I’ve tired desperately to attach this story to something to make it some how more relevant or witty or give it a moral. I realize now that some things just ARE.  Like a slug in a middle of parking lot.  They don’t make sense but there they are. Why would a slug try to cross a parking lot? It’s always fun to be the hero of the stories you write even if you’re self depreciating. Somehow you find a way to make even your shortcomings shine. Well this isn’t charming, and I’m not the hero in the end and I don’t win. In this story no one really wins.
It’s just like the slug in the middle of the parking lot .

A friend and I were riding to the post office with about 5 bags filled to the brim with packages to mail off as was the ritual at the end of every day we work at the warehouse. We were stopped by a light and at the corner in the open space between the gas station and the curb were 2 children with bikes. My eyes would have not caught them had it not been for how small one of the children was. They both had dirt bikes but the smaller child seemed dwarfed – somehow he was riding the bike but could barley reach the handle bars. His hand couldn’t even wrap around the handle. It would be the equivalent of an adult trying to put their hand around a half spun roll of toilet tissue.

Me and my friend in the passenger seat smirked at how silly it all seemed, this child’s dedication to being out and on this bike that clearly he was too small for just seemed funny.
Then coming across the street were 2 women. One was holding a child the other was just stomping mad, her anger clearly pointed at the smaller of the 2 children.  Somewhere in the back of our minds we thought that universal childhood theme:  “oooh hes gonna get it”

As she approached the child quickly dismounted the bike and let it fall. His friend kept a safe distance. Then the mother, while screaming inches away from his face, balled up her fist and with everything she could muster punched him in the face.

I’ll say that again. A grown woman with a closed fist reached back as far as she could while yelling at the top of her lungs and punched this barley 4 foot tall child in the face, several times.

The look of horror on the child’s face is something that will never leave me. I have never seen a child’s face do that. He wouldn’t
stop looking up at her and he didn’t really defend himself… he just held his quivering fists together  under his chin as looked up to her.
He managed to pick his bike up but was still being yelled at and hit with a barrage of closed and open hands across his head neck and back as they walked off and disappeared into the collection of short brick buildings

Here are the thoughts that went though my mind

We make each other
Do I roll down the window and say something ?
Do I get out of the car follow them to where they live and…what?
Will me getting out the car do anything?
Are you ready to take on the responsibility of that child’s welfare after today?
Who is this child doing to be when he grows up?
What made him come outside? He knew his mom?
Stupid question, if she was my mom I’d probably be outside
Who am I to tell a parent?
Wait…I am I parent.
Perhaps she was concerned for his safety?
Perhaps she was terrified he had run away or was lost?
How does that concern turn into this?
It takes a village is he not my responsibility?
Am I a coward?
Do I think too much ?
Why won’t this light change?
Will that child grow up to hate women?
Will he beat his girlfriend or his own child one day?
Was his mother beat by those who love her?
How will this child define love?
How does this mother define love?
Patriarchal society sucks.
Society is not punching that kid in the face, she is.
How can you hit another human being especially one easily half your size that hard in the face?
How was he still standing after that?
If she was comfortable displaying that level of brutality in broad day light at the corner of a large intersection what does he get when he gets home?
Does Barack Obama’s victory make that little boy believe he can do anything?
Does his mother believe that he can do anything?
Will he overcome this to be a story of hope?
Why is this light not changing?
Why did I have to see this ?
Why can’t I turn away?
Why can’t I move?
Why can’t I cry?
Inaction is action.
And then there was a honk behind us. The light had changed. We drove off and dropped the packages at the post office but we were both pretty silent for the rest of the trip.
I still think about it every day.
I still feel like less of a man for not having done anything.
I feel like that inaction will have ripple effect that I can only hope to counter balance with the way I raise my son.
And that’s it.
No moral, no bit of wisdom to walk with, just something that I felt somehow had something to do with being a father. Something that hurt me to hold onto… so I had to share.

Love is a verb that has several definitions. Sometimes that’s an unfortunate thing.