On Short People

Nabbing a nefarious pickpocket at Christmas



I may have been mad. I don't know what I was thinking. It isn't that I didn't know any better, I did, but I keep thinking visits to my brother's house will end up being a sort of Somerset Maugham weekend in the country, where Helen Mirren will float amiably into view wearing a sari and a martini, delivering acid bon mots that will make the butler cry. That sort of respite. Who am I kidding? Its always weird when I go to visit my brother and his family in the burbs. They live in an area (formerly forest, formerly farmland, and now breadbox cookie cutter house after house) that makes Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands' suburban hell seem positively Elysian by comparison. They at least had hedges there. There is scant greenery in this bastion of boxery, and what is there, is hard put to decide whether its grass, astroturf or a CGI con job. All the streets are named after trees that have long been cut down, ie; Maple Grove Avenue, and you'd be lucky to find a maple tree in a five mile radius. THAT sorta thing. So there I was, miles away from the horns and sirens, psychos and streetweirdos I'd come to know and if not admire, at least recognize. Here all the psychos were bandbox approved, complacently small and lionized beyond belief. Suburban Ma's and Pa's and their offspring.

But what was I doing here? I had about as much in common with suburbia as I did with a Monster Truck Rally. I was an urban creature, I gave dinner parties, went to bars and went dancing with friends, and whiled away weekends discussing relationships, art, and life over tea and cookies, and then later on (after a shower and change of clothes) vodka and too much loud dance music. What was I doing here?

It was like being dropped in a Dali painting, only THAT I would have understood. Who'd have thought the ordinary could be so surreal? (To quote Madeline Kahn, "How owdinawy.") I sat there, bemused and a little bored. What do married people with children do for fun? Talk about their children's potty training sagas and Dora the Explorer by the sounds of it. Yuck. Nope. Won't do. They certainly don't do the stuff we errant city naifs do, by the look of it. Nowhere even close. I was the only single person there by the look of it, sitting on a bench between two dead cedar trees (they were there, singly and alone I might add, obviously a dire portent of fates to come unless I came to my senses, snagged some poor worm, shagged like mad and produced a wee sprog to throw into the gaiety of nations. Ye Gods...) without a child, and/or partner, mate or significant other. What could I tell them when they asked where all of the above was? That I didn't have any? That all of my significant others had commitment issues and were allergic to diapers, suburbia and places where they serve Apple Slurpees instead of Apple Martinis?

What indeed, COULD I tell them? It was like speaking another language.

Well, the obvious answer was that I was up here for my brother’s sake. Moral support as it were. I was up visiting for my sister in law’s birthday on the weekend, as my brother was planning a surprise party for her. Not being a planner by nature, (not that I am either) I knew he could use all of the support he could get. So there I was. Feeling awkward and looking odd for being so obviously solo. Despite my dread, the party went well, as far as BBQ parties in suburban backyards go. Enough food for a mob of marauding Gauls (which, considering most of the partiers were guests under six, wasn’t as far a stretch as at first might be believed) and no bloodshed.

Although if might be fair to say that at this point, my youngest nephew Christian did keep grabbing his toy lawn mower back from some little dude who just wanted to BORROW it, obviously, until finally I and his uncle John stepped in and persuaded him to let the little guy play with it, as it was nice to share, and this, after all, was a democracy, and besides it wasn’t as if he was going to steal it, he was still learning how to walk for Chrissakes. Christian ditched the hospitality angle and went for the cake we offered by recompense instead.

While standing around, admiring the dead foliage next to my bench, I looked around and I noticed something about the parents. At least, the parents my age. They hovered. I don’t ever remember my parents hovering. Not like this. Sure, they kept an eye on us, and warned us about the oncoming Mac truck that was bearing down the road on us where we were playing ball hockey, but they were wonderfully nonchalant about it. Not like this bunch. Here were three and four year olds being practically shadowed by a parent, like a basketball guard, arms out to ward off, what? An imminent attack by Baby Gap devouring condors? It was as if the kids were water balloons, and the parents were trying to keep them from breaking. I don’t ever remember my Mom acting like I would break anytime soon. I know she threatened to break me on a number of occasions, but that was just talk, and I chalked it up to stress. She was pretty lenient about my mobility. Not that I didn’t have my limitations. I mean, I do remember her nixing my wanting to go white water rafting when I was four or five while visiting in the Pocanos, with George and Winnie Henry’s sixteen year old daughter. “Mommy! I’ll have a LIFEJACKET on! AND my water wings!” I protested loudly, but she, being Baptist, was immoveable. (Dad was Catholic, and much more open to bargaining) I recall that as being the only time she actually put her foot down about my not endangering myself needlessly. Mostly it was, “Good luck, have fun, enjoy yourselves, and don’t come back dead. Or if you do, at least wait until my soap is over.”

I remember we were given what seemed like unlimited freedom as children, and had very little interference. She certainly never hovered. As for my Father, I actually had to go inside and drag him out from watching his golf game to get him anywhere near hovering. Maybe they trusted us more then, or thought we were smarter than we think our kids are. To watch this mob in my brother’s backyard, you would have thought their spawn were woven from icing sugar and match-sticks.

Maybe it’s a different day and age, but when children are in a sheltered backyard with a seven foot high wooden fence and thick grass lawn all the way around, I think it’s a little excessive to hang nervously over the little rugrats as though they’re made of fine Sevres porcelain. Call me reactionary, but I don’t think mollycoddling children does them any good. But then, I could be talking out of my ass. I’ve had plastic plants expire on me, just out of spite. What did I know? So I shrugged my shoulders, quit trying to figure out the impossible, and enjoyed myself watching my brother get drunk on two wine coolers.

At any rate, the next day I got up, thinking I’d be heading out soon, but my father (who was my ride) had a meeting nearby and would be back at noon, and so I was stuck for a few more hours. Hmmm. What do you do on a Sunday a.m. in suburbia? Answer; when you’re Uncle Trev, you spend Sunday morning with the oldest, Melissa, who’s six, and her youngest brother Christian, who’s two and a half. Their father, (my brother) had taken their middle brother out to a birthday party, and their Mom was cleaning up after the party, and I was delegated to watch the other two inmates. “Fine.” I thought to myself, staring warily at their beady little eyes as they slurped on their fifth freezy of the morning, “How hard can it be? They’re short. I can always outrun them.”

At one point, after breakfast, their Mom told them to go get changed out of their pyjamas as they wanted to go play outside. So, being the temporary warden, I was deputed to go change Christian into his clothes (Melissa knew what she wanted to wear and plunged on ahead into her room) for the day. Now, I know about as much about children’s wardrobe as I do about lunar landings, and so I head up with Christian by the hand to his room, and I stand there like an idiot, looking through dresser drawers (a sight nicer than my beat up old IKEA ones at home I can tell you), not knowing what the HELL I’m looking for. I pull out the smallest orange socks I’ve ever seen in my life, (Bob the Builder socks, can you believe it?) and then I find a cool yellow t-shirt with a big green lizard crawling out of the pocket, and I think, “that’s cool”.

I throw that on the bed, where Christian by the way, is sitting quietly, patience itself, wondering what the hell his undoubtedly mad uncle is mumbling and muttering about over the state of children’s wear in this day and age. In the midst of all the confusion, I think, pants. The dude can’t go about in his underwear, or diapers or whatever the hell they’re called, and so I reach into what looks like a pants drawer, and pull out the damndest thing. A pair of denim boxer shorts. I take a second quick look and I realize that on closer inspection, my God, they’re PANTS. “Kee-RIST!” I exclaim, “Are people REALLY this small?!?” I hear a laugh behind me, “KEE-WISTE!” Christian mimics my Bette Davis-ese perfectly. Ye Gods. His Baptist father will not be impressed. I bite my tongue and rapidly start mentally repeating, “Internal thought, internal thought!”

I take another look at the pants. Good enough. So I throw the pants on the bed and turn to the kid, “O.K. dude, let’s get you changed.” Whereupon, as if on cue, he falls flat on his back and sticks his feet straight up into the air as if he’s going to start juggling a ball with them. I just stare at him, completely nonplussed. What the hell does THAT mean? SHOULD I toss him a ball, just to see what he does? Just in time, his sister thankfully bounds into the room to explain.

“OH, that.” She says sagely, seeing his little bare feet pointing skyward, like a bizarre midget Martha Graham poseur. “He thinks you want to change his diaper.”

ACK!!! I shake my head with a definitive NO, and then I remember; external thought, external thought!

“No, no, no, no, NO. Uncle Trev doesn’t DO Waste Disposal management. Besides, your Mom changed him downstairs. No kid, we’re getting you dressed. CLOTHES. See?”

I hold up the yellow iguana t-shirt. He nods, sits up, and throws his arms up in the air. Now we’re getting somewhere.

I pull off his pyjama top and pull the t-shirt on over his head, but it appears to be stuck.

“Uncle Trevor, that’s the sleeve.” Melissa pipes up helpfully, as her brother emits these odd growls while trying to get his head unstuck from a hole built for an arm. And a small arm at that.

“Oh yes, right. Of course. Sorry kid.” We get the shirt on fine, and then the pants (elastic waist, thank GOD!) which we just pull up, and then the Bob the Builder socks (“Do we like Bob the Builder, Christian?” “YAH.” Man of few words, that one.) and he’s dressed. But I’m looking at him, and I’m thinking, “Hmmmm. Something’s missing. A SWEATER!”

Now its warm outside, or its going to be, and I don’t want him to fry or freeze either way, so I reach into another drawer and pull out (wait for it) a Bob the Builder sweater! (This bastard’s everywhere) I turn to Christian, and say, “Bob the Builder?” “YAH.” (Thank God. Consistency is everything when you’re two and a half.)
I take the sweater and in an inspired “the Gay Gene Finally Kicks In Moment” tie the arms around his neck making him look very Polo ad-ish, if Pixar animated characters were the impetus for overpriced yuppie clothing wear. I tie the sweater loosely with flourish, pronounce him as “Suave as hell”, and tell him to go show his Ma. He tears ass down the stairs at lightspeed, and when I catch up with him, he is standing there beaming in front of her and his sister as if on a fashion runway, to much “oohing and ahhhing” from the crowd. Mission accomplished. Or so I think.

Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting at the table, sipping my orange juice and reading a book of John Steinbeck’s letters, when I feel this tap on my leg. I look up over my book and down, and there is Christian, standing in front of me with a very grave, serious look on his face (my nephews have inherited their father’s talent for grave, serious looks) and I think “Uh oh, now what?” He says nothing and just stares at me expectantly. Then I notice. The sweater sleeves are untied. They came loose, and the suave look he is obviously pleased about cultivating is gone. I retie the sleeves. A huge grin rewards my efforts immediately. I think I’m getting the hang of this uncle thing.

Now throughout all of this I must confess, my nephew is mostly silent. Except for the odd “Yah”, he communicates mostly with his eyes, and hand movements. He does, when he chooses to, talk a lot, however, he still at this stage of his development, sees no great and lasting use for consonants in his sentences. Noticeably, most of his utterances therefore, are decidedly vowellesque in tone and quality. It can sometimes be an outraged shriek, or sometimes it can achieve the lovely syntax of whalesong. Therefore, when he speaks, something that may sound like “Ooooooaaaaaaaoooowwwwweeeeeeeeeooooo, OH!” is (thanks to his sister again) roughly translated into “I would like the blue freezie if you please uncle dear, NOT the white one, you befuddled old fart.”

At one point, I take it upon myself to teach him to say the word “dude”. So I repeat it over and over again, and he yells out “DOOOOOp!!”
“DOOOO-Duh.” I offer again helpfully.
“DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! DUH!”
Close enough.

I urge him to tell his Mom. “AAAA!!!” he hollers. “Yes, buddy?” my sister in law smiles at him, “DOOOOOOOO. DUH!” I must remember to get him to do that for his father. After breakfast, we then go out on the swings and sandbox to play, and I had forgotten how simply enjoyable it is to sit on a swing and, well, swing. I push Christian on his swing, and then stand in front of him and pretend to grab at his little feet. He giggles uncontrollably, sometimes shrieking with laughter. He is so much the image of his father at that age that it takes my breath away. I understand for the first time how much fun my parents must have had with us when we were small. They always spoke of it, but I never fully appreciated it until now, with this virtual clone of my brother lighting up in front of me. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting much this weekend, but I had a good time, with just little things, watching my niece hide her brother’s cars in the sand, and then telling him to turn around and watching him shriek when he realized what she’d done, and hearing her laugh. Watching her play in her sandbox with the same intense purpose her father had at that age. Watching a two year old yell “BIRBIES!” at the starlings and Robins who had landed on the ground by his feet. Little things yes, but priceless, even to a jaded old windbag like me. It was quite fun, and for one who doesn’t get to experience it every day, its something you don’t soon forget.

It made me wonder why its so effortless this joy that children let themselves delight in. How did we, as adults, forget about this sublime ability to just play for playing’s sake? Meaning and competition, and higher stakes, and politics and all the rest of the pointless, laughless folderol somehow wormed their way in, and we got to thinking that THAT was somehow more important than this, the mere essence of joy itself. Simple play. I breathed a sigh of relief as I pushed myself, a 6’2”, 175 lb., 37 year old grown man, on a child’s swing, grateful that I hadn’t completely forgotten the hang of it, just yet.