My Father's Image

My father takes me to buy a pony. All my brothers have had ponies and now it's my turn. The pony is big, not a Shetland, and the owner says it is too big, but my father puts me on it anyway, and after one quick circle around the track the pony throws me off. My father and the man laugh loudly until my father sees my tears. He does not say a word as he takes me back to my mother. I hate him.

2004

When I saw a child spanked in a grocery store, I saw the fury shaking his entire body. A few minutes later I saw him happily eating ice cream with the same parent, I know, from my own experience, the child wished dead 10 minutes before. Sometimes, though, I see a boy glare at the back of a parent's head with an anger that will last. I must have been, like him, a glaring child who proudly promised himself never to forget his hatred. But hatred, too, fades.

1926

In Florida, my father has an idea to negotiate a deal to sell the advertising rights to the Gandy Bridge -- the huge, new toll bridge that connects St. Petersburg to Tampa -- to Ford Motor Company. His scheme is to bring the Ford advertising men together with the majority bond holders of the Gandy. He wants Ford to use pictures of the toll bridge and the slogan: "Fords Go Free." It is family legend that Ford's advertising men are tempted but finally say no. In any case, he has made a million dollars in land deals from his office. But in 1927 he has lost it all and more.

In a few days we will roll up an expensive Turkish carpet, tie it on top of the Studebaker touring car and leave everything to the creditors. I want to ride on one of the fold-down opera seats but am heartbroken when my sisters beat me to them. He picks me up afterwards and says I can sit next to him as we drive home.

2004

In my career of teaching creative writing at the University of North Carolina I have seen that in student stories it is important to the young writer where the family sat in the car. To sit up front between parents is the prized place. To get the seat at the front passenger's window is a rite of passage, a growing up.

1929

We are home in South Carolina and a man from the bank drives a stake in front of our brick house with a sign on it. All the children in the neighborhood come to look at the new sign and one or two grown-ups stop. I am happy at so much attention. My mother comes out of the house and the children scatter as always. She reads the notice, pulls up the stake, breaks it across her knee and throws it into the middle of the street. She yanks me by the arm into the house and switches me with a peach switch for reading the sign to the children. I am screaming, "I didn't. I can't read!" She calms down before my father comes to lunch. Even so she points at me and says, "This little dunce read it to everyone in the neighborhood."

She keeps saying this is our house, and on that dreadful day, even though I try with all my might, I cannot think of ever moving.

2004

My mother could switch us when she wanted to, but she would not allow my father to touch us because, as she always claimed, "Men do not understand how strong they are."

1932

A circus has stranded itself in our small town on land owned by my father, his partner and some other men. The circus also owes my father for straw. He takes me up to the circus grounds where the tents are being loaded on wagons pushed by the two elephants. In a ring are miniature horses, with red plumes blowing in the wonderful-smelling breeze. I sit on a rail in total awe and admiration. My father is talking to the man about one of the horses, who is blind in one eye and can no longer be used in the show. They shake hands on a deal. My father comes over, shows me the half-blind horse up so close I can pat it. He asks would I like to own it, to take it home. I breathe so deep I cannot let out my breath. I want the little horse more than I have ever wanted anything. He cannot mean it. It must be a joke. He and the circus man must be ready to laugh at me. I say no. He stares at me and doesn't say a word all the way back to the car. All the way home. In my mind, he will never speak to me again.

I press my lips together and my eyelids to keep the tears from flowing. With my eyes shut I see the sweet black horse with the red plumes between its sharp, alert ears.