The Sue's Believe

Since I was about eight years old my brother and I have called each other Sue, him of course Big Sue... me Little Sue(even more charming his one year old daughter has now become The Lil'est Sue), even though neither of our names in any way even come close to being Sue. So, I was talking with Big Sue the other day and and(what was that do I stutter when I type?) we both admitted that there is still this funny part of us that believes in all these events that were amp't up from our childhood immagination. Like...

1. One day after we had finished catching crawdads in the creek and were heading up the hill to our street, we were suddenly startled by a fox. Now alive in both of our memories is Big Sue, screaming like a schoolgirl, running a fully olypic run home cutting through the back yards of our neighbors. Here's the tricky part, we both remember him hurdling about ten chainlink fences. He was six, still we are both convinced he did this and boast the story to others as often as possible. We both also remember I stayed behind, and like some child who had spent her life lost in a forest, befriended the fox and shared a laugh about Big Sue and all his girlyness.

We believe this happened.

2. Another creek story. One hot summer day I remember sitting on the bank of the creek, in my overalls frog in the chest pocket, with Big Sue, in his short red shorts and white mesh tank top, catching crawdads. This was a pretty regular event for my brother and me. We liked to catch crawdads then take them home and boil them and sit around commenting on how much they tasted like chicken, to a couple poor kids from Missouri this seemed like a sophisticated affair. On this particular day we had invited the Johnson gang along. They were the rotten sibling pack we had been troublemaking with since birth. The memory stands like this... Good One Honey, The Prick, Pizza(that's my big sis, often called Sissa or Neyney as well) were wading their way up the creek, which was surely just sewage water, to where Big Sue and I had found a goldrush of craws when the air was peirced with death screams from the oldest of the bunch, Queen Lisa Beth. Big Sue and I jumped to our feet and we all looked back down our kid river to see the Queen sinking in quicksand(mind you this is Missouri). She was a good forty feet back from the rest of us, just sinking away, so we had to think fast.

"Good One Honey, tie up the craw bag and give me that rope holdin' your pants up. Pizza, grab that big stick over there. Lil' Sue, you and The Prick take the bucket and put as much dry dirt and grass as you can in it... GO!", Big Sue was takin' charge.

The hillbilly army worked fast Good One Honey, Pizza, and Big Sue ran to Queen Lisa Beth to get that rope tied around her seeing that she was waist deep now. The Prick and I hustled to fill that bucket with dry goods, and ran to Big Sue who now had Pizza holdin' tight to the other end of the rope while he held out the big stick for the Queen to grab onto.

"Now hurry put the dry stuff in around her so we can get her out!" Big Sue barked his order.

The Queen got up to her chest, and just when we were losin' hope the system started to work. There was grunting and moaning and sweating, and with all our might she was finally on dry ground again.

Then we all went back to our house and boiled up some crawdads.

"Taste like chicken".
"It does taste like chicken".
"Yes chicken".

We believe this happened.

3. We used to sometimes spend Christmas at our Auntie's house in Walla Walla Washington, land that proudly claims Walla Walla Sweets(or more plainly, an onion) as there claim to fame. This one particular Christmas Eve Big Sue, Pizza, myself and our cousins Bobby, Cheryl Anne, and Anne Cheryl were all playing Star Wars in our Underoo's(I by the way always demanded that I be R2-D2) in Bobby's room when we heard the sound of jingle bells coming from what seemed to be outside his second story window. We all fell silent and stoped dead in our Death Star tracks, it couldn't be. We clammored, pushed, and shoved to be the one's front of the pack looking out the window. Big Sue and myself faces pushed up to the payne couldn't believe oue eyes. There through the trees we could see the shape of a giant sled with, what looked like, eight really in shape horses flying out front of it. The sound of bells faded as this moment of magic disappeared in the night.

We believe this happened.

4. The very first house I lived in was a small two bedroom house on White Oak in a scraggly white trash ghetto in Missouri, the house was puke green. There are so many of these events that took place in this house that I am just going to have to list together, because it would take years to fully tell them all. At this house I was often found out front eating dirt and ants next to the big oak tree, in nothing but my underware Big Sue in tow, watching the Baker's(all 10 children) across the street. They had a three bedroom place. When we weren't watching Billy and Willy Baker, the two eldest boys, dancing on the roof in nothing but cowboy boots waving their BB guns in the air... we were watching the once a week bath line up. You see the Bakers had a summer tub outside their place which was just a big metal bin filled with water, and once a week all ten of them would line up shortest to tallest. One by one they would pull all their cloths off, stack 'em in a big pile to the side of the wash tub, and climb in searching for the bar of soap, suds up to their own personal liking, climb out use THE towell and run over to the cloths line and put on their other outfit. This was always a good hour of entertainment for Sue and I. Then their was also the day willy walked over to Sue and I and held up his bare foot and said through his missin' tooth mouth, "Looky". And I'll be damned if he didn't have a nail stickin' all the way through his foot. Then he shrugged and made a face like 'ah well', and walked away.

Inside this house was a hole other mecca of excitement. Their were elves working hard in the vents. Sue would feed me bottles of Scope. Fluff our gerbil lay dead in the corner in his platic ball. A blue lady named Roberta lived in the closet of our bedroom the three of us shared. Roberta was very sad. My mother, who is certifiably insane(no really I was born in the Sanitarium, no joke), placed phone calls to Bob Barker, and re-carpeted the whole house using nothing but mis-matched carpet swatches. The reason, you may ask, why she did this was.... education. My mother used to line Pizza, Sue and I up in the kitchen and make us jump from rectangle to rectangle shouting out the color and type of carpet each swatch was.

"Yellow Burber!" Sue yelled
"Green Shag!" Pizza would follow.
"Black Astroturf!" I would say even though I knew damn well I was on a swatch of woven stain-fade, static-resistant fiber mix of geometrical design in an erray of varying shades of red.

This would cause my mother to throw a full box of ice cream in the kitchen sink and scream, "I suppose you think this belongs here!". Then she would sulk to her room for under the bed mommy alone time. Then my father would say, "she's all yours kid, you made her this way.".

This was also the house Pizza, Sue and I saw an ambulence fly down the street, but this ambulence had a window in the back that was open and George Brett's, 1985's baseball superstar, leg was sticking out of it. We saw George Brett, and we told everyone.

Oh the salad days.

We believe this happened.

5. The third house we lived in Big Sue got his own bedroom. I, however, shared a room with Pizza. Pizza hated this because I would scream and cry, while she tried to sleep in our shared bed, until she placed her hand over my eyes(this was apperently the only way I could sleep). Some nights were different, I was a brave loner, and I would pull my lamp and my recorder with the microphone into my closet and stay up all night recording the greatest radio show ever. This is the room where we saw the black panther(actual animal) climb the screen outside the window(Missouri, remember) Big Sue and I both saw it.

Big Sue at some point began to feel bad for me in the shared room, and petitioned by eating an entire bottle of asprin to have Pizza move to the basement. After the stomcah pumping I found myself in a small bedroom all of my own and as a room warming gift Sue built, using every piece of furniture and door knobs, a giant spider web out of kite string that was strong enough for me to climb on and sit. He knew I still spent many hours of the day crying for Charlotte, so on my web that day I sat and cried and become one with Charlotte... her memory lives on.

It was at our third house where Sue challenged me at two in the morning to stand up and ride my bike as slow as I could. I tried, but while riding I fell asleep, fell off the bike, hit my head on the curb and got a concusion. I slept for weeks before Sue and my father could get me up off the curb. Only to have me walk five feet into the lawn where I fell asleep again hitting my head on a rock. I was at the hospital for a while after those naps.

The third house is also the house we saw my father, from my bedroom window, carrying a bloody girl my age down the street.

We believe this happened.

I am now feeling restless, it could go on forever... but I would hate to put you though that pain.

See you all at the table.