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A PERFECT WORLD by Edward M. Baldwin Copyright © 2005
ONCE UPON A SCHOOL morning, on a cold, fifty-one-degree Monday, there lived an eight-year-old boy named Joey Huff, who lived with his mom and dad in a not-so-comfortable, decaying double-wide on a poor side of town. For the first time on a school day, Joey had awakened thirty minutes before his mom usually knocked on his bedroom door, summoning him to the breakfast table. In fact, he could hear his mom now, getting out of bed, shuffling her way to the bathroom, where she’d probably stay for her usual forever period of time—what did she do for so long, anyway?—then she’d soon be making breakfast. Sprawled across his bedroom floor, writing under the glow of a dying flashlight, Joey tried to keep quiet, which was always difficult in a home that creaked with every other step, but he was secretly working on a letter so utterly important that he was still stuck on the very first line, and he did not want to be interrupted. Should he just use the word “Dear,” or should he add something more? How about the word “sweet?” Would the word “my” say too much or not enough? He thought about it for a moment, and then he thought harder until frustration and anger set in. But he knew that getting mad wouldn’t help, so he scratched his long, tussled, unkempt red head; rubbed his pale, freckled face; took a deep, relaxing breath; and then decided to go with all of the words. Then he placed the pencil eraser to his chin and studied his work. Should he write “sweet” twice or not? He scratched his head again, hating love letters, which was normal for him because he hated a lot of things in the world. What was so abnormal on this freezing Florida morning was that Joey was writing his first love letter when he had sworn ages and ages ago—well, about two years ago—that he’d never write stupid, mushy, girlie words for some stupid girl for as long as he ever lived. And for the last two years of his writing life, he made good on his promise during every Valentine’s Day, giving a card to no one but his mother—who didn’t count because his mom was a mom, not a girl. And if anyone ever called his mom a girl, they’d have to answer to him. So for Joey to be up so early in the morning, bleeding over the first word of the first sentence of the first love letter of his life was very odd indeed. You see, Joey Huff never liked girls. Not that he was an expert on the subject at his age, but within his eight years on the planet, he had come up with dozens of reasons why no boy should ever grow up to like, play with, and then marry a girl, but he held steadfast to just three of them—the best top three biggest reasons not to ever never marry, play with, or like a big old dumb little girl. At the top of his list, the number one reason that beat all of the other reasons that existed in the whole wide universe, was that girls were very, really stupid. They knew nothing about baseball cards, why Spiderman could never beat Superman, or how to design a spitball for both distance and accuracy. They were also too stupid to know how to really care for someone, even though they practiced all the time by playing with dolls, pretending they were real babies. Which is dumb because who would want a baby for a toy, anyway? No one, that’s who. Not even girls, but they were just too stupid to know it. Joey had a ten-month-old cousin named Tommy. His mom babysat him for Aunt Stella whenever she wanted to go out with yet another guy who wasn’t Tommy’s dad—who, for the record, no one really knew, not even Aunt Stella, which is to say that she was a total girl, with the proof being that Joey never liked her—but, keeping with the point, Tommy was a really cute baby for only a small part of the visit. The rest of the time, he was loud, destructive, and smelly—the absolute best reasons why no one in their smart mind would want a baby, right? Especially when Tommy was being all three at once. What idiot wanted to play with a screaming stink monster who behaved in a home like a silver marble behaved in a pinball machine? Girls, that’s who. They had dolls that ate, drank, giggled, crawled—the more real the doll seemed, the better, right?—Wrong! Girls just said that. Joey could never forget the beating his dad gave him after he stuffed dog poop in the diaper of a doll owned by Cindy Duncan, a girl who lived three trailers down and two trailers over. Did Cindy appreciate the realism that he so thoughtfully provided? Oh no, of course not. (And for the record, with all of her parenting practice with dumb dolls, Cindy Duncan didn’t know the first thing about changing a dirty diaper.) The second best reason why Joey thought girls were as enjoyable as raking leaves with a toothless rake on a cold, windy day was because even though they were as stupid as four-way stop signs, they always tried to be perfect. And it was in this quest for perfection that they were quick to point out the imperfections of others, being too stupid to know how hurtful that could be. No other place did this hold more true than at school, where near-perfect girls with their near-perfect designer clothes, near-perfect shoes with no holes, and near-perfect handwriting wrote and passed notes to boys. But not just any boy; it had to be a boy that wasn’t him. Just about every boy in his class had gotten a stupid note from some stupid, near-perfect girl. A note with dumb, stupid flowers and smiley faces and glitter that stuck to hands long enough to decorate lunches. But still, a note that said someone cared. Girls were the caregivers of the world, but Joey never enjoyed a sparkly lunch—ever. After all, in their near-perfect world, associating with a boy known for his government-paid lunches, thrift-store wardrobe, lice outbreaks, and whatever else their notes disclosed about him would be against their world’s Mother Nature. But Joey constantly reminded himself that he never cared because in all their pursuit for perfection, girls were among the least perfect, most stupidest creatures he had ever heard of. Right next to ugly birds that couldn’t fly and things that live in water but could still drown. The third best reason why Joey thought girls were as fun as sleeping in a room with an angry mosquito was because of something he hated to admit: girls had powers. Not super powers like flying or lifting cars—at least, he didn’t think so—but stupid, not-even-close-to-being-perfect powers that only worked when they got older. His dad explained it to him one day when they were out trying their luck with a couple of cane poles at the littered pond in the back of their trailer park. Right smack dab in the middle of talking about some really good boy stuff, his dad asked him, from the middle of nowhere in particular, how much he knew about the blue jays and the wasps—or something like that—and somewhere in the middle of that awkward conversation about birds and hornets, his dad had told him about the power girls had. He called it “the power of deduction”—or was it “the power of subtraction?” Joey could never remember the particulars of that conversation, but he remembered his dad explaining that it was a power girls didn’t know how to use until they got older. “But Dad,” Joey had asked, “what’s the power good for, anyhow?” “Lots of things,” his dad grunted, “but most things not so good.” “Do we got any powers over them to get when we get older?” Joey asked, already thinking that he knew the answer. After all, his dad was never nothing special in the presence of his mom. “If we do,” his dad said, staring into the murky water, “I sure as hell ain’t discovered it yet.” Then they talked of other things, but Joey always held resentment toward girls for having powers when boys didn’t. Joey still recalled his top three reasons as he continued to anguish over the letter, listening to the sounds of his mother fussing about in the kitchen as the smell of sausage and eggs tickled his nose. He finally decided to go with two dears and one sweet, believing that two sweets would be too much. Miraculously, after the painful penning of the first sentence, the words flowed with the steady pulse of a beating heart, and he completed the letter—nearly half a page, mind you—fifteen minutes before his mother knocked on his door. “You seem pretty awake this morning,” she said, seeing him dart out of his room, fully dressed ten minutes ahead of schedule. And he was also wearing a smile instead of his school-hating frown. “Somethin’ goin’ on at school today that I should know about?” Joey shook his head and checked his back pocket to ensure the letter wasn’t showing. “No, I just got up early, is all.” The heavy steps of his dad’s work boots came down the hallway to the kitchen, where they parked themselves underneath the kitchen table. His dad grabbed a plate and poured a hefty portion of grits on it. “Dang, Joey,” he said. “You up mighty early this mornin’.” Then he glanced at the chef. “You ain’t even have to knock twice for him today. What’s goin’ on? Is it Christmas mornin’ and nobody told me?” For Joey, it felt like Christmas for the past three days, but he said nothing. Joey’s mom smiled and shrugged. “He say ain’t nothin’ goin’ on.” Then she took a sip of coffee, eyeing her son with a knowing grin, because every good mom could pinpoint the time and place they suddenly realized that their child had fallen for someone. After his dad left for work, his mom sat down with him at the table and placed a hand on his cheek. “Is everything okay at school, honey?” she asked. She knew about the latest altercation he had had with another student last Friday, but Joey’s teacher, Mrs. Crabtree, assured her that it wasn’t Joey’s fault that time; a girl had started it. When Joey returned from school, he seemed fine, but he didn’t want to talk about it. “I mean, is everything okay as far as everything else besides the kids pickin’ on you again?” Joey just nodded and smiled, but he wanted so badly to tell his mom how excited he’d felt all weekend. Last Friday, he had found a girl who didn’t deserve to be a girl. A girl who seemed to care about him. A girl who was no longer stupid or close to perfect—to be honest, she was sort of fat. And whatever her power—that “power of construction” his dad spoke of—turned out to be, he was sure to like her version of it. And he wanted to tell his mom all of this, but she’d ask to see the letter, and he was too embarrassed for that. Besides, his words were for his girl and nobody else. He’d fill his mom in later after he and his girl hung out for a while and got married, this girl who didn’t notice his free-lunch card or his clothes that were someone else’s first. This perfect girl because she wasn’t perfect, who made him feel the same way. The girl who made his world so very different, so very better. Suddenly, Joey turned to his mom and said, “Mom, it’s a perfect world.” And his mom’s heart threatened to burst with thankfulness to whatever could bring such feelings to her son, but her heart also ached a bit at the thought of Joey finding, yet again, parts of the world that would shatter this fragile image. If only she could be there when it happened. Five minutes before the bus arrived, his mother gave him an extra-long hug and twice as many kisses as usual, and said as she always did, “Joey, you’re a special person. Don’t you forget that, you hear?” Joey gave the expected nod and headed for the bus stop. As always, his mother stood in the doorway, ready to wave should he look back, but he never did. This morning was no different, except his mother was crying. For Joey, the bus ride was the longest that morning, as if someone had moved the school back a hundred miles, but the school eventually came into view, and the bus eventually stopped. Besides, the long ride gave him time to contemplate how he should present the letter to his girl. Should he think of something long and mushy to say, or would a heartfelt “Here” suffice? No. He should say at least two or three words, shouldn’t he? Yes, he thought, three words would be really good. The more words the better. So he practiced saying “Here you go” as he exited the bus and walked to his classroom. When he entered the classroom, Mrs. Crabtree greeted him the way she greeted all of her students, and feeling particularly warm and happy, Joey answered with a full-blown smile and then went to his desk. That’s when the beginning of the end of his perfect world began. Johnny Maxwell, leader of many Joey Huff potshot sessions, spied the letter protruding from Joey’s back pocket. “Hey, what’s this?” he asked as he snatched the letter and skipped to the back of the room, unfolding it to read. Joey tackled him immediately, and the boys tussled until Mrs. Crabtree broke it up with two outstretched arms. “What’s going on here?” she asked furiously. That’s when every boy—and more importantly, every girl in the classroom—pointed a finger at Joey. “Joey, go to the principal’s office this instant,” Mrs. Crabtree demanded. “I’m very disappointed in you, young man. And I will be calling your mother about this.” Joey looked up at his teacher, astonished. It was obvious that he wanted to cry, but he held it in long enough to march out of the room, leaving the boys and stupid girls behind him as he tossed the crumpled letter into the wastebasket. After the class quieted down from the laughter and jeering that followed Joey down the hall, Mrs. Crabtree directed the students to their seats as she collected the note from the wastebasket. The opening line read, “My dear dear sweet Mrs. Crabtree . . . .” She finished the letter and then ran to catch him, but not to accept his proposal for marriage. After all, she liked her men educated, employed, and a bit taller. She just wanted to bring back the perfect world that he described so well in his letter, that’s all. If only for another day.
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Copyright © 2008 Edward M. Baldwin |
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Short stories |
