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THE POLITE LITTLE BOY

The polite little boy knocked on the door. His parents were too busy fighting to answer, and after he’d knocked a few times he went in anyway. “A mistake,” the father said to the mother, “that’s what we are, a mistake, like in those pictures where they show you how not to do something. That’s what we are, with a big ‘No!’ underneath and the face crossed out with a big X.” “What do you want me to say?” the mother said to the father. “I mean, anything I say now I’ll regret later.” “Say it, say it,” the father snarled. “Why wait till later when you can regret it right now?” The polite little boy had a model airplane in his hand. He’d built it himself. The instructions were in a language he didn’t understand, but there were good drawings, with arrows, and the polite little boy, whose father always said he had good hands, managed to figure them out and to build the model airplane, with no help from grownups. “I used to laugh,” the mother said, “I’d laugh a lot, every day. And now …” She stroked the polite little boy’s hair distractedly. “I don’t anymore, that’s all.” “That’s all?” the father roared. “That’s all? That’s your ‘I’ll regret saying it later’: ‘I used to laugh’? Big fucking deal!”

“What a nice plane,” the mother said, and she very deliberately turned her gaze away from the father. “Why don’t you go outside and play with it?” “May I?” the polite little boy asked. “Of course you may.” The mother smiled and stroked his hair again, the way you stroke a dog’s head. “And how long may I stay outside?” the polite little boy asked. “As long as you want,” the father blurted, “and if you like it out there, you don’t have to come back at all. Just pick up the phone from time to time, so Mother doesn’t worry.” The mother got up and slapped the father as hard as she could. It was strange, because it looked as if this slap only made the father happy, and it was actually the mother who started crying. “Go on, go ahead,” the mother told the polite little boy between her sobs, “Go out and play, while there’s still light outside, but be back before it gets dark.” Maybe his face is hard as a stone, the polite little boy thought to himself as he walked down the stairs, and that’s why it hurts your hand when you hit it.

The polite little boy threw the model airplane in the air as high as he could. It made a loop, went on gliding a little in parallel with the ground, and bumped into a drinking fountain. The wing was a little bent out of shape and the polite little boy tried hard to straighten it. “Wow,” said a freckle-faced little girl he hadn’t noticed until then, and she held out her freckled hand. “What a cool plane. Can I fly it too?” “It isn’t a plane,” the little boy corrected. “It’s a model airplane. A plane is only if it has a motor.” “C’mon, let me try it,” the little girl ordered without lowering her hand. “Don’t be mean.” “I have to fix the wing first,” the little boy stalled. “Can’t you see it’s bent out of shape?” “You’re mean,” the little girl said. “I hope lots of horrible things happen to you.” She wrinkled her forehead, trying to think of something more specific, and when it came to her, she smiled: “I hope your mommy dies. That’s it, I hope she dies. Amen.” The polite little boy paid no attention to her, just like he’d been taught to do. He was a head taller than the little girl and if he’d wanted to he could have slapped her, and it would have hurt the little girl a lot, much more than it would have hurt him, because her freckled face was definitely not made of stone. But he didn’t, and he didn’t kick her either, or throw a pebble, or swear back at her, because he was polite. “And I hope your daddy dies too,” the little girl added, as if it were an afterthought, and walked away.

The polite little boy flew the model airplane a few more times. On his best throw, it made three whole loops in the air before dropping to the ground. The sun was beginning to drop too, and the sky all around was getting redder and redder. His father had told him once that if you look at the sun for a very long time without blinking, you can go blind, and that’s why the polite little boy was careful to close his eyes every few seconds. But even with his eyes closed, he could still see the redness of the sky. It was strange, and the polite little boy was very eager to understand it a little better, but he knew that unless he got home on time, his mother would worry. “The sun always rises,” the polite little boy thought to himself, and bent over to pick up the model airplane off the lawn, “and I’m never late.”

When the polite little boy went indoors, his mother was still in the living room crying, clutching her hand. The father wasn’t there. She said he was in their bedroom, asleep, because he was doing a night shift, and she went to make the polite little boy his scrambled supper. The bedroom door was ajar and the polite little boy gave it a gentle push. The father was lying on the bed with his shoes and his street clothes on. He was on his stomach with his eyes open, and when the polite little boy peeked inside, he asked without lifting his head up off the bed, “How’s the model airplane?” “It’s okay,” the polite little boy said, and when he felt that what he’d said wasn’t enough, he added, “It’s really okay.” “Mother and I fight sometimes and say things to hurt one another,” the father said, looking down at the floor and then at him, “but you know that I’ll always love you. Always. No matter what anyone says. Don’t you?” “Yes.” The polite little boy nodded and started closing the door behind him. “I know. Thank you.”

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