The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(9)

“I said, get Sam some paper and colored markers.”

Emily looked to my mother, whose eyebrows arched. “Right. Markers. Sure, not a problem.”

I remember thinking it must have been everyone’s break time, because a considerable number of people came into the lunchroom while I was drawing and eating my snack. By the time my mother and Dan finally returned, I had filled three sheets of blank paper with multiple drawings. Dan was now wearing a checked sports coat.

“Don’t you worry,” he said, giving my mother another hug, though thankfully not another kiss. “We’ll take care of it.”





11

That evening I was in my room feeling a certain dread, though I’m equally certain I could not have fully understood what was transpiring. When my mother called me down to dinner, I closed the book I was supposed to be reading and walked to the bathroom across the hall. I rinsed my hands under the tap and dried them on my pants, sprinkling water on the soap in the dish in case my mother checked. Standing at the sink, I looked into the mirror and stared at the two red circles gazing back at me. It is my first recollection of looking upon my reflection and wondering why I was different.

“Devil Boy,” I said, despite my mother’s admonition not to listen to a word Sister Beatrice had said. How could I not? I’d been standing right there when she’d said it.

“Devil Boy,” I said again, leaning closer to my reflection. “Devil Boy.”

“Samuel, I am not going to call you again!”

I turned off the bathroom light and hurried downstairs. My father, seated in his recliner, motioned me over as I jumped down the final two steps. “I hear you had quite the day,” he whispered. “You know, Jefferson Elementary”—where I had attended kindergarten—“is a very good school. I spoke to the principal, and they’d be delighted to have you continue there.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

My father winked. “These things have a way of working themselves out, Sam. No use rocking the boat—you only take on more water.”

At that, my mother pronounced dinner served, and my father and I proceeded to the kitchen.

My mother sanctified our dinner ritual as much as our attendance at Mass. Our evening meal began promptly after my father finished his Manhattan. As in church, we each had our assigned places at the table. We did not begin passing food until after we had joined hands and said grace. Upon uttering “Amen,” I was to take my napkin and place it in my lap while my mother commenced serving. I was not allowed to slouch or put my elbows on the table, and I was expected to liberally use the words please and thank you. Can I was forbidden. “May I,” my mother would correct. Dinner conversation also had a set of rules. We were expected to discuss our days, though not anything “unsettling.”

“It will disrupt your digestion,” my mother would say.

Despite these regulations, I recall our dinners together fondly. I enjoyed hearing my father discuss the comings and goings at the pharmacy, and I wanted very much to someday follow in his footsteps.

When we entered the kitchen this evening, however, my father came to a sudden stop, staring at our black-and-white portable television with rabbit-ear antennae on the Formica counter. I had last seen it the day my father placed it in the hall closet, replacing it with the RCA Victor in the living room. I would have found it less unusual had a bear walked in at that moment and sat at the table. So, apparently, would have my father.

“We’re eating dinner with the TV on?” my father asked.

“I want to watch the news.” My mother set a bowl of green beans on the table without further explanation for this serious breach in dinner protocol. “Samuel, did you wash your hands?”

“Yes.”

“With soap?”

I looked to my father, but he remained dumbstruck by the television.

“Go into the bathroom and use soap,” my mother said.

I used the bathroom just beneath the staircase and again considered my eyes in the mirror. They looked the same as they had that morning, but I didn’t feel the same. All of this breach in protocol was upsetting my stomach.

My father had taken his customary seat, but my mother continued to break tradition, sitting where I normally sat to better view the television.

She pointed to her usual chair. “You sit there tonight, Samuel.”

She reached across the table and grabbed my hand, and I took my father’s to complete the circle. After saying grace, my mother passed me a plate of fried chicken. I took a leg while sneaking a glance over my shoulder at the television. “Put your napkin in your lap,” she said.

“Is there something in particular you’re interested in watching?” my father asked.

My mother passed him the green beans as a washed-out image of Walter Cronkite looked into the camera and signed off. “And that’s the way it is, September 4, 1963.”

I assume the channel went to commercial, because I recall asking, “Can I have the potatoes?”

“Please pass the potatoes,” my mother corrected.

“Please pass the potatoes,” I said.

My father got as far as picking up the bowl when the local newscast began.

“Today in Burlingame a Catholic school denied admittance to a young boy because he was born with a rare genetic condition that causes the irises of his eyes to be red.”