Little Velcro Monkey Boys

I lit my IBLD candle, metaphorically speaking, with two young friends last Sunday:

Velcro Arms

Rocket Boy and Ground Control are out the door and halfway across the small lawn before I turn off the car. It's been a couple of months, yet they won't wait the few seconds it would have taken me to walk to their front door. They need to be touched, to be picked up, nuzzled, acknowleged. By the time we get inside their house, I'm the only one touching the ground. They weigh nothing at all.

Minimum required small talk with their mother. They're pulling on me, and if I dared to show how much I hungered to throw them around and gather them up, I would be pulling them just as hard. But I play it cool. We grownups have a chuckle at their eagerness, their impatience to have me all to themselves for a thorough pounding. I dole out just enough disrespect to pass for normal. Then they drag me into the back room where they're allowed to do the serious wrestling. We last only for a while. There are two of them, and they're seven, and I'm decidedly not. Once I get tired I know somebody's going to get hurt, and I call it off, enticing them with visions of the zoo, the park, the science museum. No sale. They would rather go nowhere, and wrestle all day. Though of course once we go somewhere, they won't want to leave.

Molesters Everywhere

Back in the living room, more detailed plans to discuss with their mother. Later on the twins will tell me about the scary old man across the street, the one they know to stay away from because he likes to trick children into going over there so he can "do things to them". Do you know any children who he's hurt? No. Wouldn't he be in jail if he had attacked someone? No answers. All they know for sure is that he likes to watch kids playing, for hours if he can. That's sufficient for an entire neighborhood to frighten their children. Maybe he likes to watch them playing because it's deeply embedded in our souls, this need for children and adults to draw energy and inspiration from each other. No, he must be a rapist. It's the simplest explanation, and one that doesn't require the parents to think about the time when they'll be old, and their children grown and gone, and they may have to survive on the scraps of youthful energy they can see from across the street, through the curtains. Better if the old man is a monster.

But for now Mom is telling me that the boys have never been in the men's locker room at their pool. She's worried, because there are a lot of developmentally disabled people who use this pool, and they tend to be a little "grabby" with boys in the locker room. Of course she's never seen this, she has no evidence of this happening, no reason to think the boys would stand for it. Maybe she's just freaked that they'll see a naked man, a sight she's been able to protect them from for seven years. But she wouldn't know a real pedophile if he were standing right in front of her, dangling her son by his armpits, gently swaying the boy's legs from side to side while nodding seriously and offering assurances that he'll watch them like a hawk.

Meanwhile across the room, Ground Control has come up with a clever solution to the dilemma of how to pick up his Pokemon cards from the floor as instructed, while not letting go of his precious styrofoam staff for an instant. He bends over, clutching the staff sideways with his stomach, and gathers the cards, taking only the tiny steps that this position allows. Who else but a young boy would think of using his abs as a third hand? Who else would be able to pull it off?

Crash Into Me

Waiting in the sun, the boys climb on me and sit on either knee, pressing their backs into my chest, my arms around either waist. As we talk, as the sun melts them, they seem to form to me, and I to them. I bury my nose in Rocket Boy's hair for a moment, and draw him in. He's sweaty now; the flavor has changed.

Rocket Boy has a surprise for me at the fountain. Come a little closer. What could it be? He puts his shoulder into me and forces me toward the cascading water. I weigh three times what he does, so of course it's an even fight, could go either way, but inch by inch he prevails, until I'm trapped against the metal slab, freezing water soaking me, and Rocket Boy relents, exhausted, to escape now that the deed is done. I scream "You little bastard!" and chase him down, laughing, scoop him up, and carry him back for the inevitable retribution. His legs wrapped around my waist, I use one arm to hold him up while the other lowers us slowly against the metal slab. Finally I crush him with my chest and he shrieks at the cold water streaming over both of us.

Around us children and adults play in the fountain, apparently unconcerned that a pedophile is making love to a seven year old boy right in their midst. And why should they be concerned? Time stops for the three seconds that I hold him against the wall, then it's time to start the game over. We repeat as necessary, until I feel I have to give Ground Control equal time. After all, he was kind enough to hold my camera out of harm's way so I could get wet.

Looking at the photos later I'll find that there were lots of cute shirtless boys all around us at the fountain. But at the time all I see is Rocket Boy.

Little Simba

What better way to dry off than to chase pigeons around in the sunlight? I ask Rocket Boy to hold on for a second and tell him "You know, the pigeons aren't enjoying this as much as you are. When they fly away from you, they're wasting energy that they could be using to find food to get more energy. So it makes their lives a little more difficult and exhausting for a while." He considers this, and you can see the wheels turning. And he gets it. Presented as an engineering problem, as a matter of inefficiency, he understands. He nods his head, and starts finding ways to run around without attacking animals.

Strangers at the Pool

"If you see someone who talks funny," Rocket Boy cautions me, referring to the disabled guys we might run into at the pool "you should stay away from them, 'cause there's something wrong with them." "Well, maybe" I reply, "if they're talking funny it just means they have trouble talking. It wasn't so long ago you and your brother had trouble talking, but people didn't run from you." Unlike with the pigeons, this time he's not buying it. His expression tells me that I'll probably get a clue sooner or later, but it's not his job to take me there.

In the pool, RB is an encyclopedia of rules. He can go in the big pool by himself because he passed the test, but GC can only go in the small pool, or in the big pool if I'm with him. It's OK to dive off the side over here but not here, but you can't run anywhere. He's completely at ease with the rules. I can see him gliding through his school years, a favorite of teachers, eager to learn all he can, not too bothered by the structures. It's not that he's been beaten into submission, it's that he seems to understand the social contract already. He knows that the grownups who run the pool are charged with keeping him safe. He fully expects this protection and good will from me, and from most adults. Just not the dirty old men or the ones who talk funny.

Back in the locker room, still ungrabbed, the boys take 30 minute showers. We fight with water and soap, fling our swimsuits around as missiles. Finally Rocket Boy gets out to admire himself in the mirror. He knows he's beautiful. I join him and remark on how good looking we both are, but he turns away, suddenly modest. "I don't want you to see my privates." My dear, I've known you since you were three hours old. Trust me, I've seen everything. Still, as he wishes, I leave him alone at the mirror. Ground Control meanwhile has found a way to cause havok even in a shower, and after several warnings I take him out before he's ready. But he didn't wash his hair yet, it's not time. I kneel in front of him and explain that I'm not going to let him cause a huge mess, and it's time to go. He throws the towel over his head and sulks, but I chase him around and poke at his face through the towel until he has to laugh.

We get to the front door only to find that we've taken so long in the shower that everyone has left and the community center is closed, leaving us locked in. We fantasize about swimming all night, and getting dinner from the candy machine, but unfortunately the door is not too hard to figure out, and we're soon free.

Back home, their mom has gotten a much needed nap, and managed to straighten up the house in the blessed absence of her boys. We catch up on the day, I apologize for losing one of Rocket Boy's socks somehow, she gives me some Rice Crispy treats for the road, and I head out. The boys who were all over me for most of the day are now indifferent to my leaving, already absorbed in other tasks. The edge has been taken off their neediness. Now they take me for granted, which I suppose is a good sign. I vow to myself that it won't be another two months away.

The Thin Blue Line

Bless the little monkey boys who have no one to fill their velcro arms, no one to make them weightless for a moment, or crush them against a fountain, or fall for their tricks over and over. No one to solemnly hear them out when their sense of fairness is insulted, or to feign interest in their Pokemon, or to ask them to think like a pigeon. No one to make them the center of the world for a few precious hours. These children are everywhere, and it breaks my heart to think of them.

Love to you and your boys.

Weyland

Posted by Weyland to BoyWrite on August 19, 1999 at 22:32:14:

 -  originally posted at BoyChat on June 21, 1999.

return to main page