On the way home from school, Bill put his brand-new baseball glove on his hand. He punched the palm of the glove over and over, working the leather, softening it, like the baseball players on TV. He was six or seven, maybe eight. He’d saved up for the glove, penny by penny, nickel by nickel. Odd jobs. Or money from Grandpa. Or maybe it was a special gift. He doesn’t remember.
A bigger boy from the neighborhood stopped him. Said, That’s my baseball glove you’ve got there.
Isn’t.
Is.
The big boy pushed Bill and Bill fell to the muddy ground.
The big boy ran off. Bill went home: muddy knees, face, seat of pants, hands.
He cried to his mother. Said that boy’s name. Said, He pushed me. He took my new glove.
No, Billie, his mother said. Tell the truth. You lost your glove. You were playing in the mud and you lost it.
It wasn’t true. But his mother was all he had. No father would come and save them. He was a smart boy.
His mother knew that big boy. She knew of his father. Knew he was the kind of man who taught his son to take and fight.
Maybe this is why she didn’t believe her son. She didn’t have enough power in her or enough power behind her to face that man.
Bill tells me that story. He says, “I understood right then, she had to say that. What could she do? It was better for her to think it was my fault. I even started to think it was my fault.”
Wouldn’t the man who had been this bullied boy want to have his own child? To heal that wound. Teach him how to stand up against bullying power.
No. It doesn’t work that way.
Maybe this man worries he might be like the mother who doesn’t believe the child’s story. Or maybe he worries he might be like the father who isn’t there.