Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
The first time I saw him was my first recollection of having truly felt sorry for someone. Oh, I felt the sensation of pity for farm animals that were hurt, birds that tumbled out of the nest and such in my brief six years, but this was different. Cognitions can be a scary thing. Becoming aware of feelings that are thrust upon us, whether we are ready or not like puberty for example, just happens without coaxing.
That’s the way I felt when I first saw Jessup Christopher Savorié; pity was thrust upon me. I didn’t like the feeling. My young brain couldn’t quite process what I was supposed to do about it. Helping someone is what the grownups do, so I just sat in my seat, hoping it would get better.
Ordinarily, he could be naked and I wouldn’t have noticed or cared. I was too busy noticing a schoolhouse classroom for the first time; the commotion of all the people I didn’t know. All these kids who were bigger and meaner looking than I was. I didn’t know where to sit or what to do when I was sitting. Where did my mama go? Did she just walk me into the room and leave? I was scared; no terrified.
I hadn’t the time or the inclination to see anything or anybody, especially another kid’s clothes or the way another kid looked. But it would have been better for Jessup to have been naked. He would have been less conspicuous. Through the watery eyes that welled up when mama first let go of my hand and took off, I noticed Jessup. I soon forgot I was scared, and for a perverse few moments he made me feel better because I wasn’t him.
Maybe I wasn’t sorrowful for him as much as embarrassed. But being embarrassed for someone like him is idiotic. He doesn’t know embarrassment. This was his life. Embarrassment can only come from experience in someone else’s life. He had no perspective, only reality, and his reality was dismal. I didn’t know him, but at six, I could tell that something was terribly wrong.
Take a look at a class photo from a 1960’s elementary school in rural Alabama, a good look. We all looked haggard. Didn’t we? The same haircut, sheared; teeth too large for our mouths; necks too small for our heads; ears too large for our hair; and bodies too skinny for our clothes, and thank God, too ignorant to know the difference. But Jessup was different. He had the same southern characteristics we all had, but to the nth degree. How often would a six-year-old farm boy from 1960’s rural Alabama notice another six-year-old’s clothes? Never!
He stood in the middle of a two rows of seats holding one hand with the other, quietly looking around at a world that was foreign to him. I was scared, but he wasn’t—he was lost; he didn’t belong there, and he knew it. I was too terrified to be running and playing grab-ass with the other kids in the room, so I found a desk and my eyes innately fixated on Jessup. All the clamoring and boisterous children seemed to whiz by him in slow motion, without sound or significance, while he stood perfectly still, motionless, and seemed positively enchanted with the walls, the chairs, the desks, the ceiling, all new to him.
I stared at him like he was a freak at one of those carnivals that would blow into town from time to time. He seemed to be a foot taller than everybody else, with shoulders that were wide and pointed at the ends. Thick, extra curly, jet-black, greasy hair was combed strait back and obviously cut by someone from home. His pants were three sizes too big and rolled up what looked like a foot. It seemed they hadn’t been washed in a year, if ever.
There were two large grease-covered spots in the front reflect the florescent light. The shirt he was wearing was probably white at one time; one could only guess at this. It was so big and baggy that only two of the buttons showed; the rest were tucked in his pants. The pants were pulled tight with a belt that had a full twelve inches turned down from the last loop. Brogans that had to have been size 8 bore a resemblance to shoes.
We were all skinny back then—junk food hadn’t been invented yet, at least not where we lived—but he was emaciated. There’s a difference. Skinny is what you’re supposed to be at six. Emaciated is what you’re not supposed to be at six. His jaws were sunken; his eyes were sunken; deep, dark rings curved around the bottom of his eye sockets, and his cheekbones were prominent, too prominent. His hands were skinny; his elbows joints were skinny—they reminded me of universal joints on old hay rakes, way too big for his arms, that is, what you could see of his arms. His short sleeves came down nearly to his wrists.
He caught me staring at him. His eyes transfixed on mine. Perhaps it was because of the unspoken, universal acknowledgement code that floats around and eases awkward moments such as this, and only for kids—but he smiled at me. This magical universal acknowledgement code seems to elude adults.
