In Part 3 of this diaryhttp://www.dailykos.com/... I wrote of meeting the first and only friend I had ever known. Well he was. Being a boy of around 6 years of age I did not even remember a father, or anyone who ever smiled at me or talked to me. My life would take a turn taking me into a world and times I hope never to see or experience again in the obvious small change I have left in this lifetime. Through this new friend I would embark on what I will describe today as a miraculous accidental discovery that would enable me to escape a brutal clutch that my aunt had taken on me, in which it appeared that inflicting body and mental pain on me would satisfy her lust of anger against my mom, and all for the sins of my mother -- as someone noted earlier in a comment.
So I paused before following Jesse up the dark asphalt sharp rocks slope to the top, where for the first time I saw railroad tracks. When I reached the top Jesse already was running barefooted on one of the iron track rails. I started laughing so hard I almost choked up fighting off tears of joy. What better place for me to play? I was laughing trying to copy Jesse, but burned my foot as I tried to get on. I looked up and down the tracks as far as me eyes could go and I knew I would be safe. I thought of my mother. But I could care less if she ever came back for me. I had never been happier.
As my uncle Ike would later tell of Jesse`s feat of being able to run barefooted on the hot railroad tracks, he joked that Jesse could actually grab the tracks with his feet like a monkey would. But that joke would come a lot later than when I actually was looking a Jesse run on the track the very first time. I did find it very funny. I did not even attempt to get on the hot steel railroad track. I managed to catch up with him but only when we reached El Puente Negro but did so by running off the tracks or stepping on the warm railroad ties.
El Puente Negro, the Black Bridge, as it was historically known throughout this particular community was due to the black ties that run parallel as crossbeams to which the rails of a railroad track are fastened. The dark oily timber like posts, many to count as a child that rose up from the ground holding the bridge in its sturdy, unyielding and firm position, made for its creepy name as trains rumbled over and past the Alazan creek below. No child in its right mind would attempt to walk over this bridge. It was high, with ties separated by more than a foot from each other. A boy my age and size could easily get trapped between two ties if he slipped and fell, with deadly consequences if a train is rumbling near. It was not too wise to continue on so we stopped right there and looked down towards the street that runs below parallel to the railroad tracks. Comal Street is a dead end as the Alazan Creek blocks further passage.
Being quite far from my aunt Elvira`s ability to see me or catch me I was embolden and followed Jesse down the slope reaching Comal Street. It is the same street running in front of my grandmother`s house. It is through this street that I entered the gate http://www.dailykos.com/... and where I wondered what was out here. Now I knew.
I asked my mother why we came here. I gazed across the wide yard towards a high tall fence as I stood on that high porch because I suddenly realized that I was inside a yard and did not know what was on the other side or where I had come from. I do not even recall walking through the fence gate to enter the yard. For a boy my age at that time everything to me looked so big. The fence was a mental block in my mind that did not allow me to remember where I came from, or what it was that existed out there. There was no yesterday as I stood there searching in my head.
Once on level stepping of the street, we crossed to the other side towards a house. I
am aghast today as I remember with dismay of the ruins and dilapidated conditions
of the majority of houses on that block as I looked towards my grandmother`s house. I was leery thinking of my aunt coming looking for me. The destruction wrought upon the community in which I would live by Nature`s hot Texas sun had most of the laminated rusty house basically on their knees much like it own people had been sentenced to their knees by the phenomenal destruction caused by the Great Depression`s grip that still refused to let go as I stood there wide eyes. I am writing this diary not as a rant, I do so merely to release a frustration I have carried with me all my life, and by no means want pity nor do I blame anyone. At least until this point. Once I grew up I would know the truth or what people today think is the truth of the reasons that the Great Depression brought this country to its knees during my childhood. I merely want to fulfill a long held goal to write what I recall and saw with my own eyes growing up in those years of calamity and chaos.
A overgrown rather tall sad sack looking kid who was several years older then us, with a wide grin on his face greeted us with a "Maw!", Raul called to his own mother who was standing at the torn and battered screen door to tell her we were there. Raul, as creepy and looney looking as he appeared in my eyes, was very smart and street wise compared to either Jesse and me. Raul`s mother just turned and walked back into the dark interior of her house. Like most everyone she had no electricity or pluming in their house. It was getting dark. I noticed the sun had hidden itself over the railroad tracks. I had to sneak back into my grandmother`s house. I had no other place to sleep.
I managed to avoid punishment by my grandmother who nevertheless made me go
to bed without anything to eat. I had begged her to give me something to eat, but she refused telling me that I did not deserve even staying in the same room with them. I could actually breathe and taste the hate towards me even if I was allowed to sleep on her bed. My grandmother and Amelia on one side, I at their feet.
A loud rumbling noise that moved the whole house shook me awake. I waited to see if I had been dreaming. A hair raising loud blast followed sounding like it was coming from the kitchen located by the back door proved that I was not dreaming. I knew it was some kind of monster that had come to kill me once and for all. CHA!! CHA!! CHA!! WHISSSSSS, WHISSS!! TOOOOOOOT!!! WHISSSZZZZ!! WOOOOOOOOOO, made me cover my head with the feet smelly sheet. I needed to know what that noise was or whether it was a monster. Suddenly I was not afraid. I slid off the bed silently and walked to the back door to investigate.
There it was!! Laying on top of the high slope I had seen earlier. The monster. It
looked shiny black against the night. Sleek and oily looking it spewed black smoke from its forehead high into the hot night. I wanted to see it closely so I stepped out
and crossed carefully into my aunt`s yard to walk to the fence near the grass gully
that led up the slope and near the monster. When I got close to the fence I saw that
the monster`s belly crackled and churned with fire. Frozen on my feet it suddenly spat a hot spray of misty smoke at me causing me to turn and run away...Onto the arms of my aunt Elvira. She had used the train`s noise to sneak up on me. She grabbed my hair and dragged me into her house