A story by Jack Tellier
The day I got a taste of what it felt like to truly be free is one I’ll never forget. I was in sixth grade; my kid brother and I were annoying our mother on a Saturday morning. She hadn’t had her cup of coffee and was busy cleaning the house. She also told us to clean repeatedly and when we refused to follow her directions, she aggressively asked us “why don’t you guys go somewhere and not come back until the sun is setting?”
It took me too long to realize that she was only half serious. But today, I had an opportunity to develop some much-desired independence. What does this have to do with movies? There’s a reason I’m telling this story.
As a child, especially in middle school, I was frustrated with my lack of control over seemingly every situation. I could never drive anywhere, do what I wanted to do, see my friends whenever I wanted, eat wherever I wanted and I especially knew I was not skilled enough to make the types of movies I wanted to make. For hours, I would sit and watch YouTube tutorials on special effects that I could never replicate with a hand-me-down camera and Windows MovieMaker. I was fascinated, but powerless. I felt like Lily in the episode of “Modern Family,” when her parents held her on a leash at Disneyland.
I know how it feels, kid.
Today was a day to feel I could claim some of that control I had wanted my entire life. My brother and I biked to my good friend, Christian’s, house. He still lives at the same address today. We were going to explore the woods – alone. With this new air of confidence, we made our way to a special chainlink fence in the neighborhood. At the bottom of the fence, there was a hole someone had dug in the dirt so we could get on our bellies and crawl underneath.
View of “Frenchman’s Reserve,” the site of my potential disappearance.
We were now in the great unknown with no food, water, compass or anything. I was thrilled to be free but my cat would miss me. Just kidding, I never had a cat. We explored the woods for what felt like hours, stumbling across exotic looking plants and thankfully no bobcats. There had been multiple recently-posted signs warning us of these ferocious felines. Getting mauled would have made this story much more unpleasant.
When trying to get back home we were faced with two ponds surrounded by cattails. The fence was on the other side of the ponds and between the water was what looked like a dirt trail. I poked the trail with my stick and quickly realized it wasn’t dirt, but a thick, black sludge of some sort.
Obviously, as a sixth grader I thought, “If I run fast enough, I won’t sink in it!” I was the first one to try and my legs immediately got stuck in the sludge. I sank in it up to my knees and began to panic. Would people share photos of me as a “missing child” on Facebook? Would I get an obituary in the New York Times? I was already imagining my own memorial service.
I screamed. Christian and my brother pulled me out of the mud and we ran. We found a clearing in the woods that fed right back into the neighborhood, no fence-crawling needed. I also learned that day that fate is a cruel mistress. As luck would have it, the three of us came out of the forest and right there, in her black SUV was my mom searching for us. Christian’s mom was also with her.
It’s safe for you to assume that Christian and I didn’t see each other for a while outside of school. All three of us got an earful when we returned home.
For years, I didn’t understand why leaving the house, like my mom demanded, got me in so much trouble. But at least I knew what it was like to be free.
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