Autobiography

By Eric Heppner

The air was far too cold for it was a late march blizzard outside. The confining blanket of blue was not the same for it was not alive, it felt abrasive and rough compared warm softness from which I had just come. All twenty-two inches of my body shivered slightly from shock. My journey had been difficult to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, maybe because I had tried to take too much with me. Ten pounds and three ounces is a lot of baggage. My face was bruised something awful, my mother had always called me a prizefighter for that. I recognized a few of the voices surrounding me though I saw little besides soft white light and shades. I noticed one shade in particular. His voice was deep and frightening yet familiar and warm. I heard my name called out in song, I knew it because I had heard it all my life, Eric Ole Heppner. The shade spoke as if he didn’t expect me to be there to receive it. I heard singing for the first time. It was praise, praise to God that I had been born. I did not know this. When the tremendous shade held me in his arms, as a reaction, my body, without my consent, released my stored waste upon him. This only dampened his mood for a second as his strong arms held me all the closer. His name was Steven. I learned from a far a more familiar voice that called me away from his arms. Her name was Joan. I had heard it many times throughout my journey yet her voice was my voice, her breath mine, and her love was mine. She held me gently to her breast and I could hear her heart, the heart that I had heard for nine months. That moment on March 27, 1987 was the greatest moment of my life.
My older brother Jon had spoken for me for the first year or so of my life. This made life very simple. I ate when he did, slept when he did, and got changed when he did. But I never had a first word. I had a first phrase. “I read a book.” What I wanted was for my parents to read to me. This was my first individual want, and I am glad that it was dedicated to a search for knowledge. My first actual word then would be “I” and for the life of speaking afterward, I would be trying to explain that word to others. Even though I was now speaking for my self, Jon was still wanting for the both of us. We did everything together. Early in the morning Jon would climb into my crib and when I had more wants I would say to him “Jonston leave me alone!” as I couldn’t pronounce Jonathan. This would never abate him and I would soon be awake and on an adventure whether it was eating various berries outside or flying imaginary planes made out of large cardboard blocks in the living room. There was no limit to my imagination and Jon’s thirst to never sit still.
One particularly large adventure came when we found the special advantage that men have over women. We found that we unlike women could pee any place and at any time we desired. This magnificent freedom sent us on a quest to water every plant outside our Staten Island, New York parsonage. We built a small following in this venture and our best friends from church, Marcos and Luis, would ease the burden of our quest and passion. Yet with this help there came a terrible cost and her name was Maria. She was old yet I can never remember her getting any older, and she was little. She had had six boys and a girl; seven children in all and I remember thinking that each one of them must have taken a piece of her to make because there wasn’t much altitude left. Yet this had been attributed to her as her greatest weapon against our small band and our free ways for the closer she was to the ground the closer she was to her sandal. She wore leather sandals with everything, and it only lay at the most two feet from her hand that must have been made of wind. On one of our front lawn escapades, Maria caught us giving fluid to desperate shrubbery in the flowerbed. There she stood, all four feet of her magnificent power ready. As one can recall in the midst of great danger the motions of something so fast that it is uncaught by the natural eye. I shall recall her motion. She flipped the leather weapon off her foot into the naked air in front of her and leaped forward. The sandal spun twice in the air and Maria caught the heel in her hand. She relinquished a scream that froze us dead to our very souls even if we had had time to go anywhere. I saw the face of Marcos get slapped and pushed out of the way as it headed like an arrow for its next target plowing Jon’s face back wards as he fell into the flowerbed. Louis next received the punishment and I saw saliva rocketed from his mouth as contact was made. I watched with terror unfelt in my young mind as with a helpless stare I saw the sandal close in inevitably on my tender jaw. The contact didn’t hurt at first yet surprised me as my slow motion vision had ended and those long mille-seconds ended as I spiraled through the air into the flowerbed in an instant. The pain rushed to my cheek as if I had no skin, muscle, or tissue of any kind left and the pain was simply flowing out onto the ground to create the next flood that would destroy the world. Luckily my cheek was still there. The shock of this left me dry for several days and nearly ended my infamous peeing crusade. Yet I have been notorious for not knowing when I have been vanquished.
It had only been a month after the Maria incident and I peed alone. Groups where to conspicuous. On occasion Jon would help but I didn’t feel safe with anyone else anymore. My legs were crossed when Marcos and Louis came. On this day I felt the irrepressible urge to water the honeysuckles that traipsed the fence of our yard. I stood on a solid fort built by my father to house Jon’s and my adventures. On this second story hideout I did the dastardly deed again. My golden arch reaching the honeysuckles, the fence, and the sidewalk. This was my error. Luckily I did not make the apocalyptic error of hitting a passerby in NYC with anything more liquid and warm then a sideways glance, and even that was dangerous. My ramifications for my sin came from across the street. Gwenn, one of my dad’s parishioners, happened to see my pernicious deed and I had barely gotten my fly back up when my mother, ear fresh from the phone, brought swift ramifications upon my backside and ears. Thus ended my illustrious urinating career and routed the last urination threat left in the community. I was to reform and forever after have been forced to use the head.