Photo Mark Rogers
I grew up in a post-WWII suburb in Falls Church, Virginia. My first school was Sleepy Hollow Elementary School. Every Sunday night we’d sit in front of the TV watching the Wonderful World of Disney. When they broadcast The Legend of Sleepy Hollow I put two and two together. That’s where I go to school. When you’re a little kid Sleepy Hollow is Sleepy Hollow. As if the shared name wasn’t terrifying enough, to get to school I also had to walk over a small bridge that looked exactly like the one in the movie—where the headless horseman capered around like a banshee.
This fear didn’t stop my twin brother Scott and me from walking home from school one afternoon and then eventually heading back the way we came, to wander around the school grounds, when school was out for the day. We were six years old, maybe seven. We stood on the playground, with its jungle gym and wooden merry-go-round.
I picked up a stone the size of a lemon and for no reason at all hurled it at the side of the school, shattering one of the classroom windows.
Scott and I ran home and in between puffs of air, I begged my brother, “Don’t tell. Don’t tell mom and dad. You can’t tell them.”
Scott didn’t hesitate a second. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”
By now we were walking, catching our breath, turning onto Barrett Road, where we lived. We walked through the front door of our house.
Our parents were sitting on the sofa.
“Hey Mom, Dad,” said Scott. “Mark just broke a window at school.”
I wasn’t beaten. I don’t even remember being scolded. I do remember going to school the next day with my mother and admitting to the principal it was me who broke the window. Maybe my parents had to pay to replace the window. Maybe not.
My brother didn’t have to go to the principal’s office. He went straight to his class.
When he walked in he saw the broken window was covered in cardboard.
Sitting on his desktop was the lemon-sized rock I’d thrown.
From my memoir-in-progress Fort Rosarito
MARK ROGERS is a writer and artist whose literary heroes include Charles Bukowski, Willy Vlautin, and Charles Portis. Rogers lives in Baja California, Mexico with his Sinaloa-born wife, Sofia. His award-winning travel journalism has brought him to 56 countries. His crime novels have been published in the U.S. and UK. Uppercut, his memoir of moving to Mexico, is published by Cowboy Jamboree Press. NeoText publishes his Tijuana Novels series and Gray Hunter series. You can reach him at markrogers627@gmail.com.
Comments