Jellybeans

by Danyelle Jorgensen, 1985

    The air was crisp that fall.  A cool northerly breeze blew the brightly colored leaves into little cyclones at the bases of the walnut trees.  I shivered a little at a backlash of air that rounded the corner of the house as I looked down at my red besneakered feet dangling over the back porch.  The rhythmic back and forth, back and forth of my legs held me transfixed, my four year-old mind contemplating the mysteries of the universe (whatever that was,) when I felt the warm press of my little brother’s sticky palm against my back.  Then, with premeditation, he forced me from my comfortable perch to the rocky ground below.  I screamed bloody murder and turned to take after him.  Instead, I got caught on a loose board and fell headlong into a batch of sticker weeds.  I swore revenge as I   lifted off the ground, pulling gingerly at the stickers decorating my palms.  I got up and  turned to face my brother.  There before me stood a jellybean juice drooling sibling monster taunting me with his stolen booty.
    “I got canny and not yeeuuuu.” and he spun his little victory dance on the porch above me.
    He squealed in terror as I tore up the stairs after him.
    We burst through the kitchen door, each of us bent on mutual torture.  My brother emitted an ear-splitting plea for his life when he felt my hand clamp down upon his arm.  Assured of my victory, I prepared for the glorious denouement – the thorough destruction of my wardrobe-destroying-brother-creature.  Heavy footsteps sounded behind me and firm but gentle hands separated us.
    Grandpa’s kind words echoed softly through the silent kitchen, “You two hooligans stop fighting in the house.  What’s the problem anyway?”  My coward of a brother vanished from the room.
    I explained my plight to Grandpa and showed him the back of my favorite shirt that read “My daddy loves me.”  Tears filled my eyes as Grandpa calmly reassured me that the candy-goo would come out of the shirt.  Finally, he handed me my own handful of brightly colored jellybeans to ease my misery.
    “Try the black ones, they’re my favorite.” he said, and I popped one into my still-quivering mouth.
    The sweet licorice flavor of the bean filled my mouth and I smiled through black teeth at Grandpa.  He walked into the living room to his favorite chair and resumed his conversation with my parents.  His back was to the kitchen door.  A shelved lamp-stand stood to the left of him.  On it sat his beanbag ashtray and the coveted bowl of jellybeans.  I swallowed but my tastebuds still craved the black confection.
    Creeping toward the table, I masterminded my covert operation.  Surely no one would catch me, I thought.  If they did, I would just pretend to be a statue and they wouldn’t see me.  Grandpa’s back was to me and everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere.  Ever so silently, I neared the back of his chair.  My objective in sight, I reached for the jellybeans.
    “Gotcha!” I hadn’t expected that.
    My cover blown, I squealed and Grandpa exploded with laughter.  “You can’t have all the jellybeans.” he said, “What if someone else wants some?”
    “But I don’t want them all.” I whimpered, “I only want the black ones.”
    Grandpa chuckled and explained that he liked the black ones too.
    “Oh, well you can have some.  I don’t want them all.”  I said cheerfully, happy with myself that I had reached an acceptable conclusion.  Grandpa shook his head and explained that other people might want some black jellybeans and that if he and I ate them all, my little brother, for example, might not get any and he would be sad.
    Like a puppy coming at the call of his name, my little brother appeared at my back.  “More canny?” he drooled stickily.
    “Look, I’ll make you a deal.” Grandpa said, “I’ll give you some jellybeans with one black jellybean each, ok?”
    No, it wasn’t ok with me.  I didn’t care if my brother was sad or not.  He ruined my shirt.  But my grandfather smiled sweetly at me as he meted out the candy and I went quietly to the couch.  The adult conversation in the room died down as foreign images crossed the television screen – most of which went ignored by me, as I was intent on the consumption of my jellybeans, saving the black one for last.  But of that which did penetrate my limited scope of understanding, burned that day into my memory.  For years, I remembered only the good and funny images of Grandpa and my jellybeans, but buried beneath was the frame that held the picture clearly on the walls of my mind.  I never really put it together until now, writing this story, that there were more memories, more of myself, residing in the mists of time.
    Images of a land faraway moved on the t.v. screen.  Suffering and hatred were brought to life in my living room.  I heard the words “kill”, “fight”, and “die” cross the lips of the self-righteous on the television as well in my own house.  My own family who, at one point, scolded me for hatred, fighting and greed, cheered the images of pain and destruction on the screen.  They became excited at the taking of a desirable hill or the killing of a particularly noxious “gook” village; the taking of something that didn’t belong to them.  That was the day that I came to know “war”.  War in the world (that had suddenly become a great deal smaller) and war within myself (who had suddenly become a great deal bigger).  Idols fell on the battlefield of my mind, and my Mommy and Daddy-gods became just my parents.  Questions that I did not yet even comprehend filled my brain.  Questions of life and death and power of “authority”.
    My simple, impressionable child-mind -although not so simple anymore- switched gears as I listened to my family discuss Vietnam.  I didn’t understand everything that was said, or even remember all of the words that were said that day, but I was suddenly very content to have my one, black jellybean.