Childhood has hurts. Too bad that some of it, maybe the hardest parts, are because of other children.

In one of my neighborhoods there was a kid who sat on his porch. We other kids would walk by his house on the way to school, and on the way back to our houses. He sat there everyday. He did nothing, rather, he did only one thing. He sat in a rocking chair, eating saltines from a tray. He was there, with his tray of crackers, a knife and jar of mayonnaise, every morning and every afternoon. I never knew if he ate anything else. I hope so, but I never saw it.

Only mayonnaise on crackers. It seems now so hopeless. So simple at times, but always hopeless. He was never harassed. We never shouted insults at him. We never threw anything at him. We did slow down and pass his porch quietly, trying, I think, to ignore him. To pretend that he wasn’t there. But he was. I never knew why he didn’t go to school, or play in the park at the end of the block. I only know that he didn’t. Never.

I do know that he didn’t know the days of the week. He couldn’t figure out that each day had a name, and that they repeated. It seemed to defy his world that days could be named, that they came in sets, that they repeated. It seemed odd that he lived in a world of crackers and mayonnaise, while living outside the world of days and words. He lived on our block, but he never left his porch. Never in the years I lived there.

I was busy in my way inventing airplanes, rockets and adventure. Inventing big reasons for life. I’m not sure that I ever knew his name. Now, what remains, is wondering how we could both be in the same world, at the same time knowing such different things, being occupied in such different ways. Of course I have no more way of knowing what happened to him than he has of knowing why I would wonder about it.

I wonder what happens to those who sit, rocking on their porch with a tray of crackers and a jar of mayonnaise. Passing their days, as we builders of rockets pass them by, knowing the names of all the days.

//some build rockets // some build dreams // others sit on rockers // eating mayonnaise on saltines//