no.23 - Rattail

Rattail, who ambles around the playground in sweat pants with his inexplicably out of date Anakin Skywalker/80's hair, has a special status in our household. He is known as "that mean boy." He is the boy who introduced my daughter to cruelty.

What he did was very small, and would not be worthy of more than a minute's attention, but for his intentions.

All he did was break a stick.

Last summer, my daughter, who was then two, found stick one day on the playground. Nothing to you or me, but to her it was a magic maker, a bat, and a tree all at once. She walked up to Rattail, a six year old boy playing alone in the sandbox, and said proudly to him, "Look at my stick."

He looked. Then he calmly took the stick out of her hands, snapped it in half with grin of satisfaction and waited for her to cry.

But she did not cry. My daughter was dumbfounded. She has been pushed and kicked and had things taken from her on the playground before — this is just the way it is being a kid — but I think she always understood the logic under the actions, even if she disagreed. This was different. This was done specifically to make her unhappy.

Since the day Rattail broke her stick, my daughter has not forgotten. She wants to know what to do if she sees Rattail again and he tries to break her stick. No doubt she is wondering what to do now that she knows the world has such people in it.

I must keep in mind that he is twice her age and size and apparently unencumbered by my daughter's sense of right and wrong, or parents who can be expected to do more than indulge him. He is a kid we know is willing to kick his own father in the face in the course of a tantrum and feel nothing about it. We've seen this, together, my daughter and I.

I must also keep in mind that I want to teach her the right thing because I want to tell her to kick him in the balls but I know this is not correct.

"Tell him no." I say. I don't want her to fear him. I don't want him to win.

"I will tell him 'NO!'" she says loudly.

"And I will keep you safe." I explain, but buzzing in the back of my mind is the ugly reality that this will not always be true.

Yesterday, when little Rattail walked by us in the library, his rat tail was gone. His sweatpants and sour face remained. My daughter did not notice him. She remembers what he did, but not who he is. Perhaps this is for the best.