The Basement

You don't understand & so you don't cry out. Life doesn't just sit you down & spell it all out in one harsh heart to heart. No, life doles it, piece by piece. This is fire: it will burn you. This is a sharp edge: it will cut you. This is Jackson: if you pull his hair he will bite you. These you understand & if this was fire, if this was angry Jackson, you'd yell out, they'd hear you up & down the residential block but it isn't, you don't understand yet that this will hurt you & so you don't cry out.

& this is the basement: you only really know this place as one that is safe & loving. Only once have you hurt yourself here, stepping on the engine of the toy train set you won for second place in a halloween costume contest & cutting your toe open, & it bled. & though you're scared of your father's workshop, a windowless, dusky room right off the basement stairs, no door just a heavy piece of near-translucent plastic keeping all the wood chips & dust & monsters from escaping out of that room & tormenting you, even with that you feel safe in the basement. The basement is where you spend Saturday mornings, laying under blankets on the old, ratty mattress with your brothers, watching cartoons & then relying on their older age & their wisdom with these things to disconnect the cable from the tv & connect the Intelevision in its place so that you can all take turns playing video games; that tank game where you ricochet shots off of the walls attempting to hit your opponent & dungeons & dragons. First unscrew the cable, then screw the other one in its spot & then, oh yes, flipping that little switch, there's that & that's what you always forget & why you always have to call out to one or the other of your older, wiser brothers when you want to play the Intelevision yourself.

& there is a benefit to monday & thursday nights: those nights it's your pick which book your mother will read to all of you but it also means that you have to go downstairs by yourself, down to where the bookshelf is, on the other side of that heavy plastic sheet & that room is darker & dustier than it ever is during the day & on the way back up, just as you're placing your foot upon the first step, you fell the hairy, long, blue/green hand just barely touch your t-shirt & if you'd been going only a bit slower you would be no more & you almost cry out then but your already placing your foot on the third step & then the fourth & you know it's ok, Hank the Cowdog pressed firmly against your chest.

& though you don't know this yet: this will hurt you later. You don't know this yet but you are never supposed to be touched like this. These bedclothes are never supposed to hide things like this. You don't know this yet but you should cry out, you have every right to yell out, to scream so loud that everyone up & down the block hears you & comes downstairs & scares the monsters away & scoops you up in their arms, stopping all of this because it will hurt you later.