Mike Sweeney<\/p>\n
Elmo is fucking useless. He\u2019s fallen on the floor again and stares up at me, eyes agog.<\/p>\n
Get up here!<\/i> I say in my mind.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t actually have the words yet to enunciate that sentiment out loud. It\u2019s odd. I get the words, I just can\u2019t say them. I think they\u2019ll come eventually, maybe even soon. But for now, all I\u2019m able to produce is a strained, \u201cEhhh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mommy looks at me in the rear view mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cElmo fall down?\u201d<\/p>\n
She talks to me like I\u2019m an idiot but, in fairness, I can\u2019t converse yet. She takes care of me, feeds me, loves me. She picks Elmo up off the floor, which is a full-time job because Elmo is a goddamn spaz. I don\u2019t have a daddy or a brother or sister. It\u2019s just Mommy and me. That\u2019s okay. She\u2019s all I need.<\/p>\n
I let out another pained \u201cEhhh!\u201d and then, despite my best intentions, I begin to cry.<\/p>\n
\u201cShhh-shhh,\u201d coos Mommy. She starts to sing, \u201cLa-la, la-la . . . \u201d<\/p>\n
I join her. I can\u2019t even say my name but somehow I manage to form the sounds of \u201cElmo\u2019s World.\u201d It makes Mommy happy to sing it.<\/p>\n
Her eyes are off the mirror and back on the road. The rain is getting harder. This stretch has no street lights.<\/p>\n
I think I liked it better when I rode backwards.<\/p>\n
I love Mommy, but she\u2019s kind of a klutz. We\u2019re coming from the supermarket where she just took out half a Velveeta display with a shopping cart. I\u2019m not sure how I feel about her steering five thousand pounds of minivan through a driving rain in the dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cLa-la, la-la,\u201d I keep singing and I can tell she\u2019s smiling by the way her cheek puffs out on the side.<\/p>\n
Mommy slows the minivan.<\/p>\n
A car is spun out on the road ahead, facing the wrong way.<\/p>\n
The front door is open and there\u2019s a figure lying still on the ground.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re alone out here.<\/p>\n
We should go.<\/p>\n
Mommy brings the minivan to a full stop. She looks back at me, big beautiful almond eyes full of worry, and something else. Guilt? Sorrow? I\u2019m not sure I know what those things are yet, but I think that\u2019s what I see on her face. I don\u2019t like the way they look on my mommy.<\/p>\n
My eyes drift down to Elmo — useless prick!<\/i> — flat on his back on the floor, surrounded by my discarded juice boxes. He looks like he\u2019s just come off a cranberrylicious bender.<\/p>\n
Mommy touches my chin. She lines her eyes up with mine and there\u2019s absolute reassurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cMommy\u2019ll be right back,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She opens the door just long enough to slip out.<\/p>\n
The falling rain is deafening.<\/p>\n
She looks around, like maybe we aren\u2019t alone out here. She flicks her key fob, locking all the minivan\u2019s doors.<\/p>\n
I watch her jog through the driving downpour, across the empty road. As she moves, her body remembers. Short, choppy strides, become long and graceful.<\/p>\n
She squats down to check the silent figure on the ground.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I see it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s big and moving from behind the other car. It\u2019s not a person. It\u2019s shadow and darkness. Cold. I get flashes of things I used to know, before I was with Mommy, things from the beginning, things I\u2019ll forget in a few years.<\/p>\n
I recognize the Cold Thing, or at least what it represents. I don\u2019t think I could put it into words even if I had them. Instead, I just scream bloody murder.<\/p>\n
Between the rain and the minivan\u2019s soundproofing, there\u2019s no hope in hell that\u2019ll she\u2019ll hear me. I watch, helpless, terrified, as the Cold Thing moves around my mommy, stopping with its back to me.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t see her.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing worse than not being able to see your mommy.<\/p>\n
I scream louder, harder.<\/p>\n
The Cold Thing\u2019s head swivels on its neck, facing me at an unholy angle.<\/p>\n
It winks.<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019m going to pass out.<\/p>\n
The Cold Thing rights its head and moves in on my mommy.<\/p>\n
I want to pass out.<\/p>\n
I flail and kick against the car seat. It\u2019s useless. I\u2019m useless. She\u2019s everything in the world to me and it\u2019s going to take her.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s movement. A struggle.<\/p>\n
Shit.<\/p>\n
Did the Cold Thing just explode?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s gone, and all I see is my mommy lunging forward, her left fist cocked, her right arm extended. She\u2019s holding a short, sharp piece of wood.<\/p>\n
Surprise and relief.<\/p>\n
Now, terror: the figure that was lying on the ground is standing behind Mommy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not alive either.<\/p>\n
The New Thing lunges. Mommy dodges.<\/p>\n
She leaps with the grace of a gymnast and pivots mid-air.<\/p>\n
(The woman can\u2019t parallel park!)<\/p>\n
She lands a kick to the New Thing\u2019s back, sending it sprawling on the wet asphalt.<\/p>\n
Mommy dives, her fist and the stick leading. She finds her mark. The New Thing explodes into the rain.<\/p>\n
Mommy looks around again and I think this time she knows we\u2019re alone. She glides across the road, soft, confident loping strides.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s inside the van and all is right in the world. Her cheeks are flushed, but she\u2019s smiling. She picks Elmo up and stuffs the little red monster into the side of my car seat. She wipes the drool from my chin and tells me it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
Her eyes meet mine and her smile fades a little. I see those things again, the ones I\u2019m not sure I can name yet — sorrow? guilt?<\/p>\n
She looks away from me and starts the car. Her eyes get wet.<\/p>\n
\u201cLa-la, la-la,\u201d I start to sing.<\/p>\n
Mommy laughs a little as we pull back out onto the road.<\/p>\n
MIKE SWEENEY<\/b> received an honorable mention in the 1977 art fair for his pencil-and-marker rendering of \u201cKing Kong vs. Godzilla.\u201d He was the first kindergartener in his school\u2019s history to be so recognized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Sweeney Elmo is fucking useless. He\u2019s fallen on the floor again and stares up at me, eyes agog. Get up here! I say in my mind. I don\u2019t actually have the words yet to enunciate that sentiment out loud. … Continue reading