The Incident

My daughter’s fifth birthday party was over and I was at the gate with a friend chatting before we said goodbye. As I remember it now, it was about six o’clock on a beautiful summer’s evening, some of the neighborhood children were moving around us as we exchanged views and I was tired but happy after the party, but everything was great. As we stood there, a little neighbor girl was riding her bicycle up and down the road in that carefree summer way. On about her third pass it happened.

I was standing facing the street while leaning into my friend’s car talking when out the corner of my eye I see another neighbor boy from behind his father’s car which was parked on the opposite side of the road, throw a stone. It was almost as if time stood still. I shouted out, “what is he doing” because as I stood there, I knew that stone was aimed at and was going to hit the cycling girl. I wrenched my body around just in time to see the little girl fall from her bike, blood beginning to flow from a fresh wound on her neck; all of a sudden I was in the middle of an incident.

My friend jumped out of her car at the sound of my alarm and the child who was behind his father’s car turned took to his heel and beat a hasty retreat inside his house, slamming the front door behind him. It was on and I saw it all!! All I could think of was, supposed that was my child who got hit as I ran to assist the little girl. She was already crying as I dispatched her home and told her to go to her mother and show her the gash on her neck immediately, thinking that it did not seem so bad.

What followed was total melee. The father came down the road to speak to the parents of the errant boy. There was a shouting match, the mother of the boy swore that her son did nothing and encouraged the child to say that I, an adult, did not see anything and was lying, the father of the boy declared that his son played football and baseball and therefore was a child of integrity, but interestingly enough this was enough to attest to the accuracy of the boy’s aim. They blamed another little boy who was no where near when the incident occurred but more regrettable that that they did not allow the child to take responsibility for a momentary lapse in judgment. In their yen to protect him from any perceived legal consequences, they left him to live with his conscience an act which sometimes can be far more damning.

The neighborhood was never the same after that, the white elephant created looms large over our community. Children stopped interacting. The family of the little girl put their house up for sale. The boy’s family moved away. I still have occasion to see that little boy and when I do he slinks into a corner, his posture becomes all droopy and his eyes fall to the ground. It always makes me wonder what his self esteem is like. I also wonder, if his parents had let him admit to his error and deal with the fall out how different things would have been? Sadly we will never know.