Natalie

Chapter I-IV

  NATALIE

By: Bryce B. Stoskopf

            It started off as just harmless doodles.  Crude lines of cheap crayon taking form of a crude face on a cheap piece of paper.  As a little boy I would draw all the time.  While most children my age were outside playing catch with their dads, riding bikes  or stampeding down the street after the neighborhood ice cream truck I would be in my little room, laying on the carpet drawing.  At the time I did not know this little hobby of mine would eventually take on a life of its own and thrust me into an emotional storm that would soar beyond any rational view, idea or justification.  This tale of which I am about to share is of disturbing and peculiar events that occurred during my tender years of childhood in a little rural valley town called, Cherryville; which is just west of the Grey Mountains.  I'd figure if you are going to hear this story from anyone it might as well be me, since I am what you would call the victim; or suspect by some other opinions.  Quite frankly I'm really not too sure which one I am.  And I don't know if I am supposed to be. 

I

            "Victor come on!  Your dinner is ready!"  My mother and father would yell this demand from the other end of the house every night at exactly the same time, 6:30 sharp.  Their voices would bounce off the thin hall walls like a tennis ball that was thrown by a professional baseball pitcher.  I rarely came downstairs at all.  If I did it was to eat my meals, or engage in small talk with my two parents about school and what not.  Our house was a typical rural home in a typical rural town.  It was a slim two story home that looked like two red blocks stacked on top of each other from a far off distance.  The inside walls were cluttered with portraits of family members and the typical cheesy family photos that were done by mediocre photographers at the city mall.  It wasn't a big house but big enough for a three piece family. 

            Now we all know that it is not unusual for young children to develop relationships with an imaginary friend of some form.  Whether they may be ghost, a man, a women, or an animal it is looked upon as a result of a hyper-sensitive and naive imagination.  This stage of growth can be looked upon as a most disturbing and alarming red flag to most parents.  And in my case my own parents were no different as to the ever growing intimate relationship that I developed with a girl named, "Natalie". 

            Natalie would be the first persona that would become my first real friend.  How and when my first engagements with Natalie started are still not particularly clear to me.  Before I even learned her name I would draw what a later psychiatrist would call, "Crude fragments of the female form."  For some reason I apparently had a fascination with red crayons and would often use them as the main medium for my rough renderings of Natalie.  Looking back on the drawings now, it was clear that I took my time with her eyes more than any other of her features. 

II

            6:00 a.m. and I could hear my parents alarm clock chirping and squawking away in their downstairs bedroom until the speakers would blast with the voices of overweight talk show hosts and cheap country music.  Then the dogs would bark and run up and down the hallway until someone would let them outside.  I always awoke to a current of air flowing through out the four walls of my room.  It was like a light whirlwind of crisp, moist air that wasn't of cold or warm just; somewhere in between.  My mother would always blame it on a small fan in the corner of my room that I would run all night to help me sleep.  But a small, plastic fan that towered no more than seven inches off the ground could not ever possibly produce such a damp backdraft.  At least that's what I thought. 

            I couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old at the time; which would of put me in the second grade I believe.  My earliest memories of grade school are somewhat distorted and blurred with only but a few bits and pieces that I am able to recollect.  I do remember my second grade teacher Mrs. Watson was a very large, heavy set women with puffy red hair, tiny eyes, and metallic rose pink fingernails.  She always looked as if she hated her job and was going to call it quits at any point of the day that I was under her supervision.  Like most of the children in the class she looked and talked to me with a somewhat robotic voice with her eye lids halfway shut.  Her hairy arms and hairy hands disturbed me.  Her excess fat dangling down off her arms would blubber and flap as she would hastily write the lessons of the day on the chalkboard in sloppy cursive.