Mommy's Little Monster

Imagine Halloween for a real monster as a child.

    Light and shadow moved up and down in a rhythm only nature could manage. Joyce just stared at her wall and tried not to think. Lionel, her husband, had been gone for another week at his university. The days seemed to drag on without anyone to talk to or touch her. Joyce studied the faces she saw in the texture on her bedroom wall from Lionel’s side of the bed. She saw creatures, people and figures in the moving shadows. She imagined them all as witnesses to her lonely life. Her silent half hidden friends understood her. They knew why she was so weak and they never judged her. She smiled at this last thought. If only her neighbors could be as silent and agreeable. Joyce glanced at her bedside clock and rolled over onto her back to stare into her ceiling. She wondered what old friends she could see in the overhead plaster. They were already in hiding for the night she realized when not a one could be found. It was four thirty in the afternoon. The sunlight was now in its last throes of death. It was the last day of October, 1965. Joyce closed her eyes when she remembered last Halloween and every brat in the neighborhood seemed to have knocked at her door. She let out a sigh. “Why can’t everybody just leave me alone.” she said quietly to herself and the ceiling. Joyce heard noises from out on the sidewalk and then from her kitchen. She decided to ignore them both and rolled to her other side, covering her head with her absent husband’s pillow.

    An hour later she was awoken by the first of many knocks at her front door. Joyce now lay awake in the dark cursing her life and those who didn’t understand her. She wished she could put a big “F**k Off!” sign on her front door when Lionel was away. Joyce then wondered if her front porch light was on. She bet it was. “D****t!” she said into the dark and then she heard her bedroom door creak slowly open. Joyce laid real still and tried to control her breathing. She slowed her respiration down fast and pretended to be in deep sleep.

“Mommy?” came a quiet small voice.

“Mommy, are you asleep?” asked the small voice tentatively.

Joyce let out a small non committal groan.

“Mommy, it’s dark now.”

“Turn on the t.v., Jeffy.” she said.

“Okay.” he said.

Joyce waited but her door never closed. Then a small whisper came.

“Mommy? Are you still going to take me twicker tweating?”

Joyce said nothing for a moment. She let her anger subside before speaking.

“Jeffy, mommy is feeling to weak to do all that walking around tonight. Why don’t you watch that monster movie on t.v. instead. That would be fun too, wouldn’t it.” she said

“Okay.” the little boy said in a disappointed way.

She waited for the creaking of the closing door again but it never came.

“Jeffy?” she said in quiet frustration. “Is there something else? If not, please close the door and let mommy rest.”

“I made you something, Mommy. It will help you feel better.” the small voice in the dark said.

Joyce knew at this point that if she didn’t look at whatever finger painted mess or crayon scribble he had made for her she would get any rest and he would continue to stare at her in the dark and not go away.

“Okay, Jeffy. Let mommy see this masterpiece then.” she said while turning on her bedside lamp.

    Joyce squinted at the little figure in her doorway. Jeffy was in his green onesie pajamas. His plastic Frankenstein’s Monster mask was pulled up on top of his head. It's rubber band pulled tufts of his hair back and they stuck out over the tops of his little ears. He also had some red sauce dried on the front of his pj's. Jeffy stepped into the room the rest of the way, his hands behind his back.

“I see you found the can of Spaghetti-Os.” she said as he approached her bed. Then,

“What, pray tell, does my little monster have behind his back?” she asked in tired but cajoling voice.

    The boy in the tomato sauce stained pajamas presented his mother with a mason jar of spectacular color. Joyce reached for the jar with a shaky hand. She held it to the lamp light while covering her mouth with the other hand. The light from her bedside lamp shot through the medium of her little boy’s art and ended in a kaleidoscope of colors on her bedroom wall. The lonely child looked into his mother’s face hoping to find love, acceptance and maybe even forgiveness. What he did find was a tear rolling down his mother’s face.

Joyce turned the jar in the light and asked

“Where did you get these, Jeffy?”

“I picked them in the garden. Aren’t they pretty, Mommy?” he asked, looking into the jar with her.

“Yes, they are, Baby.” she said, wiping at her eyes.

“Do me a favor, though, Jeffy. Don’t ever make mommy another one. This is the prettiest one ever. So you don’t have to make anymore.” she added.

He watched her put the jar down between the lamp and the picture of his daddy beside the bed. The little boy smiled real big at his mother.

“I love you, Mommy.” he said and gave her a big hug.

Joyce squeezed her son back hard and accidentally let out a short sob.

“Are you okay, Mommy?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine, Baby. I’m just not feeling quite myself yet. You run along now and let me get my rest. Put the t.v. on and make sure that front porch light is out or those darn kids will keep me up.”

“Alright, Mommy.” he said, and turned for the door.

Joyce looked again at the jar of butterfly wings her little boy had picked for her and shivered.

    As he was closing her bedroom door, five year old Jeffrey Dahmer smiled because his present had made his mommy so happy she cried.