The Salvaged Wheel

"I never learned how to love. It wasn't taught to me like tying my shoes, combing my hair or driving a car; nor was it modeled or demonstrated for me by my parents, whom I could not imagine ever having possessed a passion for one another. In the world they seemed to inhabit, such a thing existed only in movies and the lyrics of popular songs-places far beyond the working class plainness of our home where existence itself appeared to be little more than an item on a hastily scrawled list of things to get done by the end of the week. And perhaps as a consequence of that vacancy at the center of our lives, the talent I most fully developed in my formative years was punching. Quick, explosive snaps from the shoulder that, when properly aimed and timed, landed with a force suffi cient to render an adult man unconscious. But then, it is also possible this penchant for infl icting bodily harm bore no connection to the emotional deprivations of my childhood, since I have no clear recollection from that period of any sense of rage or need for retaliation. For in all the years I lived in that ramshackle house near the corner of Eighth and Harrison, physical violence was unknown. Ours was a family that rarely raised a voice, let alone a hand. We led a subdued, colorless existence. Quiet to the point of distraction. Repressed to the extent that, in family confl icts, disdain and indiff erence were the weapons of choice."