this obsession with Hulk Hogan and Monster Trucks. Every single night he would wear my father’s XXL dark green shirt with the iron-on Big Foot Monster Truck picture on the front. I had an obsession with the Rocker Barbie stage and Michael Jackson. After all, it was the early 80s and Michael Jackson was the King of Pop when Madonna told the world she wanted to rule it. Madonna never did get her own doll, but I got a Michael Jackson’s doll one Christmas from Santa. Christmas always baffled me because Santa never would eat more than one bite from the cookies my brother and I made from our Easy-bake oven. Come to think of it, no one ever ate more than one bite of our cookies. My cousin had an obsession with

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being exactly like me and I just thought he wanted to be a girl, so he sported the finest neon clothing I had to wear. I remember watching prime time television with my father in his chair and my mother doing the dishes or cleaning. I loved the intro to Knight Rider because I would try to figure out whether the black sports car was driving up or down the path. I could imagine both ways and as my father eyed the television like a zombie, I wondered if he too wondered whether the sports car was driving up or down. My curiosity widened and I tried to appease it by determining whether the sports car was driving up or down the path by which direction the driver’s side was facing. The logical reasoning behind a sports care driving by itself on a desert threw me off, and my father never understood what I was asking. He would reply, “It’s driving to and from, here and there.” Though I never understood how a car could drive without a driver, I had faith that it was ‘driving to and from, here and there.’ I used to imagine what I would look like as an adult, and what my life would be like. I knew I would be successful and I never thought anything would happen to me. I grew up in a small town with Christian roots and high morals and values. I was amazed that anyone could stay up twenty-four hours without dying, and I didn’t believe the little girl at church when she told me. I remember seeing an acorn fall from a tree by the swing set in the front yard of my childhood house, and was curious what it tasted like. Even though my cousin told me not to eat it, I did and it tasted nasty so I spit it out without him seeing. The older I got the more I found myself standing on the three-mile road wondering whether it actually led anywhere, or whether it was our own isolated paradise.

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I used to think childhood was forever and that the hand of time would leave my life untouched and unscathed. I used to think my family was forever, but my parents divorced when I was in grade five and my brother was only age five. “Sissy, d’ya know what my favorut color is?” His tiny little fingers with a day’s worth of dirt lodged between his fingernails and skin fondled through a bag of Hot Wheel’s mini cars. I looked up into his soft black eyes that were gleaming at me with admiration, “Green!” His eyes widened and his mouth spread into a smile that displayed his straight white teeth, “How’d ya guess?” “I’m magic,” My eyes tightened. “Ask Moe Moe if ya don’t believe me, huh Moe Moe?” Moe Moe sat in the corner of the room by the football-shaped toy box and quietly nodded in my brother’s direction to confirm that I was magic. “Nuh uh,” my little brother shook his head in an exaggerated manner. “Sissy, you’re lying to me!” The bedroom door opened and my father’s muscular frame stood in the doorway without a shirt, “Moe Moe?” Moe Moe looked up holding Barbie by the hair, “huh?” “It’s time for you to go home,” My father looked at us with a certain sadness that I had never witnessed. “Ah Dad!” We said in unison. “But why, dad?” I moaned.

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My brother added, “Yeah, but why dad?” Moe Moe stood up on his tiny tan legs and walked toward the door, waving goodbye. “Bye Moe Moe, we’ll play tomorrah,” I waved goodbye alongside my brother and watched Moe Moe’s tan little body as it disappeared from the bedroom. My father somberly stood in the doorway watching us, “Kids, your mother and I need to talk with you in the living room.” My brother and I traded glances and the bag of Hot Wheel’s mini cars fell to the floor; we were confused but did not think twice about it as we followed my father down the hall that lead into the living room. Mother was sitting on the earth-toned love seat with tear streaks on her cheeks. My heart sped up creating tickles in my stomach that I didn’t much pay attention to. I looked behind me at my brother who had his eyes wide open with concern and confusion. Mother looked at us in a way that we had never seen in her before and put her hands in her face to cry while our father sat down in his chair and looked at us. “Your mother and I are getting a divorce.” The words still ring through my head, and at the time the sound meant much less than what it would become. I looked at my mother who was crying into her hands and then back to my father who looked deep into my brother and my eyes with seriousness far beyond my comprehension.

I can’t say that my brother realized what it meant before I

did, but he began wailing so loudly that it hurt me to listen. Crying through my words, “What does it mean?”

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“You kids and your mother are going away,” my father did not blink as he stared my brother and I down intimidating us with his own hurt and anger. We had never seen my father so confused and vulnerable, and we started crying incessantly. “Now you’ve done it! Just look at what you did? You dragged the kids into this. Into your own selfishness!” My mother stood up and walked over to us sweeping us into her arms and taking us into the hall. “Gather a few things you want to take with us,” she held back her tears as she pointed to our individual rooms. “You can get more stuff later.” My brother ran down the hall to my father who was staring straight ahead. I watched him jump into my father’s big muscular arms and give him a hug that melted the two together. My father wept, as I walked into my bedroom for the last time. We were taken out of the only family we knew and my life was never the same. It would be the beginning of a series of unstable events. The last night my cousin, brother, and I spent playing in the back bedroom would be the end of my faith in love. My mother was confused and lost as we moved around frequently for a year. My brother and I started arguing a lot. I don’t even remember seeing my cousin that entire year. I’m not even sure we gathered again, all three of us, and were a family. Shaky, things were new and confusing and certainly not stable. My brother hated the change, and I loved my mother and believed in what she was trying to accomplish in her new life. Change was hard. My brother and I slept together from when he was born until I was in grade seven. Somehow, we were each other’s comfort and hope. I remember he snored too loud for me to sleep, and I would poke his side until he turned onto it.

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I would con him into rubbing my back for exactly one hundred seconds, and when he would finish I would pretend to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to return the back rub. He would just go to sleep and I would smirk and think, “Sucker!” At night, there was innocence again and we were children like we had been before. My childhood was gone and I was a teenager. My brother was a brat and annoying during his anger-management classes at home. We fought every day. Mother would work and hang out with friends, and every other weekend we would see our father. It was strange to return to our childhood house and try to feel at ease. It was no longer home sweet home. It was a lonely home with strange and unfamiliar furniture that did not belong in our house. I started to despise the house. My mother got married, and shortly after my father married. My brother and I were left alone in our separate rooms to become hostile toward each other. My brother always made weird noises out of the blue and I was convinced he was mentally challenged. He always stayed in his room and watched sports or wrestling, and I remember he smacked his cereal loudly. “Stop it!” I scolded at my brother. He sneered, “Shut the hell up and leave me alone!” “You’re smacking!” I rolled my eyes. “I am not smacking,” He yelled. “I am crunching and there is a difference. See you’re not as smart as you thought you were!” He thought I was a jerk and one day beat my door in with a baseball bat because while he was asleep I sprayed water on his pants. “Bubba peed his pants,” I yelled. “What a baby!”

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“Wake up you big baby,” I continued to yell. “You peed your pants!” He woke up crying, and I took pleasure in his being upset. Lost, I had no one else to pay attention to me during this time so the negative attention I gained from my brother made me feel loved in an uncomfortable psychosis-type of way. My brother chased me through my entire house yelling. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you, asshole!” His little hands reached just enough to catch me from behind. I had no repercussions with kicking him in the groin after he pulled a handful of hair out of my head. My mother would discipline us and we would turn against her and form an alliance. High school came and went and after my first semester in college, I quit and decided to move to New York with a band of hippies. I will never forget my brother being in awe of my friends because they made their own soap and hemp jewelry. We hugged and I left home. I wrote my little brother from New York because I was miserable and unsuccessful. There was a popular song that reminded me of our relationship, so I told him about it and he agreed; “Sister” by The Nixons--that was our song. He believed in me and was the only one on my side when I dropped out of college to go to New York to be famous. Even when I didn’t succeed and enrolled back in college after moving home, he didn’t make me feel like a failure. Shortly, my brother moved out of my mother’s house and into my father’s and I felt betrayed. Nothing would bring us together as bubba and sissy until the tragedy.

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The time had come, my brother was graduating high school and I was one semester away from graduating college. I watched my brother make a big fuss over me when I finally made it to his ceremony; introducing me to all his buddies. I stood proud when they called his name and he received the loudest cheer. He followed in my footsteps and dropped out of college by the first semester and left home; Michigan to work. The cellular phone he bought showed up in my caller id up to four times a day. During my last semester in college, I found myself more broke than my days as a wannabe musician in New York (at least then I had credit cards). My brother mailed me three hundred dollars to pay my car payment and enclosed an endearing note: Dear Sissy, This better go toward your car payment! If it’s not and you need to borrow more just let me know cause I really can help you now. I am sorry for being mean to you for the last 17 ¾ years. I miss you and I can’t wait to see you again. I love you. Love your loving brother Jeffrey

Those words were his last to me. Ironically, he apologized for being so mean to me all these years and told me how much he loved and missed me. I re-opened my heart when I received it and knew he did love me and I loved him, and I thought I would be seeing him soon. I rarely see my cousin, but when we do it is as though we remained the unscathed children that we had been before the road of faith took a detour. We stood on the road

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looking for my brother the first week he was missing. I looked at the road and wondered whether the car that passed me was actually moving, or if the road was being pulled underneath it. I saw my brother in my memory, while I stood looking down at the road to confirm I was in fact not moving; the little guy with the socks to his big knobby knees that covered his entire bird legs, and the one with the small straight teeth with the pigeontoed walk. “You’re still magic,” Moe Moe said. Looking up in surprise at him, we both smiled. It hit me that day. What if the road goes left or right instead of up or down? How do you know where you are headed and if you’re moving? I wondered why no one seemed to be concerned about the direction of the road, but me. I have yet to worry or ponder the direction of the road after that day. Though, every time I look down at the road to make sure I am not moving I see that little guy with the socks to his big knobby knees that covered his entire bird legs, and the one with the small straight teeth with the pigeon-toed walk. Knight Rider has long been cancelled. My brother has yet to return, but I have faith that the road will take me to him. When I walk it no longer matters whether I am actually moving or the road is being pulled underneath me, because every time I move I get closer and closer to my little brother. Like I said, I used to have faith and now that is all I have. ###

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