Then the kid fell backwards. His ass hit first and he might have stayed that way in the classic I’ve-just-fallen little kid pose of shock and helplessness, but a trio of jars conked the top of his head-- thwak, thwonk, thunk.
A full second after the onslaught ended, one last jar of brown baby food tipped off a high shelf and crashed on the floor between the little boy’s spread legs. It looked like the poor kid had crapped himself. As if to punctuate that final glass-popping explosion, the little kid with the pumpkin on his shirt unleashed an epic howl of pain.
Mommy was running over, her face twisted in an expression of shock and sympathy and guilt and anger and, after she spotted me at the opposite end with a bottle of coconut butter baby lotion in hand, embarrassment.
She scooped up her child, his arms outstretched and eager to wrap around Mommy’s neck. She tried to coo away his pain but he only sobbed louder and louder. She examined his face, rubbed something off his forehead and peered close at his skin as she had been peering at that box of diapers.
The other boy, the future bully in the red T-shirt, stood off to the side.
The floor before him was a mess of baby mush and jagged glass fangs. I was up and moving toward him as best as I could, the metal brace clacking against the floor, my hand coming up to tell him not to step on the glass (I could imagine him going forward, sneakers sliding in the food, him falling forward, catching the ground with his hands where glass sliced each of his palms in brilliant crimson arcs like bloody smiles) when I stopped.
The kid was staring at me. A huge smile stretched his lean face into a gruesome mask that could have been molded into one of those flimsy plastic Halloween disguises I had recently stocked in the seasonal aisle. He giggled and then laughed outright. I tried to tell myself that the boy was just a young kid. Kids always laughed when other people got hurt because they didn’t understand. They lacked empathy. This kid’s laughter, however, came so easily and his little eyes stayed focused on me as if he knew damn well that he was laughing at his brother’s misery. In that face I saw all the people who had ever made fun of me, kids who called me “Limpy” or “Cripple” or
“Retard Walker.” In that tiny laugh, I heard the cruelty of my shift manager Freling who always sent me out stocking shelves near the end of my shift when my leg was throbbing and I couldn’t conceal the pain on my face. I’ve known him since high school. At least he doesn’t call me “retard” on the sales floor.
In that moment, I could have punched that kid.
Then Mommy called for her boy and the kid ran off. He did not slip in the spilled mush, but when I got close, I saw the grooved imprint of one tiny sneaker. He had managed to avoid the glass entirely. I needed to do my best to clean this up and then get the mop and the rolling garbage can and one of those CAUTION WET FLOOR signs.
I can squat down if I have to but the pain is quite intense and the brace requires I have something to lean on otherwise I might tip right over.
Instead of trying and possibly ending up coated with baby food, I bent over and started scooping the mush to one side. The smell was faintly acidic and nauseating.
Mommy and family disappeared around the corner of the aisle where the big Halloween candy display had been erected. Nothing like a little candy to soothe away the pain and humiliation. My mother had been the same way: The kids called me a freak, Mom. You’re not a freak, baby.
Here, have a Snickers. Even now, I keep one in my pocket for when I need emotional comfort.
Someone was standing next to me. I thought it was Freling, figured he’d make some kind of comment about me making more of a mess or ask if I was eating the stuff and why didn’t I just go get the mop already? Yes, master. Then I’d hobble away.
But it wasn’t Freling. It was a young girl, maybe eight-years-old. She stood next to me in a black dress with a pointy black witch hat perched perfectly on her head. Long dark hair ran down her back.
“Careful,” I said. “There’s glass.”
“That boy was mean,” the little girl said.
“You saw?”
The girl’s face was pale, her eyes large and dark. “My brother was like that.”
“Some people are,” I said.
The girl watched me, noticed the brace on my leg. Kids always ask about it. They’re curious. They ask, what happened?; does it hurt?; are you deformed?; do you shower with it on? This time of year, I sometimes joke that I make one hell of a zombie, and then I do an overdone stuttering gait, hands out in classic hungry-for-flesh style. Kids laugh when I do that.
Freling says I should take my act on the road, join one of those freak shows that perform in circus tents.
“Some people need to be taught,” the little girl said.
“I guess they do,” I said.
She reached toward one of the destroyed jars. It had once contained something that resembled green vomit.
“Careful, sweetie,” I said and put my hand out to stop her. “You don’t want to get cut.”
“It’s okay,” she said. Her hand moved from the busted glass jar and her fingers plucked a small shard from the muck that was already beginning to dry into a crust. Her fingers curled around the piece of glass. “Will you help me find my Mommy?”
The question was so unexpected and sincere that I was no longer sure if I had seen her pick up that fractured section of glass. She held out her other hand and I took it. Her skin was soft and cold like she’d been outside for a long time. She led me through the mess toward the end of the aisle.
“That’s a nice hat,” I said. “You’re going to be a witch for Halloween?”
The girl didn’t say anything for a moment. “It wasn’t right what he did to you,” she said. “It’s not right what he does still.”
“What do you mean?”
“He knew you’d get hurt,” she said. “He knew it and he was happy.” We reached the end of the aisle. The huge Halloween display stretched out before us in all its cliche macabre grandeur. A giant cardboard mausoleum bedecked in fake spider webs offered entrance to bins and bins of bags of candy, each filled with individually wrapped pieces perfect for trick-or-treaters. Plastic skeletons dangled from the ceiling and a motorized witch cackled every time someone got within a foot of it. A big sign proclaimed, Have a Spook-tacular Holiday!
The woman with her infant and two boys were scrounging through the bottomless bins of candy. The boy with the pumpkin shirt was rubbing his red eyes but seemed basically okay. The kid in the bright red shirt grabbed a big bag of snack-sized chocolate bars and held it over his head.
“I want!” the boy yelled.
“Okay,” Mommy said. “You can open it and have one candy, but be sure to share with your brother.”
As the red shirt kid tore open the bag and several bars tumbled to the floor, the kid’s brother turned hesitantly toward him. The kid smiled at him the way he had smiled at me and both the little boy and I knew his brother wasn’t going to share any candy with him. He ripped open a tiny package and bit into the candy with a large, greedy bite.
“Where’s Mommy?” I asked.
The girl tugged on my hand, stared up into my face. Her eyes seemed older, like they had been transplanted from an elderly person, each eye shining beneath a dull sheen, a shape seen through curtains.