The Red Sofa

I remember that sofa. It was red with black grainy threads running through the fabric.

I was there pretty much all the time, watching our black and white television with the rabbit ears. I would have to stop rocking to get off the sofa and adjust the screen. I am not sure what Larry's father actually did to 'fix' the tv whenever we lost the picture, but I was convinced that I was a better technician than he was when I fixed the picture quality with the antenna.

The rocking situation intensified over the years. It started off very slow and infrequent so not to cause my parents any worry. But as I got older, the speed and intensity increased.

My father, who lost faith in the doctors, thought it was related to my delayed growth and tried to remedy the problem on his own.

But he was overwhelmed when the springs jutted through the fabric and the frame had been damaged as a result. My problem was getting worse.

My childhood home was a split level structure. A semi-detached house with a large hill for a front yard and one single pine tree in the middle. We needed physical dexterity to manuever our tobaggans down that hill to avoid the tree. Cement stairs led up to the front door. Then another staircase leading up to the kitchen and living room. There was a railing divided the living room from the family room. A staircase from the kitchen went below to where there was one bedroom set aside for me and the family room with sliding doors leading out to our small but quaint backyard. And yet another staircase leading downstairs to the basement and garage. The last staircase was only six steps and led upstairs to two bedrooms--one for my parents and the other where my sister and brother-to-be would share. These stairs would represent my life at the time, like the game, Snakes and Ladders.

Each night became a daunting task, as I travelled from my room, upstairs, to join the rest of my family. It took nightly courage to fling the covers off, step out of my bed and trek up all those stairs. By the time I reached the kitchen and turned the corner to go towards the bedrooms, there was a hanging light fixture in the dining/living room that looked quite monstrous in the middle of the night. My fantastical world became nightmarish. This light had eyes, a long beard and a gaping mouth with fangs. And each time I passed this light, I would shout with all my might, "Shut up!" I knew now that this tactic was to release my nervous energy and overcome my fear of this monster. Instead of succumbing to my fright, I made sure I had the upper hand -- the shouting made be believe the monster was more scared of me than I was of it.

However, to my downfall, this outburst was the signal of my approach. My father would hear me and cut me off at his door before I had time to run and jump into the covers for protection. Most nights, he would turn me around and walk me back to my dungeon.

"You are a big girl with a big bedroom. Why do you think we saved this room just for you?" he would say.

As a child I wondered why I was separated from the rest of the family, residing in that one lonely bedroom, two staircases away from my parents. Somehow, his explanation did not go over well.

I would protest, beg and plead to sleep in his bed, seeking solace in my mother's arms but he would have none of it. I crawled back into my large queen sized bed and positioned the pillows around me to pretend someone was with me. But it was no use. My nightly ritual was duplicated many times over--sometimes I would be turned away THREE times in one night. The night and I never became one. And the monster was one flight of steps above me. Sometimes, when I was resigned to my bed, I would shout at it from my room. No one was going to devour me without a fight.

During the day, when I was home from school, I rocked like I was preparing for launch. My mother would come down and tell me to stop but as soon as she left, it would commence again. My father would come home from work and yell from the balcony of the living room to stop rocking. I would stop, stare and then wait for him to leave. Many days, he would have to reposition the sofa to its original place because my rocking had propelled it several inches forward.

"Why are you rocking?" he angrily asked me one day while sitting in the living room over his newspaper.

"I have to rock," I yelled, still rocking and staring at the television.

"Its not good for you or the sofa," he joked. I rocked harder. I felt a lump in my throat and tears well up in my eyes. I looked up and saw my mother in the doorway. She was holding my sister and swaying her back and forth.

Later that night as I made my way up the stairs, after telling the light to shut up when I reached the top of the stairs, I nearly fell backwards in fright. There stood my mother with her arms stretched out before her. She sat down on the top step with me in her arms and swayed me back and forth. After five minutes, she came downstairs with me and we sat down on the red sofa, in the dark, together. She put her arm around me and said, "As long as you are on this sofa, no monster will eat you up."

It was daylight when I awoke and I realized I had fallen asleep. My mother was right there, asleep next to me, half lying, half sitting with her arm around me on the red sofa.

It took only one night.

And I never rocked again.