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He stands with his face to the wall.
Mumbling something that sounds like, "the
cat's meow," he scribbles invisible letters on the pale blue paint up near
his ear with the forefinger of his right hand. The late afternoon sun
comes in the kitchen window over the crowded table and illuminates his
blue shirt and wrinkled gray trousers.
We ignore him. That's what we always do when he's having one of his
episodes. We just sit on the couch and keep our eyes on the TV as the news
program comes and goes between the loud commercials and annoying
soft-drink jingles. We ignore our only son because we don't know what else
to do.
Seven years ago, when Leroy was halfway through his eleventh year, the
episodes began. And at first Henry would sometimes whip him hard because
he thought the boy was being disrespectful. Leroy lived eleven years
without ever having any spells, and then they just started up. And they
would come on him without any warning at all. It might be in the middle of
a meal, or while he was out playing football in the backyard with the
neighborhood boys, or (God forbid) while Henry was cursing him for getting
another "D" in math, or even once while he was drinking a glass of milk.
From the very beginning it was the same. When he has an episode, Leroy's
eyes will sort of glaze over and his arms will just go limp for a few
seconds, and then he will be off in that other place for a while.
Sometimes it lasts for a few minutes, and sometimes it might go on for an
hour or more. In the beginning, Henry tried several times to whip it out
of him, not understanding that the boy couldn't even hear him or feel the
pain while he was having a spell.
I remember the last time Henry ever raised his hand to whip our son. No
doubt it was over something Leroy had done wrong, some all-important rule
the boy had forgotten, some terrible trespass against his father's law.
Just before the belt struck the first blow, I saw Leroy's face relax. His
arms sagged a little, and then he slumped forward onto the chair that he
had been holding onto and started humming a childhood tune.
Henry got really mad then at the lack of respect he thought he was seeing.
He struck the boy with the belt again and again, each time harder than
before. Leroy's continued lack of response only made things worse.
Finally, I had to step in and grab hold of the Henry's hand. He glared at
me for a second or two, his sweating face dark red with rage. He
sputtered, "Get out of the way, Sally, or I swear I'll..." Then his eyes
focused and he let me take the belt from his hand.
Together, we tried to pull Leroy up straight, but he wouldn't let us. He
just seemed to lay there, limp as a dishrag. But whenever we tried to move
him, he resisted. About a half hour later, he simply woke up and went into
the kitchen and sat down to do his homework.
The next day, Henry and I took Leroy to see Doc Gaston. We told him about
the night before and about the other episodes. He sent us to see another
doctor, a specialist in the middle of the city. And then we had to take
him to see several other doctors. They all ran their tests. All of them
charged us a lot of money. But in the end, they couldn't do much about the
episodes or tell us exactly what caused them. They couldn't tell us if the
episodes would ever go away.
We had to keep an eye on him whenever we went to the beach. His teachers
had to be informed and told what to do if anything happened at school. He
was not allowed to play football or basketball for the school. They said
the insurance companies wouldn't cover anyone with his condition. When he
was sixteen, Leroy was not allowed to drive a car like the other boys. If
he ever had a spell while he was driving, the car would just keep going
until it hit something, because Leroy would not be there to control it
until he woke up again.
I sit and watch the TV, not seeing my son's shadow on the wall. Nor do I
see the small trickle reflecting the bright sunlight on Henry's sunburned
cheek. He always cries when Leroy has an episode. He always tries to hide
it from me and from everyone. I know he blames himself for Leroy's
condition. The doctors assured us that there was no convincing evidence to
connect any of the boy's whippings with the tiny miss-firing going on
inside his brain. But Henry was never convinced. He lost his son. His only
son. I know Henry. He'll always believe that he's somehow to blame.
I have my own ideas. I've been to the library a lot in recent years. I
read every book they had that said anything about the kinds of things that
effect the brain. I also had the clerk order in lots of books from other
libraries all around the country. I've called doctors and specialists in
New York and Chicago and Los Angeles and Houston. Henry never complained
about the phone bills. I've learned a lot about birth defects caused by
things that mothers do when they're pregnant.
I've got my own ideas about what could have caused Leroy's condition. But
nobody knows for sure. And so far, nothing anyone has done has made any
difference in our son's life.
So we just sit here on the couch and watch TV, waiting for Leroy to wake
up again.
©2005 Jim Sutton
Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was
blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this
man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this
man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed
in him..." (the Gospel of St John 9:1-3)
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