Heart Shaped Boy III
Ground tag probably wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple more days, anyway, even if the usually lax fist of the small school’s administration hadn’t come down hard – it was a pretty stupid game, for one thing, as everyone agreed afterwards, and in any case was pretty much unplayable with all but three of the participants rendered safe by vandalism and the unlucky kids who were still in the game spending all their time trying to rip the plastic seats off the two swings which made up the attached swing set, including the kid who was it, because, he figured, he wouldn’t be it forever, unless of course he was the last kid to get out of harm’s way.
This was really a terrifying prospect, particularly because it was the secret ambition, everyone suspected, of the game of tag. At least that’s what Theodore thought; under the speculative umbrella provided by his temporary safety, he universalized his thoughts to give them more weight. Ordinarily, he would know better, but there was no harm now. Under normal circumstances, tag was a very fair game, as even the slow kids would eventually catch someone, someone who tripped or who was cornered, and even if they were it for a while, there was no penalty involved. This put tag in contrast with other games popular with boys Theodore’s age, for example truth or dare, which was the next big thing, because it didn’t go out of it’s way to destroy anyone. But, Theodore realized with just a little bit of regret, his discovery could change that, could let tag become ostracism for real instead of just pretend, if one kid was left stranded and it while everyone else was safe in the deep end of the gravel pit. The game would last forever, stalemated.
Of course, the only reason Theodore alone arrived at this conclusion is because he was feeling sorry for himself, because he saw himself as at the small end of the social stick, like his hypothetical tag victim. In reality, Theodore’s situation was far worse than hapless Mark, who would almost certainly have been the one left as it, seeing as he was learning-disabled and had the arm strength of a five-year-old girl, but he couldn’t think objectively enough about his situation, not at the unlucky age of 13, to realize it, for which we should all be grateful.
There is a short story by Flannery O’Connor in which a child, neglected by his parents and strongly aware of this neglect, is taken to a tent revival by one of his many nannies. At the tent revival, the boy learns of the importance of being baptized, and, in his particular misery, takes what he learns as an outlet for a more literal form of death into life. Like many of Flannery O’Connor’s characters, the boy surrenders to misery and drowns himself in a botched baptism that is close enough to suicide to be extremely unsettling, which, of course, is the idea; that’s how you know it’s a good story, because you hate its workings, you hate most of its characters, except for the one who she winds up killing off in a burst of poetic foolishness in the closing paragraphs.
Theodore was like that. Not like the little boy who threw himself into a river – no, his parents were loving and his nannies, the occasional baby-sitter, were more attentive than the one who let her charge kill himself her first night on the job, and who almost certainly didn’t get paid as a result. He was like Flannery O’Connor; smarter and darker than he had any way of knowing how to handle, and smarter and darker than anyone around him knew how to handle, and therefore was constantly making judgments and stories about what he thought about, which is to say other people. Ordinary children ask to have the salt passed to them. Theodore questioned the whole practice of having to ask for salt – why wasn’t there a separate salt shaker always within his reach? His parents, after all, always had the shaker within their reach, by virtue of having longer arms. Was having to ask for the salt supposed to build character? You get the idea; while you, should you happen to be the rare type of person who can relate to a child like Theodore (you aren’t, there was only one) may have found Theodore to be pleasant upon talking to him, you would leave the conversation bewildered as to how a boy could have such a high vocabulary and vivid imagination yet such sad eyes. The reason, of course, was because the vivid imagination was a front for an even vivider imagination, one that was capable of lies as well as fantasies. Or at least that’s how he styled himself, as a sinister mystery wrapped in an evil, evil enigma, chambers of self retreating well-like to who knows were.
I fear I’m giving you the wrong impression – you should not think of Theodore as one of those kids you read about who set cats on fire and wind up in jail for setting people on fire. When I say that Theodore was dark, I mean that he was intelligent and sad, two attributes that influenced his demeanor in a downward direction. He had the air of a British orphan, which is to say he had the air of someone who had had so much bad happen to him that he had surrendered himself to the very thing that kept doing bad things to him. He was, then, resolute, almost protective, of his unhappy quietness, knowing that whatever change you offered him would be a snake looming to strike.
That said, he was a sensitive boy with an attractive face, all eyelids and lip shadow, framed by heavy, smooth-to-touch hair, parted naturally in the middle and waving down from there. He read as much as possible, not because once he had started reading at school he was instantly and permanently labeled, in the manner of Native American children who are, I gather, named according to the most memorable thing about them by the time they turn eight, boy who reads at school, but because he genuinely enjoyed the written word. He was kind, which, as anyone who has ever dated a Frenchman knows, is different from being sensitive. He’s the kind of person who, would you have met him at nineteen, you might have liked for his shyness, but had you met him at thirteen, and thank god you didn’t because if you had you would have stopped reading by now, convinced this book couldn’t go anywhere with such a miserable, uninteresting person at its center, you would have treated him badly, or not at all.
Maybe, like Wes and Steve, you would have tricked him into getting murdered inside the old elementary school, just because you were in tenth grade and he was in eighth and you could pretty much do what you wanted with him. Probably not, because Wes and Steve are awful, awful people, even now – Wes is a realtor who cheats his clients even if it doesn’t effect his commission, just to cheat them, and Steve throws half-empty beer cans out the window at birds who wake him up on mornings when he’s off work, which is always, because he can’t hold down a job – but I can’t, not knowing you very well, rule it out.
This was really a terrifying prospect, particularly because it was the secret ambition, everyone suspected, of the game of tag. At least that’s what Theodore thought; under the speculative umbrella provided by his temporary safety, he universalized his thoughts to give them more weight. Ordinarily, he would know better, but there was no harm now. Under normal circumstances, tag was a very fair game, as even the slow kids would eventually catch someone, someone who tripped or who was cornered, and even if they were it for a while, there was no penalty involved. This put tag in contrast with other games popular with boys Theodore’s age, for example truth or dare, which was the next big thing, because it didn’t go out of it’s way to destroy anyone. But, Theodore realized with just a little bit of regret, his discovery could change that, could let tag become ostracism for real instead of just pretend, if one kid was left stranded and it while everyone else was safe in the deep end of the gravel pit. The game would last forever, stalemated.
Of course, the only reason Theodore alone arrived at this conclusion is because he was feeling sorry for himself, because he saw himself as at the small end of the social stick, like his hypothetical tag victim. In reality, Theodore’s situation was far worse than hapless Mark, who would almost certainly have been the one left as it, seeing as he was learning-disabled and had the arm strength of a five-year-old girl, but he couldn’t think objectively enough about his situation, not at the unlucky age of 13, to realize it, for which we should all be grateful.
There is a short story by Flannery O’Connor in which a child, neglected by his parents and strongly aware of this neglect, is taken to a tent revival by one of his many nannies. At the tent revival, the boy learns of the importance of being baptized, and, in his particular misery, takes what he learns as an outlet for a more literal form of death into life. Like many of Flannery O’Connor’s characters, the boy surrenders to misery and drowns himself in a botched baptism that is close enough to suicide to be extremely unsettling, which, of course, is the idea; that’s how you know it’s a good story, because you hate its workings, you hate most of its characters, except for the one who she winds up killing off in a burst of poetic foolishness in the closing paragraphs.
Theodore was like that. Not like the little boy who threw himself into a river – no, his parents were loving and his nannies, the occasional baby-sitter, were more attentive than the one who let her charge kill himself her first night on the job, and who almost certainly didn’t get paid as a result. He was like Flannery O’Connor; smarter and darker than he had any way of knowing how to handle, and smarter and darker than anyone around him knew how to handle, and therefore was constantly making judgments and stories about what he thought about, which is to say other people. Ordinary children ask to have the salt passed to them. Theodore questioned the whole practice of having to ask for salt – why wasn’t there a separate salt shaker always within his reach? His parents, after all, always had the shaker within their reach, by virtue of having longer arms. Was having to ask for the salt supposed to build character? You get the idea; while you, should you happen to be the rare type of person who can relate to a child like Theodore (you aren’t, there was only one) may have found Theodore to be pleasant upon talking to him, you would leave the conversation bewildered as to how a boy could have such a high vocabulary and vivid imagination yet such sad eyes. The reason, of course, was because the vivid imagination was a front for an even vivider imagination, one that was capable of lies as well as fantasies. Or at least that’s how he styled himself, as a sinister mystery wrapped in an evil, evil enigma, chambers of self retreating well-like to who knows were.
I fear I’m giving you the wrong impression – you should not think of Theodore as one of those kids you read about who set cats on fire and wind up in jail for setting people on fire. When I say that Theodore was dark, I mean that he was intelligent and sad, two attributes that influenced his demeanor in a downward direction. He had the air of a British orphan, which is to say he had the air of someone who had had so much bad happen to him that he had surrendered himself to the very thing that kept doing bad things to him. He was, then, resolute, almost protective, of his unhappy quietness, knowing that whatever change you offered him would be a snake looming to strike.
That said, he was a sensitive boy with an attractive face, all eyelids and lip shadow, framed by heavy, smooth-to-touch hair, parted naturally in the middle and waving down from there. He read as much as possible, not because once he had started reading at school he was instantly and permanently labeled, in the manner of Native American children who are, I gather, named according to the most memorable thing about them by the time they turn eight, boy who reads at school, but because he genuinely enjoyed the written word. He was kind, which, as anyone who has ever dated a Frenchman knows, is different from being sensitive. He’s the kind of person who, would you have met him at nineteen, you might have liked for his shyness, but had you met him at thirteen, and thank god you didn’t because if you had you would have stopped reading by now, convinced this book couldn’t go anywhere with such a miserable, uninteresting person at its center, you would have treated him badly, or not at all.
Maybe, like Wes and Steve, you would have tricked him into getting murdered inside the old elementary school, just because you were in tenth grade and he was in eighth and you could pretty much do what you wanted with him. Probably not, because Wes and Steve are awful, awful people, even now – Wes is a realtor who cheats his clients even if it doesn’t effect his commission, just to cheat them, and Steve throws half-empty beer cans out the window at birds who wake him up on mornings when he’s off work, which is always, because he can’t hold down a job – but I can’t, not knowing you very well, rule it out.
posted by Jeremy at 8:01 AM
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