The Chris Sartinsky Memoirs: Chapter Two: My Earliest Memories and Preschool

The first thing I remember is sitting in the high chair in my kitchen. My mother was scooping another awful jar of baby food into a bowl when I was suddenly struck with a remarkable sense of consciousness. I suddenly realized that I was a living thing with rationality, contemplation, and I finally had some kind of understanding, however dim, of my place in the universe. So I jumped out of the high chair, smacking my head hard on the linoleum.

I’m not exactly sure why I did it. I didn’t dislike baby food that much. I’ve had a few theories, but lately I’ve come around to thinking that there is something innate in me that leaves me predisposed to such behavior. My most lucid and clear-thinking moments are inexorably accompanied by strong suicidal inclinations. For my own safety, I watch as much television and get as much sleep as possible to try and keep my consciousness to a minimum.

As a result of my brain injury, it would be a number of years before I ever had any more feelings of consciousness. In fact, it would be weeks before I had any feelings at all below my neck and months before I was able lift my head under my own power. In the intervening period, my mother gave birth to my sister. Still struggling with my fall, I took my first steps and spoke my first words several weeks after my sister despite my having a three year head start.

Though obscured by the fog of time past and the burst capillaries in my brain, I do have dim memories of preschool. Determined to avoid the social difficulties I found in my neighborhood, I quickly formed a posse for social standing and personal protection. I rounded up the most muscular, the most athletic, and the best-looking children at the Rocky Hill Early Learning Center. The Dinosaurs (as we called ourselves--the name was my idea) were known to harass the teachers, rough up the other kids, and set up the social hierarchy. After a few weeks of ruling the schoolyard with an iron fist, my minions revolted and kicked me out of the posse. The other kids, refusing to forgive and forget, allowed me no protection either and I was once again a preschool social outcast. My shoes were filled with stones and mud, my snacks were laced with chalk dust and Play-Doh, and my days were filled from morning to afternoon with beatings, beatings, and more beatings. The outcasts set up elaborate traps and ruses, often involving Tinker-Toys, Lincoln Logs, and miniature plastic furniture. The Dinosaurs simply kicked the living crap out of me. The only way I was able to escape preschool alive was by perching myself atop the highest slide in the playground, rain or shine, and knock down anyone who tried to climb up to get me. In winter, I acted out, seeking the refuge of the Time-Out Zone. As soon as my mother dropped me off in the morning, I would rush towards the nearest administrator and try and bite their shin or punch their thigh before another student rushed me and knocked me flat with a football tackle or clothesline. Unfortunately, when my adversaries understood this tactic, they did the same thing. As I rushed for an administrator, I would look over and see three or four other kids rushing for the same teacher. We would dog pile on top of her, beating her mercilessly until someone else rushed over and pulled us off. The other kids then had fifteen unsupervised minutes with me in the Time-Out Zone to pound me until I couldn’t remember my name. I eventually had to hole up in a corner fort built with cardboard bricks and threw hard wooden blocks at anyone who tried to come close. I developed quite an aim.

In my hours in my fortified bunker, I had little to do but read the books on the bookshelves behind me. This helped me make up for time lost after my massive hemorrhage. I was soon teaching myself to read and, to my delight, my parents decided to pull me out of preschool for kindergarten a year early. On top of this unexpected good news, my parents decided to move to the small town of Burlington. I relished the opportunity to make a clean break and start anew.