Little Terry.
Little Terry with the white polo shirt tucked into blue dress pants. Little Terry all dressed up in his uniform, ready for another day at school. Little Terry, ten years old and full of fear for the world.
Everyone at school knew Terry. Terry the quiet boy. Terry the loner, always playing by himself. Terry, the ghost, haunting the halls after school until his parents finally come to pick him up.
Sometimes Terry would sit on the playground for hours, waiting.
“Whatcha gonna do, spaz?”
“You gonna run home to mommy and daddy, freak,” the kids taunted, circling around Terry.
The playground ran along the side of the school. In the mornings, the three-story brick building kept the swing sets, the monkey bars and slides cool in the shade. After school, the shadows swung out and covered the teacher’s parking lot.
Out on the playground, no teachers watched the children after the school day was over.
“Why aren’tchew like the rest of us? Huh,” a little girl asks.
“Heso weird,” a chubby little boy says.
The schoolyard dialect is painful to Terry’s ears. Their speech is more painful than their harsh criticism.
Terry grips the handle in his pocket. Two smooth brass rivets along aged wood.
* * *
Terry’s fingertips drag across the pale green faces of the metal lockers. Smooth, three cracks, then smooth again, over and over. Repetition.
Pattern comforted Terry. It was something constant in life.
Terry walked quietly through the hallways, watching the tile floor pass beneath him. Pink, brown and beige splotches flying past. He listened to his footsteps echo through the empty halls.
The solitude felt safe to Terry, but he knew his mother would be at the school soon to pick him up.
* * *
Each of her legs bigger than him, the weight of her body was crushing on his tiny frame. With her sitting on his chest, Terry struggled for breath.
“I don’t understand why you’re such a bad boy,” she says. “Why can’t you just behave? Wait ‘til your father gets home and I tell him how you were acting.”
Terry had taken too long to take his medicine.
In order to swallow that red liquid down, he had to talk himself into it, psych himself up. The taste, bitter and harsh to his palette.
* * *
“Why are you crying,” his father yells, hitting Terry in the face. “Are you a girl?”
“No,” Terry manages between sobs. His father grabs him by the arm as he tries to run past and get away.
“You’re crying, so you must be a girl.”
Tears are pouring down Terry’s cheeks, his eyes puffy. Snot and tears hang from the tip of his nose.
“No,” Terry wails, “I’m not a girl.”
“If you’re not girl, you must be a faggot! Stop crying!”
And his father beats and beats him. The father beats this little boy, this scared little boy. This ten year old Terry, face red and soaked with tears.
Terry, trying to suppress his crying, manages nothing more than a whisper saying, “Please, please stop…”
* * *
Terry hides in his closet and buries his face in blankets. He surrounds himself with stuffed animals. He hides in his closet and cries, quietly. Eventually he cries himself to sleep.
Then he dreams...
Little Terry stands in a pet shop.
Droves of fish pace behind walls of glass. The grainy smell of pet food. Gerbils are burrowed in chips of cedar. Frogs cling to aquarium prisons. Rabbits sit motionless in piles of shit. Cats cry out.
Terry heads toward the door. Opening it, he stands in the entryway. The sidewalk in front of him is moving along like a conveyor belt.
A little girl approaches and the sidewalk comes to a stop. The little girl has blonde hair. She wears a blue jumper covered in white polka-dots.
The little girl reaches out toward Terry. She has a white flower in her hand.
“You should come with me,” she says.
Terry carefully takes the flower from her hand.
The sidewalk begins to accelerate and the girl quickly disappears from Terry’s view. The doorway lurches and Terry is thrown onto the speeding sidewalk. He’s lost control of his limbs and fails to stand. He’s trapped as the sidewalk flies through the town.
Terry travels past churches and restaurants. He travels past clothing stores and gas stations. And, suddenly, the sidewalk stops.
Terry is alone near a vacant lot. He’s afraid and still has no control over his body as he steps off of the sidewalk and out into the lot.
The lot stinks of trash. Rotten vegetables. Stale coffee and stagnant water. Old shoes.
Terry, looking around, realizes that he is far from the city. No congested streets. No background city noise. He realizes that he doesn’t know where he is.
The ground swells. Mounds of peoples’ discarded items rise up from the earth.
Fast-food wrappers. Broken lamps. Threadbare blankets. Old shoes.
The piles of garbage swallow Terry up. As they bury him, he struggles for breath.
Terry wakes and is covered in sweat. The blankets and stuffed animals have been thrown from on top of him while he slept. He feels helpless.
He feels alone.
* * *
A rock, the size of a golf ball, flies through the air. Thrown by the most popular of the children there, the ring-leader, the rock hits just above Terry’s left eye. His eyebrow is split in two and blood runs down to his eye before continuing down his cheek.
Terry’s body shakes with rage. His grip tightens on the handle in his pocket.
Terry pulls a knife from his pocket. The children circled around him freeze as recognition hits.
A girl shrieks.
The boy who threw the rock turns and runs. Two other children follow, but the rest are still frozen in place. They stand, gawking, frozen to the ground on this sunny summer afternoon.
Terry holds the blade up, points it out at the other children. The chubby little boy, still standing with the rest of the children, begins to step back.
Tears begin falling from Terry’s eyes and the chubby boy stops in his tracks.
Terry wipes the salty bloody tears from his eyes.
Little Terry, crying. Little Terry, ten years old. Full of love but with no one to share it with or to return it.
He pulls the blade hard against his neck.
The rest of the children run. As they make the corner of the building, a little girl looks back.
Terry’s body drops to the ground. Blades of soft grass tickle his cheek. He feels happy. Blood and dirt cake to Terry’s shirt. He feels safe.
No one can hurt him anymore. No one can neglect him. Terry no longer needs anyone’s love…
The school and the playground are silent. Traffic is busy in the distance.
Terry’s fragile little body slowly cools in the summer sun.
