John Fitzgerald (6 page)

   
"Why did you do that?" I
demanded. "And how come you are upstairs instead of in Mamma's
bedroom?"

   
He folded his arms on his chest. His big
dark eyes beneath his black head of hair just glared at me as if he hated the
sight of me.

"Answer
me!" I shouted, feeling blood from my nose running over my lips.

   
He answered me all right. He bent over and
picked up my other shoe and banged me on my bare toes so hard it made me cry
out with pain. I grabbed that shoe and took it away from him.

   
"What kind of a loco kid are
you?" I cried. I was so angry I was about to box his ears when Mamma
called up the stairway.

"Is Frankie
up there, John D.?"

"He is up
here and tried to murder me in my sleep!" I answered.

   
Mamma came rushing upstairs and picked
Frankie up in her arms. She got punched right on the nose for it. She stared at
him with astonishment.

   
"Don't let a little thing like that
bother you," I said. "He was pounding me on the head with my shoe
when I woke up."

"Your nose
is bleeding and so is your ear," Mamma said.

   
"He is crazy, Mamma," I said.
"What happened to him must have driven him plumb loco."

   
Frankie proved I was right by trying to
gouge Mamma's eyes with his fingers. She then held him so he couldn't move his
arms.

   
"
Don't be a naughty
boy
, Frankie," she said. "We are your friends and love you.
And to prove it you can have anything you want for breakfast."

   
This kid was unbelievable. Instead of
thanking Mamma, he began kicking her. He didn't say one word or let out one
peep as she held him tight and carried him downstairs.

   
I went down to the bathroom, where I put
cold towels on the back of my neck until my nose stopped bleeding. Then I put
some peroxide and a bandage on my ear. I could hear Mamma pleading with Frankie
in her bedroom as she tried to get him dressed in some of my old clothes. I
went back upstairs and got dressed. Breakfast wasn't ready when I came down so
I went into the parlor. Papa was there.

"What
happened to your ear?" he asked.

   
I told him about Frankie trying to beat me
to death. But did I get any sympathy? Heck, no.

"How
unusual," was all Papa said.

   
Then Mamma brought Frankie into the parlor
dressed in one of my old Buster Brown suits. "I'll leave Frankie with you
while I help Bertha with breakfast," she said.

Frankie stood
with his arms folded on his chest looking at Papa as if he would enjoy seeing
him boiled in oil. Then he walked over and kicked Papa on the shin. Papa lifted
up his leg and grabbed his shin.

"Now you
stop that, Frankie," he said.

   
It was a stupid thing to tell a kid who was
plumb loco. Frankie kicked Papa on the other shin. Papa hadn't given me any
sympathy and I wasn't about to give him any.

"How
unusual," I said.

   
I was so intent on watching Papa rub both
his shins that I wasn't paying any attention to Frankie. The little monster
walked over and kicked me on the shin so hard it really hurt. Then he sat down
on the floor with his arms on his chest and glared at us as if we were his
worst enemies.

"This kid
belongs in a cell down at the jail," I said.

   
Did Papa telephone Uncle Mark to come get
the little monster and lock him up in jail? Heck, no.

"This is
very interesting," Papa said.

   
Boy, oh, boy, I never knew being beaten on
the head and
toes with a shoe and being kicked on the shins
was
interesting.

   
In a few minutes Mamma came into the parlor
and told us breakfast was ready. She tried to pick Frankie up in her arms. He
punched and kicked her so hard she had to put him down.

   
"Now be a good boy, Frankie," she
pleaded. "I know you must be hungry. You can have a nice bowl of oatmeal.
And you can have some nice hot cakes with maple syrup or sugar on them."

   
Again she tried to pick him up. This time
he not only punched and kicked her but tried to scratch her eyes out. She had
to let go of him.

   
Aunt Bertha came into the parlor.
"Things are getting cold," she said.

   
"Frankie won't let me touch him,"
Mamma said, looking completely bewildered.

   
Aunt Bertha looked at Frankie. "Now
let's not have any more nonsense," she said. "Breakfast is ready,
Frankie, and you are going to eat."

   
I'll be a four-eyed frog if Frankie didn't
hold out his arms toward Aunt Bertha. He didn't kick or punch as she picked him
up. She carried him to the kitchen and put him in a chair.

"Very
interesting," Papa said as he sat down at the table.

   
It got even more interesting when Mamma put
a bowl of oatmeal in front of him. Frankie picked it up and threw it on the
floor.

   
"Clean it up later," Papa said.
"Now let Bertha
give
him a bowl."

   
Aunt Bertha fixed a bowl of oatmeal and put
sugar and cream on it. She put it in front of him and handed Frankie a spoon. I
watched, bug-eyed, as Frankie started eating the oatmeal as if he were starved.

   
Papa waited until we had all eaten our
cereal. "Now,
Tena
," he said, "you
give Frankie a glass of milk."

   
Mamma poured a glass of milk from the
pitcher and gave it to Frankie. I'll bet she wished she hadn't when Frankie
threw the glass of milk on the floor.

   
"Let the mess go," Papa said.
"My theory is proving itself. Now, Bertha, you give him a glass of
milk."

   
Aunt Bertha poured a glass of milk and put
it in front of him. Frankie picked up the glass and drank all the milk in it.

   
"I think, Bertha," Papa said,
"that you had better serve Frankie his hot cakes."

   
Mamma appeared to be completely bewildered.
"I don't understand," she said. "I've never known a child who
didn't like me."

"I'll
explain later," Papa said.

   
We finished eating our breakfast, with
Frankie eating three hot cakes and drinking another glass of milk served to him
by Aunt Bertha. Papa then asked her to take Frankie into the parlor for a few
minutes. Frankie put his arms around her neck and held her tight when she
picked him up. He gave the rest of us a real nasty look as if he despised us.

   
"You said you had a theory,"
Mamma said after Aunt Bertha and Frankie had left the kitchen.

   
"The boy recognizes that you are the
mother and I am the father and J.D. is the son in this house," Papa said.
"When he woke up this morning he went looking for his own parents and
brother. Instead he found us. He also found himself in a strange house. He is
still in a state of shock. And I think he believes that we did away with his
own parents and brother so we could take their places. That is why he hates us
three. He has no such association with Bertha because he evidently didn't have
an aunt."

   
"Poor little fellow," Mamma
cried. "How long do you think it will be until he gets over it?"

   
"I have no idea," Papa said.
"But I do know I've read of people who have undergone such a horrible
experience that they get a mental block. In other words the shock is so great
that their minds refuse to remember the experience. I'll talk to Dr.
LeRoy
about it today. Meanwhile, all we can do is to give
Frankie all the love and understanding possible."

   
"You mean we just let him go on
hitting us and kicking us whenever he wants?" I asked.

   
"The boy is temporarily mentally
disturbed," Papa said. "He is not responsible for his actions."

   
"Boy, oh, boy, he'll get by with
murder," I protested, "Aren't you even going to give him the silent
treatment?"

   
Papa and Mamma never whipped my brothers or
me when we did something wrong. Instead they gave us the silent treatment,
which was worse than a whipping. For a period of a day or a week or even longer
neither one of them would speak to us. And they would pretend they didn't hear
if we spoke to them.

   
Papa thumped his finger on the table to
emphasize each word as he spoke. "I told you the boy is not responsible
for anything he does," he said firmly. "And don't you forget that,
J.D., or you will be the one getting the silent treatment."

   
I excused myself and got up from the table.
"I am going to do my morning chores and then go play with the kids,"
I said.

   
"You will do your chores," Mamma
said. "And then you will spend the rest of the day trying to make friends
with Frankie. Get some of the games you used to like to play when his age out
of the attic and play with him."

   
"The only game that kid would like to
play with me is to beat me black and blue," I protested.

   
"You will do as you are told,"
Mamma said, "and not another word out of you. And he isn't 'that kid' but
Frankie."

   
I did as I had been told. I finished my
chores and went up to the attic. I looked in a box where Mamma had stored all
the games my brothers and I used to play. I finally decided on a set of logs
and blocks that could be made into a log cabin. I remembered how I used to like
to build the log cabin when I was about Frankie's age. Then I went to my room
and got my catcher's mask and put it on. I was no dummy.

   
I went down to the kitchen, where Frankie
was watching Mamma and Aunt Bertha preparing to bake some cookies.

   
"There will be no ball playing for you
today," Mamma said sternly. "Take off that catcher's mask right now.
I told you to play with Frankie."

   
"I didn't put it on to play
ball," I said. "I put it on to play with Frankie. You can give me the
silent treatment for a year but I'm not going to play with him without some
protection."

"All
right," Mamma said. "Take him into the parlor."

   
Frankie ran over and grabbed hold of Aunt
Bertha's skirt. He wouldn't budge until she took him by the hand and led him
into the parlor.

   
"Your Aunt Bertha wants you to sit on
the floor and play with John," she said.

   
Frankie nodded his head. He obeyed her and
sat down. But he stared at me as if he'd like to cut my throat.

   
"I'll show you how to build a log
cabin," I said as I dumped the blocks and logs from the box.

   
He watched me build the log cabin. I let
him look at it for a moment and then knocked it down.

"Now see if
you can build a log cabin," I said.

   
He picked up one of the blocks and threw it
straight at my face. It hit my catcher's mask and fell to the floor.

   
"Ha, ha," I said. I wanted this
little monster to know I was too smart for him.

   
That really made him angry. He began
throwing blocks and logs at me. They bounced harmlessly off my catcher's mask
because they were all too big to go through the holes in the mask. Then one of
the blocks went sailing over my head. It hit one of the glass doors on the
bookcase and cracked the glass.

   
"Mamma!"
I shouted. "You had better come in here if you don't want the furniture
wrecked."

   
Mamma and Aunt Bertha arrived in the parlor
just as the last piece of the log cabin bounced off my catcher's mask. Frankie
folded his arms on his chest and stuck out his lower lip as if he'd like to
take a bite out of me.

   
I stood up. "You see, Mamma," I
said, "if I hadn't been wearing my catcher's mask I'd be blind in both
eyes now and my face would be cut to ribbons. A fellow could get killed playing
with this kid."

   
"Stop exaggerating," Mamma said.
"And I'm not going to tell you again to stop calling Frankie 'this kid.'
The next time it will cost you one week's allowance."

   
"In other words," I protested,
"I'm just to let him murder me. And when you see your youngest son lying
dead in a coffin then maybe you'll be sorry."

   
"Stop being melodramatic," Mamma
said. "Play some other game with him, like checkers."