Johnny's Story

On his first day at Jackson Elementary,
his Daddy the lawyer pulled a
spotless red Dodge Dakota up to the cement front stairs.
Mother, the psychiatrist, dressed in tweed,
stepped gracefully over an oil slick
onto the sidewalk,
one stiletto heel at a time.
She hurried Johnny up the stairs and in the freshly painted
wooden doors, down the hall and to the right,
as the hall monitor had instructed,
to Miss Murray's room.

Through the coral-blue paint-chipped doorway
Johnny and Mother stepped into a pink-walled Sesame Street land
with Big Bird yellow carpet.
Johnny stood, bowed legs and round blue eyes,
frozen.
"Our Johnny's not quite right,"
Mother tactfully whispered to the teacher,
and nods exchanged as Mother left
and the Cookie Monsters of the world eyed Johnny,
the tasty young snack cake,
and Johnny wet the carpet where he stood.

Ten years later, blue lights invited bystanders
to the store front of Wee Sell Toyz
where the officer slapped cold metal handcuffs
on Johnny's hands, ripped jagged by display window glass,
clutching Tickle-Me Elmo.
The magistrate posted five hundred dollars bail
with care home supervision,
and the neighbors all moved away
in fear for their children's safety.

And when they found Johnny
with a gun to his head
all they said
was "That boy was never quite right."

- Deyrni Henderson -

Email Deyrni at jlndhend@d-k.com.

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