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The Boy Who Crawled
Once there was a boy who loved pancakes. But when the family met for Sunday breakfast, his mother left him home-so the boy crawled in on all fours, but his sister hit him with a potato masher while his father watched. Today I visited that boy in the hospital. Whenever someone came into the room, he'd rise from his chair-erupt is a better word-thin chest puffed out like a banty rooster, arms stiff at his sides. When the social worker, a kindly blond woman, introduced herself, he stood even stiffer, eyes enormous behind thick trifocal lenses. "Your father feels vulnerable," she told me, "and he's afraid."Because his father never stood up for him, he has to keep standing, says, "I'm not in trouble," and "I can walk without a cane." At seventy-nine he'd rather risk falling than be seen to crawl. © 1997 by Thomas R. Smith
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