Almost Down

When I was eight, I saw the red and blue lights zooming past me. I froze in place, unsure of whether or not to continue. My mother’s carriage had tugged me a little. She didn’t realize I had stopped in my tracks.

She was pushing my brother, Charles, who was chewing and rattling one of his noisy toys.

Noticing that the carriage was about to pull me off my feet, my mother whips her head around and says, “Ella, what’s wrong? We’re almost there, you don’t have to wait too much longer.”

We were on our way to the Bristol Zoo and we would be there in ten minutes if I hadn’t stopped us all. It was supposed to be a fun day. A day we had been waiting for all week.

But instead, I was riddled with anxiety.

I replied to her, “The sirens. They’re going the way we are.”

“I’m sure everything is alright,” she said in her calm voice, “you’ll forget about it all once we get there.”

I hesitantly started to walk again, but no, I did not forget about it once we got there.

The whole time we were there, I would ask my mom, “Can we leave yet?” or “My tummy hurts, I want to go home.” We passed by the gorillas, giraffes, and Charles’ favorite, the lions, and she finally agreed. It was time we could leave.

After we left, only 15 minutes after we rolled out of the parking lot, something bad happened.

I didn’t know about it until I got older and we had talked about it one afternoon.

But my mom saw it on the news that night. In the same spot we were in mere moments before, down by the lions.

I won’t get into the horrific details. There’s really no need for it.

However, my intuition had served us right.

*

A similar thing happened to me one day when I was eleven. Still working through daily anxieties, I had a bad feeling when those red and blue lights showed up at the yearly neighborhood carnival.

This was what we used to call “Kissing Friday.”

The day that boys could freely sexually assault women for fun. That’s blatantly what it was…but specifically, if any girl or woman refused a kiss on this day, they could freely pinch her.

Abhorrent.

I’m glad that by the time I had grandkids, this whole day had ceased.

But on this day, I was with Charles (who was now six) and was taking care of him.

The carnival was crowded with booths, children running around, fun games, and music, all combined with the strong smell of corn on the cob.

It was the tenth anniversary of the “Kissing Carnival,” and so it was a pretty big deal for our town.

Nonetheless, I was stuck with Charles attached to my hip, unable to freely walk and run around with my pals. My parents were off drinking their hard cider with other townsfolks.

So there I was, trying to make way to my friends while grabbing Charles by the wrist. At six, he would try and climb on everything. If I didn’t have a tight hold on him, I would turn around and see him on the top of a roof or something outrageous.

He whined a bit, but I secretly think he liked to be around my friends and me. To be in with an older crowd when you’re younger has always been seen as “cool,” though, I don’t think he ever admitted it to be so.

We made our way through a group of older kids than me, probably in high school, who were in a big huddle. They always did that to make themselves seem scarier. It worked.

Once we cautiously passed them, we bumped into our grandparents. Who, of course, were on their way to the other side of the carnival where my parents were, and wanted to bring us there to say hello to their (old) friends.

Pivoting back around, we started to retrace the steps we had walked through mere moments ago. That’s when the red and blue lights appeared.

I grabbed Charles’ hand even tighter and whipped my head towards my grandmother saying, “I think we should walk a little faster.”

My grandfather replies, “Oh, you kids are always in such a rush these days.”

I tried to utter another word, asking them to please be quick because I want to move away from the lights, from the sirens, from the danger, but the words got lost in my throat. They simply wouldn’t come out. Instead, I moved my little legs even quicker, basically pulling my little brother into the air.

When we reached my parents, my mother recognized the worry on my face. The same expression she saw a few years ago at the zoo.

At that moment, she decided we would leave. All of us, grandparents included, and without giving an explanation.

Word in town travels fast.

When we made it back home, we heard there had been a big fight that played out between the big two conflicting groups at the local high school. There ended up being a stampede.

We had made it out just in time. Again.

*

And then one day, without noticing, I stopped listening to my intuition altogether.

It probably happened some time at university; just as I aged.

This was partially a good and bad thing.

The good thing was that this intuition came from a place of anxiety, or maybe paranoia. So as I got older, I began to think more logically. I was able to control my racing heart. I knew how to take a hold of my anxiety and recognize when I was being unreasonable when I wasn’t thinking in reality. Of course, at the time, no one was using the term “anxiety” casually. It was underplayed as nerves and intuition. Which, I guess, plays a role in anxiety, but still. I call it what it is now.

However, for some weird reason, this intuition was constantly correct.

My nervous paranoia intuition cocktail had served me well. On the day at the zoo, the day of the kissing carnival, and probably a thousand more little moments.

They served me well up until the beginning of the year in 1912.

There was a big boat that Charles had gotten tickets for. It was the first of its kind and so everyone who had secured tickets for the westward-bound ship was excited.

I’m sure you’ve heard of it before.

See, Charles was friends with someone who worked for Harlow & Wolff; the builders. So through him, he was able to secure four second-class tickets. They were expensive, but Charles was convinced they were worth it.

He was planning on one for himself, one for his girlfriend, one for me, and one for my husband, George.

George couldn’t take time off from work. It would have been un-ladylike at the time for me to go without him, especially on a trip to America, considering I was officially a newly-married woman.

Instead, Charles gave those tickets to another family friend who was begging to take them off his hands.

*

On the day of April 11th, 1912, the day before Charles was set to leave, I made him and Mary dinner, and we sat around candlelight. It would only be a few weeks until I would see Charles again, but I wanted to do something nice since we couldn’t go with them.

We had finished our poached salmon dinner and Mary was bringing the plates to me in the kitchen.

As I am beginning to wash the dishes before bringing out dessert, I see lights out of the corner of my eye through the window over the sink.

The red and blue ones.

And once again, I had that feeling.

I had that feeling and I brushed it off.

I had grown to not listen to my intuition; I hadn’t felt this specific feeling in a while, so I didn’t trust it. I wouldn’t believe in my gut, I couldn’t anymore.

Charles noticed something felt different as I reentered the dining room and all I said was, “Oh, it’s nothing I’m just going to miss you, that’s all.”

He said to George, “Seems like for the next few weeks she’ll be driving you up a wall instead.”

“Come on, Charles, I mean it,” I replied.

“I know you mean it, and I’ll miss you too, El”

And then, we carried on with the night.

*

I’d like to believe I couldn’t have done anything differently, that the outcome would be the same if I had spoken out, that Charles would have gone on the boat either way.

But that is something I’ll never know.

And I have to live with that.