A Very Old Story About a Strange Childhood Friend

I once said in this blog that I had never had an actual friendship that went totally bust. what I said wasn't entirely true. I probably thought I was being truthful when I wrote it, but one former friendship I tended to block from my consciousness. That was the friendship that didn't end well.

Karenna and I were friends and neighbors the year I was in fourth grade. I would have turned nine in December of that year.  Karenna was a tall, solidly built Dutch-American girl. I believe all four of her grandparents were born either in the Netherlands or in some territory the Netherlands controlled. Most of the family was somehow connected to the dairy industry, but Karenna's mom was an operating room technician, and her father was a math professor at the local university. Their Dutchness pervaded practically every aspect of their existence. In retrospect, I'm surprised they didn't all wear wooden shoes.

In actuality, they were not merely Dutch, but Frisian.  Those originally inhabiting the Frisian regions, located in coastal Netherlands and a portion of Germany, are ethnically similar to Anglo-Saxons. Their language bears resemblance to the original Anglo-Saxon language as well.  At this point, however, most of them who live in the U.S. claim Dutch as their ancestry. With intermarriage happening as it usually does, most Frisians actually are part ethnically Dutch.  While they don't typically dress in traditional Dutch or Frisian costumes in the U.S. (they probably don't in Frieseland anymore, either) they retain customs including the food they often eat (that Mrs. Zwaagstra was continually trying to force-feed me because I was so short and scrawny compared to her own hulking brood) and the religion they practice. 

The Frisians, as do many Dutch, practice religion in some form of what is now called "The Reformed Church.' Back in the day, it was "The Dutch Reformed Church." It's now roughly fifty bazillion separate denominations, with the largest here probably being The Reformed Church in America. They're considered mainline Protestant, but they're pretty far to the right as mainliners go. What is mildly interesting is that most nations had their own reformers they followed. The Dutch who practiced reformed religion tended to follow the works and writings of John Calvin, who is primarily considered a Scottish reformer. All of that, however, is neither here nor there.

Karenna and her family, the Zwaagstras, attended a Reformed Church. There wasn't one in our city, so they drove about an hour each way to attend the church of their choice. Their church had morning and evening services.Once in a great while, they made the trek home after morning service, then headed back for another one-way hour-long drive to their church's evening worship service. Most of the time, however, they killed time in the town where the church was located. Sometimes they were invited for afternoon dinners at the homes of fellow parishioners. Sometimes they packed picnic lunches. Sometimes the weather was so lousy that they hung out in their car from the end of morning worship service until the 6:30 start time of evening worship service.  While attending Sunday mass was far from the highlight of my week, I was quite content to be, in a religious sense, a Rousseau and not a Zwaagstra.

The Zwaagstras had four children. Karenna was the third eldest of the four.  Any one of the Zwaagstra offspring would have gladly gouged the heart out of any one of  his or her siblings with a letter opener over something so inconsequential as the order form for a toy on the back of a cereal box; it wouldn't even have needed to be an actual toy in the cereal box.  The LDS church has a hymn (other churches may use it as well, but it's most commonly associated with Mormons), the first line of which is "There is beauty all around when there's love at home."

If the hymn hadn't predated the modern Zwaagstra family my roughly  one hundred years, I would say that the person who came up with those lyrics did so by watching the Zwaagstra family in action and writing down the exact opposite of hat he or she saw in poetic form.

At first, the Zwaagstra family lived across town from us.  One parent or another (probably my mom; Mrs. Zwaagstra was always working, and who could possibly blame her?) arranged a playdate for us. My mom arranged to be off work earlier than usual in order to pick us up from school and to supervise our play. At some point, Karenna made some comment to the effect of. "Your house ain't got no class. You ain't even got no nice living room furniture."  (The Zwaagstras had a living room full of ugly but expensive floral overstuffed furniture; the offspring were forbidden from even entering the living room unless the family was entertaining company in the room, but anytime Dr. or Mrs Zwaagstra was away, the kids made themselves at home in the living room, eating Cheetos and drinking Kool-Aid, and having no-holds-barred-no-rules tag-team wrestling matches.) My mom was willing to ignore the insult to her home décor; in truth, my parents didn't spend much money on home furnishings except for the sixty-thousand-dollar (in 1990 dollars) piano we had in our living room. They were saving for their next house, which they planned to purchase in about a year and to furnish at least somewhat respectably. 

My mom did take exception to the manner in which Karenna delivered her message. As the child of educated parents, my mom felt that Karenna should have known better than to verbalize her sentiments in the manner in which she did.  While my mom ignored the rudeness of Karenna's criticism of our home furnishings, she chose not to ignore Karenna's deliberately poor syntax, though she spoke to her far more gently than she would have either to my brother or to me had we said the same thing. "Karenna, we don't use the word ain't in this house.  You could have said, "Your house has no class. You don't even have nice living room furniture."

I think I've shared Karenna's response to this once before in another context.  Karenna's  answer to my mother was, "Lady, it ain't none of your damn business how I talk English."

"We don't speak to one another in that way in this house, " my mom replied to Karenna.  

"No one's forcing you to speak to me, " Karenna answered my mom.

My mom's response was to grab her purse and car keys and to drive Karenna home. I think her intent had been to speak to Mrs. Zwaagstra, but she, of course, was nowhere to be found. What my mom did find, though, was Karenna's older and younger brother using a rope to trustle their cocker spaniel, which they then hoisted above the ground and tied him, leaving him suspended by rope from the tree.  My mom was horrified, as was a neighbor who happened to walk from his house  into his driveway and observe the act of animal cruelty. The man and my mom were able to free the cocker spaniel without any noticeable injury. 

"We weren't hurtin' nobody or nothin;," Karenna's older brother Brad protested. "We was just givin' him a little ride." Neither the neighbor nor my mom bought the story. The neighbor took the dog with him and said he would keep it in his possession at least until he could explain to the parents what their sons had done, and possibly longer.  I have no idea if the dog was ever returned to the Zwaagstra family. I hope not.

My mom told me on the ride home, her hands shaking for some reason as she held the steering wheel, that she didn't consider Karenna to be a suitable playmate for me.   From that point, we still hung out at school. Parents back then didn't do much to control whom their children associated with at school.  Then the house directly across the street from us went up for sale. As luck would have it,   the home was purchased by Dr. and Mrs. Zwaagstra. 

It's one thing to tell your kid she cannot have play dates with another child when the child's home is two miles away from one's own home. It's another matter entirely to tell  one's child she cannot play with a little girl roughly the same age who lives across the street and who does not yet have a police record.

Karenna and I resumed playing together when school was not in session. Sometimes we did homework together, which usually consisted of Karenna copying the answers to my homework. Even at the age of nine, I understood on some level that I was being used, but I didn't care all that much. I nearly always had fun when I was with Karenna. We climbed on people's roofs without being caught.  We collected cans, redeemed them, and used the proceeds to buy candy. We occasionally collected ketchup, hot sauce,  and mustard packets, then put them under the tires of cars in the driveways of families of whom we were not especially fond so that a mess would be made in the driveways when the cars were put into reverse. We committed little significant harm, but had a great deal of fun.

Karenna cheated blatantly at board games; her entire family did. The object to board games, as far as the Zwaagstras were concerned, was to cheat and not be caught. I tolerated her cheating to a point, then eventually called her on it and said I would quit the game if she didn't play by the rules. She typically capitulated. 

Karenna had a bit of a fascination with matches.  I knew that playing with anything that caused fire was absolutely forbidden. Karenna eventually learned that I would leave if she brought out the matches.

At that point in my life, I was still enrolled in gymnastics, and was at the gym as much as I was home. This was probably to my advantage. I got into enough trouble with Karenna in the eight or so hours a week I was allowed to spend with her outside of school time. Had we been together every day after school until dinner time, (my mom drew the line at allowing Karenna to sleep over at my home or allowing me to sleep at her house), we might have put a skunk into someone's house or gotten ourselves stuck in someone's chimney. 

On one particular rainy day, we played hopscotch in Karenna's garage with the door open. We could see the city's sanitation truck approaching.  Johnson, the man who operated our city's sanitation truck was a kindly African-American fellow who, to the best of my knowledge, never harmed or spoke an unkind word to anyone in his entire life. I believe "Johnson" was his actual first name and Pierce was his surname. I'm not sure why the children of a city were encouraged to call this adult male by his first name, but as far as I know, that's what all the children called him.. As the garbage truck got closer, Karenna proposed, "Let's yell 'N-----!" at Johnson!"

"I'm not allowed to say that word," I told Karenna.

"You chicken!" Karenna practically spat at me.

"Yes, I am a chicken," I agreed with Karenna. "I'll get in super huge trouble if my parents find out I said that."  I should not have needed to use my parents as my excuse. The wrong of it alone should have been a sufficient deterrent.

As the garbage truck approached, Karenna warned me, "You're in or you're out.!"  I knew that I had little choice but to opt out.  I headed out of the garage, walking into the rain and not even bothering to try to hurry in order not to get wet. I had reached the point of the driveway where it slopes to the level of the street when Johnson drove the sanitation truck directly in front of the Zwaagstra's house, waving at the two of us with one arm as he moved the lever lifting the trash receptacle to empty itself into the large bin in the back of the truck

"N-----! N-----!" Karenna hollered in he loudest and screechiest voice at Johnson. I looked at Johnson. His face wore an expression of both puzzlement and pain. I shrugged, then walked across the street and into my own house. I said nothing to my mother, which was a mistake and which might have cleared things up slightly more expeditiously, but the damage had been done.

Later that evening, after Johnson's sanitation route had long been finished and after most families in our town had probably finished dinner, Johnson drove

his pick-up truck to the Zwaagstra home. As there was no school the next day and homework had been completed, I was allowed to watch television. I didn't recognize the pickup truck as it parked in front of the Zwaagstra home, but  once Johnson exited the truck, there was no question as to what was going down. I ran to my upstairs bedroom, not bothering to watch as Johnson approached the Zwaagstras' front door and rang the bell.

A few moments later, I heard the sound of our own doorbell. I heard adults talking, and then I heard my own name being called.  Despite knowing I hadn't been an actual party to the racial and verbal abuse that took place earlier in the day, still I was terrified.  I reached my living room to find my own parents, Mr. and Mrs. Zwaagstra, Johnson, and Karenna, who had tears running down her cheeks.

"It seems that some extremely unfriendly and inappropriate words were spoken to Mr. Pierce [that was the first time I had ever heard him referred to as 'Mr. Pierce'] earlier today. What do you know about this, Alexis?" my father asked me.

I swallowed hard as my father and the others waited for my answer. "It happened." was my laconic reply.

"Would you care to elaborate? Who said what to whom?" my father pressed.

I swallowed again, knowing that an untruthful answer would get me into more trouble than I had ever been in my entire life, but that the truthful answer would cost me a best friend. "Karenna said, "N-----! N-----!" I answer. 

"You filthy liar!" Karenna roared.

My mom spoke. "I think we've gotten to the bottom of this. Dr. and Mrs. Zwaagstra, Karenna?"  She opened the door and held itopen, inviting them to leave. 

My parents apologized profusely to Mr. Pierce.

"It wasn't your little one that said it,"  he countered.

"You shouldn't be hearing that from anyone," my dad insisted. My mom poured coffee and cut slices of cake as the three of them sat at our family's dining room table.

I was sent back upstairs to complete my homework, which had been completed hours earlier, though I knew better than to argue the point. I was still in the dark as far as what had been said out of my presence.

Later, after Mr. Pierce left, my parents came up to my room. They explained that when Mr. Pierce told Mr. and Mrs. Zwaagstra what Karenna had said, she first blamed me solely, and then insisted that I had shouted it along with her.  Mr. Pierce had seen that I was nowhere near Karenna when the ugly words had been hollered.  Mt. and Mrs. Zwaagstra had  chosen to believe their daughter. My parents believed Mr. Pierce. I assume they would also have believed him had he said I had been the one who spoke the venomous words.

My mother didn't tell me I couldn't play with Karenna anymore. By the time school started the next day, Karenna had already assembled a gaggle of girls who would snub me for a large part of the remainder of the year.  Karenna herself ignored me, which was just as well, as she possessed enough of a size advantage over me that she could have injured me had she chose the physical route to her from of justice.

At one point I told Karenna that I was willing to forgive if she was. She answered that I had nothing for which to forgive her, and that she had no intention whatsoever of forgiving me. Still I help out hope. Every time the telephone rang, I prayed it was Karenna. (I lost a bit of faith in the power of prayer through that experience.) Whenever I looked out the front window and saw Karenna emerge from either her front door or garage door,  I hoped that it would be to my house that she was headed.  Reality eventually became inevitable to me. Karenna was not going to call or visit. Still, I remember the almost physical pain of looking at the phone, willing it to ring and willing Karenna to be on the other end of the line.

We moved about ten weeks later, thus making it easier to forget Karenna and to move on. I wonder if Karenna grew up to be a sociopath, or, for that matter, if she even grew up. It's not beyond possibility that she and her three siblings killed each other in a massive brawl.

At any age, it's hard to part with a friend. It's hard not to look at a cell phone every five minutes to see if there just happens to be a text.  Reality will set in eventually. It just hasn't yet.

                I don't own this video. Thanks to the person who owns it.