Nero Burning Down the Trailer Park

Some sons of abitches just don't know any better. It could be their strength, but they just don't know when to quit. I'm talking about the fools that know they're fighting the wrong losing battle, but get up when they should stay down. The trailer park is a magical place. Mobile homes that can't realistically move anywhere. 35x12 or 70x12 or 35x24. Aluminum eggs, rows and rows of them all arranged like dominoes waiting to be hatched by some profound omen like a tornado. No one fears a tornado like the gestating trailer occupant. Well since people aren't living in wigwams much anymore.

The trailer park was a step up from somewhere for some. An aspiration. I didn't have much choice in the matter, but now I hold it close to my heart. I have a very sincere nostalgia for those days. Glasgow Trailer Park, D street. The streets were actually named alphabetically in order but the named are forgotten. Duncan perhaps.

I do remember other things though, like finding porn in a shed in someone's lot. Often, the sheds people had were matching colors and design correspondent to their trailer. This shed was aluminum and a washed out and oxidized painted brick red. The porn was of a woman, a blonde woman, in a military theme. In one photo, she sat on a wooden crate wearing army boots and a camouflage bandanna. She appeared to be holding a potato. While I was cautious to jump to conclusions about the meanings and symbolism in such alien and unprecedented photographic composition, further and thorough inspection revealed that the object was in fact a partially skinned potato. Contextual clues included a pot and a sack which one would naturally presume contained plenty more. She had her work cut out for her.

Perhaps imagery and conferral from movies like Ben Hur or some other reference to Spartan warrior creation culture had offered rationale that in the military such practices as nude food preparation was another of the bizarre features of our existence that I had yet to fully grasp. Certainly, the well noted boots seemed to lend functionality and purpose well suited to a soldier-chef's duties. Nonetheless, I had several unanswered questions.

The photo, and the context in the series, seemed somehow and inexplicably unlike those found in the magazine photo media I had previously encountered. I love to sort through most of the 1970-1980 decade of National Geographic at my grandparents'. I was no greenhorn when it came to pictures in magazines, and nudity, although not quite like this, wasn't entirely strange.

Finally, I resorted to asking the slightly older girl what the woman in the photo was doing. My soapy smelling and staged co-discoverer informed me, without condescension, but with great certainty that the woman was peeling potatoes. This seemed to support my observations but left me without a comprehensive conclusion as far as why this was featured and why this endeavor was undertaken without clothing.

Knowing the taboos of nudity, my concern for being discovered doing something wrong was distracting me from further investigation. The location and presentation on the floor of some shack behind someone's trailer contributed to a sense of clandestine guilt. I abandoned my research, but still search for the association between the preparation of potatoes and naked women.

Steven Graves also lived in our trailer park, although further down towards N. Nearer to Oliver and Erwin Puffinberger. While I feared the Puffinbergers' attention, as destiny would have it, Steven, a rather malnourished but taller boy was to become my formal nemesis. Surely I'd had and would have more formidable psychological tormentors, but Steven's impositions came in violent form. The older Puffinbergers never did much more than factlessly and foundlessly publicise that I had no hair on my balls. This didn't bother me so much, as I had no particular interest in hair on my balls, but what was uncomfortable was the extent to which the older and more attractive trailer park girls found this to be amusing.

My contentions with Mr. Graves were more frustrating. He liked to fuck with me, and he like to inflict pain on me. That all continued for a while, until at the counsel of a future friend (and much later, an alias) I chose to change bus stations. My mornings were much more enjoyable after the switch, and if anything, a chance encounter with Steven was much more escapable outside the confines of a bus stop.

One afternoon an early skate session and nearby mini-stripmall parking lot set the scene for a showdown.

Mr. Graves appeared at the far end of the parking lot, silhouetted in his skeletonlike form against a setting sun. If tumbleweeds grew where I was from, one would have crossed between us.

He became recognizably jolly at his fortune of having this chance encounter with me. That didn't do much to his pace of approach though, which maintained a casual, savory slither. My friend was equally unhappy with the turn of social affairs.

I want to villainise by recalling that he made his antagonistic salutation and after those formalities were addressed proceeded to take some trivial amount of money I may have had. The exact pretense for his attack is not clear to me now, though, so instead I will give you the battle summary.

Steven feigns a right punch, with superior boxing jab distraction techniques to my long studied and frequently drilled kung-fu stance. Kung-fu poses always seemed to convey a physical dominance over my sister, and I was taken off-guard by his, "What? You know karate?" taunt. The battle courting dance was coming to a close, and the realisation that a fight was imminent and present scared the shit out of me.

"Dear god, I hope I really am a Ninja like I pretend!" was the sum of my feelings.

Having more experience in the art of the showdown, Steven moves in for a strike, but I raise my skateboard by the trucks in defense. His blow is blocked by the griptaped side of the skateboard. He gets pissed, is suprised by my inclusion of the skateboard in our engagement, assesses damage to his hand, which begins to show abrasion bleeding on his skinned knuckles.

Considering that my Skateboard Style kung-fu may be more difficult to challenge than expected, he brazenly launches a psychological offense geared to disarm me. Making no ground, be blitzes and makes a failed attempt to strip me of my skateboard, with war cries of intention to beat me with my own weapon.

Using my advantages of control of the skateboard by the trucks, I deter further attempts and make controlled and effective warning counterstrikes and maneuvers showing intent and potential for further attack on my part.

Deciding a new strategy is necessary, Mr. Graves announces, in showdown protocol, that he will arm himself with a stick. Which he does. My friend is supportive, and approving of my kung-fu.

Armed with an absurdly large and unwieldy branch, my opponent returned for re-engagement of combat; not sure whether to wield his weapon in the style of an oversized club or a jousting spear, he experiments with both -- first mounting a joust attack, which my skateboard serves to deflect, followed by a lumbering chop from above. His downward strike is met by my raised board, and his staff-spear breaks. This shortens his weapon and range, but increases his maneuverability by a significant margin.

Feigning first another joust, he opts for the downward strike again, with a repeat of outcome and a further shortened stick.

Concerned about the greater threat he now poses with a useable weapon, I prepare for the hardest part of the battle. By getting scared again. He, however, is discouraged in perceiving superiority of my weapons technology and disengages from battle with announcements of the recruitment of his older brother and the horrible fate that awaits me, and my friend.

The battle was over. Oh, the trailer park.

There's nothing like moving out of the trailer park. No matter where. Soon we were living in a newly and quickly fabricated compositeboard and insulation, drywall and aluminum framed house in a development full of developing developments.

Both of my parents worked at the Post Office. In fact, my mother met my stepfather at work. We had previously lived with my mother & father, and then just later with my mother in our trailer.