To add another level of understanding, play this video for background music while reading.
When I was 12, almost 13 years old, we moved out on Wilson Creek, down Sprouse Lane. That’s when I became the babysitter of Ricky and Mark Talerico, then 1st and 3rd grade, maybe? Captain Joel Talerico and his wife Linda, the parents, were a beautiful young couple. Particularly, The Captain was a handsome, swarthy fireman with a rough voice, whose smile made me wish my house was on fire. Mark and Ricky were cute as could be. Ricky’s round, chubby gnome face and fat lips reminded me of a baby boy, and Mark’s more serious, pointy face with spectacles looked like a little professor.
I babysat occasionally in the evenings, and things seemed to work between us, so when summer vacation started, I had a full-time job. Every weekday I woke up early and walked the 25 sleepy steps to our country neighbors’ home and began my workday. Their house was new, built in a field, so the yard was still sliced dirt, with tracks from the grader fresh. The romper room was mostly done, but not yet dry-walled—their garage became a playroom before it was built. A low piano sat staring at me with the sheet music for Romeo and Juliet (A Time for Us), and so although I had stopped taking formal lessons in fourth grade, I pounded my way through the beautiful melody and imagined that’s what I would do day after day while the boys played nicely.
Of course I didn’t spend too much time on the piano. Boys that age need attention.
There were a few mishaps, I admit.
There was one very bloody nose that I fumbled my way through. There was no Google back then, so I just tried to think of the logical way to treat it. My first impulse was to have him blow it all out, but he had been through this crisis before and he wisely wrestled away from my help. He saved himself as he held his head back with a gob of toilet paper against his blood spout nose, no thanks to me.
At some point, the young fellows had a knock down, drag out fight, and again, I handled it the only way that seemed logical. Out came the wooden spoon, not the good old oiled and solid spoons like my mamma used on my butt, but the lightweight, cheap kind that come as a part of a wedding set. I broke it right across one of their behinds.
Imagine explaining to the parents how I broke that piece of balsa wood across their child. Linda and Joel liked me, but I was young and they began to question my maturity and ability to handle two energetic and mischievous young boys.
Captain Talerico knew of a babysitting course I could take They offered to pay for it—a full Saturday was all I had to give. Saturday was our sabbath, said my mother, and so the answer was no, and thus ended my career with the Talericos.
Fast forward forty-five years. I live in town again after 25 years away and little Ricky does, too. He is called Rick now, but he still has his round, chubby gnome-face and fat lips. We both have some gray hair. We see each other in passing occasionally and always make a big deal of it. Always hug and laugh at time’s tricks. I am his babysitter, and here we are, essentially the same age. How does that happen? I wish we could fall in love and have a funny love story, maybe like the song, A Time For Us, but we don’t.
Now we’re in this pandemic, and being single, are more alone than we have ever been. Creativity and isolation motivates a bold expression of this story. Thank you, Covid 19.
A rock I paint reminds me of his mother, Linda.
I sign it, Love, Mom, and leave it for her son, on his mailbox.
He might like it. Or he might not.
I never know.
6/5/2020
Follow up:
Once more, things seem to work out between us.
11/14/2020
See: Seventeenth Thursday with Rico
September 26, 2020
