Vignettes

Chapter 2
Spiderboy

Chapter Description: Imagining, or remembering?

"You can imagine a little boy, coming home from his first day at his new school." He gently pushes me down, so I’m sitting on the bed. "He’s so proud of the grownup clothes he gets to wear. Imagine his mother, his mommy, putting on his tie that morning..." He reaches towards my chest, and I can see that I’m wearing a solid blue tie.

And it’s true--I can imagine a little boy wearing that tie. The image in my mind is unusually vivid: a small boy, perhaps five or six, standing, fidgeting a bit...

"...his mother telling him to hold still as she tries to get it knotted." As he’s speaking he carefully removes the tie and pulls it off. "And underneath that, a clean white button down shirt just like this one," and indeed, I am wearing one. He begins undoing the buttons as he continues talking. "There are a few grass stains on it, from recess, when he..."

Another vivid image, of the same boy, playing tag on recess, falling down, getting dirt on the shirt, and getting up, giggling, without noticing.

"But underneath," he says, tugging a bit at the sleves. I shift my arms so he can pull the shirt off. "He’s wearing his favorite t-shirt, with Spiderman on it. Imagine him pleading with his mother," and again I can imagine the boy, begging his mother to let him wear it to school. And then, during the day, when he’s feeling overwhelmed by the new experience, I imagine him peeking at the image through the gaps in the buttons of the outer shirt. I can imagine...

"...how strong and confident it makes him feel, pretending to be his favorite superhero, just knowing the spidey is there when he’s feeling shy." By now the button down shirt is off, and he’s started untying my shoes. "Can’t you just see him at night, in his bedroom..."

...in his Spiderman pajamas. I imagine him being tucked in, under sheets with a big Spiderman on them. It seems so childish, but the image is so vivid that I can see the other perspective, how the little boy feels, how much more comfortable he feels, when the lights are off and the house makes strange noises, to know that he’s wearing his Spiderman PJs, to be able to think about Spiderman keeping him safe.

"He probably even has Spiderman underwear that he gets to wear on special occassions, don’t you think?" It’s the first time he’s asked me for input, and the answer is obvious.

I nod emphatically. "Definitely!" I say.

My shoes are off, and he unzips my fly. I shift my weight so he can pull off my pants. "Look, you were right, you do have Spiderman underwear," he announces. And of course, I do. But...wasn’t it the little boy we were talking about who had the Spiderman underwear? It all seems so fuzzy. "Don’t you remember running around in them, this morning, before your mommy made you get dressed?"

Another of those vivid images (a memory? is it really?), bounding up and down the stairs wearing nothing but the underwear, before finally getting swept up by mommy and carried to...a room...this room...my room?...to get dressed. "It was that boy," I say, trying to sort things out. "The little boy we were talking about. Not me."

"Not you?" He asks. He lifts me up without difficulty, one arm holding my back, the other under my knees. "Where are we going" I ask.

He doesn’t answer, but jostles his arms a bit, making me giggle, as we walk halfway down a hallway. He puts me down in the doorway to another room, and I can see the boy I was imagining standing across the room, wearing nothing but that Spiderman t-shirt and the underwear I know he loves so much.

"There he is!" I shout excitedly, "That’s the boy." I point at him, and he points right back.

The man laughs, and for a moment I’m not sure why, until I notice from his expression that the boy shares my confusion. And, realizing my mistake, I laugh along with him. "It’s a mirror! That’s me, I’m the boy!"

"That’s right," the man says. "You’re the boy. You’re the little boy. You’re so smart to realize that." And I feel a surge of pride at the compliment. And then I start laughing as he tickles me, and he and his tickle-monster hands chase me down the hall until I hide beneath my ever-protective Spiderman blanket.

He hands me my pajamas, which I put on with only a little help, and as he reads me a story, I drift off to dreams of the first day of school that the little boy...that I just had.