Pinned
by David Erlewine
Matt asks me to pass the salt. I hand it to him, not looking at the pin affixed to his shirt.
“Thank you, duh-duh-duh-Dad,” he says slowly.
I’d like to string his speech therapist Carla up by her fat ankles. What jackass came up with the idea that advertising your stutter on the upcoming first day of 9th grade is the answer?
“Y-y-y-you okay, duh-duh-Dad?”
I grab the salt, shaking it all over my potatoes.
★★★
I hesitate before opening Matt’s bedroom door.
He’s buried under the covers. Is he playing the game I taught him years ago, the one where a nuclear bomb is about to land and his entire body has to be covered to be saved?
While he is completely still, it’s doubtful.
On his desk sits the little pin: “I Stutter. Be Patient.”
I take it in my hand, place it against my chest. What could have compelled me to ever wear this? Since my wife enrolled him in this fucked-up course over the summer, it’s like I’m in that Twilight Zone episode where the father wakes up and suddenly the English language has been replaced by something unrecognizable, and the show ends with his young daughter teaching him his first word.
Stuttering is like herpes. Only disclose it to people who have to know.
★★★
I run down to the end of the driveway and snatch the Sunday paper. The coffee is brewing, the sun isn’t up. I should have at least an hour alone.
I’m onto page two of the paper, reading about two teens setting a boy’s hair on fire, when my stomach knots up. If he wears that pin to school, he’ll be crucified.
★★★
At dinner, the pin gleams. My son catches me looking.
“Are you polishing that thing?”
“Bill,” my wife says. I stare her down. She doesn’t fold, she just shakes her head and goes back to her salad.
“That thing stays home tomorrow.”
Matt wipes crumbs off the table onto his napkin. “C-c-carla warned me a-a-about you. You’re in d-d-denial.”
“F-f-fuck Carla,” I say. I don’t watch him walk away. I take another sip of iced tea as my wife goes after him.
★★★
At 2:49, I give up trying to sleep.
His door is locked. I knock louder.
“What?”
“Open up.”
He lets me in, slides back into his bed.
I stand by his desk, near the little tin of pins.
“Matty, you have no idea what high school is like, I don’t want —”
“Great,” he says, eyes closed. “So I just hope no one finds out. Got it.”
His face is smooth, barely any peach fuzz, no lines.
After a few minutes, he starts to snore.
I take the little tin of pins.
★★★
I dress for work in the darkness.
On the drive to work, I swing by a trash compactor and dump the tin and all its pins out.
I ease into the 7-11, grab some coffee. The guy overcharges me by three cents. I start to complain but my throat locks up. With everything going on in my life who gives a shit about a couple of pennies.
In the car, I take deep breaths. I don’t think of the phone calls to clients or the new guy I’ll have to introduce myself to. I certainly don’t think of pennies.
Like Ms. Morgan taught me years ago, I envision something relaxing. I picture the Florida beach, my mom alive and smiling from her beach chair, the waves tickling my shins, Matty shrieking as the water touches his feet, how he lets me hold him, how I dangle him over the water and then squeeze him against my chest, how we nearly choke each other.
David Erlewine's stories appear in The Pedestal Magazine, Keyhole Magazine, Literal Latte, SmokeLong Quarterly, Word Riot, Literal Latte, and a number of other print and web journals. He is a fiction editor for Dogzplot. His sad little weblog is WhizByFiction. A DC lawyer, he lives with his wife and two kids near Annapolis.