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The Phenomenon
I was surprised when I accidentally opened the wrong door expecting to
step outside at my Mother's friend's house. Instead I had opened a door
to a dark curtainless room. The shades were pulled down. I could barely
distinguish the only piece of furniture: a child's crib in the centre of
the room.
The penetrating smell of urine hit me, and only then did I hear a
whining animal-like sound emitted by a child. At least, it looked to me
like a near naked little girl with an enormous head sitting in a puddle
of urine eating wet newspaper. Thick long eyelashes accentuated her
deeply sunken blind eyes.
The mother quickly shut the door in my face. My embarrassed mother gave
me one of her looks which meant, "I'll kill you when we get home."
I ran outdoors feeling very frightened. My mind was trapped in a maze of
questions. All I'd intended to do was to join the woman's other children
who were playing outdoors! Later my mother explained things to me
cryptically: the child was "a phenomenon."
When I was a
little older a popular Mexican song, "El Phenomeno," was often played
over the airwaves and in the movies. In my innocence I wondered why
anyone would sing about wanting to see "el phenomeno."
In those days, superstition, fear of public condemnation, and guilt
affected some families in the extreme. They hid their mentally retarded,
physically imperfect, or illegitimate children from neighbours and
sometimes even from their relatives in order to save face. Some families
were braver than others.
Most of us in that part of town took a
short cut to school, to church, or to town by making a serpentine path
through the tall wild grasses studded with sunflowers and huisache
growing in a large scrub of undeveloped land. A male of undeterminable
age seemed to inhabit this wild brush. We often came upon him,
half-hidden among the twists, turns, and bushes, making unintelligible
sounds and flapping his arms as we approached. I was a timid child and
ran for my life as soon as I saw him, more startled by his sudden
appearance than anything else, but older boys teased, swore, and threw
rocks at him. He moved on his hindquarters all his life, so he could get
around agilely enough. And in time he learned to throw a mean rock as
well.
He lived with his family in a neat blue wooden frame house located
across the street from this wild scrub. He was always cleanly dressed in
denim overalls. He was shoeless because he couldn't walk. His legs were
splayed like a seal's flippers and he navigated himself on his buttocks
with the help of his hands. Throughout the years he was always alone.
Exposed to the elements, but free to move about in his universe of sky,
high weeds, rocks, mud, and snakes.
I became a teenager and started to attend Vernon Gay Junior High School,
but I continued to cut across the scrub on my way home. A bus dropped me
off near school, but I preferred to spend my bus money on Twinkies and
Cokes at lunchtime, so I walked home much of the time and was still
occasionally frightened when he suddenly appeared on the path before me,
but by now I knew I could move faster and didn't think he stood a chance
of catching me.
The youth became a man. Our dirt roads were
replaced by smooth paved streets and vacant lots vanished when ugly
warehouses overtook them.
Fewer people walked to town, and more cars
were on the road. For his own safety, his family put up a wire fence and
the man's movements were confined within the parameters of their
courtyard. Instead of being the ruler of that wild vacant scrub, he sat
under a cypress tree beside his home. He still called out to passers-by
occasionally and threw rocks, not at pedestrians but at passing cars.
I grew up and moved away. Years later, in conversation with my mother about
the people I had attended school with, I asked her what had happened to
that man.
"He died," she replied. What of, I asked.
"Pneumonia."
All of us in that part of town grew up accustomed to seeing that person
on our way to and from somewhere. Some of us did our best to avoid any
encounter with him even as we developed from children into adolescents.
He was "a phenomenon." Outside his family, none of us knew his name.
Alma Iris Ramirez
Adelaide, South Australia
Published:
November 14,
2005
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