You stood there, surrounded.
Sporco. Sporco. Sporco.
They towered above you.
You (a five-year-old child) stood there, surrounded.
Sporco. Sporco. Sporco.
They (adults) towered above you, laughing.
You (a five-year-old child) stood there, saying it again and again.
Sporco. Sporco. Sporco.
They (adults) towered above you, laughing each and every time that word was spoken.
You (a five-year-old child) had words you had learned in one language and words from the other language you were learning. But you (a five-year-old child) didn’t have all the words in either language. You (a five-year-old child) wanted instantaneous translation, so they (adults) could understand. You (a five-year-old child) spoke the only word you could think of, sporco. Dirty.
But words can have more than one meaning, as you (a five-year-old child) quickly discovered. Like that word, dirty. He was always dirty. He was a mechanic who worked in a garage and his grey-green overalls were always covered with smears of black grease and brown motor oil and whatever else he had touched that day. So when they (adults) and he (wearing his overalls) towered over you (a five-year-old child) laughing, they (adults) did so because, of course he was dirty, his job made him that way.
But it wasn’t just his clothing. His hands were dirty. Not just the black lines under his fingernails that he kept long. But also the short thick fingers attached to wide hard hands that seemed to have indelible ink in all the creases. You (a five-year-old child) focused on those hands, those fingers, those nails. You (a five-year-old child) focused on all the black lines that moved like ripples up your thighs. You (a five-year-old child) always ate the hard candy, golden yellow and sweet, which he always placed in your mouth, the clear cellophane wrapper in your fist. You (a five-year-old child) focused on the black lines on your thigh and the sugar in your mouth and on that small moment when all feeling would stop and you (a five-year-old child) could watch from somewhere else.
No words.
No words to explain the bruises on your thighs and they (adults) never asked anyway.
No words to explain the blood, there were no scrapes or cuts.
No words for the pain.
You (a five-year-old child) had no words for any of it.
Except. For. One.
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
