From Lo-ruhama Ochoa

“Thomas Bej…er um, Tom Be-ja-grr…um”

His new fourth grade teacher stumbled and stammered through his last name. After two more tries Tom finally took pity on her and declared his presence, “here.”

“Oh, how do you say your name, dearie?”
“Bay-grow-its”
…
“You can call me Tom B.”

With that said and done the teacher continued down the list of students. Swiping at his hair trying to ineffectually keep it out of his eyes, Tom listened to roll call with half an ear always ready to hear a new name. He supposed there was always a chance that there was a chance every September that he would meet a kid with a name as unique as his own.

“Karen Jones. Freddy Knolls. Phillip...”

The same names that he’s gone to school with his whole life.

“…Randy Smith”

Randy? Tom looked up from doodling on his folder, which was filled with circles and slashes that to an untrained eye might have looked like a family of small onion people. Scanning the class, his eyes fixed on the kid in the torn sneakers, swinging his legs back and forth. Torn-sneakers kid was hunched over in his seat and was quickly tearing up small pieces of paper and popping them into his mouth. A straw lay discretely by his elbow.

Randy had been in Ms. Ohara’s class last year. Tom had been in Mrs. Jensen’s. The two classes had shared a wall and occasionally Mrs. Jensen’s class could hear the shrieks and stern lectures coming from next door. Somehow everyone knew that Randy had been the cause.

Tom turned back to his drawing, adding some dots and dark shadowing to the second largest “onion person.” A girl’s shriek followed by a couple of boys’ appreciative laughter broke Tom’s reverie.

Tom smiled. Oh yes, Randy would be fun.

***

After school, Tom headed home forgoing the nice sidewalk path that most children took for the uneven dirt path that crossed through two abandoned lots and a tiny forest of knee high weeds. One of the lots that he walked through also contained an abandoned manufacturing factory that used to make colorful ceramic garden gnomes, judging by the amount of fragmented gnomes (who had unfortunately met their demise through the stomps and rock-throwing of many a neighborhood child) and a large sign that read Mr. Reddings Happy Gnomes, Grown Here.

Tom was technically not allowed to go inside the factory, yet how could he resist the allure of past times and the imagination of what had been? It was simply too much to ask for of a lone child. But today he would not enter the factory. He was to be good this week; he had a shiny new baseball card hanging in the balance. This week he would not break the rules.

As were the ways of temptation, having just reaffirmed his decision to be good, Tom was pulled towards the factory by a child’s manic laughter. Someone was having great fun inside the factory, and here Tom was, having only a moderate amount of fun, walking outside the factory. Tom stood indecisive just outside the large opening that was once the main door. He could still hear laughter as it echoed off the cavernous factory floor room but could not discern who was having so much fun since his eyes could not cut through the shadows. As Tom thought over the consequences of his actions, he found that his feet had already crossed the doorway and were fast approaching the origin of the laughter.

It only took 3 more steps to realize that Randy was the one making all that raucous. Tom stood and watched Randy as he ran and slid across an old conveyor belt. Some old crates and one giant gnome stood at various intervals along the conveyer belt and Randy nimbly leaped over each one. Even at a young age, Tom knew that probably wasn’t very smart.

Having spotted Tom, Randy called out to him.

“Hey Tom, wanna play?” he asked, patting the giant gnome’s tummy, which he had recently jumped over, “we can race.”

As a young boy, Tom wasn’t really prepared to walk away from a race. Especially if the reason was because he was pretty sure he would break his neck if he tried. Tom shook his head and scuffed his foot as if the idea of racing on a conveyer belt riddled with crates and gnomes was too beneath him to even contemplate. His only hope lay in that Randy would not dare him.

“Want me to give you a tattoo?” Tom offered, hoping to distract him. Randy nodded and jumped off, Tom uncapped his blue pen in preparation.

As Tom drew a picture of a skull with flames coming out of its mouth on Randy’s bicep, Tom began to tell him about why he should really recycle his coke bottles instead of leaving them on neighbor’s doorsteps and that soy chicken nuggets taste just like real chicken nuggets

“Tom,” Randy began, “you’re kinda weird, you know that?”

“Yea.”

“You think you’ll ever be normal?”

“Maybe, like when I’m 40.”

“Doubt it.”

Tom shrugged and added one more squiggle to the skull, then signed it tom b.

***

Happy Birthday Tom!