Momma's Boy

Momma says I’ve always been different than the other kids. Before the accident, she says I was a real smarty-pants – good at numbers, and I could write proper. Knew all the presidents and states. Of course, I don’t remember none of that. I was nine when it happened.

Momma says she loves me just as much as she ever did, but I seen her crying sometimes when she thinks I’m not looking. She keeps my trophy what I won in a spelling bee polished on the fireplace, and the gold medal for good grades. I don’t get treasure like that anymore, but she says that’s okay. Says if there were prizes for manners and holding doors open I’d be champion of the world. She ruffles my hair when she says it, and pretends she don’t feel my scars.

Sometimes I get angry, and then I’m Bad Boy. I hate that, because sometimes I hurt people. I don’t never mean to, but it’s like a cloud comes down over my eyes and I can’t control it. On those days Momma locks me in my room, and we don’t never go out for a whole week. Not till the bruises go away. I don’t know why we do that. I told her my scars are way uglier than her split lip or bird egg bruises… but I guess things is different for Mommas.

One time, I hurted my cousin Blayne. He was teasing me and calling me stoopid. Then he said I had a face what only a mother could love. So I pounded him with my fists and next thing I know I was pinned on the ground by Mister Gilmore next door. An ambulance come down the lane with its flishie-flashies on. Blayne gotten a broken arm and a concussion, and I got a paddling. Not from Momma, she ain’t never hitted on me. From Uncle Vinny, Blayne’s Papa. He hits real hard, so as you can’t sit down for a week. The paddling is bad, but the look on Momma’s face is worse. It makes me feel some kinda way, in the pit of my stomach.

I get headaches, too. Bad ones. Feels like the whole sun is inside my skull, trying to burn its way out. Or a wasp nest buzzing, so loud I can’t sleep. On those days Momma rocks me on her lap, strokes my hair and calls me Baby Boy. I like that, even though I’m not a baby anymore. I’m going to be forty this year. Momma says we’ll go to the county fair and ride on the Ferris Wheel. I can try and win a goldfish and eat as much cotton candy and ice cream as I want.

I used to have parties on my birthday. Momma invited my cousins and the local kids on the street. She made hot dogs, pizza and three colored jello. She let me help blow up the balloons. One time I had a T-Rex cake, and another time it was Sponge Bob. I liked the parties. I liked how I could swish the jello round my mouth till it was squooshy like Kool Aid. I liked playing pin the tail on the donkey and freeze tag with the kids.

I can’t play with kids no more. I tried a few times, going to the play park and kicking my legs so I could swing extra high. People were mean to me, throwing rocks and calling me ‘pee-doh’ and ‘freak’. Momma said I gotten too old for the park. I scare the kids now coz I’m tall like a tree and strong like Superman.

Sometimes bad things happen to kids round our way. Billy, what lived in the house with the green shutters, had an accident. I didn’t mind much – Billy never let me play soccer with him on his driveway, and one time when I got his ball back for him he said it had cooties all on it. Anyhow, I guess he shoulda been more careful coz Momma said he musta run in the street to get his ball back, and a truck squashed him flat. I saw him before the ambulance came and his feet was all backwards. His head musta burst like a water melon, coz it didn’t have a face no more.

After Billy I stayed inside for a while. I had real bad headaches. Momma went to the funeral without me, but she locked me in my room so I couldn’t hurt myself while she was gone. I hate when she does that. My room is boring. I already finished my comics and coloring in is for babies.

After Billy there was a little girl called Lottie. She was real little – with pretty golden hair in curls down to her butt. She used to skip rope along the sidewalk, and sometimes she would run through my sprinklers or let me blow bubbles for her. Lottie was nice and had a funny laugh with a little snort in it like a piglet. Sometimes she let me touch her curls, I liked to pull them straight and watch them bounce back up again.

Lottie went missing that summer. I was sick at the time - my headaches had me sleeping a lot. Momma calls it my Dark Times. Usually she locks me in my room when it happens. She got me the red power ranger and the green one so I wouldn’t get lonesome while she helped the search party. Police knocked on our door and Momma told them I was sick in bed. She said I’d been there all day, but she was fibbing. I’d been out on the porch blowing bubbles before breakfast and while she was at the grocery store.

The next week was confusing. Momma looked real tired and pale. She didn’t rock me like normal, even though my head hurt something fierce. She made my PBJs cut into squares, even though she knows I only eat triangles. She left the house in the middle of the night and didn’t get home until the birds was singing. I know coz I sat up waiting at the window, I’m scurred of the dark. She was gone so long I messed my pajamas.

Then, when she did come home, she was mean to me. She dragged me into the bathroom and scrubbed me down in the cold shower, and called me Bad Boy. Her hands were all scratched up and swollen, and she winced when the water touched them. She made me wear clean p.js and told me to get into bed even though it was morning time. She made me take my sleepy medicine and locked me in my room all day. When the sun was going down I woke up and she came in with tomato soup and toast. She put it on my desk and when she looked at me her eyes went wide as dinner plates.

“What’s that in your hands?” She demanded, grabbing for it. I don’t know why she was so upset – it was just a lock of Lottie’s hair that she let me cut off. Momma took it away and told me never to mention Lottie again, not ever, to anyone. But she was my friend, and I miss her sometimes.

That winter we got lots of snow. It was so cold out, and I wanted to ride my sled with the other kids, but Momma wouldn’t let me. She said I was too old to play now, and that I had to go for a nice walk instead. I headed out across Mister Gilmore’s backyard, cutting through to the wooded area behind it. I wanted to see the pond.

Momma always said I was like the fish in the pond. In the summer they dart and flash through the water, swimming all graceful and getting on with their fishie lives. She says that was me before the accident, a fish in summer, smart enough to catch the dragon flies and keep away from the herons.

Now, I am like the fish in winter. She told me they are slow and sleepy and stay down in the darkness, keeping real still in the deepest parts of the pond. She said they are still the same fish, just changed by circumstance. And maybe there will be another summer, and they will go back to their summer selves again.

I wanted to see them, those fish that were just like me. The pond was frizzed over, thick enough to walk on. It was covered in snow, but when I brushed it off with a stick I could almost see the dark water down under. I started stabbing my stick until I made a small crack. I think that was when I lost my scarf.

There were kids skating on the pond, but I didn’t pay them any mind. I had a headache coming, and anyways, I was busy looking for my fish in the hole. I found if I jammed the stick into the crack I could pry it open a bit. It made a funny sound, that wasn’t like bubble-wrap popping or a chip bag rustling, but wasn’t exactly different, neither. The kids started skating close by me, making the snow spray up in my face and laughing. I ignored them though, I could feel the buzzing in my head starting up again.

I don’t remember if I saw the fish after all. Next thing I knew, I was tucked in bed with a hot water bottle and Momma was stroking my hair and crying. She said I had a noomonia, and had to stay in bed for a time. She kept asking where my scarf was, and I felt bad that I lost it. She knitted it for me her own self so I guess it was special to her.

That night helicopters came and flew over the pond with their giant searchlights. I could see them from my window, and the blue flishy-flashies that stopped me sleeping. I didn’t get out of bed for a better look, because I wanted to be Good Boy. Momma was crying in the living room and talking about ‘those poor Grantham twins” on the phone to Auntie Linda. I must have had a fever coz I slept most of the next week. A doctor came to visit me and Momma closed the door when she talked to him so I wouldn’t listen in. They talked for a long time.

When I got better, Momma said we were taking a trip. I thought she meant the State Fair, but she said no silly, that isn’t till Summer. She packed up all my clothes in a suitcase and told me to bring my favorite toys. I picked my Spiderman and comics. The Power Rangers were cooler, but they made me think of Lottie, and that made me sad. They never did find out what happened to her.

Momma brung me to a big building, like a red brick castle. It had a tower and everything. I thought maybe it was a hotel, but it had lots of doctors and nurses so I’m not sure. She took me to a small room with green walls and a metal bed in the corner. There are bars on the window, just like in a castle dungeon. It is quite exciting.

She was crying when she hugged me goodnight. She said she’d be back soon, and to always be Good Boy for the nurses. I asked her about the State Fair, and she promised we’ll still go. And then she left.

I don’t like it here much. The nurses turn all the lights off at eight, and there are strange sounds and screaming along the corridor. None of the people want to play with my toys.

I hope Momma comes back soon. I was thinking – Lottie might be at the State Fair. Momma says it's real big. I just have to be Good Boy till then.