When I read
To Kill A Mocking Bird in elementary school, I knew exactly what
Boo Radley looked like. You could have asked any kid in my
neighborhood and we’d all tell you the same thing, because as far as we were concerned we had our own
Boo right over on Claremont Street.
Our Boo’s face was smooth where his right eye should have been and he had a big knot where his left ear should have been. At least, that’s what we had heard, ‘cause really, none of us had really ever seen him. One of the older boys had though and he had told us. And then there was that one time when Jimmy Maloney had climbed all the way to the top of
The Magnolia and said he could see him fussing around in his
backyard. Jimmy got so excited that he lost his grip and fell, breaking an arm and a leg.
Sometimes we would
ring his doorbell then hide behind his neighbor’s car in the hopes that he would come out. But usually all we would see was
the curtain slide open and closed.
Then, one fall day, for some reason, our
curiosity turned into
contempt. All that autumn we threw
pinecones at his house. Then, that winter we threw
snowballs. In the spring we came to his house with armfuls of
ginkgo tree fruit to throw.
And through all this the only response we would see from him was a slight wave of the curtains.
When the summer came around, we started to
moon him. I’m not sure why.
It just seemed like the right thing to do. For some reason, this got his attention a bit more. We would hear him
laughing and
laughing as soon as we’d drop our shorts.
It was a
deep,
heartfelt laugh, but there was always something off about it. As a
kid I couldn’t quite place what it was, but looking back, I think I could hear something almost
sinister - sort of. Not scary or threatening, just
like he knew something that we never would know.