He was a little guy in faded maroon overalls and a clean white T-shirt and black lace-up boots, and his hair was wavy blond and his skin creamy and his eyes blue.
He was hot at the weekend afternoon sale.
Nearby, a baby slept on his mother’s shoulder and a few older children eagerly shadowed their parents, but mostly there were grownups, and they looked for grown-up stuff among the vendors’ displays in the crowded convention hall.
But the guy in overalls looked tired. He was maybe 3. There was nothing for him to do. He was fading on his feet, sort of tilting, withering.
Maybe it was his mom who grabbed him under his armpit. She put her mouth an inch from the blond curl that folded behind his ear.
“Straighten your ass up right now.”
That’s all she said to him. Then she unclasped her hand in a hard way and raised herself. She fiddled with something in her purse. She stared at nothing.
He was still standing down there.
When she’d grabbed him, he’d tried to make his face come to attention. It’s hard to do when you’re that age and it’s hot and you’re at a grown-up place and you’re as interested in what’s going on as your parents would be if you forced them to go to a Hot Wheels sale.
When she let him go, he relaxed a little. He put his hands in the side openings of his overalls and moseyed ahead.
In a little-boy tone, he even spoke to me: “How doin’?”
Moments later it was her voice again, toward him, threatening. “I’m fed up,” she said.
I was by my car when I heard her again, telling him to “come on.” He was trailing the woman and a man. Neither of them ever looked at him as he followed them across the steamy parking lot. It’s easy to forget that one mile for a grown person equals two or three for little legs.
He was trying to hurry …
With his free hand, the man, never looking down, picked the boy up by his little arm and put him in the back seat of the nice two-door car. Didn’t place him back there, just deposited him, like old, scarred luggage. If the boy got in a car seat or put on a safety belt, he did it himself.
The man threw his half-filled cup of beer on the asphalt, and the cup twirled, and the beer sprayed in a circle.
They drove away; I looked for his little head in the back seat. I couldn’t see it, but I really wanted to. I don’t know why. It’s just that he’d asked me how I was doing, and right then, I wasn’t doing so well at all.
I have seen that little guy in my mind often since that day. Each time it reminds me how worthy children are, how innocent, how deserving of dignity and respect.
Those people love that little boy; I guess it’s hard to show it sometimes. It’s easier to grab a guy and put him somewhere than to show him the way.
And it’s easy to forget that their tiny hands don’t rest in the sides of Buster Brown overalls for long. Tomorrow, those same hands will be waving goodbye.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
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