Chapter one. Webs of love.

Somehow, even though I was born in New York, I ended up in North Carolina where I would attend public school there. That kind of didn’t last long, since my grandmother soon protested against the fact that I was in the class for the mentally retarded.

I don't know how, and or why my grandmother and grandfather moved to a small town known as Saint Augustine. It was in Florida.

The only memory that I have of being in public school as looking up at lights as some teacher changed my diaper. A window would be ahead of me, an hands would be touching my bottom, which I hated with a pation.

Years later, I watched a film of me in normal clothes, on a stage, but with bunny ears on my head. A song would play, and then kids could go in synch with the song as it told us to do various things. I was the last one who performed the action, looking all around at my class mates in turn. On the tape, I would hear my grandmother call out to me “good job Robert!”

I don’t even remember, or know, what the school was called for that matter. After my grandmother heard about the deaf and blind school, she immediately came to Florida, and enrolled me there.

I don't know that much about my grandmother. I don't know what her life was like, and I even don’t know if she went to college. She did, but I would find that out years later. I just didn’t ask about my family, yet my family didn’t quite make it a requirement to learn everything about them. One story I remember my plump grandmother telling me was the first time she tried smoking.

“I don’t want to see you doing what your grandfather does.” She had sternly told me when I had just wolfed down my happy meal. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t care. I didn’t like the smell anyway. Stupidly, I said “okay.”

Another memory I have, even though it's not a complete one, is me walking out to the covered porch of the household not feeling very good. It was because of the smell, that horrible smell in the air that came from my grandfather and that long tube in his fingers. It made me sick.

“Robert?” my grandmother called. You okay?” I didn’t answer. The closer I got to the smoke, the worse I felt. I deduced that I should back away and try to go some place where I didn’t have to smell it. I couldn't. It was everywhere.

“I don’t like the smell.” I remember looking at the blue carpet, and the carpet slightly moving, and something weird happening in my stomach. That's all I remember, but after that somehow I was dubbed as being allergic to smoke, and my grandfather was to smoke outside under all circumstances. Is that even possible? Being allergic to smoke? I don't know, and I still didn’t know.

Despite my grandfather’s smoking habits he was a very healthy man for his age anyway. Tall, and slim, and with a full face and a clean, smooth complexion that generated tiny wrinkles in his tanned skin on his forehead. His belly, I do remember, jutted out a little like he consumed a fetus in there. My grandmother on the other hand, was not so good looking. Her features were about the same as his, but she had gray hair rather than black, and her round thin cheek and thin mouth would be framed by a face that generated wrinkles all over the place. She still, despite all this, looked quite attractive my mom had often said. From what I remember, her face was usually kind, and with a wide smile almost all the time. My grandfather had a stern look about him, like he was still in the army. I don't know what he did, but he emerged from that an engineer. I never knew what my grand mothers occupation once was, or even if she had one. Both I know did graduate from college of course.

However I ended up in their homes, either by their choice or by my mom’s, there was no question in my mind that they loved me to death. I had the perfect fairy tale style home. My grandmother however, I think loved me a little too much. She was extremely overprotective of me, and she didn’t ever want to have that baby boy she knew so well blossom into someone or something older. She was so firm about this, that I was still drinking from a bottle at the age of two or possibly older. My grandfather on the other hand, didn’t treat me like that. He took me outside, and whenever I would fall and scrap my knee, he would ask if I were okay, and then he would tell me to come along and get moving. Of course he looked at it to see if it was bad, but he claimed “if you can walk, your fine!” he wasn’t like my grandmother, who actually would kneel down, and kiss it, and then swoop me up inn her arms and carry me the rest of the way. I didn’t like that as I grew older, but when I was at that age I almost felt as though they did it because they loved me more. I thought that way so adamantly I would even boast about it to any adult who would listen. My grandmother and grandfather never honestly had any company over, so I was in solitude most of the time. Except for when I went to school.

I often wondered how my grandmother and grandfather were able to pay for all the bills. As it turns out a distant relative named Garry helped them out.

Aside from my grandmother and my grandfather, my aunt and uncle always came to see us with my cousins, Stephen Earl JR, and Alexander whom I always called big al for reasons unknown. The first time I looked up into big al’s young clean smooth twenty something ear old face with thin cheek bones and a captivating thin smile that framed his slightly egg shaped head with black hair nicely framed on the top of his head, cut short. I was curious as to who he was. He smiled down at me. I smiled right back at him.

“He’s adorable!” his deep intellectual voice said. I smiled up at him, my eyes looking like I was concentrating. With a small laugh, I pooped right in the palm of his hand.

It was rare though that my aunt and uncle and cousins would come to see us, but that was because they didn’t have the time to, or the money.

As I grew older my grandfather wanted me to try new things, while my grandmother wanted me to be always in her arms, never letting me walk about the earth with wings. She wanted to have them clipped always, so I could not fly away on her.

Despite my grandmother’s wishes, my grandfather, whom I always called Rodger, took me for walks to strengthen my legs, and to show me to the world and to show the world to me. Even at a early age I was a curious little devil, and I wanted to explore, and learn how things worked and why. I remember one incident that almost got me shocked. My grandmother had plugged something in a wall, and I think I was about two at the time. I watched in fascination as she plugged something in. when she unplugged it, I stared at the outlet in pure awe. I tried to get as close as I could so I could look inside it, but something was blocking my way. Somehow, a fork had clattered next to me, and I picked it up. I looked at the handle of the fork, then at the prongs of the plug. They looked about the same width. I was just about to stick the fork in, when a hand snatched it away from me.

“No! Robert! Bad! That's dangerous!” my grandmother shouted at me. I didn’t understand why she was yelling at me, but I got the general idea that she was unhappy. I don't know how they punished me if I ever did anything bad, but I never did the same thing twice. I did however, do plenty of things to get me in trouble. Some time later… I was feeding some birds somewhere, and I noticed that if one particular bird wanted to get some food, the other birds would stop him from doing so. They were huge birds, so even I could see them. I wasn’t much older than the time of my outlet incident, but I wanted to try something. Taking some bred in each hand, I threw it in opposite directions, one from each hand, so it looked like I just shot my arms out wide. My left hand flew upward because I didn’t know how to control it the same way I did my other arm. I wanted to see if the birds would split, or go after one pile. They went after one pile of bred. My grandmother watched me with a odd look on her face.

Another thing that was odd about me was that I was developing faster than other kids. I could talk early, and I could mimic people pretty well. I also had a odd sense of deduction skills.

My uncle would tell me that.

“Even at a young age you led your cousin in conversation.” I didn’t, and don’t have any idea what that meant.

It wasn’t until 1997 when I started at FSDB, the Florida school for the deaf and the blind. Before I began, I had to be evaluated. In short, I was accepted.

When they were doing the IQ test however, I tested in the 96 range, which I am guessing is high. Instead of putting me in the grade that they thought I should go in however, my grandmother had me demoted to the first grade to work on my social skills. Even then I almost never said a word unless I absolutely had to.

When I went to school it was a totally new and frightening experience for me, but I was also extremely curious, which made learning things a lot easier for me. By this point, I already knew how to kind of read with the help of my leap frog audio books. As they would play, I would hold the book an inch from my nose, and try to follow along with the book. Sometimes, I would even pause the tape, and start it again, and listened to how he would pronounce the sound. Okay, so that symbol makes this sound? I learned how to read tree, ice, and at all on my own.

School was interesting to me. I practically clung to my grandmother however as she dragged me into the class room.

You will be fine.” She said.

“No!” I screamed.

That year passed by, and by the end of it I already knew how to count forwards and backwards, read second grade books, and paint. Although I just liked mixing colors to see what kind of result I would get.

My grandmother would always come and get me from school. One day, on the last day of me being in the 1st grade, she picked me up a little bit early. I was so curious why I asked her the minute I saw her.

“Rodger has a surprise for you.” she had gleefully told me.

“What kind of a surprise?” I asked my eyes as huge as plates.

“You will see!”

I was so ready to see what the surprise was, that I leaped out of my chair leaving a huge mess where I sat and raced out to the car. When we had returned home, I could smell something disgusting. In fact it was so bad I could even tasted it. It smelled like a combination of wet dog, and BO, and burnt food.

“Ugh! Ewe! What's that?” I screeched. My grandfather tapped the pan with something.

“You will see.” He said watching the concoction cook. Even then I had a vivid imagination, and I started to imagine him cooking a dog, or perhaps one of my toys in the pot. In my mind, I saw a dog’s head pop up out of the pan, and looked directly back at me. As Rodger slowly flipped the burnt dog over, skin fell off and it barked at me pleading me to help it. My daydream ended when the dog broke free and ran to me and knocked me over. Now just a skeleton it licked my face happily, then ran to get its ball so him and I could play fetch.

“Robert its ready!” my grandmother called to me. Sitting at the table I looked down at the weird round things on my plate. They looked green, and disgusting. I pushed my plate away for a second, but curiosity kicked in.

“What do they taste like?” I asked. In answer, my grandmother fed me the stuff on my plate. My grandfather frowned at her, but she just kept feeding me.

“They are called pickles.” I ate one slowly. Testing its flavor to see if I was going to throw up or not. I liked it, and when I declared I wanted more, my grandfather said

“These will be treat foods. Okay? You know what that means?”

“I will get them on birthdays.” I said.

“That’s right!” he boomed at me. I ate the rest in about a minute, and I wanted more. In short, I didn’t get any. That was fine. I didn’t throw a temper tantrum over it are anything. I went in my room, and started to play on my bed, imagining I was a king, and feeding all my servants pickles if they did what I asked. I loved pickles. They tasted so good, even better than soda! I was allowed to have soda at the time, but I didn’t drink it in gulps. I mainly got the sodas because I just wanted to know what makes them black, and have that taste, as apposed to plain old water.

That night, Rodger came in and told me good night, and that I should get to sleep. I was well known for having nightmares even when the light was on… and tonight was no exception. When I had awoken screaming Rodger came rushing into my room, and held me as I cried. After that, he would sleep with me. I had this habit of waking up at strange hours of the night, and I wanted to know if he was still there. After I would pat his sleeping form, I would go back to sleep. I liked the fact that he slept with me. It was the web of love that he would unknowingly make for me in my mind. They had their own webs of love for me, which I would always fall into, but I liked mine better. Mine would never be torn down.