The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [222]
Sheppard turned his face to the window at the end of the bar. The side lawn, green and even, sloped fifty feet or so down to a small suburban wood. When his wife was living, they had often eaten outside, even breakfast, on the grass. He had never noticed then that the child was selfish. “Listen to me,” he said, turning back to him, “look at me and listen.”
The boy looked at him. At least his eyes were forward.
“I gave Rufus a key to this house when he left the reformatory—to show my confidence in him and so he would have a place he could come to and feel welcome any time. He didn’t use it, but I think he’ll use it now because he’s seen me and he’s hungry. And if he doesn’t use it, I’m going out and find him and bring him here. I can’t see a child eating out of garbage cans.”
The boy frowned. It was dawning upon him that something of his was threatened.
Sheppard’s mouth stretched in disgust. “Rufus’s father died before he was born,” he said. “His mother is in the state penitentiary. He was raised by his grandfather in a shack without water or electricity and the old man beat him every day. How would you like to belong to a family like that?”
“I don’t know,” the child said lamely.
“Well, you might think about it sometime,” Sheppard said.
Sheppard was City Recreational Director. On Saturdays he worked at the reformatory as a counselor, receiving nothing for it but the satisfaction of knowing he was helping boys no one else cared about. Johnson was the most intelligent boy he had worked with and the most deprived.
Norton turned what was left of the cake over as if he no longer wanted it.
“Maybe he won’t come,” the child said and his eyes brightened slightly.
“Think of everything you have that he doesn’t!” Sheppard said. “Suppose you had to root in garbage cans for food? Suppose you had a huge swollen foot and one side of you dropped lower than the other when you walked?”
The boy looked blank, obviously unable to imagine such a thing.
“You have a healthy body,” Sheppard said, “a good home. You’ve never been taught anything but the truth.Your daddy gives you everything you need and want. You don’t have a grandfather who beats you. And your mother is not in the state penitentiary.”
The child pushed his plate away. Sheppard groaned aloud.
A knot of flesh appeared below the boy’s suddenly distorted mouth. His face became a mass of lumps with slits for eyes. “If she was in the penitentiary,” he began in a kind of racking bellow, “I could go to seeeeee her.” Tears rolled down his face and the ketchup dribbled on his chin. He looked as if he had been hit in the mouth. He abandoned himself and howled.
Sheppard sat helpless and miserable, like a man lashed by some elemental force of nature. This was not a normal grief. It was all part of his selfishness. She had been dead for over a year and a child’s grief should not last so long. “You’re going on eleven years old,” he said reproachfully.
The child began an agonizing high-pitched heaving noise.
“If you stop thinking about yourself and think what you can do for somebody else,” Sheppard said, “then you’ll stop missing your mother.”
The boy was silent but his shoulders continued to shake. Then his face collapsed and he began to howl again.
“Don’t you think I’m lonely without her too?” Sheppard said. “Don’t you think I miss her at all? I do, but I’m not sitting around moping. I’m busy helping other people. When do you see me just sitting around thinking about my troubles?”
The boy slumped as if he were exhausted but fresh tears streaked his face.
“What are you going to do today?” Sheppard asked, to get his mind on something else.
The child ran his arm across his eyes. “Sell seeds,” he mumbled.
Always selling something. He had four quart jars full of nickels and dimes he had saved and he took them out of his closet every few days and counted them. “What are you selling seeds for?”
“To win a prize.”
“What’s the prize?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“And what would you do if you had a thousand dollars?”
“Keep it,” the child said and wiped his nose