Page 13 of Innocent

Chapter Three

Then

Once Upon a Time…

There’s this myth that New York—the state, not just the city—is this bastion of liberally progressive social ideals.

Of course, in some places, it is.

But the small community where I grew up on the edge of Hamilton County was every bit as conservative as if it were located hundreds of miles south of the Mason-Dixon line. The area is well-known for being a GOP stronghold in the state, despite its low population. In general, the farmers and blue-collar workers hold little respect and a whole lot of contempt for the “rich liberal coastal elites” from New York City, Long Island, and other nearby environs.

They feel under-appreciated, taken for granted, and ridiculed by the city dwellers.

I cannot say that they’re exactly wrong to feel like that, because it was a mindset entrenched within me growing up. How much of that was true and how much of it perception perpetuated throughout generations is up in the air.

The problem is, while therewereplenty of conservative-voting liberal-minded folks in our area regarding people of color and the LGBTQ community, my parents were not two of them.

Neither were a majority of the other members of the small and very strict Evangelical Baptist church they attended every Sunday.

Dad’s a farm equipment mechanic who took over the business from Mom’s father. Mom taught piano and played for our church, and earned extra money playing at weddings and other events, as well as working part-time doing various things in the summer.

Growing up, I had a lot of trouble with my health. Born prematurely at thirty weeks and three days, I weighed only three pounds, four ounces, and spent several weeks in the NICU before I was sent home with my exhausted and now borderline financially bankrupted parents.

Their friends labelled me a “survivor.”

Their “miracle.”

A “blessing from God.”

Apparently, they’d been trying to have me for a while, and had pretty much given up hope on ever having a baby when I surprised them.

Never let it be said I chose the easy path in life. Starting with my emergence from the womb.

Then I was hit hard by pneumonia when I was eighteen months old and spent several weeks in the hospital. Nearly died, by all counts, and my parents’ finances took yet another massive hit. I got sick a lot growing up, missed a lot of school, especially in the winter.

Yet I was a great student, kept my grades up, and was still lauded by my parents’ friends as their little miracle.

The good thing was, that early “miracle” designation helped me escape most of my father’s expectations. I hated playing organized sports and I wasn’t good at them. I was small for my age. Everything I survived, and my accompanying health issues, combined with my surprise conception after years of failures, meant my father didn’t push the issue when it came to sports. Although I loved hiking and mountain biking, and enjoyed going fishing with my father, because I enjoyed the peaceful contemplation aspects of it. Especially the rhythms and mechanics of fly fishing.

That was theonething my father and I bonded over when I was a kid—fishing.

I started reading at three, thanks to Mom’s tutelage. I also started drawing and showed a natural aptitude for it, which my father wasn’t happy about, at first.

But when I was eight, for Father’s Day I gave him a framed colored pencil drawing I made of a rainbow trout. My parents’ friends from church gushed about how talented their little miracle was. That, surely, God had given me a blessing to make up for my shitty start in life.

Their unintentional religious-based guilt-trip seemed to put Dad at ease that it was okay to encourage my artistic skills. Wasn’t like I’d ever throw or catch a winning touchdown pass, or smack a triple play out of the park, right? And hey, he could take me fishing, and I was never grossed out about bait, or gutting and cleaning fish. So that was something “manly” he could do with me.

Doing dirty, hard work has never grossed me out. I earned my father’s respect for that, too. While I wasn’t good at mechanical things, I never hesitated to get my hands dirty when asked to do so. To my father’s credit, he seemed more impressed by my attempts and willingness to help, even if I ended up standing there doing little more than handing him tools. To him, I was trying.

On the weekends when we weren’t going fishing, I took my sketchbooks and pencils and headed out on my bike for the woods in the nearby national park. When I returned home late in the day, I usually had dozens of realistic renderings that I eagerly showed my parents.

One of the few times, other than when we went fishing, that my father proudly nodded and paid attention to me. I even won a few awards in school and at county fairs for my artwork.

Playing with colors and shapes fascinated me. I usually ended up designing sets for our school plays. The way things fit together intrigued me, and my parents’ minister theorized I might go on to become an engineer or architect. Which was nothing to be ashamed of, he assured my parents.

Throughout my life, one of the many secrets I kept from my parents is how much I haaaated most everything to do with church. The minister was boring, when he wasn’t being terrifying. I loved the music, and loved staring up at the curved rafters in the sanctuary while dreaming about cathedrals I’d studied, their arches and stonework.

My mother never let on to my father how much TV I watched whenever I was stuck home sick. I spent enough time in bed on school days that, when I was seven, I got my own small TV in my room, a second-hand one, and they hooked it up to cable.