This description is completely true and describes a child whom God touched. He was not my family, but like it, close to my heart because he was close by proximity. His name was Joshua. When Joshua was an toddler, and his brother, Adam, a littler older than that, I would pick them up from day care on my way home from school and spend weekday afternoons in their apartment, across the hall from my own, much of the time with my homework set aside. They’d be in their jammies by the time their mother returned from work. On weekends they would be with their father.
I learned more observing these boys’ interactions than I ever could have from all the procrastinated grade ten civics lessons. Even at this young age Jacob knew his brother lacked the intuition that made functioning on the playground possible. He knew his brother lacked a certain fundamental intelligence, an inborn knowledge that allowed society to exist. He knew his brother did not understand what made people mean, why some thrived on cruel acts, and so he knew his brother needed protection.
Adam was a very smart boy and tried to impart these lessons on his brother. He would snatch up all the toys and horde them, and he would forbid Joshua from playing with them. Instead of taking back what was his or arguing, he watched television. If Adam forbade that, claiming the airwaves as his territory as well, Joshua would sit in front of the set, the screen blank, and rock back and forth gently humming to himself.
I would intervene, redistribute the toys and scold Adam for being a selfish child. Adam would maintain innocence in his childish way, say it wasn’t his fault, say Joshua needed to learn to fend for himself. But every opportunity that Adam presented, Joshua allowed to pass unrecognized.
One evening years later, when both children had entered the gauntlet of the local public elementary, I was charged with the task of delivering Joshua to his brother’s end of the year soccer party at a nearby arcade, the family-oriented type with a band of animatronic creatures on stage and greasy pizza. Joshua was a reticent boy, so to get him to talk I’d ask him open ended questions. So, Joshua, I said. What’s life all about?
Is it about homework? he asked me with a furrowed brow. He was hoping for a smart answer, an answer that seemed right. By this age school had taught him there was smart answers and dumb ones and he often could not differentiate the two.
Is it? I said. Is that what life’s all about?
He turned forward and stared out the windshield, and this, I thought, signaled the end of our conversation. We did not talk. The only sound was the sound of our traveling. However, several miles later, he spoke again. He looked at me and said, It’s all about love and care, isn’t it.
It took me a moment to understand his meaning. Joshua might have struggled for the smart answers, but this, I think, is perhaps the most insightful, concise description of Life I’ve ever heard. I said, Yes, you are exactly right. Love and care.
We arrived in the arcade, and there were noise and lights. I held Joshua’s hand as we made our between racing kids, their engines overdriven from sugary caffeinated soft drinks. In the back, beside the skeeball, was the soccer team. Even from across the room, I could see Adam was in command, the center of attention, the other kids vying for his affection. When Adam saw us approaching he crossed over to us. He gave me a high-five and gave Joshua a hug. I saved you a seat next to me, he said to his brother. He took Joshua by the hand a led him back to the table. As he departed, Adam said to me, you can sit with the other grown ups. He indicated a table where the other adults sat forlorn, nursing headaches.
Joshua seemed reluctant to socialize. These boys were the same ones who made him realize there were smart answers and dumb ones, made him ashamed that he could not throw a baseball. When one boy recognized Joshua as such and intimated that he might at some point during the evening cry, Adam castigated the boy and, through his actions, ostracized him. The other boys fell in line.
After the pizza had been demolished, and the pitchers of root beer guzzled away, the tyrants mined their parents for every last coin and monopolized the popular game machines. Adam dominated the air hockey competition, racked up fistfuls of tickets at skeeball. He so intently focused on the win that he lost his brother.
Other children laughed and screamed, bouncing and splashing each other with the orbs of multi-colored plastic, but I found Joshua sitting alone in one corner of the crowed ball pit. Chest deep, he seemed to be meditating, his eyes introverted, not seeing the action exploding all around him. I called him over to me and placed in his palm a dollar in quarters. Go play, I told him.
He wandered through the arcade and watched others play. He observed the machines with a reserved distance like they were artifacts from an arcane culture, their purpose eluding him. He approached the whack-a-mole, finally decisive, but another group of boys arrived, and he deferred to them. The group crowed around, each taking two assigned holes, one for each fist. When the mole popped up, the requisite boy clobbered it. The boys congratulated themselves on the long tongue of tickets their win produced. When Joshua saw that the point of the game involved violent action he retreated.
Joshua found himself in front of a pinball machine, standing on a chair. He inserted a coin, and the table loudly lit up, startled him, and he fell off. He abandoned the game, and another child climbed up to play.
At some point that evening I lost sight of him, but he found me. His eyes smiled and he seemed to be vibrating with happiness. I saw a boy, he said, and he only had one quarter, but I had three, so I gave him one of mine, and then we were the same because we both had two.
At last, the realization that math has more than smart and dumb answers; it has altruistic applications. He asked me if I had any quarters left.
I told him that I did not.
He held out his hand and revealed fifty cents. He gave one of the quarters to me and smiled. Now we’re the same, he said. He wandered off.
I looked at the quarter he gave to me which I guess in a way was my own to begin with. Above the head of Washington was the word LIBERTY, and below was stamped the year of my birth.
