The Walking Water Tower

When I was little, we had a red and white Ford Victoria convertible. I hated that car. Sure, it was fun when we would take it to the A&W Root beer stand or to the drive-in. But, I had to sit in the backseat with my brother, David, and my sister, Cheryl, and I was made to always sit in the middle. And there
was a big problem with that. A big problem. For some reason, Ford decided it would be nifty to put an emblem in the middle of the backseat. Why?? The only thing I can think of is that they were just stupid. Stupid doesn’t need a reason.

The reason I was the designated middle seater was because my sister, Cheryl, had issues.  Cheryl gave new meaning to the phrase , “temper tantrum.” She was 3 years younger than me and was a spoiled only child. (David and I were both adopted, so you know what I mean). So, she threw tantrums. Twenty four hours a day. Mom would stop the car and make her get out and walk home. She always stopped at the same place in our neighborhood, but it was still like a mile walk. Or Mom would just leave her in the car when we pulled into the garage. “Vickie, David, don’t talk to your sister. Just get out of the car and we are going to leave her in here.” Cheryl would still be screaming and carrying on, and my Mom would slap the crap out of her. We weren’t really supposed to see that at first, because we were ordered upstairs, but then it became a common sight. Mom first used a paddle that looked like a cutting board. It has a picture of a deer on it with the saying “For the dear little behind” ( Or something like that. You can’t expect me to remember everything.) Then, she used the belt. And David was in charge of getting the belt. It was almost like she was sitting on her ring-of-cigarette smoke and coffee cup throne, saying, “David, get me the belt.” Even if the intended whipping was for David. It was funny how he danced around in a circle when she was hitting him. Well, it was funny to watch. Anywho, back to Cheryl…Cheryl would sit in the car for hours. With her arms crossed and kicking the seat in front of her. She was a real Nellie Olson.

After about 15 minutes, Mom always told me to go try to get Cheryl out of the car. Why the hell me? She would never get out of the car. But, I would stand at the top of the steps and yell downstairs. “Cher-yl….Oh Cher-yl…Cher-ylllllll…..Chay-ryl……Shay-rul…and that’s how she got her nickname, Shayru when we were little. So, David, who is two years younger than me, and I decided to mess with our little nutcase of a sister. Whenever we would drive by the water tower near our house, we would start singing, in creepy, sinister voices, slow at first..”The walking water tower….It eats everything by the hour…It steps on your toe, and Oh, No….There’s nothing left of the hour.” (Ok, we were very young, give us some slack) We would whisper the song at first, and then each repeat would be louder, and faster. Cheryl would start yelling and screaming, but we didn’t care. It was quite fun. Whatever happened to Baby Cheryl, the movie.

Well, then here comes the part why I hated our Ford Victoria. Since I was sitting in the middle, the stupid emblem was right behind my head. My mom told us several times to quit tormenting Cheryl. When that didn’t work, she would start swatting at us from the front seat. No one wore seat belts back then, so we moved to miss her hand. My mom burned the palm of her hand when she was a baby when she put it on a hot stove, and her hand was heavily scarred and ugly and when that thing came at you, you tried to miss it. It was witch-like, whatever that means. Well, I would jerk my head back to miss the Hand, and the back of my head would hit the emblem. Hard. “You made me hit my head”, I said, crying. And this is what my mom always replied. “God’s punishing you.”

Well, I didn’t do anything to God and it seemed like God was always punishing me. He punished me when my mom and dad brought baby David home the first time and caught me sweet talking to him while I was rubbing Vicks Vapor Rub all over his face. He punished me for hiding the food I didn’t want to eat under the antique table in little cubby holes. Did he punish Cheryl for putting the dog in the clothes hamper? No. Did he punish her for putting the dog on the Lazy Susan on the table and spinning her around and around. No. Just me. It took me only a short while to figure out that my mom was God.

After Mom would slap the hell out of Cheryl with her witch-hand, she would tell David and I that children who have temper tantrums like Cheryl are very intelligent. She always added that the doctors told her when she was pregnant at an older age that she would either have a baby that was very intelligent or a Mongoloid. I didn’t know what a Mongoloid was, but I was betting that’s what she ended up having.

I actually liked the dysfunctional trips in the car. I couldn’t wait to drive past the Water Tower so the tormenting could commence. My dad, who rarely said much in the car, always waited until we drove past the huge, round water tower on our way to Pittsburgh and always told us the same joke. “They just found some guys body in that water tower. He ran himself to death, trying to find a corner to piss in.” Good one, Dad.

Years later, Cheryl dated Carlo, a guitarist who put music to our Walking Water Tower. The last I heard, he was in a band in Pittsburgh. If you ever hear the song, The Walking Water Tower, well, I wrote that.