Pangea Express

Marie Louise Brown  May 2008

Aunt Gigi’s house was old.  You know, with those black, push button, toggle-type light switches.  A special room had to be added to the house to accommodate the late forties, early fifties refrigerator and equally old washing machine.  Aunt Gigi didn’t have a dryer, she had a clothesline.  There were hardwood floors throughout the house.  When you walked through the living room a furnace vent in the floor made a deep “ching-ching-ching” sound with every step you took past, over, or around it.

I stayed with Aunt Gigi daily, and often overnight, from the age of one until I was old enough to attend kindergarten at age five.  After that I visited her on many weekends during my school years, and spent most of my young summers in that old Fresno neighborhood with those old Fresno houses.

There were a lot of children in that neighborhood to play with.  Like me, they were there under the loving supervision of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or some other family member available to watch over them while their parents were at work.  The reason we were there made no difference to us.  All that mattered was the fun we could create all day, every day.  There was so much to do.

The Kaisers next door had three grandchildren: Kim, Lisa, and Erik.  Kim was the biggest, oldest and bossiest of us all.  She may even be described as being a bully from time to time.  Lisa and Erik were younger than I, but in physical size we were all much smaller than Kim.  The Kaisers had a jungle gym and a swing set in their front yard for all the neighborhood kids to play on.  That is, of course, unless Kim was there.  If Kim was around you could count on being told exactly which swing you could use (if you were allowed to swing at all).  She’d also control which section of the jungle gym you could sit on (which was usually one of the lower rungs).  A day with Kim meant:  gum in your hair, games of hide and seek that always ended in an unforeseen and terrifying scare, and being chased down the street only to eventually be caught and tortured in some capacity.  Pinching, pulling hair, and pushing were all tactics Kim employed.  We all simply accepted it as what we’d have to contend with if we were to take a chance on having any fun at all.

There were many other children around to endure Kim’s wrath also.  This was good because if somebody new showed up, Kim’s focus could be directed toward them.  There were Stephanie and Beatrice from the new apartment house across the street, Joseph next door, and Stacy and Diane from further down the street.

We were a rowdy bunch.  Nobody’s ‘adult supervisor’ in our crowd had a decent working television.  And by decent I mean color.  It didn’t matter much, though, because in 1971 there were only five stations broadcast in Fresno, and every one of them were dedicated to soap operas.  B-O-R-I-N-G.  We weren’t allowed to use the telephone.  It was for emergencies only, or for when our parents called to ask if we were behaving ourselves.

So what did we do with those precious seventeen hours of summer sunlight?  We did what anyone under the age of nine would do!  We ate frozen “Otter Pops” continuously, we played hopscotch on the sidewalk, we ran wild in games of tag, we fought over the swings and for the top of the jungle gym, and we begged endlessly from nine in the morning until nine in the evening to have the sprinklers on while we did all of this.  There were spooky basements to search, and crazy attics to find old treasures in.  We cooled ourselves while resting on strong cement porches because we were too wet to be allowed inside.  Those cement porches had stairs that led down to backyards covered in Bermuda grass that seemed to go on forever, and we’d run through the sprinklers in those backyards hour after sun soaked hour. 

The absolute crème de la crème of those summer days had to be the public pool at Dickey Park.  The pool there was a very large blue rectangle.  It ranged in depth from only one foot to three and a half feet.  Needless to say, it was almost solely created for children.  And all of us neighborhood kids gladly filled it with splashes of laughter, while the adults lined the sides by sitting near with their feet in the water.  What a complete relief it was during those 110 degree days!

Dickey Park’s public pool in the old Fresno neighborhood is where I first encountered Nauget.  She was an African-American girl who’d recently moved into a home on our block.  It was no surprise we hadn’t met earlier.  Back then white kids were, for the most part, discouraged from playing with black kids, and vise versa.  That’s why the public pool was so special to me.  I could see everybody.  There were no denials about the existence of another.

Nauget was my height, which equated to short, no matter how you looked at it.  She was a lot like me.  She was sensitive and careful.  We were both generally shy, but able to speak up in important situations.  Her skin was medium brown, not the darkest or the lightest of ‘black’.  This was fine by me because I was medium brown too, not the darkest or the lightest of ‘white’.  She had large round brown eyes that stayed that way when her full lips revealed her glowing and reliable smile.  Nauget wore her hair in several braids around her entire head, and always in the exact same pattern – one on top of her head, and three in equal sections around the back of her head.  She had enough hair to hold those heavy plastic marble-ended rubber bands at the end of her braids.  I loved Nauget’s hair.  My hair was always so thin I didn’t have enough to make one braid let alone four.  I used to beg her to let me brush her hair, and give her a different style.  I was always denied.  She’d shoot me down with, “Are you crazy? Mama made me sit still all morning getting my hair like this!”

Nauget, I discovered, lived only about four houses down.  Her house was a lot like Aunt Gigi’s, except the old fashioned light switches and “chinging” furnaces had been replaced with modern equipment.  Her mom was tall and beautiful, with the exact same smile as Nauget.  She had two older brothers that were hardly ever home.  I don’t remember them much, but I do recall that everybody in Nauget’s home was kind and welcoming.

The outside of Nauget’s house was celery green.  This pleased her immensely because green was her favorite color.  She wore green dresses, green shorts and shirts, and had a dark green bathing suit.  The only things of a different color she wore were her white summer sandals.

Nauget wasn’t visiting the old neighborhood.  She lived here, went to school here.  She was different from every other friend I had on that block.  For one thing she wasn’t white.  For another, her guardians were her young parents.  Her mom was definitely less uptight about us jaunting through the house wet, or going through the attic, and the snacks there were far superior to the ones at Aunt Gigi’s or the Kaiser’s: chocolate chip cookies, Three Musketeers Bars chilled in the fridge, and even REAL popsicles with sticks in each side!  Otter Pops couldn’t hold a candle to the smooth texture and the rich flavor of Popsicles.  Cups of Kool Aid replaced drinking water straight from the garden hoses.  What a life of luxury I’d come to know as a result of befriending Nauget!

We didn’t get into trouble much.  We tried to steer clear of Kim and the gang as much as possible, being careful to play with them only when we detected a mild temperament.

I recall one particularly important day in the history of our young friendship – a day of universal importance, a day for science, and finally a day of fresh salsa and fly swatters.  My Aunt Gigi made enough fresh salsa for everyone in my entire family.  She did this once or twice monthly, as demand dictated.  She would spend almost and entire Saturday roasting and skinning peppers, stewing tomatoes, and putting various ingredients together in small containers to freeze for later consumption.  There’s no real explanation for it, but one day this concoction she’d created got the best of my imagination.  Looking back, maybe I just wanted Nauget to have as much fun at our house as I always did at hers.

The idea was born – sneak into that specially built room, into the late forties refrigerator, get the salsa, and begin the experiments!  We conducted various tests: salsa with dirt, salsa with chopped ivy leaves, with minced clover, and finally salsa with rose petals.  I know there were other elements used in these experiments, but I can’t remember what they were.  We didn’t have time to write our findings down.  Before we could record a thing, we heard the holler and felt the fly swatter!  I remember us bolting over the side of the back porch and running to hide for our lives – two budding scientists cut off due to lack of proper salsa funding and support!  Nauget kept asking if we were in big trouble; I do remember that.

I’ve always enjoyed recalling those long, hazy, summer days.  I don’t remember ever saying goodbye to Nauget.  I don’t remember when she left, or who left first.  I only know she was gone by the time I’d reached ten years old.

About three or four years ago, I was visiting my sister Loni.  Loni is seventeen years my elder, and she remembers things about my young life that I can’t.  We were talking about my childhood friends and Aunt Gigi’s old house at dinner one evening when she asked, “Do you remember Nauget?”  Before I could answer, she added, “Your imaginary black friend who lived down the street?

I was stunned….crushed….speechless.  This had been a real person as far as I was concerned, as real as anyone else.  She was warm and dear to me.  In those first moments I mourned the passing of Nauget.  Later I recognized that I could remember and love her as I would any other friend – she could hold her place in my soul, imaginary or not.