I was getting smarter by then. English was sinking in. I knew where I lived, I knew my relatives' names, I could count to twelve (I got really confused when I got into the teens though), I knew my ABCs, and as you can see from the above paragraph I already had a rather poetic way of thinking. It was a time in my life I went through several rites of passage as well. For instance, I once drank a bottle of Palmolive and, besides burping bubbles all over the place, I gained my first experience in blowing chunks. Another time, due to my early obsession with Star Wars, my mom's friend brought me a set of Star Trek action figures for my birthday. Upon unwrapping them, I nearly barfed again and said a little too loudly to everyone at the party, "I don't like it." Then I tossed it aside as Mom simultaneously pulled me out of the room and explained to me that other people had feelings. It's not my fault, I was just a kid. I thought I was unique. Another apparent misconception. Although Mom seemed to be quick to remind me how special I was every few minutes.

 

And of course, there was that infamous incident where I learned that there are good words and there are bad words. My family had the unfortunate habit of talking to each other across our two-story house, to the point where when Mom would call my brothers, they'd say, "Come here if you want to talk to us!" pissing her off immensely. One day, my parents, like many parents, were rather mad at each other. I was hanging around Mom's room, and she made an off-hand comment to me, but one that I heeded.

 

"Go tell Daddy 'fuck you.'"

 

So I, being two and a loser, ran out of the room, but I did not go to Dad. I went to the stairway railing and yelled for the house to hear, in true Mom-fashion, "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!"

 

Within a few moments, Mike walked underneath the banister and saw me standing there, his eyes fixed in an expression that read, "I'm dreaming. I have to be." He did not say this aloud, however. What he said instead was, "Dad! Do you hear what Joey's saying?"

 

"Klafterus," I corrected him.

 

Dad marched into the hall. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" he bellowed.

 

"I was talking to Mike," I replied, thinking quickly.

 

And you know what they did? They laughed. They laughed at my brilliance. My sheer, undeniable brillance. How dare they laugh. I was not being funny. They were just jealous of my improvisation. And so they laughed to hide it, laughed while they were really saying inside, "I wish I was like him. If I can't be, then I'll degrade him until I am." I made a vow then and there that the next time someone laughed at me, they would not get away with it so easily.

 

And so, I sat down with Dad and he explained to me how some words are bad and some words are good. Some words were nice to say to people and some words were mean to say to people. I don't think he explained it that well. I learned a lot more about this from Mom by listening to her yell at everyone.

 

My closeness to Grandma increased as well. One night, she sat down to read me a story. It was about a man named Jesus Christ. Jesus was the son of God, or the Messiah, who was sent down to die for the human race's sins. So he went around preaching to people and telling them how they should live their lives. However, some Jews didn't believe him so they nailed him to a cross and beat the crap out of him. But alas, he rose three days later, alive and well. Well, except he had some holes in his hands and some other little bruises and cuts. I asked Grandma if this story was true, and she told me that no one really knows, that it is a belief you have to put faith into. Kinda like a movie with lousy special effects, where you usually have to give yourself some brain damage before you finally accept it. She told me that maybe the story was true, or maybe the world was still waiting for a Messiah, and that I should get off to bed and that she would tell me more the next day. I had one question I wanted to ask her, though.

 

"Grandma, how did Jesus know he was the son of God?"

 

"Well..." she said, pausing a moment. "It was something he just knew. God has ways of working that cannot be understood by our minds. He is the Supreme Being, and we will never know what he will judge us by because his mind is infinitely more complex and at the same time more beautiful than any of ours."

 

As she tucked me in, everything began to fit together in my mind. "He just knew..." her words echoed in my head. Everything was fitting together. It hadn't made any sense before, why I would be brought into this decomposing, polluted world, or what the point of my life was supposed to be. But suddenly I knew. It was like those deer crossing signs on the side of the road. Sure, technically, the deer could cross the street anywhere it wants, but it just knows that it's supposed to cross at the sign. And I knew in that moment that I had been put here to die for the world's sins. I went to bed that night and for many nights afterward believing that I was the Messiah.