1988, New Hartford, Connecticut

By Patrick Athlone

His mother had Leukemia. She was dying. I was in the 3rd grade. He was in the third grade.

It was that simple. Not much separated us, except for the dying mother. A dying mother I never met. A person I never knew.

Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. I wish I could have met her any of those days. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have been so cruel to him. Maybe I would have put a face to the person he called, “Mom.” I’ll never know.

I was pale-faced; blued-eyed; frail-looking, almost breakable. He was much the same. We were runts.

Attention is all I craved. And yet in oxymoronic fashion, I couldn’t have a hair out of place. A perfect clash of meanings. I didn’t want to stand out – at least not on purpose. I wanted to be the wall. The picture on the wall. The pretty picture on the wall that sucks people from their thoughts, forcing them to ruminate on the subject matter’s mysteries. Unanswerable. That’s what I wanted.

That’s how I acted. Unanswerable.

“I’m gonna eat cupcakes and candy corns, and drink soda at your mom’s funeral. Haha.” I said that. Nobody else said that. I said that. I did it when nobody was looking.

Who else could have said such a thing? I made a list when I was in college: Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden, etc.

The list was too easy. It didn’t make sense. Of the countless horrible things these people did, none of them sank to my level. To my unimaginable-bastard-of-the-world, hater-of-the-fellow-human, lack-of-any-compassion sort of level.

I couldn’t even manage to place the greatest murders of the world on my subhuman sublevel.

The truth is that my transgression was immeasurable. It was too personal. Those other people on my list were killing for a greater cause (however misguided, it was a cause), a belief greater than themselves. I only cared about myself, but I didn’t believe in myself. That’s how the two opposing thoughts managed to dictate my actions.

My cause had no logic. It was this: to take any attention off the dying mother’s son because it couldn’t possibly find its way to me if it was on him. Mind you, I didn’t even want the attention – not in the traditional sense. Remember, I wanted to be the captivating picture on the wall.

I wanted it to come to me, just because. Just because I was that special.

When I was younger, I often thought that if I were sick, people would lavish attention and sympathy on me. I never managed that feat. If anything, I found that people pay less attention to me when I’m ill, legitimately ill.

Sympathy? What the hell did people have to be sympathetic about toward me? I grew up in paradise. I had everything I wanted. I was living in a Norman Rockwell painting. Once, I actually had to flee a hard-charging farmer with my clothes in tow as I ran past a “No Swimming” sign. No joke. Paradise.

“Is your mom going to die? I hope so, because the party will be great.” Yes. I said that too. An 8-year-old kid. Where did it come from? I have no idea. Why did it come? I know why I espoused those sadistic, self-serving, venomous attacks upon my fellow frail, pale-faced third grader. But I don’t know where they came from.

In between recorder practice and gym, I would jibe him. Nothing big. Small off-handed comments. Only he could hear them. He and I.

Every now and again, I still hear them. I still see myself saying those things. I hope he doesn’t. I hope he dismissed my existence years ago.

One day, our teacher pulled me aside as everyone headed to recess to play on swings, or the large fort-style slide, or throw the Wiffle ball around with the scoops. She held me by the arm and brought me to a desk.

She was tall and thin. I sat in that desk and looked up at her tall body. It was so high. Her hair was neat and shoulder-short. She had black car tire-rimmed glasses and a pointy nose. I remember her arm raising and her fingers moving about in the air as she talked. The fingers were long and boney, and reminded me of the monsters in the “Thriller” video.

“Patrick, Leukemia is a very serious thing.” She paused. Minutes passed. Her skirt seemed so long. From ankle to waist. A river.

“Can you imagine if your mother were very sick? Couldn’t make lunch for you? Couldn’t hold you? Wasn’t able to make your cuts and scrapes all better? Can you imagine that?” Her blouse was small, but it looked puffy on her. She had no mass. She moved inside her clothes like a pin in a sheet.

After she confronted me about what I had been saying to the dying mother’s son, I left for recess. I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about, that I would never say such things. I lied.

When I reached the recess blacktop, a couple friends asked me what the teacher wanted. They asked me all kinds of questions. I knew that what I had been saying to the dying mother’s son was wrong. I didn’t want them to know. So I lied to them too. No big deal. What’s a small lie among friends?

With each question came another lie. The lies were getting good. The questions were coming faster. I was thinking and talking, and people were listening. They cared what was happening, about what I was saying. They cared about me.

The next day, the dying mother’s son didn’t come to class. Yet again, no big deal. My friends were still raggin on me for having to talk with the teacher the day before. Attention. Glorious attention.

After recess, the tall, thin, boney, car tire-rimmed glasses-wearing teacher had an announcement for us: the son’s dying mother had died. The dead mother’s son won’t be in today or the next day, or maybe even for the next couple of weeks.

Everyone was to take the rest of the afternoon to write up cards to send to the dead mother’s son. The teacher, crusty and stiff, sat at her desk and softly wept.

As all the kids wrote cards, I sat at my desk and watched. I didn’t write one.

Patrick Athlone wishes that the content of this story were fiction. He is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 | Email This Post

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