The General

My hand finally woke up after a long stay in my Uncle David's death grip. It was squeezed so hard that my dainty meta-carpals started to kiss each other.

My Uncle always seemed to have that big personality, like that Gilbert Gottfried guy from that "Aflac" commercials. He'd usually bark across the room loudly, "come over here you little shit head!" to which I could only respond with a long winded sprint to someplace high my Uncle's short stubby body and large sausage fingers couldn't reach me. When he did finally get a hold of one of us, there was only one way to free your hand from what seemed to be the repeated feeling of getting your fingers smashed in a car door.

"Please Uncle David! Please! Please! Please! Let my hand go!" My hand was still throbbing and my uncle showed no sign of letting up. "Tell me who I am you smelly troll!" he'd say. I was never as brave as my brothers and gave in immediately, sometimes before he even reached for my hand to shake. "OK! OK! PLEASE!!" "Please Mr. Five-Star General Sir, please with a cherry on top!" as I thought, "Let go of my fucking hand you crazy old bastard!" He would only let go of your hand if you acknowledged him as "Five-Star General Sir." As he squeezed, his olive-colored Italian face would scrunch up as he folded his tongue back and bit down on it as if he was juicing the last drop of a lime into a Mad Dog 40/40. He enjoyed tormenting us and now that I have a nephew who's almost one year old... I'll soon be paying it forward.

I hope someday to have the opportunity to be the type of uncle that my uncle was to me. Uncle David was a little nuts, and by a little I mean in comparison of the Atlantic to the pacific. It's a lot of crazy, but nothing compared to the rest of the family.

I had to of been about six years old when I finally learned that my dad and step mom weren't actually looking at imaginary birds on the ceiling. They had some problems, who knows, maybe they over-heard my brother's and I some nights as we described how we'd run away and the lengths we'd go to do it. Luckily they recognized their issues, well, at least enough to know that they needed help. My dad called my Uncle and had him watch us for what seemed to be about five months as they sobered up. My grandfather was in Rhode Island, living it up with his some-what recently married wife at the time so we stayed at his large home in the quaint town of Baird, TX.

I had already switched schools twice by this time and now I'd be at my third school, where I had attended kindergarten actually. It was nice to be back but they put me in special classes so I wasn't too happy about that. I had missed a bit of school and it I never cared about my studies before because my parents definitely did not. My uncle helped me get back on track, whether I liked it or not.

I had more discipline in second grade then most of the guys I’ve dated in my twenties. The first morning we woke up I could see why my Uncle always wanted us to call him Five Star General Sir. We had to make our bed military style and report to the mess hall by o’ five hundred on the dot to begin our day of back-breaking labor. There was a freak cold front the night before that left the entire city under a blanket of sleet and slow about three inches deep. My hands took another beating that week as we went from the city hall to neighbor’s yards picking up pecans. Now that I think about it, these experiences explain my mild case of carpal-tunnel syndrome. My Uncle sold the pecans to a wealthy man in the big city who owned a pecan grove. This man’s shop is now owned by an Asian family that sells knock off t-shirts and shoes of Adidas and Nike. On occasion he would pay my Uncle to come out to his property with us to scavenge the property for pecans. He paid my Uncle well and gave my two brothers and I five bucks each and an extra five to whoever found the most pecans. I’ve had a severe un-diagnosed case of ADHD my entire life so focusing on a mundane task like picking pecans did not resonate with the old noggin.

Picking pecans was really just the start of my uncle breaking many child labor laws. We might as well have been placed in a sweat-shop outside Rio de Janeiro. Sewing and steam-pressing hand woven scarves would have been more ideal than waking up at the butt-crack of dawn to sale $1 figures at a local flea market. My uncle would order all of these aluminum, cheaply made, quarter to half of an inch tall figurines and hot glue them onto smooched down colorful marbles. He also sold all things American. Flags, T-Shirts- and hats, but mainly just small flags; I believe my Uncle has never had a “real” job for most of his life.

“Back in my day,” it wasn’t unusual for children to run around a flea market alone and visit with all of the other local flea market-teer’s. The couple across from us sold bibles, crosses, and made funnel cakes. Once they tried to sale me a bible but gave up and just gave me one. I read most of it but it only had a map in the front of what the Garden of Eden was supposed to look like and the rest of it was about old people. Where were the ninja turtles and power rangers when you needed them!? Another family sold fresh produces that they grew in their massive garden as well as video cassettes which were always too expensive for my uncle to buy. We were one of the only market-teer’s that did not sale any type of beverage or food. At this early age in my life I saw an opportunity for growth in the “Glaze Enterprise,” mainly, we were missing a crucial niche in the market and my Uncle did made kick-ass hot dogs! I tried to convince him to sale hot-dogs and pickles, “We’d make a killing Uncle David!” my twin brother would say in an overly excited screech as he’s backing me up. He’d pushed his bi-focal thick plastic faux-wood glasses up from the tip of his nose with his pointer finger. I think my Uncle didn’t have the vision it took to take the “company” to the heights that my brother and I thought it deserved.

After school, when I wasn’t too tired from picking pecans or going to the flea markets. I’d come home from school, work on my homework, eat at the dinner table with everyone and then watch “The Munsters” on Nick at Night’s TV land. This is the most functional childhood memory I can depend on to remind myself of the determination and stability that an adult should give to a child. Things were going pretty well one week and sales were at an all time high so the General bought some sirloin steaks and made them medium-rare, you know… the right way to cook a steak! My uncle was big on getting value for the things that he bought. Somehow I managed to get the steak that had the biggest piece of fat draping to the side of it. Usually I had the appetite of a polar bear in the arctic after an “honest days work” as the General would call it; however, we’d taken the day off to celebrate our short-lived wealth. Shit-Balls!!

The seasoned beef blood pulled together in a puddle on the side of my ceramic plate as I took the last meaty bite of my steak. The large piece of white fat just sat there, where’s the family dog when you need him? All we had was a Chihuahua and that flamboyant little bastard only ate deli ham.  My Uncle gave me that death look like, “you better eat that fat or I’m going to sock you in the face.” After this stern look he says to me with his tongue folded in after he had bit down, “eat that meat or I’m going to sock you in the face.” Chew and Chew as try, the fat would not deteriorate! I don’t know why I started with such a large piece. I could feel my stomach already deciding not to accept this as an acceptable form of nourishment. I started to gag as I chewed and my Uncle just yelled at me, “don’t you throw that up,” “DON’T THROW UP!” Pieces fell from my mouth and my eyes started to water, I started to sweat and at this point it was clear to everyone (including myself) that I was about to spew chunks all over the dining table. Right as I was about to throw up my Uncle advised that if I threw anything up he’d punish me and I’d get a “whooping,” which is basically the male equivalent to a spanking. It just doesn’t sound right when you say your Uncle gives you spankings.