Saturday, June 16, 2012

Middle School Memoirs: The Day I Met Turtle Nose


11th March 2012
Dear Cassi,

In psychology we often say that the abuser finds the abused. This is something of the case with your ex husband and I. I can recall the first day I met him and he was already a plump thing of a person to my twelve year old eyes. I call him Turtle Nose because of the photograph his father had of him as a young boy that was what he looked like before the fat grew in and he because he had an alien character in one of ‘his’ stories that looked like a turtle.
       
That and a turtle head is a poop about to drop, and everything he touches goes to shit. You know what I mean. From this point let’s call him Turtle Nose and we can get the joke.
       
Turtle Nose had been in the honors class a year ahead of me and, as we had a drama project with the two classes, he knew me from class. I did not know him. I had little in the way of recognition skills still at the time and I was unsure as to how he knew me when he approached me on the playground and wanted to play basketball. 
       
I was never one for sports mostly because without uniforms I could never remember who is on my team. Still, as I had nothing better to do at the moment I agreed and we played a game I had little understanding of at the time.

Turtle Nose said that he was a Mormon priest, a boy scout, and a chess player. None of these things held any sway with me, but I put them in my mental file. I cannot say that he was a bad friend a first, but then if he had been a good friend that should have made an impact on my well being.

My most honest assessment is that he was there as most folks were in my life at the time. It is my feeling that during that time in my life most people ignored my problems. I like to think of that time as the cold time because what I remember most is a feeling of cold. I felt that coldness under my skin and there is a bit of it in me to this day.

Stay warm, little sister



Richard Leland Neal
Also updating today!
Random Street Theater a Comic

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