Park Bully

The last time I published this story was 3 weeks before the 2020 presidential election, when we were all holding our collective breath, hoping Biden would win. And he did! Like a bad dream, Trump has come back into our lives, holding court, destroying the White House, chopping off heads, ruining thousands of lives just because he feels like it. He's a grown up version of Eddie. So here it is again, I hope for the last time. One year down, three to go unless the entire country has had enough of his bullying and can figure out a way stop him.

Park Bully

Eddie is the park bully at age four. He throws sand, squishes castles, pinches arms, pushes babies and ignores his mother's pleas to be a good boy.  Bad boy Eddie is the scapegoat of Goudy playground, the source of all angst, beyond control and blamed for any bad behavior that the other children exhibit. No one intervenes or supports this family.  Instead, we whisper maliciously behind Eddie's mom's back and wish they would move away so we could read and visit in the park in peace.

"What's the matter with her? I''m ready to strangle that brat."

"Doesn't she know anything? She's creating a monster."

"She's such a wimp.  Like a mouse."

This particular day is Max Berger's fourth birthday and the entire park contingent of moms and children are seated in the Berger living room. A young singer-guitar player, wearing blue jeans and a pony tail, is seated center-floor and invites everyone to join in the refrain to "Puff the Magic Dragon." Eddie, positioned two feet from the tip of the guitar tilts his head back, puffs up his chest and blows his paper horn with vigor. Now we cannot hear the singer, the children, our own voices.  Only Eddie's horn, blaring away.  The child has lungs.

Every mother is silently steaming, smoke rising above our heads. Some of the children cover their ears. Eddie's mother moves towards the hallway. She's given her third unsuccessful plea and is about to cry.  Eddie blasts the room, drowning out the entertainer. I tiptoe my way through the children seated on the floor, legs crossed, hands folded in laps, all eyes focused on the music man. I kneel down next to Eddie and whisper in his ear, spitting out each word.

"Blow that horn again and I'll take it away.  You will never see it again."

Eddie slams the horn into his lap and sits up as if I have prodded him in the back with an ice-cold pole. I sit on the floor directly behind him and watch as he places the horn on the floor in the space between his crossed legs and covers it with his hand. His mother collapses into a nearby chair looking visibly relieved. Almost everyone enjoys the last the of concert.

We leave en masse.  Eddie's mother does not ask what I said to her son and I do not offer, a misguided sense of privacy shutting both of our mouths.  On the walk home, my neighbor asks what I said to make Eddie stop, finally.  She and I laugh together over this victory, flattening Eddie's mother into a cardboard cutout. Years later I will regret not offering my hand in friendship and support to the park bully's mom.

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And now we all know what happens when a sandbox bully grows up without limits, structure and consequences. He intimidates, threatens and blows his horn at everyone around him. Trump is our park bully. May the Constitution, the Supreme Court and Congress finally set the limits that put Trump back in his room with the door shut!

Goudy Square on Chicago's Near North Side