Curious Shapes
"The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes." Carson McCullers
Harold Griswold picked up his lopping shears from the front yard. With the shears came a mutilated GI Joe action figure. The blade on one side was stuck a third of the way through the torso. He pried the figure off the blade and held it up. “How much did this damn thing cost? And look at it!” He tossed it up on the porch.
It landed just past the edge, then clattered past his wife’s feet, clad as usual in those ugly pink cloth house slippers. The figure thumped against the wall and lay still.
But she didn’t look up from her crocheting. “Now mind your temper, dear. He’s only a small boy.”
Harold looked down, sweeping the crisp yellow Bermuda grass with the toe of his right boot. “Here, look at this!” He bent at the waist and scooped up both arms and both legs and tossed them toward the porch as well.
The arms and one leg landed just past the edge of the porch and rejoined the torso next to the wall. The other leg hit the edge of the porch and dropped into the flag garden below it.
“Both the damn arms are cut off at the shoulder! With my best lopping shears!”
Patience lay her project in her lap and looked up. “Well they’ll sharpen, won’t they?”
“Sharpen? Yes, they’ll sharpen, but that ain’t the point!”
He trudged over to the porch and bent to riffle through the long leaves of the flags. After a moment, he stepped back and looked at her again. “Well, damn it all. I can’t find it. One leg was cut off at the knee.” He looked past her, then pointed. “That’s that’n over there.”
He looked down at the flags again. “An’ the other’n was cut off between the knee and the ankle. It’s like the boy went for the thickest part. He’s tryin’ to tear up my tools, and by damn he’s doin’ it on purpose!” He muttered, “Damn that boy!”
“Oh Harold, I hardly think he’s—”
His head snapped up. “That’s part of the problem, ain’t it? You hardly think. I’m tellin’ you, that little bastard’s out to tear up my tools. Seems to me that ought’a matter to you, given those tools are our livelihood.”
She continued to crochet. “Mind your blood pressure, Harold. You know what the doctor said.”
He glared up at her. “Mind? Hell, if anyone around here needs to learn to mind anything it’s that kid.” He looked away and yelled, “Duffy, get out here!”
A long moment later, a scrawny boy appeared at the door.
At four feet, six inches, he was small even for a nine year old.
Scars on his lower back, caused by his father’s errant aim with his belt, extended below the waistband of his shorts. They and a pronounced limp, which he’d developed as a result of being kicked on the left buttock with heavy work boots, accounted for his quiet demeanor. Nobody could recall ever having seen him smile.
Through the thin protection of the screen door, he said, “Yes, Papa?”
“Goddamnit, did I say come whisper sweet nothings to me through the screen? No! By damn, I said come here! Here!” He pointed at the ground near his feet.
The boy’s shoulders and head sagged. “Yes sir.” He pushed the screen door open, but too slowly.
Harold pointed one meaty finger at him. “You really wanna make me come up there an’ get you?”
Quietly, the boy said, “No, Papa.”
“Then get your ass down here! Now!”
Mrs. Griswold said, “Now Harold, you really should—”
Harold jerked his still-extended arm to the right. “Shut up! Damn it, if I wanted your damn opinion I’d give it to you. Understand? Just shut the hell up!” He looked at his pathetic excuse for a son. “I’m dealing with this boy right now. Only one thing boys and women understand, an’ that’s discipline.” He pointed at Duffy again and arched his eyebrows. “You ain’t down here yet?”
“Sorry, Papa.” Duffy caught the screen so it wouldn’t slam. If it slammed, he’d get a whipping. Then he turned and walked across the porch. He didn’t move slowly, except for his limp. But he didn’t move fast either. It wouldn’t make any difference, and he saw no reason to rush to his punishment.
Harold’s face flushed and his right forearm knotted as he squeezed the finger he’d been pointing back into his fist. “Fine! That’s fine! Take your damn time. You’ll pay for that too!”
Duffy came down off the porch. He took the steps gingerly to ease the pains shooting up through his left ribcage. Then he stepped off the bottom step onto the dew-covered grass and approached his father.
Harold nodded. “Come on. Keep coming, gimp. Just a little closer.”
With only a few feet left between them, Duffy looked up at his father. “Wha’d I do, Papa?”
The man was menacing at six-two and around two forty-five. He made his living in the oilfield, carrying something called steel hose and other heavy things. On weekends and days off, he made extra money—beer money, he called it—working as a landscaper.
Duffy wasn’t sure what steel hose was, but carrying it kept his father’s muscles rock hard. With his shirt off, he looked like that Jack LaLanne guy on TV. Except he still had a belly, which he called a gut, and he kept it well stocked with beer. At least that’s what he said about once a week. “Man doesn’t have a gut, he ain’t drinkin’ enough beer.” Then he’d laugh as if it was the first time he’d ever said it.
His father mimicked him. “‘Wha’d I do, Papa?’ First off, you was born. Second, you were supposed to be a boy.” He gestured angrily. “You got boy parts. Why the hell can’t you act like a man?”
Mrs. Griswold said, “Oh Harold, he’s only a—”
“Shut up, woman! Don’t make me tell you again!” He glared down at Duffy. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Duffy almost said, “I’m scared, Papa.” But he caught himself. The last time he’d responded to that question, his father had backhanded him. Then he’d stood over him, one foot on either side of Duffy’s hips. “What the hell you scared of, boy? You’d just act like a man for once, everything’d be fine!”
But that’s exactly what he was scared of. If his father would do this to him as a boy, what might he do to him as a man?
So he shrugged slightly and said, “I don’t know, Papa.”
But his father didn’t even hear him. He held up the lopping shears. “And third, you used my damn loppin’ shears an’ didn’t bother puttin’ ‘em away.”
“But Papa, I—”
“Shut up! In the first damn place, you got no call to go usin’ my tools unless you ask. An’ we both know that ain’t gonna happen, don’t we? What’s a little sissy like you need with tools anyways? Hell, you wouldn’t know a day’s work if it bit you in the ass!”
“But Papa—”
“Shut up! An’ second off, you used ‘em to cut somethin’ that didn’t need cuttin’. Tryin’ to tear ‘em up, that’s what you were doin’! I’m on to your damn game, boy! You know how much a good pair of loppin’ shears cost?
“An’ what you cut up was that damn GI Joe doll you begged that fat bastard at the mall to bring you for Christmas. You know how much that damn thing cost? Well, do you?”
“But Papa, I never—”
Harold drew back his hand. “Shut up, damn it! Shut the hell up! I’m talkin’ here!
“An’ after all’a that, you left my damn shears—my damn good shears that help put food on the table for you an’ that worthless mama of yours, layin’ out here in the damn yard where they’ll rust.
“Now whaddayou got to say for yourself?”
“I didn’t do it, Papa.”
“What? After all that you’re gonna lie to me?”
“No, Papa, I really didn’t do—”
The big right hand came out of nowhere and struck the side of Duffy’s head.
Duffy fell to the ground, his left hand at his face.
Harold strode forward, placed his left foot along Duffy’s right side. Again he pointed down at him, and his big fist was trembling. “Damn it, you don’t like to me! You understand? You take your whippin’ like a damn man, and you don’t lie to me!”
Duffy lay as still as he could. He moved once, to lower his arm from his face and lay it along his side. He was careful not to touch his father’s boot.
Why wasn’t Mama saying anything? Why wasn’t she stopping him?
But she was scared too. If she tried to stop him, his father would probably kill both of them. Finally, he said, “Yes sir.”
Harold yelled, “What? What was that? I didn’t hear you?”
“Yes sir. I said yes sir.”
“Hear that, Mildred? Little bastard admits it.” He glared down at Duffy. “You admit it, don’t you boy?”
Forgetting to speak loudly, Duffy said, “Yes sir.”
But his father apparently didn’t notice. “You took my lopping shears, didn’t you? Without asking?”
“Yes sir.”
“An’ you used ‘em to cut up that damn doll of yours, didn’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“You play with damn dolls, don’t you boy?”
“Yes sir.”
“Say it. Say you play with dolls.”
“Yes sir. I play with dolls.”
“What?”
“I play with dolls.”
“An’ you left my damn loppin’ shears out here in the wet damn grass, didn’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
Harold stared at him for a long moment, his temper apparently flagged. “Roll over, boy. Crawl your ass up on that porch. You get up, by god, I’ll kill you.”
“Yes sir.” Duffy waited for his father to move, but he didn’t. Finally Duffy contorted himself enough to roll over onto his stomach without rolling to the side. He started to crawl toward the porch steps, reaching as far as he could and keeping his stomach in contact with the ground.
“Stop bein’ a smartass, boy. On your damn hands and knees. Like the worthless damn pup you are. By god I’ll make a man outta you yet.”
Without comment, Duffy raised himself onto his hands and knees. He glanced at the porch. His mother’s chair was empty. At least she didn’t have to watch.
He moved his right hand forward.
“That’s better. Perfect angle.”
Angle? The boy tensed just before the rounded steel toe of the heavy work boot caught him just below the right buttock.
The force of the blow knocked him forward onto his face, both arms lying beneath him.
Duffy grunted, but made no other sound. He lay still, awaiting the next blow.
For a long moment, the only sound was his father’s heavy breathing.
Duffy waited.
Then a car slowed as it was passing by on the road in front of the house.
“Damn rubberneckers.” Duffy’s father glared down at him. Quietly, he said, “You stay right there ‘til I’m in the damn house, understood? Move and I’ll beat your ass.”
Duffy didn’t answer, but his father stepped over him. The big right boot landed in front of Duffy’s face. Then it rotated forward and dirt and grass kicked up on Duffy’s face as his father walked toward the porch.
Duffy hadn’t used the stupid lopping shears. He hadn’t even known what they were for. His cousin Mikey had used them two days earlier. Mikey had cut up Duffy’s favorite action figure. It wasn’t a doll. It was an action figure.
And afterward, Duffy told him to put them up, but Mikey wouldn’t.
Instead, the boy laughed. “Your ol’ man’s gonna beat your ass for this, Duffy.”
“You shut up! You don’t know nothin’. My dad’s a good man. He ain’t never laid a hand on me.”
But Mikey went on laughing. He knew better.
Duffy planned to put up the shears himself, but then his father drove up.
And after that, he’d forgotten.
It didn’t matter. What Mikey had said about his father was true. But it wasn’t any of Mikey’s business. In only a few years, Duffy would be “grown and gone,” as his father said. Until then, all he had to do was survive.
But he never forgot those lopping shears. And he never forgot Mikey.
* * *
He learned many more lessons from his father over the years. The beatings stopped when his Mama died. Duffy figured it was probably a coincidence that he was almost as big as his papa by then. He was able and willing to fight back.
But the need never arose.
After Mama passed away, Papa was good hearted, more or less. He told Duffy he could continue living at the house, and he didn’t even charge much for rent.
Plus he was gone most of the time, at work during the day and at the bars most nights.
Finally he and Duffy were getting along.
But then the old man came in drunk, and he started talking about those lopping shears.
“Remember that?” He laughed. “Damn you looked funny, layin’ there on your belly, wriggling like a damn ol’ snake. Remember? You were so dumb I had to teach you to crawl all over again.” He laughed again, then scowled. “I told you you’d never amount to nothin’, an’ look at you.”
Duffy just grinned. “Yes, Papa.”
That was seven long years ago.
* * *
Duffy Griswold snipped the last errant twig at the top of the Texas Ranger bush in the row.
He stepped back to look a final time at the hedge, then swung the lopping shears up onto his shoulder. He turned toward his house, the gardener’s shack. His papa’s voice rumbled through his head.
Quietly, he repeated, “Always put my tools back where you got ‘em.”
He nodded. Yep, that made perfect sense. If you always put ‘em back where you got ‘em, then they’d be there next time you need ‘em. “Only these tools ain’t yours no more, Papa. They’re mine.”
Those shears were the only thing Duffy took away when he left the house after his father passed away.
“An’ always keep ‘em sharper than before. Never know when you’ll need ‘em, or for what.”
He always kept them sharp. But ‘than before’?
That part confused him a little. If Papa was here now, probably Duffy would forget that rule about asking stupid questions. Probably he’d frown and say, “But Papa, before what?”
And Papa would cuff him upside the head.
He never managed to get out of the way in time, and he’d been cuffed plenty. He’d been cuffed so many times his brain was lopsided. But only a little. Only enough.
Like Papa always said, he couldn’t get into college. But Papa wouldn’t have let him go anyway, so that was all right.
He didn’t want to go to college anyway, even now. Here he was with a place to live, a good, relaxing job he enjoyed, and no bills to speak of.
He’d only ever owed two people anything at all. He’d paid off the first one seven years ago.
That one was easy.
But what was it again?
He stopped next to his pickup and frowned.
The memory returned, and he bobbed his head.
“Oh yeah. Yeah, I remember now.”
That same night, after Papa said he’d never amount to anything, Duffy had said, “Yes sir.”
Men want to live together, they have to be respectful.
But Papa wasn’t respectful. Papa kept on. “Now Mikey, that boy’s going places.”
“But Papa, I—”
“College, business—Mikey’s makin’ real money, bein’ a real man. Providin’ for that family he’s gonna have someday. Why couldn’t you a’been more like Mikey?” He laughed and took a final swig from his bottle of I.W. Harper.
Then he’d fallen asleep in his chair, the empty bottle dropping from his lax hand.
Duffy went to the garage, got the lopping shears.
Standing in front of the chair, his shadow fell over his father. Duffy scissored the shears open and leaned forward. “You’re right, Papa. I wasn’t never like Mikey. You hear me? I wasn’t never like Mikey.”
The old man stirred.
He half-opened one eye. “Huh? What’re you talkin’ about, dummy?”
And Duffy scissored them shut.
* * *
Intent is stirred by memories.
Duffy had one more debt to pay.
Mikey. Big college man. Big business man. He had that wife he wanted, and a child. A daughter. She would turn one year old soon. Sometime soon. A child. One more thing Duffy would never have. Because he wasn’t like Mikey. His brain was lopsided.
But only a little. Only enough.
He opened the door of his pickup. He tossed the shears into the passenger seat, then climbed in behind the wheel.
The memories trembled through him
As he started the engine, he muttered, “Want me to be more like Mikey, Papa? Like you always said, hold my beer and watch this.” He grinned.
Twenty minutes later he parked just down the block from Mikey’s house.
The lights were off. All but one.
When that one went out, he crept from the pickup and closed the door quietly.
“Why’d he have to tear up my GI Joe? Why’d he have to do that?”
He crept to the window where the light had just extinguished and tugged at it.
It slid open.
The wall across the way was a dim, dingy pink. A large portrait hung there above a low dresser, framed in the soft glow of the street light shining through the window. Successful Mikey, his wife, his child. Perfect Mikey. Why couldn’t he be more like Mikey?
An image of his mutilated GI Joe came to mind.
He could never be as bad as Mikey.
Under his breath, his gaze still on the portrait, he said, “You gotta stop, Mikey. You gotta stop.”
He looked for the floor. Carpet. Soft pink. To the left all was shrouded in near darkness. To the right the same.
He reached the shears through the window first, carefully leaning them against the wall. Then he climbed in over the sill and crouched on the plush carpet.
He reached back, felt for the handle of the shears. “Your turn, Mikey. You an’ Papa, all the same.” He would pay his debt and be done with it.
Soft breathing came from the right.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he rose and turned his head in that direction.
But it wasn’t a large bed.
It was a crib.
He frowned, rose quietly, the lopping shears in hand.
It wasn’t Mikey.
It was something small. Something tiny.
His GI Joe lay in a crib. It lay on its back. The night was warm and it wore only a diaper.
He frowned. What?
No, this wasn’t his GI Joe.
This was Mikey’s GI Joe.
He crossed to the door, locked it.
Then he went back to the crib.
GI Joe. Mikey destroyed his. He would destroy Mikey’s.
Its arms were above its head.
Like GI Joe when you raised both arms.
Its head was turned to the right.
Like GI Joe before Mikey lopped off its head.
Its legs, the left one, twitched. It bent at the knee. It kicked slightly, then lay still.
An ambush. He needed an ambush against certain movements. That’s what his GI Joe would do.
He leaned over the crib, focused on the leg, opened the lopping shears.
Waited.
The leg rose again, and he scissored them shut.
Just above the ankle. The GI Joe began screaming, her eyes large and round, her mouth a perfect O.
The foot fell at an odd angle, twisting as in an unseen breeze, hanging by a stretch of skin above the heel. Blood like dark catsup strung out across the mattress, made little overlapping circles where it dripped from the toes.
Duffy started, stared. It couldn’t scream! How’d GI Joe scream? It couldn’t bleed!
Still screaming, it kicked again. The foot tore loose and fell, the toes facing down between the mattress and a crib slat.
Stop! Did his GI Joe scream when Mikey hacked it to pieces? Did it bleed?
No. That ain’t right. “That ain’t right!” he said. “You can’t scream!”
Someone made the doorknob click, rattled it, but it wouldn’t turn. Rattled it again. A shouted question. Then a massive pounding on the door. Somebody yelling something.
Duffy was focused on the crib. On the GI Joe? No, it’s not a GI Joe.
His father’s voice rang in his mind. “Dolls. You play with dolls. Say it!”
“Yes sir. I play with dolls.” The thing in the crib. A doll. It was a doll.
And it kicked again.
More pounding on the door. More yelling, threats. Something heavy hitting the door.
Mikey. Bad Mikey. Mean Mikey.
Poor Mikey.
Anger flooded through Duffy and he grinned, glared down at the doll.
Keep screaming. It’s okay. Keep screaming.
Screaming like a girl. Screaming like Duffy always wanted to scream.
Writhing in agony like Duffy writhed under his father’s boots, his father’s belt.
“Keep screaming, doll.”
As if in response, the doll sat up, suddenly, all on its own, still screaming. Its eyes were large and round, its cheeks stretched down to its mouth, still frozen open in an O. The screams became louder somehow.
The screams combined with the pounding, the yelling, the throb of blood pulsing through Duffy’s head.
They drowned the calm he’d brought through the window.
They drowned his father’s annoying voice.
They drowned his belief in dolls.
He looked at the crib. At the doll. But it wasn’t a doll. It was a baby. It was Mikey’s baby. Almost a year old. Almost a whole year old.
And he had hurt it. Her. He had hurt her. This was bad. This was more bad than Mikey.
But look how the shears worked when they were kept sharp!
Still immersed in the screaming pounding yelling screaming, the baby bent forward. She reached down to the leg. To the stump. Reached down for the stump as she brought the stump up.
The stump. Just like if it was wood.
The baby grasped the stump, screaming, screaming.
The shears scissored open, closed. Just above a wrist.
Blood sprayed, then spurted, spurted, waning. The hand didn’t hang by skin. It lopped off cleanly. It lay near the heel of the foot of the doll. The fingers flexed.
She flopped back, screaming, screaming, her head writhing side to side, her arm stump, her leg stump flinging blood.
And the screaming quieted. It fell away, separated itself from the pounding on the door, the yelling, the throbbing in Duffy’s head.
He glared at the door. Damn it, go away! He yelled, “Go away!”
Behind him the screaming stopped.
He turned around.
The baby lay still.
More pounding, more pounding, more yelling. A name, screamed. “Cynthia!”
Duffy looked at the baby. At Cynthia. Cynthia.
He smiled.
Mikey. He was just like Mikey. Finally he was just like Mikey.
The pounding, the yelling, the pounding continued.
He twisted around, looked at the door, frowned in anger. How could Mikey not break through the door? If it was my baby I would break through the door.
He looked back at the baby. It was okay. Cynthia deserved better.
She deserved better than Mikey.
He turned again, glared at the door. “Come in! Come in, you coward! Or shut up!”
The pounding, the yelling increased.
Show him. Show Papa. Show Mikey you’re just like him.
He centered himself in front of the door, twisted the lopping shears around, gripped the handles hard.
He touched the points to the sides of his throat, testing.
He scissored them open, gripped the handles, yelled, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut u—” Closed.
He dropped to the floor.
The door burst open. Something exploded. Something slapped the wall behind Duffy.
Duffy leaned his chin down, glared up at Mikey, standing over him in a robe.
Hot blood pulsed over the sides of Duffy’s throat. Hot blood seeped into the pink carpet. Hot blood, Mikey. Not GI Joe.
He glared up at Mikey in his robe. His rich robe. And he twisted his lips into a grin. Tried to move his mouth. Tried to say it aloud.
Look, Mikey. Now I’m just like you.
Blood pulsed. His head sagged left.
And finally Mikey screamed.
* * * * * * *