Fajitas & Friends

           An excerpt from The Praying Mantis

      At forty-two, I’ve learned not to utter threats because I find myself engaged in unusual predicaments. One afternoon in late March, I dragged Danny, all eighty-two-pounds of him while he squatted down as if he were a cemented fire hydrant. I wheezed from my living room floor to my dining room table.  It was no easy feat.  

      Danny dared me to move him.  If I succeeded, then he agreed to study.  A standoff ensued, a test of each other’s wills, and I decided to test the elasticity in my lower back. Luckily, I didn’t snap or fly across the room.

      Three weeks earlier, Edison Elementary expelled Danny after six prior suspensions. The school film captured his final choreographed performance as he lifted two chairs, one after another, and threw them across the classroom as if he were Baby Hulk.  The school administration recommended a special education program; a program with trained counselors to better meet his emotional needs.  The first step was to pencil his name onto a long waiting list.

      The ensemble of paperwork, test analyses, psychological evaluations and parent/teacher conferences commenced. After our first meeting, I knew we were in trouble.  I read the principal’s face like a hardcopy, the print was clear and legible, she didn’t want Danny back at her grammar school, ever.

      Mrs. Kryst looked me straight in the eyes.

      “I have to think of the other children.  Danny has become a danger to himself and to others.”

      I knew she was right, but it’s hard to hear there’s no place for someone you love. If the Internet had the capability to connect with our eighteenth century forefathers, I’d send an electronic mail to Horace Mann and ask if they made any provisions for unwanted school children in the twenty-first century.

      On the up side, Mrs. Kryst said Danny could earn credits for the remainder of the school year provided he completed all class work assignments at home.  Danny’s father, Russell, showed no interest in home study.  Actually, I couldn’t blame him; he wasn’t equipped with a proper CPU. His control panel malfunctioned and he couldn’t locate the switch indicators to power himself on.

      It was no surprise when both the child and task were left on my doorstep.  Danny’s mother, a well-known crackpot, abandoned him when he was two weeks old.  We never heard from her again.  Russell, my insane and irresponsible half-brother, embarked fatherhood right when he needed a general body overhaul.  He was too old, tired and didn’t have any time for his son.  At fifty-three, I thought Russell was nuts to attempt such an adventure, and nothing has happened in the past nine years to make me think otherwise.  

      Without much effort, Russell mucked up Danny’s life through gross child neglect.  Each evening he went home from work and dosed off early. Most nights, the child prepared his own dinners. The menu consisted of a pizza pocket, a bag of barbecue chips and an ice cream sandwich washed down with a soda pop.   Left to his own devices, the child put himself to bed at wee hours of the night.

      In the mornings, Russell's tender touch started off the day by awakening his son with a loud grunt. Danny barely cleaned his sleep, but managed to dress and walk down to the bus stop after his father drove off to work. And each year, the father of the year, dropped off Danny at my house for the holidays.  Russell felt he deserved time to himself.  Often times, I sneaked a peak in Danny's backpack and found resentment hauled around.

      In the early years, I made numerous pleas for legal custodianship, but Rusell adamantly refused. He said he needed the tax write-off. I hadn't even thought of that, all I wanted was to raise Danny with my other two children. I wanted him to feel loved.

      After the school expulsion, Russell had a change of heart. He wanted me to deal with Danny's thug-like crustration, then hand him back as soon as I polished the mental plaque, which had hardened over the years. 

      As if things weren't complicated enough, Danny is not your typical potato chip, he's more like a ruffled pringle with locked in flavor. You really have to understand him in order for him to open up. Also, he comes with greater amounts per serving of stubbornness, negativity and aggressive outbursts.