I was never a child. I was more like a rat, or a maggot. Or, a roach. Yeah, I was probably most like a roach. In fact, all five of us were like little roaches, scurrying about and hiding whenever anyone came to the door. Roaches do secret things in the dark that nobody knows about. Roaches scatter when the light switch gets flipped on because they have to conceal their shame. Roaches know that their survival depends on not being discovered. Yeah, we were definitely roaches.
We lived in a small house that faced a major street. The house had two window panels on either side of the door. They weren't true windows because people could only see distorted images from the outside. A distortion of a distortion, I would say to myself. I don't know why we had these. Maybe my parents believed that one day we would have a house worth looking into. But, I saw them as dangerous. We were supposed to trust that the distorted windows would protect us, but I wasn't so sure. If a person squinted hard enough and at the right angle, would they be able to see who we really were?
Sometimes, we would be playing amongst the trash and clothes on the floor and there would be a knock on the door. The five of us would freeze, like fucking roaches. We would drop down to the ground and slowly, very slowly, crawl to a designated hiding spot. Maybe behind a couch, maybe behind a box, or maybe we would press ourselves against the wall. As if the person at the door was some T-rex that would only attack us if we moved. So, we stayed where we were and made no sudden movements. People could knock for up to three minutes. Some people would stay longer if they were convinced they had heard something before they showed up. One time, we didn't move for one hour. The Twins had even fallen asleep on the floor. Our goal was to make them feel crazy, for them to second-guess themselves. They couldn't have heard children's voices, because what kind of kids would be quiet for that long?
I am not sure when I first learned that the way we were living was wrong. The house had always been that way for as long as I could remember. No one was allowed in and we only opened the front door just wide enough to squeeze out. Maybe I found out from my grandmother. We had to stay with her sometimes when it was too cold because we couldn’t afford a heater. She would wake us up early and make us clean. Maybe it was going to a friend’s house and seeing there wasn’t spoiled milk in the refrigerator or a garage full of pee-stained clothes in piles. Maybe it was when I mumbled some excuse to my best friend about why she couldn't visit us. "We are remodeling," I would lie, like the bad little roach I was. Lying was our key to survival.
But, I wasn’t a roach at school. I was the best, I was the fastest and I was the smartest. I had skipped a grade and still could beat every single person in the class in the Around the World game. I was somewhere else on the food chain. Human, even. Someone who stepped on roaches instead of laying on their stomach on the floor waiting for the mysterious knocker to leave. I protected that person and secretly hated everyone else because they were normal. I knew that if it came to it, that I would do anything to protect my school identity. One day, I finally put my resolve to the test.
I will never forget that day because the teacher was at the blackboard and we were all listening. I opened my backpack to get more paper and that is when I saw it. Coming out of my bag, my brethren, myself, running to the front of the classroom. The other children started screaming. They had seen who I really was and they were horrified. I pretended to be horrified, too, because no one knew where it had come from. I was hated but at least my identity was safe. While everyone was transfixed with the piece of me running around the classroom, another piece of me began crawling out too. With speed I did not know I possessed, without remorse, I smashed that miniature version of myself under my shoe. I let my paper fall from my desk and simultaneously scooped its dead carcass up while I crumpled the paper. In my bag they went.
I sweated and squirmed the rest of the day because I was not sure that my public persona could survive another attack. But I made it and no one knew. When I got home, I emptied every single pocket in my backpack and checked every nook and cranny. These fuckers were not going to ruin me. I had the fucking highest standardized test scores in school. I put my backpack inside one trash bag after another and tied them tightly. They would never come with me to school again. I looked at the bottom of my shoe and said, “It was either you or me.”
Sincerely,
Ratsiram
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