Meet the Lites – Charlotte
Good morning, y’all. There is some irony involved in reporting on my sister, Charlotte, the day after my confrontation with the park peeper, B.A. Ware. Excuse me, the alleged peeper. With regard to that problem, Mulva is going to pick up some of those little spy cameras over to the WalMart and we’ll see if we can get the goods on old B.A.
My sister Charlotte, Holy Jesus, where do I begin? I guess she is my longest living relationship next to Mom, so there’s mounds and mounds of dirt that can be used to fill in the holes of our familial relationship.
As previously stated, Daddy and Mom married at the beginning of World War II, when he was 18 and she was 14. Daddy went off to war and fought the Nazis for awhile, and then was given a leave before being transferred to the Pacific theater. During this leave, he and Mom visited around North Carolina and generally honeymooned until it was time for Daddy to report. My sister Charlotte was conceived during this time, and was named after the city where the condom broke, as was the custom of that time.
Mom moved in with Daddy’s people and she finished high school while Grandma Lite and Grandma’s mom, Granny Waller, raised the baby. There were assorted aunts still at home and my sister never lacked for one second of attention. She was a fair child, with that orange-red hair and freckled skin that bespoke of her Irish heritage. She was the apple of everyone’s eye until she turned six, at which time she had to share the limelight with someone else, me.
Back then a son was a big deal, we previously mentioned carrying on the bloodline and all. Six years of uninterrupted idolatry played heavily in how Charlotte recognized her loss of status, and my right to exist. We lived in a family where there was not enough love to go around, particularly from Mom. Charlotte now had to share favor from the family with me. As we got older, she was tasked with looking out for me. I can’t say which condition stuck in her craw worse, sharing attention or babysitting. Either way, I was an unnecessary evil as far as Charlotte was concerned.
My earliest recollection of Charlotte was riding on the fender behind her on her bicycle. My foot had gotten caught in between the spokes of the wheel and the frame of the bike. While I screamed, Charlotte applied more pressure to the pedals to offset the loss of momentum from my foot being sliced like a roast beef at a deli. Fortunately, other kids saw and heard what was going on, and grabbed the handlebars to stop Charlotte from her determined course. I spent three weeks in the hospital, missed the opening of school and have a huge deep scar to this day on my left ankle that bears testimony to the event. I was perhaps a millimeter away from being physically handicapped for life, I was five.
While I don’t think that Charlotte was responsible for the event, I do think that it was the first time I experienced Charlotte’s white hot laser focus that would later be characterized by a complete disassociation of her brain to her actions. The old saying goes, “the lights are on but nobody is at home”, in Charlotte’s case the lights go out and ghosts and haints start flying from the house to create havoc until the lights eventually come back on. I’m sure there’s some clinical words that fit better than, “madder than a hornet that’s been peed on”, but Charlotte’s lack of rational thought while lashing out blindly is like a hornet that just knows to sting in response to stimuli.
Well, it’s late and we can continue this some more tomorrow. I ain’t going anywhere and I got some cameras to hang before everyone starts stirring.