Playing Real

All parents are guilty of it. We give our children too many rules, too much structure. The parent in this story, however, shows what happens when you teach your children that anything is possible.

Playing Real

 

On the way to the pirate birthday party, Mrs. Graves told her husband, "I think you're more excited than Walker."

            "Never been to a pirate party," Mr. Graves said, "on land, that is, me darling. Hey Walker, tell me something about pirates."

           "Pirates wear a wooden leg," Walker yelled from the backseat. 

           "For their treasure they don't beg," Mr. Graves yelled back.

           Walker's baby sister, Hunter, looked over and giggled at her brother. She wore a black onesie with a pink skull and crossbones on the chest. She tapped and pulled at the button on her car seat safety belt, trying to unclick it so she could reach her brother. "Baba."

           "Are you thirsty, baby?" Mrs. Graves asked, already looking for the milk she pumped earlier.

          "She said brother."

           "Dad. How do you know that?"

           "I speak baby. Go on, Hunter. Say something."

           "Bah."

           "Anything."

           "Bah be."

           "I love you too, Hunter. Walker, what else about pirates?"

           "Pirates search for a treasure chest."

           "We be pirates, we head west." Mr. Graves veered off the highway, then turned left.

            The birthday boy answered the door with his mother. He didn't wear a hook or hold a cutlass. No silly hat stood upon his head, no bandanna. No skulls, no crossbones. Just a bright yellow t-shirt with white bubble letters that read, "Treat me right. It's my birthday."

            The hostess put her hand on top of Walker's head. "Hi Walker. Come on in."

           Walker flipped up his eyepatch. "I thought this was a pirate party."

           "It's even better," Mr. Graves said. "It's a secret pirate party. A hidden puzzle pirate party."

           "There might be bad guys," Walker said in a low voice.

           "There always are."

           "Okay, boys," Mrs. Graves said. "Let's go inside and have fun with the other kids. Right, honey?"

           "Right," Mr. Graves said.

           Inside, two different baseball games played on two different televisions. A six-foot hero overflowing with salami and pepperoni and machine-chopped lettuce took up the entire kitchen counter. Open beer bottles sat unattended on coffee tables, half drunk.

            "The kids are in Henry's room," the hostess said.

            Walker stood woodenly at his father's leg, a detached prosthetic.

            "You can play with the other kids," Mr. Graves said. "Just don't eat or drink anything unless me or Mommy give it to you."

            "I don't know who are the bad guys."

            "The ones who don't share."

            "Honey," Mrs. Graves said.

            "It's true. It's whoever doesn't share, or who hits you, or who says a bathroom word."

            "Honey!"

            Looking at Walker, Mr. Graves said, "Do we do any of those things?"

            "No."

            "Are we bad guys?"

            "No."

            "See?"

            Walker flipped down his eyepatch. "I love you my princess," he said to his sister. "Mommy, give me my hook."

            After Walker left, Mrs. Graves took Hunter into the kitchen with the other women and Mr. Graves shook hands with hairy-knuckled men.

            "You want a beer?"

            "No. No."

            "Whiskey?"

            "No, thanks." He thought, Yo ho ho and a bottle of whiskey.

            Mr. Graves watched the baseball game and answered questions about his means of making money.

            Right before the cake was scheduled to come out, a scream emanated from Henry's room. The birthday boy ran out bumping into walls and holding his eye, tears dripping, yelling.

            Through tight heaves, Henry said, "Walker punched me with his hook."

            Walker ran too and hugged his father's leg. "He was the bad guy," Walker said. "It was Henry."

            Mr. Graves rubbed his son's hair.

            Walker said, "He pulled a robot out of my hand and pushed me into the wall. He had red eyes when he did it, Dad. I saw them."

            All Mr. Graves could do in front of the others was pet his son's head.

            They sat through the cake and presents with Walker at their side. Once in the car, Mrs. Grave said, "You need to stop this whole good guy bad guy stuff."

            "Can we talk about it later?"

            "Someone could've gotten hurt."

            "I know. And it's not going to be one of us, right Walker?"

            "Right Dad. I got him."

            Mrs. Graves turned in her seat. "What you did was not right, Walker."

            "The kid pushed him into a wall," Mr. Graves said. "What if he'd done that to Hunter?"

            "It was the boy's birthday party. He just wanted his toy."

            "Doesn't give him the right to hurt someone in our family. Right Walker?"

            "Right."

            "Bah."

            "See? They both agree with me."

            "You need to stop. Now."

***

"Mom, there's a monster in my room. Come see." Walker grabbed his mother's hand and dragged her to his bedroom. "Look at the crack in the wall. He's in there. I saw him. No. No. Don't touch it. He might suck you in there. When's Dad coming home?"

            "Walker, baby." Mrs. Graves squatted down. "You know there isn't really a monster in your wall. This is an old house. The walls make sounds sometimes."

            "I saw it go in there. It had green skin and red fur."

            Mrs. Graves said, "Monsters aren't real."

            "Yes they are. Me and Dad fight them all the time."

            "Pretend. You fight them pretend."

            "No."

            "Walker, it's nap time."

            The boy huffed. He looked at the crack in the wall that came down like black lightening in a white sky. "Do you have tape? Like, really, really strong tape. We'll keep him trapped in there until Dad gets home."

            "Go pee, Walker."

            "And you'll get the tape, right?"

            "There is no monster. Go pee. Your sister's already been in for twenty minutes."

            Shortly after tucking in her son, Mrs. Graves heard little sounds from inside Walker's room. She heard a flitting type of peeling sound. She heard taps on the wall. She heard Walker whispering.

            Mrs. Graves opened the door. "Walker!"

            He smiled at her with his mouth closed. His sticker book lay open on the floor. Stickers of planets, stars, and astronauts ran up the wall, covering the crack, sealing in the monster.

            "Get in your bed."

            "I don't want him to come out when I'm sleeping."

            "Do you hear what I'm telling you?"

            "He's going to get me when I'm sleeping. He might get Hunter."

            With her face turning red and her lip snarled, she yelled, "There is no monster."

            Walker sat there, eyes open, tears falling, conflicted. A monster lived close enough to reach out and grab him, and he had to close his eyes. 

            "Get out of your bed again and you'll be in real trouble."

            "Mom."

            Mrs. Graves shut the door. Then she sat on the couch and waited. Mr. Graves still had his bag in his hand when she said, "Our son thinks monsters are in his walls."

            "Can I get a glass of water first?"

            "Goddammit. I listened to you about breastfeeding, and I understand it, I really do. I'll have saggy b***s for the rest of my life, but whatever. The kids are healthier because of it. Then I went along with enrolling him in that Montessori school." 

            "I picked up those extra hours."

            "It's not the money. It's their philosophy. They let the kids stand on desks while they teach. But whatever, again. He's young. He'll get some kind of structure next year."

            Mr. Graves picked up the cat and stroked her fur.

            Mrs. Graves continued. "I'm sick of you deciding how to raise our kids. They're my kids too. They're more my kids. I am the mom."

            Mr. Graves turned the cat on its back, shaped his hand into a crab, attacked. The cat play-bit the skin between his fingers, let go and then pulled his hand in closer to playfully chew. He said, "I'm not going to limit him. I'm opening his mind. Read any article about kids using their imagination. Pretend play. Using enchantment. It helps them understand reality and cope with this messed up world." The cat jumped off Mr. Graves's lap. "I want you to be happy, but I'm not going to stop helping the kids think differently."

            Mrs. Graves cupped her face with her hands. "It's dangerous, Rodger. He can hurt someone. He can jump off the roof because he thinks he could fly."

            "I think it's dangerous the other way. What if he jumps and he doesn't believe in himself?"

            "You're ridiculous. I can't believe we even got married."

***

Outside the Montessori school, Walker's teacher waved down Mr. and Mrs. Graves. She asked to speak with them privately, so Walker and Hunter were sent to play at the fenced in playground, only accessible by going back through the school and out the side entrance.

            Walker dutifully held his little sister's hand and led her into the building, and then, a few blinks later, back out the other side of the fence.

            Once the kids were safely in the sand, Ms. Carol turned and said, "I need to tell you. Walker was very frustrated today."

            Mrs. Graves asked, "How so?"

            "Well, he responded in the negative every time I prompted him about anything. He snapped at me when I told him to choose an instrument that would represent his feelings, because I told him stomping his feet wasn't an instrument."

            "He likes drums," Mr. Graves told her.

            "He told a playmate to go away. He slammed his book on the ground during silence expression time. I don't know what got into him. He's usually one of our most well-behaved students. Always polite. Helpful. Today he was someone different."

            "There's been tension in our household," Mr. Graves said. "We --"

            The scream stopped all adult conversation within earshot. It cut hard lines between people. It sent shrill waves through overhead wires. It was a death scream, much like Hunter Graves's shrills when she scrapes her knees, but amplified, like the hissing burst of hate, energy, and efforts at survival from a small animal.

            Mr. Graves did not waste time looking through the fence to see what had happened. He pushed through Ms. Carol and ran into the building and back out the side door. His eyes scanned the ground. Then he saw, right at Walker's feet.

            "Dad. It had red teeth. I saw them. But I got him. I just kicked it and stepped on it until it stopped hurting Hunter."

            A cat, all lumpy bones and guts, lay spread out in the sand.

            Mrs. Graves ran her fingers down the fork-like claw marks on her daughter's legs.

            "You're safe," Mr. Graves said.

            "Yeah. I saw it. Red teeth, Dad. I tried to stop it before it got her, but it was so fast."

            Mr. Graves said, "You got it, Hunter."

            "Yep. I got it. I saved the princess." 

Reviews

[Pax]

Now this lead me thinking really deep. I may not have childrens yet of my own, but I was there when my little cousin grows up. Yup, I have a little cousin at our home. The youngest sister of my mother is a single parent, she's been with us since i was little until she got pregnant in my teenage years. To make my story short, we never really taught this little cousin of mine how to imagine things, we just let her be, let her discorver things on her own. I guess that really depends on the culture to culture. The traditional reading of stories after bed was never really comes to mind to us, because we ourselve never grew up on that kind of settings.

this shows that anything is really possible. But like i said before in one of my works, that there is a fine lining between reality and fantasy - it just up to us how to teach the children the proper way on understanding it. But that doesn't mean we can't achieve anything by dreaming. Some of us find ways to make - dreams into reality in a proper way.

I think there is a good moral in the story. and it is very nice to read such kind. thanks for sharing it.

[Chris Orza]

Thanks for your review and your kind words.