Just a Little Bit More...

Ch4: Frustrating Flutter

I wasn't really surprised that every day that had passed since my blunders in school, my parents furthered reminded me that I had come short. I was held as some sort of momentary failure, the way that one would expect a bird to just flop down after an obviously long drop. Normally, you'd think that it made a mistake and that for the rest of its life it will fly more conscientiously. But no, I continued to have difficulties in school.

The world of math equations and greek hieroglyphics wasn't something that my fifth grade self could wrap its head around. Grammar and English was something that I easily accommodated, but my true interest was science. Well I had to find an interest. I was forced to attend school no matter how sick I was. I was forced to at least do my work on time everyday. So, I had to force myself to tune in every now and then.

It was that or stare at the window, imaginations of touching the skies above.

That anger never really quite settled. I would spend hours in class or in my room hatching schemes or acts of rage that would never truly be performed. Just a bucket load of time in my mind, in where I would see my frustration just swamp up my thoughts. I had a lot to boil over, a lot to feel just pure red for. Childish emotions are the most crude, since we can't really differentiate our thoughts with nuance. It's all just angry, sad and happy; just red, blue and yellow. Constantly I had red in my mind. Angry for what though? I couldn't really answer that question.

I mean of course the thoughts that swirled were that of my unfairness. The way my parents treated me. The way that no one around me seemed to really care of my obvious mental outbursts. How couldn't they notice the little tugs of my face when I furrowed my eyebrows? Or the clenching of my tiny fists when I would grip everything aggressively? Mami and Papi didn't notice. My teachers didn't notice.

Well I guess that explains why at the beginning it was difficult to really gain any friends. I was a bit more of the quiet type before that changed really suddenly in middle school. But before that, I had a hard time interacting with the kids around me. Girls would sing sweetly and chat richly to one another, while boys would aggressively tumble and fidget roughly over sports. I found myself irked by my peers, by how much they could have fun and not feel the rage brewing inside me.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, was what I remembered telling myself. What was happening to me wasn't fair. The way I was being handled like some rock on a park trail, constantly being kicked or tossed around by passersby. The way my parents chucked me from car to car, from place to place, from room to room, it all felt so very crude to me. In Mami's minivan she would appear frustrated like a roused wolf who knew of its duty to protect its pup, but so very adverse to commit to the role. A tax for her soul, for her life. She would slash at the rubber steering wheel cover, digging her nails deep into the flesh of handles. Her feet would stomp on the vessels of the brake and accelerator. Sometimes her hand would crush the nose of the gear.

Papi on the other hand had a very cool demeanor in the way he approached his duty to me. His glassy, blue eyes often reminded me of the majestic eyes of predatory animals. He had this tattoo of a tiger or panther; I wasn't quite sure which, by his right shoulder blade, which I thought of when I would stare into his eyes. Well, his eyes were blue sometimes, sometimes they were green. They were ambiguous and vague in their true presence, only holding some sort of similarity: that they were both mysterious yet unique in their color. It reminded me of him a lot. His voice wasn't soft nor stern, and his hands didn't flail nor were they sedimentary. He seemed to be the pinnacle of being the neither in every spectrum. The median. He didn't interact with the car as much as my mother; in fact he rarely did at all.

His voice rarely raged towards me. His voice rarely even asked me anything. Nor did he comment anything towards me as my Mami did; although she would usually do so with increasing stress when talking about practically anything. For him, it was just one word questions: "Hungry?"

"Yes, Papi."

We drove to the nearest Burger King. His shirt sleeves had become wrinkled and messy due to his long day at work. He worked many jobs here and there, although at the time he was employed as an ice cream salesman. The scent of frigid air clung to him tightly. Bits of scraped cream had found itself drying on his collar. We often ate fast food, or at least I ate it; I never really saw my parents doing leisure things like having fun or eating. In my mind, I couldn't understand why any person would constantly want to be complaining or working.

Not that I was any different. All I did was fume.

And fume I did. First, it was my pillow I began to trash talk to. I would name-call it in the same way some kids would do in class. 'Idiot', 'dumbo', 'jerk' were all names thrown at it, that in retrospection sound like childish insults, but at the time were words flung with bladed intent. Second, had been my peers who barked at me, and to size up their annoyance, my angry self would direct the same fierceness that my parents showed each other.

And slowly, but surely, I rose out of my shell. I was still trapped, but now I held myself with a higher voice. I was louder, more interactive and generally livelier. Anger makes someone explode, but even an explosion is a method of communication. I talked more and more, and that substituted my development of social skills; an education that my parents didn't teach me other than the battles they had between themselves.

But even a parrot learns to talk after being yelled at.

And well, I guess I tried my best with what I had. I tried my best to outgrow my silent self. And to some extent, I did.

One weekend, I was at Abuela— Grandma Maggie's house. They actually owned a home, something a bit rare in 2000's America, what with us living in suburban Florida and all. The floors were always a bit creaky, and for the amount of times she scolded my cousins and I to be careful when on the second floor, you'd think the entire structure would just collapse if you stomped on it. Anyway, that sweltering, hot afternoon, as it usually was in Miami, my parents came to pick me up. They had left me to be watched by my grandparents while they worked, something I didn't entirely mind since the stillness and boredness of the place quieted my frustrations.

I would often lazily stare at the blocky, square of the T.V. while my abuelo Carlos would fiddle with the remote. I was enchanted by the remote, what with its white and black casing, making it look entirely sci-fi and cool to me at that age. But I was reminded that no matter how you dress something up, its functionality still remains. And the functionality of something makes it a positive thing or a negative thing. Like a jeweled cage.

My room back at my parent's apartment was painted a nice shade of cream, with little portraits of baby photos adding a splash of pink frame to the walls. My bedsheets had this floral design that accompanied the lacing of my depreciated pillow. My T.V. was returned to its rightful place, this time however with the addition of a gift.

Well, I had really received two gifts. One gift was given to me by my Papi, a nintendo gamecube which housed a large collection of games, all revolving around current shows I watched or movies I was acquainted with.

The other gift, from Mami, was a small cage, with two hand-sized birds. A blue tinged one and a lime colored one. They were monk parakeets, and as noted, bigger than the size of my hand. I always wondered why Mami chose a cage that was obviously too small.