Work Text:
The worst thing about lacking friends when you are young isn’t the loneliness or the sense of rejection, it’s the fact that for the rest of your life you must struggle to even fumble through the social interactions others glide through by the pure fact that you will have had scant opportunity for practice. Catching up becomes more and more work as the gap between you and others only widens.
For Shoot, the first time someone called him ‘scary’ was in kindergarten. The first day, he cried because the building was different. The other children, all in matching bright yellow hats, together created a level of noise altogether foreign from his parents’ quiet household filled with books and geological specimens. Even though he was five, and was a big boy then, he just seemed to fall apart when another boy treated the class rabbit roughly out of ignorance, was bitten, and then hit the rabbit before crying himself. On the second day, he was worried the other children in his class would think he was a baby.
On the third day, he decided to be brave and volunteer to water the morning glories outside during recess with a girl who wore her hair in two braids with frog clips. He liked the clips, because the frogs were smiling and were blue. Not many other children knew that frogs could be colors other than green.
She didn’t say anything as they filled the class’s watering cans, or as they crossed the playground to the flower bed on the other side, near the sand box. But, she ran back to the teacher before they were even half way done. She cried, telling her twin brother that Shoot had a scary face, and that she didn’t want to water the morning glories with him. She said that he glared at everything.
On the fifth day, the girl with the frog clips’s brother pushed Shoot into the sand box for making his sister cry. The teacher called Shoot’s mother to report that he had been fighting with a classmate.
And when the days began to number in the thousands, Shoot McMahon still avoided eye contact–somehow instinctively worried that he’d make someone cry again just by looking.
The worst part of extended loneliness isn’t getting used to walking to school alone, walking home alone, and enduring with worried glances your parents exchange and giving up on yourself. The worst part is when an opportunity for change comes and, paralyzed by the possibility of something unfamiliar, you watch yourself flee over and over. Even a candle’s flame can seem to burn in contrast to a subzero night that lasted for decades.
Mrs. McMahon never bothered her son about the fact she couldn’t remember him bringing home a friend even once. Even when his face began to fall into a near permanent frown, she always kept up on what popular snacks were. She imagined scenarios where one of Shoot’s classmates might stop by to deliver some homework or notes, and what drink and snack she would then offer them. But, he never even brought home a stray dog. Once, she asked if Shoot would like a pet. Without hesitating, he looked down at the floor and said that he didn’t want to inconvenience his parents.
Come to think of it, mid way through grade school he began to stop mentioning things he wanted altogether. It got to the point where she had to carefully track any books he bought with his allowance for any clue, an author he liked, a subject, anything. Otherwise, she felt helpless come any special occasion.
If there was any wish he had, she would have given anything to hear it. Anything to bring a little light into the life of her son–who looked more and more like a bean sprout that grew in darkness every day. Tall. Pale. Wilting.
Gale McMahon looked at the called ID. It was an unfamiliar number, but not the time of the day that the telemarketers usually began their harassment. Even after adding the house number to several do-not-call lists, it seemed like there were just as many calls as there were before. No, they were not going to get a lawn service. Working outdoors was healthy. No, they were not going to re-finance the house after the mortgage was finally paid off.
Maybe her daughter was right, and they should just get rid of the land line after all. Breeze was always right about this sort of thing, and had been the only who one who could convince her Mr.McMahon to get a cellphone in the first place. She adjusted her glasses and picked up the phone, craning her neck to look at the various schedules on the refrigerator.
Yes, a two-week vacation with her husband in a month, when the university semester ended. Then maybe Breeze would visit for the summer in between her various study abroad programs.
“Hello. McMahon residence,” she said, smoothing her dark hair out of her face. There was a short pause, and Gale opened her mouth to speak again when she heard the voice on the other end.
“Hello, mom. It’s Shoot,” Shoot said.
Gale’s heart nearly leapt into her throat. Now that she thought about it, she’d never actually heard her son’s voice over the phone. Cellphones weren’t affordable until he had already graduated high school after all. And at that point, he had just left with that Mr. Mackernasey…
“Shoot! How are you doing? Are you with anyone? Are you alright? Where are you?” Gale wanted to ask a dozen more questions, but they all seemed to fight to charge from her lips at the same time and in the end she couldn’t even articulate one of them.
“I’m in Central right now. Nothing very serious, just recovering after a job,” Shoot lied, feeling guilty as he looked at the cast on his leg.
“Yes, I’m here with Morel and Knuckle and a few others. There’s a mess with the association’s current chairman election, and we’re stuck here until that’s cleared up an–Knuckle where did you get that dog? I don’t think they’re allowed in the–” Gale strained her ears as some shrill shouts cut off Shoot’s voice.
“I told you Knuckle–I’m sorry, mom. I’ve got to go. This is my cell, so let me tell you the number. I’ll call back soon–” Shoot began.
Gale knocked over a vase of flowers in her haste to find a notepad and pen. Fuck the flowers. Mr. McMahon would understand. When the call was over, Gale looked down at the hastily scrawled note in her hands and felt her eyes well up with tears.
This was also the first time she had heard Shoot call a non-family member by their first name. Maybe now, she could worry a little bit less.