The name my parents gave me the day they picked me up was Herbert. Actually my mom named me, and since Dad loves Mom as much as he does, he went with it. Not so deep down, I think he hated it. I think he hated me more. Mom, however, loved it. She loved it so much she wanted to get my name tattooed on my foot right away before they had it preserved. At least that's what I've heard Dad say over the years when - as Mom puts it - he spends too much time with his friend Jim Bean.
My parents lived in a one bedroom condo, and kept me in the living room next to the entertainment center. They claim they removed my foot because I wouldn’t fit in the toddler bed they had picked out for me. Least they hadn't gotten a crib before they got me.
It’s not that they stole me or anything like that. I had been with children that looked like me, kept in a place, a home - though after living in one s'long as I have, that's not what I would have called it - for those of us who were being taken away from the farm. As Dad and his friend Jim say, "that damned farm we were bred on."
The first time I head him say it, I asked Mom why Dad thought I was a piece of bread. She tsked and laughed and avoided the question. Since I've been here, I've started thinking that the farm and this place had some type of agreement. In the sense that if kids born were less than perfect they was poorly packaged up and sent to this “home.”
Sent in a way that when I was real little, made me think it was fun, but looking back. . . well. When we misfit children were brought to the home, we were loaded in a special truck with tiny Christmas trees. Not the big tall ones, but the three- and four- footers. The trees were secured standing up and underneath it was one of us, secured to the trunk.
From what I remember, I had been hitched to the tree furthest to the front next to a little hole. Maybe God had fallen asleep and during his nap, I had been blessed with a window to the outside world. Though, I couldn't see as much as I could hear.
“You farmers have the best Christmas trees. What’s it a eight, nine hour ride here?” the man asked.
“It’s closer to ten.”
They talked a bit about money, something about needing a receipt. Then the man who had paid told the driver to wait a minute.
“Minnie,” he said, “come on out here and picks yourself a tree for the house.”
“Ahhhh,” Minnie had shrieked in delight, “really Bob? You mean it this year?”
“Sure do."
Minnie had hopped in the back of the truck looking at every tree, and every child, mentally weeding both the tree and the tot out until she made her way back to me and my tree.
“This tree is perfect!”
Millie, who was like the cartoon opposite of Bob, was standing right above me, beeming like the stars in the sky. Bob stood at the back of the truck with a large and hefty walking sticking in his two hands, while the other man climbed in and made his way back to Minnie.
“This the one you want? You sure?” the man who wasn't Bob asked.
“Yes! Just perfect,” she said.
Her hands had felt warm as she put them on my head. Then two men had finagled the tree and me out of the truck. I still get shivers remembering how the man looked at the two of us.
“Well you’re right about the tree being perfect, not too sure the kid was worth all that works though.” His laugh had shaken his whole belly. He looked down at me, making my stomach squeezing in tight. “Go on; give your mama a hug.”
Before I could move this woman had embraced me.
“Let me look at you!”
Maybe she hadn't seen my feet the way I was sitting in the truck. She certainly had seen it now. Resting her hand on my shoulder she turned and called out to her husband.
“Bob before you and Mike go deliver the rest of the trees, go inside and take care of Herbert’s foot please.”
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