Painting the House (a true story)
By Bill Schaeffer
April 15, 2004
It was a beautiful Saturday
morning in May and the bright summer sunshine filled the whole house with light
and warmth. Benjamin Samuels was five
years old and his little brother Bradley was two. His mother, Valerie, was seven months
pregnant and was busy working in the kitchen. Ben’s father, Gavin, was a hardworking,
self-made man. He worked as a sales rep
for a manufacturing company and often worked odd jobs on the weekend to pick up
some extra money. On this morning he
was busy preparing to paint the extra room that was to be the new baby’s
nursery.
They all lived in a small
three bedroom house in the Chicago suburbs.
Ben shared the back bedroom with his little brother and on this morning
was playing with blocks on the floor of his room. He was a quiet and thoughtful boy and was
rarely loud or rambunctious like many boys his age. He had few friends and had learned to
entertain himself most of the time. He
was prone to daydreaming and was frequently absent minded and distracted.
From his bedroom Ben could
hear his father rustling the plastic drop cloths and clinking the cans of
paint. After a while Ben grew tired of
his blocks and decided to go outside and play.
He opened to door to his room and started down the hallway to the kitchen.
The baby’s new room was half
way down the hall. Ben’s father was
standing in the doorway bending over a tray of paint. There were plastic tarps all over the floor
and the smell of fresh paint was in the air.
Ben knew better than to bother his father when he was working, but this
was so unusual he couldn’t help but be curious. He walked down the hall, looking in the
extra room with great curiosity, oblivious to everything else. He thought it might be fun to walk through
the room to see what it looked like
All of a sudden he realized
that his father had turned around and was standing up full in front of
him. His father was yelling and
pointing and telling to not go in the room.
Ben thought that was silly. He could walk through the room and not touch anything. His father always thought he was stupid and incapable. He could show his father he wasn't. The sunlight streamed through
the windows illuminating the fresh blue paint on the lower half of the
walls. In a playful moment, Ben ignored his father and tried to run around his fathers legs and into the room.
Then in an instant it
happened. His father grabbed the back
of Ben’s neck with his right hand. Ben
felt the fingers tighten on his neck below his ears. He felt his face strike the door jam with a
tremendous force. A sharp pain struck
and split his lip. And then he was
stunned. It all happened so fast that
Ben just stood there bleeding, helpless.
He didn’t even cry. He just
stood there. There was blood on the
door jam.
Ben’s father called for his
mother and everything moved very fast and confusing. Someone got a rag and Ben held it on his
lip. His father explained to his mother
how it was an accident and soon Ben was riding in the car with his father. They were going to the Doctor’s office.
Ben had been to the Doctor’s
office quite a few times and remembered how nice the Doctor was. At the end of every visit he got to choose a
sucker from a bin. It was always
difficult to decide which color was the best one to pick. These suckers didn’t have a stick like the
ones he got from the store, but had a little loop of twisted paper to hold on
to. He always liked visiting the doctor
because he got a sucker.
But today something was
strange. His father wasn’t taking the
same route that his mother usually took and they drove for a long time. Finally, they pulled up in front of a strange
two story brick building surrounded by many trees. His father parked the car.
Apparently this was the
Doctor’s office. Ben and his father got
out of the car and went inside. They
walked up to the second floor and the nurse showed them into a room. The doctor was a woman and she told Ben to
lay on the table. Then she proceeded to
lay gauze papers on his face and his chest.
His eyes were covered and he couldn’t see a thing. He heard his father explain how the cut was
an accident and Ben just lay there silent.
The nurse took a needle and thread and started to sew up his lip. It really hurt, but Ben was stoic and he lay
there unflinching while the Doctor operated.
Ben’s father became faint and
asked to leave the room. The Doctor
told Mr. Samuels that if he felt faint he should put his head between his legs
so the blood wouldn’t rush out of his head.
Ben lay there in the dark while the Doctor sewed up his lip and his
father sat in a chair with his head between his legs. Finally the operation was over and the
Doctor took the gauze papers off of Ben’s face.
This doctor didn’t have any
suckers and Ben didn’t think to ask for one.
On the car drive home he was very quiet. When they arrived at home he saw that his
mother had cleaned the blood off the door jam.
Ben went to his room to lay down and his father started painting the
room again.
For the next several months
whenever the family had company over Mr. And Mrs. Samuels would tell the story of
how Ben accidentally cut his lip and how Mr. Samuels was so faint that he had
to sit with his head between his legs.
Ben would sit quietly and listen to the story. Usually the people would laugh at how stoic
Ben was and how weak his father was. No one
ever asked Ben what he thought. It was
as if he wasn’t even there.
Eventually, his parents
stopped telling the story because they had other, more topical, stories to
share with their friends,.
copyright(c)2004, 2014 William Schaeffer
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