K Street

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Recommended: Children's depression evaluation

The approaching tragedy pulls us; like ants to a flame, we are drawn… We arrive to a smoky summer day in Southern California, with the temperature hovering around the mid seventies. The air is redolent with the smells of eucalyptus trees and orange blossoms. Mixed with these obvious good smells, are background smells which aren’t so good … smells which are obviously part of this haze that surrounds us and touches everything. It is August of 1961. We, the watchers, are in the back yard of a small, light-green, two bedroom, one bath, and 800 square foot starter-house. It is a typical lazy Monday morning, mostly quiet with husbands away at work, and their wives busily working on their chores. You can hear the occasional car and truck go by out front, but the sound is muffled, like it is on the other end of a long tunnel. A huge walnut tree with mighty branches that reach out to cover almost the entire back yard, and easily stands 100 feet tall is the centerpiece to this serene scene. Underneath the full-sun-blocking branches of the walnut is a large wooden picnic table, where two boys sit; one is three years old, and the other just under two. Both boys are similarly dressed: swimming trunks, T-shirts, and barefoot. They both have short blond hair, and hazel eyes like their Dad. They have the charm shared by young boys everywhere; they project purity and innocence, and have probably gathered here to talk about toys, or swimming pools, or maybe forts they can build where they can fight off imaginary Indians. The older boy suddenly hops up and walks quickly to a large homemade brick barbecue grill twenty feet away, to retrieve something we can’t quite see. We move in closer to get a better look at this object and see that i... ... middle of paper ... ... the car is eerily quiet, except for a soft and mournful tune coming from the radio; Crazy by Patsy Cline. In the back seat Mike sits and broods. He knows he is very sick, but he is very angry too. Mike is obsessed with the idea that his brother got to go to the hospital in an ambulance. That he got to travel in style, with the siren on. On the other hand, he has to make the same trip in a car…a dull and drab (and quiet), car. Nobody will look at him as he speeds by. He doesn’t even get to hear a siren like riding in an ambulance. Mike thinks of his brother a lot. He always has, but not in the way you might think. His thoughts are darker and more sinister than any three-year-old has any business thinking. He does not feel sorry for Ger, as he seems incapable of that emotion. Mike’s thoughts are much more primitive and basic, “How do I kill him next time?”

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