Time Passages

"You know what I don't unnerstand?" Little Tommy Girard was swinging his feet encased in muddy tennis shoes, the laces tattered and hanging down to the floor. A thin orange cat was watching the laces with intense concentration, reaching out a tentative paw to bat them now and then. Tommy's cheeks were puffed and his mouth was chewing, up and down, up and down. He put the dinner roll in his hand back up to his already-full mouth and took another bite. It was tough to get the bite in, but he accomplished the feat. His mother wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Tommy, don't talk with your mouth full like that. You're spitting food."

"Gross," commented Tommy's older brother. The words were idle, not said with malice but with boredom. Donny Girard was eating with his long face hidden by a comic book. His dinner was disappearing with systematic precision, food being taken up by a hand disappearing into the comic. "You're disgusting, little bro."

Tommy stuck his tongue out at his brother, but Donny didn't notice. "What," asked the mother, "what don't you understand?" She wasn't really interested, having just returned from a long day at work, her mind encompassed by the seemingly hundreds of tasks she had yet to accomplish before she could call it a day, but it was the motherly thing to say, so she said it.

"Well," began Tommy, "I don't unnerstand why some of the kids don't wanna play with Charlie Johnson." Tommy took another bite of his dinner roll, taking time to chew and swallow before he continued. He blinked at his mother and brother. "I think he's cool, but Sierra and Johnny and Dominic won't play with him."

"Moron," came from the comic book. "Charlie Johnson is a moron."

"Donny, don't talk that way," his mother told him. Donny peered up at her.

"Whatever, but it's true and you know it. Only my stupid brother would want to play with a moron." And he disappeared behind his cartoons.

"Mom, is Charlie a moron?" Tommy stared at his mother and waited for an answer. His dirty face looked expectantly at her, tousled brown hair sticking up in so many places the top of his head looked like an unmowed, dead lawn. Tommy's mother only knew how exhausted she was. She closed her tired hazel eyes.

"I don't know, Tommy. Eat your dinner."

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The teenager shuffled into his house, hair tousled as usual, lanky frame bent in rebellion. His huge high top sneakers kept trying to escape his feet as he moved, but they never quite made the break. Tommy flopped on the faded couch with his coat still on and picked up a black remote control. He began to switch the channels on the television rhythmically, keeping time with a ticking cuckoo clock on the wall by the kitchen. Tommy's mother followed him into the small living room, and she shut the front door quietly. Her eyes were still tired, and there were lines, deep indentations, creasing her face. She stood and gazed at her son, her own tattered coat adorning her thin body. Finally, after watching him change channels for a while, she quietly uttered, "why."

Tommy heard her, but he tried to ignore the word and continue his cadence with the remote. Finally the word worked its way into his brain and he responded with a snort. "I don't know." His mother continued to stare. Her face became red, almost purple, and she walked the few steps to the couch and ripped the remote out of his hand. Tommy startled and stared at his mother in surprise. Then he remembered to adopt his persona, and the hood closed over his eyes.

"What in the hell did you think you were doing," his mother asked through gritted teeth. "Just tell me that. What the hell were you thinking? Or were you thinking at all?" Her eyes narrowed; her face was pinched with anger. Tommy shrugged and folded his arms across the front of his coat. He clamped his mouth shut. "That's fine," his mother rasped, "Sit on your ass and say nothing, just like usual. Dammit!" She stomped away. Tommy winced at the sounds of banging and clanging that emerged from the kitchen. Her mutterings drifted to him. "Work my damn fingers to the bone for that brat and this is how he repays me. Dammit!" She charged back into the living room and pointed a rigid finger at her son. "Don't you think I'm bailing you out of this one, Tommy. I'm sick to death of all your lame-brained stunts. You're eighteen years old. It's time you took care of yourself." She looked him in the eyes without flinching. "I want you to pack your bags. You are gone." The last was said quietly, but with conviction. She turned and walked slowly back into the kitchen. She looked deflated, like a balloon without its air.

Tommy sat on the couch. He was stunned. Surely his mother didn't really mean it. He'd done some stupid stuff over the years, but she'd never thrown him out. She didn't mean it, he decided. She'd calm down like she always did and try to "talk some sense" into him like she always did. She didn't mean it.

but Tommy's mother did mean it, and she helped him by packing a suitcase full of his over sized t-shirts and jeans. She handed him some money, two hundred dollars, and wished him luck. "Tommy," she told him as he stood in the doorway, "don't come back, not till you can act like a civilized man. However long that takes. Not till then." Her eyes closed briefly as she ran a work-calloused hand over them. The hand was trembling. He wanted to cuss at her, he really did, but somehow he couldn't. She was a bitch, all right, but she was still his mother. As he turned to go, she stopped him one last time. "Why, Tommy. Just tell me that. Tell me why." He looked back at her. Once again, he shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know. He was a moron." Tommy's mother shut the front door after him and leaned her head against it. She stayed that way for a long time, pressing her hands hard against the door. A thin orange cat ambled into the room and jumped laboriously onto the couch which was still warm from Tommy's body. It began to clean itself, pausing every now and then to bat at a piece of string that was hanging from the old, faded couch.