Wrong Way Home

Photo by Markus Spiske

Happy Acres Trailer Park was situated behind Robert’s Lane, on a quiet residential street called McCord. My school, Beardsley Elementary, was less than a mile from Happy Acres, so I often rode my bike there. I had a yellow Schwinn girl's bike with a white basket, which made it easier to ride while wearing a dress. On those days, I'd ride the sidewalk along Robert’s Lane, passing the Laundromat, Jolly Cone Drive-In, 7-Eleven, and the rich mobile home community that was protected by a wall.

There were days when I had to walk to school alone because Brother wouldn’t wait for me. Mom always said to take Robert’s Lane because it was a busy street and no one would bother us. I didn’t fully understand what she meant until two men in a black Cadillac stopped me right outside Happy Acres and asked if I wanted to go for a ride. I said no, and ran back into the trailer park until they left.

Most of my school friends lived on Beardsley Street, right behind Happy Acres. I always wanted to walk home with them after school, but Mom said I couldn’t. She said it wasn’t safe for a girl my age to walk on that street. Plus, there was no rear gate entrance to Happy Acres, only a tall chain-link fence, which meant I'd get stuck back there. 

After saying our goodbyes at the end of the long wall on Robert’s Lane, my friends turned right and walked the back way home on Beardsley Street. I had to keep walking straight ahead.

One day, my friends dared me to take the wrong way home from school. They called me a chicken if I didn’t. So I did.

Along Beardsley Street, we laughed and picked pink roses we shouldn’t have. We drank from garden hoses until my friends went home one by one, leaving me alone to face the high chain-link fence behind Happy Acres.

On that particular day, Mom made me wear my red turtleneck and tights underneath the new blue-and-white striped jumper she had sewn from mattress ticking. It felt stiff, like cardboard. I always wondered why anyone would intentionally make clothes out of a mattress.

I threw my Barbie lunch pail over the chain-link fence and hiked up my jumper. My shoes slipped on the fence, so I wedged them inside the wire holes. I climbed one hole at a time, like a red-legged spider, until I reached the top to rest, careful not to sit on one of the twisted wire pokers.

As I swung my other leg over the top of the fence, I slipped. Instead of falling to the ground, my knee caught on a sharp wire poker, breaking my fall. I dangled upside down at the top of the chain-link fence by my knee. My glasses fell off, my hair covered my face, and my jumper bunched around my waist.

I wasn't strong enough to unhook myself, so I hung there quietly with no one around to help.

Somehow, my knee slipped off the poker by itself. I tumbled to the ground and started bawling. My knee hurt like the dickens, but landing on my shoulder felt worse.

I was glad I wore red tights that day because no one could see the blood gushing down my leg.

I limped all the way home until I got to the butterfly bush and then had to pretend I wasn’t injured. Later that night, when Mom was cooking dinner, I stuffed my bloody tights in the garbage can outside. I was lucky I had two pairs. She never missed them.

Later, when Mom asked about the enormous scab on my knee, I told her that I’d fallen off the swing at school and promised to be more careful next time. 

When my giant scab fell off, the hole was so deep that I could stick my pointer finger inside and wiggle it around.

I still walked the wrong way home from school, but I learned how to climb that fence without falling.