Thomas Will Tell You

Thomas will tell you adamantly that he’s five years old, although he just turned four last month. He is an amazingly willful little boy, solemn and composed. He’s never thrown a tantrum. The bright spark of exceptional intelligence lights his muddy brown eyes from within, and his habit of flipping his longish brown hair from his eyes, casually, with his left hand, is eerily adult.

Thomas will tell you that his mother is rich, although she can be observed at the Food Stamp office on the second Wednesday of each month, picking up the coupon booklets that allow her to feed Thomas and his brother. His clothes hang on him loosely; the always-fresh scabs on his knees brushed lightly by the strings of the unravelling cut-off jeans in which he dresses himself every day, while his mother prepares for work. The jeans, and his baggy striped shirt, were almost certainly his brother’s before they were his. Only the fluorescent-green striped Keds on Thomas’ feet have been his from the beginning. Thomas’ older brother plays basketball on the asphalt courts the next block over, and the shoes he wears are worn out too quickly from screeching drives to rusty, netless iron hoops to make serviceable hand-me-downs for Thomas.

Thomas will tell you that his cat is named Aloha (which, he’ll inform you solemnly, means both “hello” and “good-bye” in Hawaii, where Aloha was born). The Superintendent doesn’t allow pets, so you’ll never see Aloha, although you might observe Thomas stroking the cat as he sits alone in the stairwell, and, if you ask him, he’ll describe Aloha for you.

The cat is small, Thomas will tell you, because if he wasn’t, Mr. Brigg, the Super, would see him for sure, and make Thomas return Aloha to Hawaii. Aloha has the thick, soft mane of a lion, but he’s striped orange and black like a tiger. Aloha never bites, though, Thomas will tell you, quickly and with earnest. Aloha never hurts him. The cat lost his tail when Thomas’ older brother slammed the apartment door too hard once. The bruise on Thomas’ thumb, finally fading unevenly past yellow into obscurity, was made there because Thomas’ fingers were also trapped between the door and the frame. His thumb, though, wasn’t hurt nearly as bad as Aloha’s tail, which was cut off — snick — just like that. Thomas will tell you that his brother slammed the door too hard accidentally.

Thomas is going to be a dentist when he grows up, like his father, although Thomas’ father, who is only around once or twice a month, wears the grease-stained fatigues and embroidered name patch of the garage down the street. Thomas will tell you that he loves his father, and that’s the word he will use: “father.” Not “daddy” or “dad.” His father can see Aloha, Thomas will confide; his father can even hear Aloha purring, sometimes.

Thomas will tell you that his friends are visiting their aunties. All of them are visiting their aunties. His friends, aren’t rich like Thomas, though, not even those whose older brothers play basketball at the same courts down the street as Thomas’ older brother. His friends, most of them, anyway, are, in fact, very poor. He seems very sad when he reveals this fact, and again becomes strangely adult. Thomas doesn’t think God should make poor people.

Thomas will tell you that it’s time for his lunch, now. He has to heat up some soup in a golden pot, to go with the peanut-butter and jelly sandwich that his mother made for him before she left for work this morning. And after he eats his soup and his sandwich, Thomas has to wash the dishes, ’cause it doesn’t matter how rich you are, he reveals, if you don’t keep the dishes washed, you’ll still get bugs. Thomas’ mother doesn’t like bugs. In fact, Thomas’ mother hates bugs. So he has to go, if you’ll excuse him? Thomas just assumes that Aloha will follow.

He’s probably right.

THE END