I really had to scratch my brain for this one.

I'm what people call a kid, pretty much.

At that strange stage between the point childhood ends and adulthood begins...?

I don't like how at eighteen, everyone seems to act as if some magical flip has switched and we are suddenly "adults".

But I'll be flipping that switch in a couple of weeks, don't think I'll see myself in adulthood till I'm in my twenties or thirties though.

Anyway, I really had to think about this.

My father came from a less well-off family and lived in the village.

He took care of his siblings, did photography, sold sachet water and fruits, all from a really young age.

My mother never needed to do any of that, her father was an army man and a rich enough one at that.

And then, there's me.

Both worked hard and because of them, I've never really known the pains and pleasures of hard labour.

My father moreso, because of the past he had.

All that working is part of the reason a distance has grown between us, now.

One holiday, we were playing around making necklaces we wouldn't even wear and my mother decided that if we made enough, she'd sell them and give us the profit.

So my twin and I worked pretty hard, through the entire holiday.

Slipping that small string through that small hole, perched in bed and not using our phones for once.

I think she was more pleased we were doing something else that seemed productive than about the beads themselves.

For some reason, we made some real bank on those beads.

Imagine a child making necklaces and getting paid so much.

Maybe she was trying to teach us the dignity of good hard work and how it reaps rewards... Not sure capitalism would completely agree with her on that.

I did have fun, that holiday.

It was a nice break, a nice little blip of time between the years of cracking under pressure where I felt a strange sense of comfort hunched down, messing up my back as I do now with my phone, staring intensely with pure frustration at times as I tried to loop on another bead.

I would say I'd like to go back but I don't remember enough of my life to tell you whether I actually enjoyed it or not.

All I know is that, for once, my brain latched on to the positive feelings rather than the negative and I'm rather lucky I remember it at all.

Work seems a negative thing for most and I'll be doing that too, quite soon, once all the drag of studies is done.

Maybe I'll look back and miss this part.

If things were better, perhaps I'd believe that to be true.

My inner child still clings to hope.

May life get better for us all.

I was 12 when I started working for real. It was 1982. My old man was getting his life together. He’s kicked the coke and was on a slow burn of Valium and dope. It got him through the day. He was talking to Uncle Charlie at the time, and Charlie’s ex-parents-in-law needed a new roof.

Deddy, Charlie, Great Uncle Tom – a mean old bastard- Roger, and I worked up on that roof. The house was pretty big, just a single-story ranch house in the middle of the country. Rectangle with a hip roof.

Only two sections of roof had to be torn off. The rest could be nailed over. We took flat nose shovels and pried the shingles up in batches, sometimes singles, sometimes one little square about 3 x 3 inches at the time. It was slow work, and hot. It was summer in Teer, NC, dairyland, corn, and truck gardens are about all there is out there. Its right peaceful though. Hot up there.

Thing was, didn’t nobody know shit about roofing. Deddy and Charlie were siding men, tin men, flim-flammers, storm doors and windows. Nailing on shingles was hard and hot. A bundle of shingle weighed 80 lbs. and had to be carried up one at a time. Roger and I broke them in 2 or 3 parts to carry them up. Heavy as all hell.

The other thing that was funny. Real roofers will spread out tarps so they can catch all the trash from the tear-off. Hundreds, no thousands of nails, and as mentioned huge chunks of asphalt fiberglass, down to one-inch flecks. We dumped it all in the bushes. 10-15-25 lb. chunks slid off the roof and crashed into the shrubbery. Deddy said, “You ’n Roger go on down there and pick that shit up.” I was 12, Roger 14 and we did it, hated it. Even though had gloves. Lots of cuts and scrapes, holes poked in our hands. Countless nails and tarry fiberglass chunks got left behind. The lady on the house huffed and puffed but couldn’t say nothing.

Roger only came 3 days. He would prime tobacco stooping endlessly in the fields for his brother for no pay, but he only came Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. It was hot on the roof. We drank water, but not enough. I was a pudgy kid. Skipped lunch most of the year at the Middle School. Ate 2 Nutty Buddies and drank a lemon drink instead. I sweat a bunch off that summer.

A little boy came over one day. He was the lady’s niece’s kid or something, maybe 4 years old. He kicked himself around on a little toy tractor, a red International. Some other fellow was over there talking to William, the man of the house. The fellow leans down to eye level and shouts in the little boy’s face, “ISSAT YOR TRACTOR!?” The little boys face cracked like a spider-webbed windshield. He bellowed tears, eyes closed. his face towards the sky. The man looked up befuddled and laughed nervously at William. William, a deadpan expression, looked out over the wheat field.

We laughed about that for weeks.

There was a bug zapper. A purple light in a decorative plastic case, made to look like a streetlamp. Rabbit wire covered the purple light. Bugs would hit it in swarms. They crackled and popped like giant insects in a horror movie. I was napping at lunch one day on a pool chair under the carport. I didn’t know the bug light made the sound. I thought giant wasps were growing under my chair, like monsters under the bed. I kept my hands well tucked.

One day at the end of the week, I think the job took only 5 days, they were resurfacing the road. Tar and gravel, that’s all. Except it was about 95 degrees out. The tar didn’t harden. Deddy had a ’65 Ford F-100, still in good shape, but the fuel pump was giving out, so it broke down in front of the house.

We stood around the hood trying to figure it out. A disconnected fuel line started spitting gas again. It was fine for a couple of days. The bottoms of all our shoes had a layer of tar and gravel on them. Mine were white high-top leather Nikes with a grey stripe. They were 6-8 months old already. That was about how long they lasted a young teen. I was young and a teen. Deddy and Charlie drank beer while they fixed the truck. Round about 4 o’clock it cooled off. I wanted a coke. Tom had some back at his house. He was mean as hell, bout all the time. He was nice to me though.