The Legend of Mickey Tussler Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mickey—a pressing concern that would not go away. Something about the child’s demeanor—the way he was—did not seem right. She was powerless to identify it. Attach a name to it.
    She tried to forget. Often, she and Clarence would playfully joke about the size of the boy, particularly his head.
    â€œWe must have us a regular Elber Einsteen,” he mocked. Truth be told, he was more interested in the boy’s musculature. Clarence was so proud of the child’s unusually large size, tickled by visions of his strapping young son working the family farm. He saw it as some sort of accolade, a living testimony to his own virility.
    Molly never gave much thought to that. The idiosyncratic behaviors, however, crept into her consciousness and rattled around with blinding regularity. It was the lack of declarative pointing—Mickey’s inability to point his finger at objects to get another’s attention. It was the child’s vacant stare, and his failure to simulate real-life scenarios during play. It was the incessant rocking, back and forth.
    â€œAw, whatcha worried about now, Molly?” Clarence chided. “What’yre saying, woman? That my boy’s some kind of retard? Leave him be. Ya hear? He’ll be fine. Just fine. He’s just a littler slower than the other kids. He’ll catch up.”
    Clarence was so sure. But she knew better. A mother always knows.
    Mickey was four years old when Molly’s suspicions were confirmed. She was in the kitchen, pouring beeswax into candle molds while Mickey and Tommy Myers played quietly on the carpet in the other room. Heat was pouring out of the woodburning stove. The warm air washed across the tiny window above the sink and collided with the biting January wind from the other side, forming beads of condensation that caught the light being thrown from a pair of candles on the table. She ran her open palm across her forehead, then wiped the moisture on the front of her apron. She peeled off her sweater and stepped away from the candles in search of some cooler air. She smiled when she saw Tommy. He had dumped Mickey’s crate of wood blocks and was sitting in the middle of the floor building a house of some sort and talking feverishly about the imaginary people who lived there. The gleam in the child’s eye juxtaposed with Mickey’s wooden countenance alarmed her. It had never been so clear to her as at that moment. Something was wrong. Mickey was still, except for his usual rocking back and forth. He was staring blankly at the pile of blocks yet to be used, all the while repeating the word barn over and over. Tears formed in her eyes as she yielded to the power of this recognition.
    As the years unfurled, Clarence was forced to recognize the grim reality of life with a child who, by his estimation, was not “square.” Mickey learned to talk and was fairly quick with numbers and computations. He could also memorize certain things, such as Molly’s favorite poem—the one she would recite to him when he was a child and would get upset. It’s the only thing that calmed him down. He was always affectionate with Molly. But certain things he could not do. Things that a farm boy was expected to do. The horrible scenes still haunted her.
    â€œListen, boy, you and me are gonna fix that there fence out front. Grab that hammer and follow me.”
    â€œClarence,” Molly protested. “He’s only eleven years old. He can’t do that. Leave him be.”
    Her protectiveness burdened Clarence to irritation. “Now, what did we say about sticking your nose where it don’t belong, woman. Hush up. He’s fine. Time he started acting like a real boy. Now I don’t want to hear nothing more about it or you’ll feel me.”
    The narrow gravel path stretched away slowly to a chain of irregular tufts of dry earth dotted here and there with patches of crabgrass and dandelions, on which a