King of the Castle

Slowly decomposing leaves, playground dust, and sweaty palms on bare metal - my nose tingles in response to the flood of memories.

If I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I am five years old again. 

I’m wearing my favourite paisley printed pants - I was so proud of those god-awful pants.  My hair is slicked back into pigtails, held in place by elastics with pink bobbles on each end.

We are playing on the merry-go-round, Jason and I.  

Jason hops off and pushes it lightning quick, around and around, until the world is nothing but a kaleidoscope of colour and I think I might vomit, but I really didn’t care because I wish it would never slow down.

“Quick! Hop on!” I shout with urgency.

And Jason, struggling against the gravitational pull, lays belly down on the filthy floor of the merry-go-round, completely unconcerned about how dusty his Spiderman sweatshirt is getting.

“I’m dropping the rock!” he announces, in a booming voice reserved for playgrounds and swimming pools.

I lower my gaze, focused on the playground shale as it swirls past until I spot the dropped stone.  Reaching out, skinning my knuckles slightly in the process, I snatch it up with a warrior cry.

“Got it!”

And then we flip onto our backs, as I hold my prize tightly to my chest, and the merry-go-round slows.  Watching the clouds, I point to one that looks like our neighbour’s bull terrier and another that looks like a double-decker ice cream.

“Let’s stand up on the count of three,” Jason says.

We both get up from opposite ends of the merry-go-round, laughing and groaning and stagger towards each other like two drunken sailors, then collapse onto the grass in a limp and contented heap.

I give the merry-go-round a push now, but it won’t budge. The centre cog seems to be welded into place.  How are kids these days supposed to play drop the stone when the merry-go-round no longer goes around? 

“Probably for the best,” I mutter to myself.  Who am I kidding? My adult self can’t even turn in a circle once without feeling dizzy.

The blue slide beckons from over my left shoulder, it’s surface slick and shiny in the afternoon sun, polished by thousands of small rumps over the years.

I climb the steps, counting as I go  - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and stand for a moment at the top.

There’s a part of me that wants to shout “I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascals!” at the top of my lungs.  But there is no one to hear me save a few chickadees hopping about in a nearby bush, and a neighbourhood cat who lazes, belly up, in a sun spot next to a poplar tree.

I settle myself on the slide, my hips barely squeezing into the small space, and slowly slide all the way to the bottom.  

My feet touch down and I gingerly stand and dust off my designer jeans, feeling a bit silly as I do so.

The slide is so tall. 

When I look up to the tippy-top where my brother now stands - tongue out and arms flailing wildly, I feel like he could almost touch the sun.  Maybe his finger would get burnt, like that one time when I touched the top of the stove while it was still hot. I rub the spot on my finger that bears the scar.

Jason crouches and slide down on his sneakers.  He’s not supposed to do that, but Mom is sitting on a bench with my baby sister and doesn’t see him.  I think about running to tell her, but just then Jason calls to me, half-way up the ladder for another turn on the slide.

“Come on, Meredith!” he yells.  “Don’t be a baby!”

I feel my eyes start to sting as tears threaten to squeeze out, and hastily wipe my nose with my sleeve.

Determined, I start up the slide, planning to make it all the way to the top this time.

One, two, three, four.  My palms start to sweat, and I get that squirmy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Five.  My legs are shaky now, like the jelly salad that grandma always makes at Easter.

Four, three, two, one.  Back on solid ground, I look up to see if Jason is laughing at me, but he has already raced off to the monkey bars.

He will always be braver than me.

I walk over to the bench to sit for a moment.  

Looking up at the few remaining leaves twirling in the autumn breeze, maintaining their tenuous hold on a branch, I spy our initials scratched into the tree trunk.  I’d almost forgotten we did that. 

After supper one night, Jason snuck our father’s pocket knife from his bedside table drawer and we rushed off to the playground like two spies on a secret mission.  He carved our initials in the tender bark while I stood guard and the sun slowly sank below the horizon.

Afterwards, back in the safety of my room, I was racked with guilt.  Every knock on our front door had me imagining that the police were coming to arrest a naughty girl and her bold brother for defacing public property.  

Today though, it makes me smile. 

J + M - a small reminder of a time when we were inseparable.

We moved away when I was ten.  

Jason is a lawyer now, all serious in his three piece suit and high-end sports car.  

He probably never thinks about this place, but I do.

Magic happened here - friendships and double-dog-dares and my first kiss (a quick peck on the cheek from Matt, but it still counts). And suddenly I want to share this moment with my big brother, Jason the Brave.

I snap a photo and send it to him, a selfie of me standing on the tippy-top of the slide, tongue out and one hand reaching out to touch the sun.

The caption, all caps, like I’m shouting, reads “I’M THE KING OF THE CASTLE!”.