Voyage to the Bottom of the SeaPart Two: That Burned Boy
I never knew his name. I didn't want to know his name. I just called him, “that burned boy.”
It was a deviled ham sandwich I found in my lunchbox that day. Underwood Deviled Ham with a thin layer of Miracle Whip. I had only taken a bite or two when I looked up and saw him sitting a few tables away. His face was a swirling mass of shiny, pink and red scar tissue. He wore a stocking cap on his hairless head, and his ears looked like they had been melted. They were nothing more than lumps of multi-colored tissue stuck to the sides of his head.
I was completely unprepared for this. I knew nothing of life outside of my family and Captain Kangaroo. The most frightening thing I had ever seen was my great-grandmother's toenails, and I was still having nightmares about them.
I had no idea anything this terrible existed in all the world. I had no name for this evil, no handle, no mental purchase.
The burned boy blew the top off my head. He popped my cork. I was done. My guts turned to liquid and ran down my legs. I couldn't move or talk; I could only stare at him. My sandwich dropped to the table, and my mouth hung open.
I stared because fear was the only thing I knew at that moment. The only recognizable thought I had was that I wanted him to stay away from me. I decided if he made the slightest move in my direction, I would run like the Devil himself was after me.
And then his head turned, and he saw me looking at him. Our eyes met, and his gaze held me captive for a “world without end” moment. His were bright eyes shining out of a mask of scars. My burgeoning sense of social awareness finally kicked in, and I realized that he probably did not like people staring at him. I dropped my chin and looked down in shame.
I found myself staring at my deviled ham sandwich. The chewed bread and the greasy, pink flesh reminded me of his face, and I felt a visceral horror. I gathered the rest of my lunch and scooted over one space, leaving the little sandwich alone on the tabletop. The smell of it was sickening to me. That night I told my mother that I didn't like deviled ham anymore, and I never ate it again until I was an adult. And even then, I remembered him.
My first reaction to the burned boy was primal fear. This was the fear of all things loathsome and horrible, of loose words spoken carelessly, and of the dark. This was the fear of the oracle's words and of deep holes in the ground. It was the same fear that burned witches and left feathers for the crazy woman. Crazy, howling, gibbering, nameless fear.
I took it straight, a single shot of burning fear down my gullet. A stiff elbow and right down the hatch.
I kept my eyes down on the table, and when it was finally time for us to leave, he was gone.
Later that day I asked an older boy about him.
“Him? Oh yeah, he's that burned boy. He was playing with matches in his dad's shed, and he got all burned up. I think a match fell in the gas can, or something. He got burned all over. Especially his face.”
He was playing with matches, and he got burned.
PlayingWithMatches
I was overcome with horror. I knew playing with matches was a very bad thing to do, like running with scissors or crossing the street without looking both ways. I knew these things were bad, but another part of me thought that some adult would always be there to save you.
No one was there to save him. A really bad and awful thing happened to a little kid, a kid like me. Something clicked, and I came to see things in a different way. Suddenly my world was a deep ocean with terrible monsters at the bottom that would reach up and grab you if they could. If they could they would grab you with a tentacle and drag you down into the dark.
I was just old enough to conceive of a linear history, so I was able to understand that the burned boy would always be like this. I knew his scars were not going away. He was going to look like that forever and ever.
I cried walking home that day. I cried for the burned boy.
And right in the middle of my fear, something good was born. A sliver of horror fell into the soil at my feet, and a bud of compassion grew. It was a wild plant, coarse and unruly, out of control and selfish, but it was the real thing. I was sad enough to cry for him, but too scared to befriend him.
I tell this story because this was the day it happened to me. This was the day I ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. My eyes were opened, and I was cast out of the garden forever.
The tiny blossom of compassion was the only thing that covered my nakedness. It was a loincloth sewn by a God who looked on in silence as yet another of his children took that inevitable step.
Compassion grew, but something else was planted as well, a hard kernel buried deep in my heart. This seed had no name and would not bloom for many a year. On that day I was awakened to another kind of truth. My eyes were opened in another way.
No one was there to help him, not even Jesus who loved all the little children of the world. Jesus did not help him on that day. Was the burned boy precious in His sight?
The question never formed on my lips or even in my mind. It was just a passing hint of uncertainty, just a flutter in my heart. It was nothing more than a fragrance born on the wind of grief, but it was just enough and not too much.
Just enough. And not too much.
If the burned boy is still alive, he is in his early 40s, like me. I'm sure he doesn't remember the day our eyes met. I am only one of the thousands of people who have stared at him. He's been the burned boy for 35 years now.
He's just about halfway done.

rlp