The Boy
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
He hated his name. It reminded him of bananas. Not the ripe bananas, the green ones. And he definitely didn’t like bananas. When he was only 6 his parents had left for Bogotá, seemingly forgetting him completely. Wasn’t life just grand? His aunt and uncle were nice enough but they were just a little goofy. Every Sunday morning they dressed him in plaid pants, white shirt, and a red bowtie and took him to Mass. It wouldn’t be so bad if only he knew Latin or Greek or French. Whatever language it was the priest spoke. But he didn’t. The speech never lasted longer than one quarter of football. And if they could somehow manage to get to early Mass his uncle wouldn’t miss a single down unless the guy next door brought his robotic lawn mower over so they could watch it mow the lawn…again. No, life wasn’t all that bad for an 11-year-old kid growing up in Miami, but it wasn’t too awful good either. He had hatched plans to run away from his aunt and uncle many times but no plan seemed to be a sure-fire method. So all he could do was wait. Wait for Theodore to get back. No one knew where he went but everyone heard him say he would be back. And Theo didn’t lie. If Theo were ever caught lying it would be because he was dead. Theo even stood when he slept. Just the thought of Theo being dead caused deep sorrow to flood the young boy’s heart. He walked out onto the tiny front stoop of the old house and sat down. ‘This house has probably been here for almost a century now,’ he thought as bent down to watch a tiny ant scurry across the concrete toward some far away morsel of sustenance. He glanced down the street at the boys playing basketball. The old lady across the street with the wrinkled brow sat gently swaying in her porch swing. A dog drifted along the sidewalk as if it didn’t matter where he stopped for the night. Everything around him seemed so free and yet he felt confined, locked up, restricted. By something or someone that he couldn’t even see. He almost couldn’t resist the urge to just take off running. It didn’t matter where to. Just somewhere. But he had to wait on Theodore. “How many more months will it be?” he wondered to himself. As he sat he counted the days one by one, all the way back. Every single one was significant in its own way. It had been four years and thirty-six days. And seven hours. And twelve minutes. As vivid as the memory was, he could hardly remember it and couldn’t bear to think of it. He rose meticulously and started toward the street only a few feet away. “Its no better over here,” he mumbled and he kicked a stone across the heated pavement. The lazy dog managed a half-hearted bark, turned to lumber after the stone and then fell over, dead. The distant sound of a train passing by mingled with the not-so-distant melody of the ice cream truck. The boy put a hand in his pocket for some change but it was empty. The blazing sun was burning a hole in his neck, it seemed. The sweat on his back was as dense as the loneliness in his heart. And Theo was not back.
Posted by J. No
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