21 Baker Street
Childhood:
I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment I lost the ability to speak. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, nothing caused by sickness or trauma or anything of the sort. Over time, words just got harder and harder to form, thoughts got harder to express, and eventually, the effort became so great that I just gave up. By my eighth birthday, my parents and the family doctor had given up on trying to heal me on their own, so I was sent to a speech therapist. Dr. Penelope Phelps. Hard P’s. That wasn’t a good sign. The P’s weren’t friendly, they didn’t like to be said out loud. So, to everyone’s surprise but my own, Dr. Penelope Phelps gave up after three months of mirrors and tongue depressors and videos of children obnoxiously repeating their vowel sounds, and I was declared legally mute. I didn’t mind so much. I didn’t like to talk anyways. I liked to watch. And living in Boston, there were plenty of things to watch.
My family lived in a big, red brick house with spires and ledges and two stone gargoyles that my sister named Iggy and Ziggy guarding the front entrance. The big red house on 21 Baker Street. It was like a castle on the inside. My father was an investment banker and my mother was a secretary for the mayor. There was no lack of luxury inside my house. The carpets were thick and lush, perfect for pushing toy cars through or letting toy elephants graze on. The tile floors were slick and shiny, always ready to be skidded across with a fresh pair of socks. The staircases were grand and spiraling, almost deadly looking, like steel Mount Everests on a smaller scale. Just begging to be climbed and explored and hung off of while your mother screams bloody horrid murder for you to stop.
Clearly my lost ability to speak had no effect on the happiness of my growing up years.
It took me two years to learn sign language. My parents and siblings learned it too, almost half heartedly, and I hated it intensely, hated that my hands had to learn so many different things, almost as many things as my tongue had had to learn. It lasted as a form of communication at our house for approximately two weeks and three days. After that, my father grew so impatient that he forbid sign language and instead bought me a small whiteboard on a string and an unlimited amount of expo markers. I enjoyed this form of communicating much more. All was peaceful in our home. My mother quit her job to home school me after a bully poked a hole through my board with a penknife, so my days grew even more comfortable, just me and my mother in the big house all day, no siblings to bother me, just math and English and mother and the New Zoo Revue on television.
One day, though, my routine was thrown off.
I awoke to a small ruckus outside my bedroom window, and, pulling up my Henry Hippo Underroos, I went to the ledge to investigate.
A moving truck was parked outside, and a crew of burly men were moving furniture into the house next door. It was much smaller than our house, and I felt a little surge of pride as I watched a station wagon pull up to the curb. Out of the station wagon came a family, all dark hair and light skin and clothes that seemed a little drab, even for this part of Boston. A father came first, holding onto the hand of a toddler boy, and then, from the backseat, came a mother and a girl, maybe my age or a little younger. They walked into the house, following their sofa, and I turned back to my bed, which, at the time, was much more interesting.
Over the next few months, I continued to watch the family. They never came over to say hello. We never went over to say hello. It was just that kind of neighborhood. Every once in a while I saw our fathers tip hats from their separate sidewalks as they went separate ways, but that was the extent of our interaction. But I did see the girl. Her bedroom window was right across from mine, and every once in a while I would see her at night, sticking her head out the window and looking up at the stars, folding her hands to pray. Most of the time I would mirror her, watching out of cracked eyelids to see what she was doing. She’d stand there for a few more moments, quiet and still, then raise her head and close the window. The curtains would close and I’d stand there, wanting to talk, but still unable to find the words.
My family lived in a big, red brick house with spires and ledges and two stone gargoyles that my sister named Iggy and Ziggy guarding the front entrance. The big red house on 21 Baker Street. It was like a castle on the inside. My father was an investment banker and my mother was a secretary for the mayor. There was no lack of luxury inside my house. The carpets were thick and lush, perfect for pushing toy cars through or letting toy elephants graze on. The tile floors were slick and shiny, always ready to be skidded across with a fresh pair of socks. The staircases were grand and spiraling, almost deadly looking, like steel Mount Everests on a smaller scale. Just begging to be climbed and explored and hung off of while your mother screams bloody horrid murder for you to stop.
Clearly my lost ability to speak had no effect on the happiness of my growing up years.
It took me two years to learn sign language. My parents and siblings learned it too, almost half heartedly, and I hated it intensely, hated that my hands had to learn so many different things, almost as many things as my tongue had had to learn. It lasted as a form of communication at our house for approximately two weeks and three days. After that, my father grew so impatient that he forbid sign language and instead bought me a small whiteboard on a string and an unlimited amount of expo markers. I enjoyed this form of communicating much more. All was peaceful in our home. My mother quit her job to home school me after a bully poked a hole through my board with a penknife, so my days grew even more comfortable, just me and my mother in the big house all day, no siblings to bother me, just math and English and mother and the New Zoo Revue on television.
One day, though, my routine was thrown off.
I awoke to a small ruckus outside my bedroom window, and, pulling up my Henry Hippo Underroos, I went to the ledge to investigate.
A moving truck was parked outside, and a crew of burly men were moving furniture into the house next door. It was much smaller than our house, and I felt a little surge of pride as I watched a station wagon pull up to the curb. Out of the station wagon came a family, all dark hair and light skin and clothes that seemed a little drab, even for this part of Boston. A father came first, holding onto the hand of a toddler boy, and then, from the backseat, came a mother and a girl, maybe my age or a little younger. They walked into the house, following their sofa, and I turned back to my bed, which, at the time, was much more interesting.
Over the next few months, I continued to watch the family. They never came over to say hello. We never went over to say hello. It was just that kind of neighborhood. Every once in a while I saw our fathers tip hats from their separate sidewalks as they went separate ways, but that was the extent of our interaction. But I did see the girl. Her bedroom window was right across from mine, and every once in a while I would see her at night, sticking her head out the window and looking up at the stars, folding her hands to pray. Most of the time I would mirror her, watching out of cracked eyelids to see what she was doing. She’d stand there for a few more moments, quiet and still, then raise her head and close the window. The curtains would close and I’d stand there, wanting to talk, but still unable to find the words.