Toward the Light

 

When my teacher put her open palm on my shoulder, I spooked.  It was during quiet reading in the years before teachers put tennis balls on the bottom of their classroom’s chairs, so my reaction caused quite a stir.  My classmates put down their open books and stared at me with a collective yawn, not interested enough to care, but undeniably more interesting than EB White.

My teacher smiled down at me like Mrs. Butterworth. “Jeremy, dear- you’re wanted in the guidance counselor’s office.” I blinked back at her from beneath my bangs. “Do you know where that is?”

“Yes,” I mumbled, somewhat seriously. I could never forget where the guidance counselor's office was.  She was right next to the nurse’s office where I sat only a few months prior as the unwilling star of CSI: Sawdust Edition after vomiting all over the art room floor (which, to this day, I still blame on the rancid smell of tempera paint).   

“Good.  You can leave your things.”

When I stood, the chair jerked again and I shamefully tiptoed out of the room, longing for a ball of fire and a trap door. My first steps forward into the empty hallway were deliberate, just like Dorothy when she starts her journey on the Yellow Brick Road back where it’s still swirled with Red Brick. 

When I reached her door, I was too scared to knock so I pushed it open instead.  Sitting across from Mrs. Schwartz, to my surprise, was my mother.  At first I felt somewhat betrayed.  To my recollection, it was the first time I had ever seen my mother in the building and now she'd decided to call on Mrs. Schwartz without even a passing mention to me.  Did they even know each other?  When I had to be walked home after throwing up in art, my mother was at work and had to send the elderly neighbor man to come and get me who, despite my intestinal turmoil, offered me a hard candy that he had pilfered from the bank. 

I could hear blood rush to my ears as my mother patted an empty chair next to her without looking me in the eye.  There was a crumbled tissue in her hand.  She had been crying.  I knew that it was my fault. 

 

“First, I want you to know that you’re not in any trouble,” Mrs. Schwartz began. 

I looked at my mother for assurance but she didn’t say a word.  Her gaze was fixed across the room on a display of colorful pamphlets with cartoon covers. 

“Your mother came to me today to ask if you and I could talk.  You’re not in any trouble; I just want to have a conversation. How does that sound to you?”  I could tell from the look on my mother’s face that I didn’t have the authority to say no.  Then again, at seven years old, you’ve just recently retained the authority to wipe your own ass, so your opinion is not often the first considered. 

With a nod, my mother excused herself into the hall, looking at the bottom corner of the door as it creaked shut behind her. 

Unfortunately, I knew exactly why I was there.  Don’t get me wrong, I was still tempted to play dumb but the lump in my throat that arose whenever an adult questioned me was kryptonite.  After several minutes of invasive questioning, Mrs. Schwartz determined that I was, indeed, a remarkably sad young boy. Not your average run-of-the-mill sadness, but something more impenetrable. 

She eagerly tried to determine a way to urge me to be a happier child and to put an end to my destructive sad tantrums which had brought my mother to her today.  When my mother re-emerged, we mutually settled on allowing me retrieve the mail from the mailbox that afternoon so I would have something to look forward to. If you would ask me to this day I would still tell you that my unhappiness had little to do with postal service.  It was something inherent, something that plagued my genetic code that would leave me gazing up at my stucco ceiling every night and rolling from side to side while I alternated between “why?” and “why me?” 

It was a difficult bargain but I gave in to his terms; one more bite of peas and I could be excused from the table.  I didn’t know if my mother had spoken with him about what had happened at school that day.  If she did, my father didn’t bring it up, which seems par for the course when you consider his parenting.

I was still gagging on a mouthful of green mush as I pushed my plate an arm’s length away.  

This time I was careful to not let my chair scrape the floor, but I still felt his eyes on the back of my head as I approached the screen door. I slid my fingers down the smooth part of the rusted iron rail as I climbed the steps to the backyard. 

When I reached the bottom, I began to run in breathless circles with wild abandon, aiming to disorient the generations of problems that trailed me from beyond my years.  It was the most alive I had felt all day and a smile crept into the corners of my mouth as I danced haphazardly among the fireflies.  They were so alluring, twinkling their Morse code mystery light for me to envy and never understand.   They were designed by God to be able to ward away the dark.  We had nothing in common. 

The smile on my face turned to a look of sour determination as I studied their firefly ways.  I dreamed the grass to be ten feet high.  In that moment, I was welcome to fly among them.  The led me over bounding over the chain link fence, carried on their wings to go visit Mrs. Schwartz in her garden to show her that I wasn’t destined to be some reprehensible lost cause because now, at this very moment, I was learning how to glow.  

It was then that my feet fell out from under me and I hit the patio with a skid.  My knee had caught the gravel and my pants were torn, which was more upsetting to me than the blood that was beginning to congeal.  I most feared having to tell my parents about the pants. 

I ran back into the house and galloped up the stairs avoiding all contact with my family.  Closing the door behind me, I carefully slid the pants down over the wound and found a sock to tie around my knee.  I hid the pants, the evidence, below my bed, which was destined to serve as my very own telltale heart. 

When I tugged the mini-blinds to spy the backyard, all the glowing had stopped.  My invitation from the fireflies seemed to have been rescinded and the stinging in my knee left me temporarily earthbound.  Slipping into the hallway I sat on the top of the stairs and began to cry politely to myself.  My sleeves soaked through as my sadness took on perpetual motion.

This was still during the bygone era of “I’ll give you something to cry about,” so I was startled when I heard my father’s voice take on a gentle tone.  He’d been standing at the bottom of the stairs watching me for some time, unsure of what to say. 

“Are you finished?”

While blinking tears, I gritted, “For now.”

What I’m glad I didn’t know then was that even if I’d been been accepted amongst the fireflies, it wouldn’t be until adulthood that I would have been granted the power of bioluminescence.  And, even then, I’d be dead in two weeks despite having achieved phosphorescent glory.  Scientists commend the firefly for being the most efficient lights in the world with 100% of their energy emitted in their glow.  And, unlike light bulbs, the light of a firefly produces no heat. 

I went back into my room and stared up at the stucco ceiling.  The bald light bulb in a fixture above my bed caused my vision to blur until I saw nothing.  When my father came in to make sure I was sleeping, I heard him turn off the light with a snap and go to close the door. 

“Leave it open a crack,” I said.  “And keep the hall light on.” 

Without saying a word, he agreed.  We both knew in an instant that it would be years before I could stop being afraid of the dark.