Kevin Johnson had a secret. Something he tried to hide from even his ‘bestest friends.’ Kevin would often spend recess pretending not to hear his name being continually whispered among all the other children. He was forced to sit alone on the far side of the jungle gym on an oddly placed wooden stump, looking down sadly at the loose pea gravel as the jaws of other children dropped and eyes widened in shock with the words being spread about him. Kids would walk by and stick out their tongues and make mocking faces. Girls would throw rocks at him. One boy tried to instigate a shouting match by parading around lewdly and dancing in a very condescending fashion. Sometimes Kevin would even have to defend himself against violent physical attacks. On one afternoon, another little boy confronted Kevin: “You’re not like everyone else. You’re not normal.” He proceeded to clumsily grope Kevin and punch him in the chest. Kevin collapsed to the ground and cried as he was savagely beaten. Why, God? Why am I the way I am? Kevin sometimes wished he was dead.
The teachers didn’t think twice about the abuse he was suffering. They knew Kevin’s secret too. Any complaints lodged by either Kevin or his overworked, single mother were generally greeted with that “oh-great-another-crank-bothering-me-about-their-damn-kid” look or palliative, or Oprah-esque comments like, “children can be so cruel.”
The hate. Oh, the hate was so painful. It would keep Kevin up at night. He was so lonely. Nobody liked him. Everyone hates me, he thought. I wish I was dead. Kevin’s depression began to scare his mother, who realized that her 7 year old son was talking about death and suffering an awful lot.
“Kevin, you can’t be sad all the time,” she said, trying her best to console him. She was the one person who didn’t know Kevin’s secret. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong? I promise I’ll help you in any way I can.”
Kevin would look away. He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want her to know what he had tried so hard to hide from everyone else. It’s not that he wanted to hide it from her (he knew that she just wanted to help), but he just assumed that she wouldn’t understand. And in truth, she probably wouldn’t have understood. It was something her generation just couldn’t understand. It was just too radical, too different.
Once after Kevin came home from school all bruised, his mother just broke down.
“Kevin, what’s wrong? Tell me! I’m your mother, I love you! Please sweetheart, tell me.” But Kevin was silent and stone-faced, his lips quivering as if he was about to explode into tears. But instead, he turned away and ran outside.
She found him asleep 5 hours later behind a bush in Mr. Delaney’s backyard. She carried him back to the house and laid him to bed. Sobbing, she knew she couldn’t take this anymore. It was getting out of hand. Kevin could often be heard mumbling in his sleep about how he was going to jump in front of a car and get run over and how no one would care. Kevin’s mother opened the big yellow telephone book to the “PHYSICIANS” page and combed through the names and numbers until she reached one name that sounded trustable.
“G. Morrison Herzog,” she said out loud to no one in particular. She scribbled down the number on a Grease Monkey restaurant napkin that happened to be on her bedside table and promised herself that she would call in the morning.
Two weeks later, Kevin and his mother appeared in the office of Gordon Morrison Herzog, M.D., child psychiatrist. Some tuneless elevator jazz was playing over the intercom. It reminded Kevin of the music he used to hear on the community bulletin channel on TV before the television broke.
“Please have a seat,” the receptionist said, “the doctor will be with you soon.”
Kevin looked around. There was a toy box in the corner. He rummaged through the chest but found nothing that interested him, but he settled for some weird bug-eyed vomit-stained stuffed animal.
He had only had enough time to transfer some of the sticky goo
from the toy to his hands before a voice came over the intercom: “Kevin Johnson.” Kevin looked back around at his mother, who had stood up and was now signaling for him to come over. Kevin was heading back when he saw a tall bearded man with a set of small-framed glasses walking over to his mother.
“Mrs. Johnson?”
“Westerling. Uh... “ she fumbled, “um... Kevin’s father and I are divorced.”
“Oh, my apologies,” said the man, who then made some obligatory facial gesture before diverting his attention to young Kevin, who was wearing a light-blue T-shirt with a picture of a palm tree on it. “You must be Kevin. How’s it going, big guy?” He put his hand out towards Kevin, who had nervously put his fingers in his mouth.
“Shake hands, Kevin,” instructed his mother.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” said the man, who was recoiling from the saliva that now coated Kevin’s extended hand. “Why don’t you come with me, Kevin?”
“Should I come too?” asked mother.
“No, that’s okay. You can wait right here. We’ll done in about...” he looked at his watch and squinted, “about... 30 minutes.”
“Well, okay...” she said, sighing. She had been hoping to hear what Kevin had to say.
Once inside the quaint office, Kevin felt very comfortable. There was a big wacky multi-colored chair that Kevin naturally dove onto (before the doctor could). The doctor sat on a big leather office chair and wrote something on a small piece of paper that was attached to a manila folder.
“Hello Kevin. My name is Gordon Morrison Herzog,” the doctor said. He then looked around, as if making sure the coast was clear, and whispered, “You can call me Gordy though.” He winked at Kevin. Kevin winked back. He liked this doctor. He wasn’t like the dentist who sometimes hurt him.
The doctor wrote something on the paper again before asking, “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong, Kevin?”
There was a long pause as Kevin studied a plastic toy truck that was next to the seat. “Cuz I dun wanna.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Kevin.”
This was hard for Kevin. He didn’t want to tell the doctor. It hurt a lot to talk about it.
Kevin’s mother was reading an article in Woman magazine about how to have a more successful sex life when the doctor and Kevin came out of the office into the waiting room. The doctor’s face was turns out Kevin has terrible, terrible disorder.”
“W-w-w-what is it?” Kevin’s red, and he was wiping a tear from his eye, and Kevin didn’t seem terribly happy for that matter.
“Oh my God, is everything okay?” Kevin’s mother asked horrified at the scene.
“Well,” the doctor began, “it turns out Kevin has a terrible, terrible disorder.”
“W-w-w-what is it?” she stuttered, starting to instinctively cry.
The doctor hesitated for a moment before speaking.
“Kevin,” he said solemnly, “likes go-bots.”
“OH MY GOD, THAT’S FUCKING HILARIOUS!” screamed Kevin’s mother as she and the doctor both burst into mind-rattling bellows of laughter. The receptionist began laughing hysterically and pointing her finger at Kevin. A woman with a cell phone started rolling around on the floor, laughing so hard she could hardly breathe. Some kid who was playing with the same vomit-coated toy that Kevin had been playing with earlier was shrieking with laughter and dancing around, pointing at Kevin and chanting “KEVIN! KEVIN!” maniacally. Then Kevin's entire class, who coincidentally happened to be in Dr. Herzog’s office, took turns battering him with tire irons and PVC pipes. Then two punk kids began assaulting him with a bar of soap in a sock. G. Morrison Herzog and Kevin's mom just stood around laughing uncontrollably (I think I saw them kissing too!). Then everyone danced around Kevin’s bloody pulp of a carcass as the TRANSFORMERS theme song played over the intercom.
A good laugh was had by all.
