Marcus’s pale blue eyes wander around his room. The unmade bed, heaps of rumpled clothing, the faint sour odor of a day-old half-empty glass of milk. His body shakes with a start when he hears the click of his door closing.
“Who is there?” the question pops out unbidden and he knows it won’t be answered. His shoulders slope towards the floor when he exhales.
His habit to stop at the door, and visually sweep the room has been going on for as long as he can remember. Well, ever since that day in kindergarten when an unwelcome intruder snuck in his closet and waited for him in ambush.There had been nothing different about that day, nothing to warn Marcus of what was to happen.
He spent the day as most kindergarteners do - playing school. He practices cutting evenly around the edges of images and measuring glue - learning what’s too much, what’s not enough. Too little and the edges lift off the page tempting wayward fingers to snatch them off. Too much and white blobs ooze out extending past the edges of the E for Elephant or W for Wolf. Or, W for Willy.
“Hey, Willy, Willy, here’s a W for Willy, Willy, Wart-face,” he tosses the W across the table.
Willy’s nose and hands are plagued with warts, although not warts of the treatable kind. His are permanent and threaten to grow as he grows. Marcus makes fun of Willy and Willy has no recourse but to strike back. Marcus, though not completely oblivious to the pain he causes, prefers to relish the energy ratcheting up his spine, vertebra by vertebra, and puffing his chest like a cobra.
“Give me your sandwich!” Willy spits the words into his face.
Instead of complying, Marcus, stuffs the rest of his PB&J into his mouth.
“Willy, take your sit, please!” Mrs. Habberstock stands with hands on hips.
Marcus barely suppresses a smirk as Willy clenches his fists and sidles away.
“What does a kindergartner know of sticks and stones and names that can never hurt you?” his mother whines to the principal.
“Markie, will you please apologize to Willy tomorrow?” his mother’s unkempt eyebrows contort into wavy lines. “And, please, promise Mr. Abercrombie you won’t do it again?”
It should have been a command or at least a strong request, but Mrs. Nielsen was coming in to the principal’s office against her nature. She wore a threadbare brown sweater over a beige dress, her thin tresses pulled into a bun with an almost imperceptible net protecting the small wisps of pale hair. Crusty pieces of eggy flour stuck to the frontispiece of the apron covering her shallow chest.
Mr. Abercrombie fastens his lips in a flat line and clasps them there as if with little metallic snaps. His eyes, dulled with boredom, look past her eyes and fixate on her bun.
“Mr. A, I promise not to do it again,” Marcus wiggles on the chair, double crossed fingers tucked away under his scrawny thighs.
Mr. Abercrombie unsnaps his lips. Words escape from the aphotic horizontal oval of his opened mouth. Marcus isn’t listening. Rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, he unerringly knows when to respond to satisfy the adults.
“Yes, Mr. A. I will Mr. A. Sorry Mr. A.”
“Thank you for coming in Mrs. Nielsen and when can we expect a check from your husband? Your tuition is past due.” A trickle of saliva escapes from the right side of his flattened lips and he wipes it quickly with the back of his hand.
“I’m sure he meant to send it…I, I, believe it’s in the mail,” she twists the frayed strap of her faux leather clutch and grabbing Marcus by the sleeve of his t-shirt scurries out the office door.
A faded metallic bronze Nova with musty houndstooth interior awaits them. Once inside, Marcus opens the window and readies his hand out the window to ride the air current. Up and down, up and down, he waves, a wingless bird.
“Whoo hoo, I can fly!”
Mrs. Nielsen hunches over the wheel, muttering more to herself than to Marcus. His mind rides the nervous sound of her whines and moans the way his hand rides the pressure of air. His voice drowns it out with many ‘whoo hoo’s’.
“I can fly, I can fly, I can fly.”
Mrs. Nielsen pulls into the ashy-grey asphalt driveway, maneuvering left and right to avoid potholes. Then enter the house through the side door where a vine, a wisteria or bougainvillea, withers.
Whenever he walks in the house Marcus wishes for a sibling. A baby brother would be best. Willy has a baby brother, and two older brothers as well. Marcus watches how they come to the door at daycare to walk him home. Willy walks between them, their arms around his shoulders. Marcus and his mother drive by them, his hand flying out the window as they pass the threesome. Then he screams for a candy bar and mother always complies. He begins to realize a brother will never materialize.
On this day, though, he didn’t see them. And he forgets the candy bar. At the doorway, he drops his back back on the kitchen floor.
“Markie, will you please take the back pack to your room?” her voice rises with a whine at the end as she rubs the knee that broke her fall.
“After you make me a PB&J. Make it two. No, make it three. I’m starving and you forgot to get me a candy bar.” Leaving the back pack he saunters to his room.
Kicking his shoes off into the air, one hits the ceiling, the other ricochets off the dresser.
“Willy, Willy, wart-face. Willy, Willy, wart-face”, he sing-songs to himself.
“Here’s your sandwiches, Markie.” Mrs. Nielsen sets a tall stack of PB&J triangles with trimmed crusts on top of his dresser and picks up his shoes.
“Get out! And close the door.”
Mrs. Nielsen drops the shoes alarmed by the harsh tone of his voice and scuttles out. He sounds like his father.
“A mouse in a woman’s body”, his father always jeers.
The door gently clicks closed. Marcus gets up and opens it.
“And stay out,” punctuating the words with a slam. Click goes the door. Click goes the lock.
Then a click again. This from the closet door, and turning around Marcus faces the sound. Standing in front of him, are Willy and his two older brothers. For a moment he feels like an infant again.
“Mommy,” the word falters and he lets out a whimper.
The Tuppence boys signal to each other with a look. All three grab a hand full of PB&J triangles and shove them into Marcus’s mouth.
“Like how we stuff your face Markie?”
Marcus thrashes about making enough racket to alert his mother who, unable to open the door, wrings her hands.
“Markie, Markie, what’s going on? Markie, will you please open the door?”
Willy and his brothers lick the peanut butter and jelly off their fingers while Markie, on all fours, gags.
“Apologize to Willy, Markie,” one brother hisses.
Mrs. Nielsen hearing voices goes to the kitchen and puts together a tray of assorted cookies, completing the ensemble with glasses of milk.
“Markie? Will you and your friend like some cookies and milk?” pressing an ear to the door. “Markie?”
Marcus opens the door with a sticky hand. Peanut butter and jelly lodged in his nostrils and front of his shirt.
“Markie, that’s really creative.” She’s heard other mothers say this to their toddlers at the park.
“Let’s see what you can do with cookies and milk, shall we?”
Marcus is speechless as she presses the tray into his belly. He grabs it reflexively to keep it from falling. With a yank, he is pulled back into the room. The door slams and door clicks, and the lock clicks.
“Whadda ya say Markie? Let’s see what you can do with cookies and milk.” The eldest Tuppence grabs the glasses and pours milk over Marcus’s head.
“Stop. Stop. Ok, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears trickle down Marcus’s face finding a path along with the milk, between blobs of peanut butter and jelly. The Tuppence boys wince.
“Nothing like a bully acting like a baby. Let’s get outta here.” The three boys head for the window, the eldest going first, Willy last.
Willy looks back at Marcus who looks like a suet feeder.
“Let’s not fight anymore Marcus.”
“I’m sorry Willy, I’m really sorry. I want to be friends.”
Willy grins a big toothy smile and takes a bite of a cookie. He waves his hand in the air - up and down, up and down. Then he is gone.
Mrs. Nielsen stands at her kitchen window. Little green buds are unexpectedly mounding on the bare branches of the vine. She hears the bath water running, then slips quietly down the hall and listens. Her son is talking to himself.
“I want to be your friend, Willy. I want to be your friend.”
She closes her eyes, clasps her hands, bows her head.
“Good job, boys.”
