To understand the entire story, we have to start at the beginning--and the story starts, ironically enough, with my very first memory.
I am three, a small three, especially for a boy whose male relatives are all six-two and two-hundred and thirty pounds of solid muscle. If you look at pictures from the time (and there's no reason why you should), you'd see a wisp of a child, hair so blond it's almost white, skin so white it's almost pale. Even in photographs taken in full sunlight, I tended to disappear, almost as if I were a ghost instead of an actual living boy.
The memory is mostly sensation: me on my back in the cold spring grass, a weight pressing down on my shoulder, hot drool dripping onto my face as I screamed and screamed and screamed. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the terror--the absolute conviction that this monster on top of me, teeth barred, claws scraping my fragile skin, is going to eat me--that the powerful jaws, so close to my face, are going to open, taking me inside with a single gulp.
If you hear the family tell it, the truth is less dramatic: our new neighbors, Sissy and Arnold Kappel, are holding a barbecue in the back yard. My father has just mixed the drinks--his specialty even now--when Michael Kappel, the six-year-old who resents being told to play with me, chases the family's Great Dane across the yard.
I run, and the dog thinks I'm playing. He chases me, tongue lolling, barking happily, with Michael Kappel--already on his way to being the neighborhood bully--scurrying nimbly behind.
I head for our house, for the safety of the back door, when the dog pounces, knocking me down. His paws are on my shoulder, his tail still wagging, as he licks my face.
)
