FICTION
The Forgotten Boy
A True Story
Please, you can’t ask me his name or how I know him. The truth is, no one really knows him. He’s forgotten so many important things about himself, even he can’t tell you who he is.
He tried to tell me a story once, during a long car ride. We were together for hours. Maybe the rumblings of the wheels on the rolling back roads lulled him, loosened one of the locks on his memory and let something slip free. Maybe he didn’t even know it was happening. Maybe that’s why he didn’t try to stop it.
The catalyst was an old building we passed. It looked just like another old building from the days of his youth when his father raced cars. He would trailer his racer out to the country to secretly test it out at top speed on roads just like these. The boy was told to stay and watch the towing car, hidden behind the old building, until his father returned.
This time, his father came screeching back, a state trooper on his heels. The officer jumped out of his car and began yelling at his father. His father jumped out and yelled back at the trooper. The trooper put handcuffs on his father, arrested him, and took him off to jail, leaving the boy behind.
Did his father say anything to the boy? He couldn’t remember. Did he tell the boy not to worry, that his mother would come for him? He couldn’t remember. Was he old enough to drive? How did he get home? He didn’t know, he didn’t know.
Suddenly, it wasn’t I who was asking questions. They were pouring from his eyes in tears, from his mouth in curses. His arms wrapped his body in twistings across the front seat as if to forbid them — hugging, rocking, folding him forward.
We drove until dark, until the building was miles behind us. We drove until the country became the town, until his eyes were dry and his heart was quiet.
I would have driven further to find the answers. I would have driven back to yesterday and forward to tomorrow to understand how a boy could be abandoned beside a car behind a building where his father left him so completely that he couldn’t even remember how he ever made it home.
I would take him there myself, but it’s too late. It may be enough for now that one person entered with him into the fragile dimension of one memory and traveled in solidarity beside him, all the way through to the other side.
Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations — Luke 22:28
Susan Piper is an author and Christian songwriter involved in full-time nursing home music ministry. Her book, A Blessing Is in It ~ How God Led an Alcoholic, Fame-Seeking Songwriter Into Nursing Home Music Ministry, was released by One King Press in December. Please find her writing at www.onekingpress.com and her music at www.susanpiper.com.
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