My One Bedroom Apartment

By Stanley Craddock

Chapter 2

“Hot dogs!  Get your hot dogs!” the man at the baseball game sung out. “Hot dogs!  Hot dogs! Anyone want a hot, hot dog?”

The man kept on in a high-pitched voice, not knowing that his words were hypnotizing me, sending me deeper and deeper into a trance. For the next few moments, my life was frozen.

According to them, I was the reason our home had no harmony.

Hot dogs are one of my favorite meals. I’ll eat hot dogs morning, noon, and night and have many times. My fetish with hot dogs started as a child, around the age of five or six.  My father and I would always share a hot dog meal together. Everywhere we went, we would get a few.  Even at home on lazy days, my father would yell across the house, “Hey, Stan! Stan, you want two hot dogs?” And I would come running. “Yes, Dad, two!” So I grew up loving two things: my father and hot dogs.

Where I grew up, in the rich area near Byrd Park, everybody played sports. My father loved baseball. It’s what he understood. But I excelled at football. Any stress in that game, I readily accepted.  The press, 3rd down, a yard to go? Give me the ball! Now my father is not into sports where he would sit in front of the TV and just watch a game. That’s not his style.  His character is more of a man who fixes things, outdoors, around the house. He was involved in my playing baseball. He would drive the whole team to games. Three balls, two strikes, a full count: I’m at the plate.  But instead of focusing on the next pitch, I’m worried about what my father is thinking, watching me in the stands. My God!  Here comes that last pitch, and I’m going down swinging. In a lot of ways, our relationship was lost at three balls and two strikes.

I was about seventeen years old when he and my mother decided that I should no longer live at home, but I had the mentality of a twelve year old. According to them, I was the reason our home had no harmony. Now I’m no angel, by far. But I don’t think I’m the devil. My father never formally explained it, but I could tell he just didn’t like me. (You can’t take the child back years later because he doesn’t fit your image, mind-set or lifestyle. Adoption is for keeps!)

The smiles and sounds of laughter were in the air when we saw the sign “for rent.”  I didn’t know what to think. Hey look! There is a new Schwinn bike coming down the street!  Remember, I’m twelve.  I know more about bikes than anything. All my buddies want a Schwinn because they were the top of the line.  But the world I was about to enter into on Grace Street was not about bikes, toys, and tag.