Seeing as how I’ve shared a fond memory of my father, it’s only fair to recall a story about my mother. Which is surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be (as there are a certainly plenty to choose from) because there are a great many I don’t wish to share, and a few more that I’m sure she would prefer me not to share as well. But here goes nothing.
Many years ago, my sister, brother and I were involved in a youth theater group. Although I did have many great times as a member of that group, it was lead by a man who later turned out to be a pedophile, thus tainting any joy or love I may have had for those times. But that’s another story for another day.
The group (who shall remain nameless for this story) performed shitty reviews of songs based on a theme (“The Sounds of America!”, “Did someone say Ragtime?”, that sort of thing), and the cast consisted of attention-starved children, semi-talented kids from ages 9-18 (I must stress that I most certainly fall within this category, which is why I declare it as such).
One of the performers, who for the purposes of this story shall be called “The Ninja” (just because it sounds cooler. Thank you HIMYM), was an awkward boy with a severe speech impediment, a stutter, and absolutely no rhythm whatsoever. In fact, when he danced, it seemed as if his skin was desperately trying to prevent his skeleton from leaping out of his insides in some sort of internal prison break.
Now, I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in a theater group of any kind, but it usually consists of a band of outcasts (no one ever turns down being captain of the cheerleading squad or the football team for the opportunity to sing “Summer Nights” in front of your fellow classmates). And when you gather a group of outcasts, they usually find outcasts within that group to thrust their personal frustrations and disappointments upon. The Ninjas was our outcast.
A bunch of us (parents included) blatantly mocked him, ideally not within earshot of The Ninja, but I can’t be certain. And soon enough, he became the punchline of many a joke. Which is where our story picks up.
The Ninja lived only a few blocks away, and his parents weren’t the most dependable of people (there was a pretty substantiated rumor that his father had a small crack problem. Awww), so my mother opted to give him a ride home with us after rehearsal one day. Now, this is the same day that one of the popular boys in the cast broke up with my sister. And although he wasn’t the best of catches, she was actually quite upset about the whole situation.
So the ride home went like this: My mother driving, my sister crying in the front seat, and me, my brother, and The Ninja in the back. With my sister crying, my mother’s gut instinct was to make her laugh, and the way she tried to do so was to suggest other cast members she could date–all of whom were known losers in one way or another. It went like this:
“You could go out with Bob Sampson!” (a known bed-wetter)
“Or you could go out with John Kelly!” (clearly very gay)
“Or you could go out with Tim Matthews!” (guy caught masturbating in a gas station bathroom)
This game starts working and we all start laughing, and my mom keeps amping up the names and the delivery to exaggerate her point and stress what losers these guys were, all the while having us all in stitches. That is, until she says,
“Or you could go out with THE NINJA!”
We all stop laughing. The Ninja brings his hands to his head, and assumes a plane-crash position. I (fighting the urge to laugh more so than I’ve ever had to do) put my arm around him and simply say, “There, there buddy”.
My mom, panicked, blurts out,
“OR…OR…YOUR BROTHER! HA HA HA! WOULDN’T THAT BE FUNNY?!?”
But it wasn’t. In fact, although it was only 3 or 4 blocks left to The Ninja’s home, it was the longest 3 or 4 blocks we’d ever driven.
As we pulled up to the house, my mom turns to The Ninja as if the previous 10 minutes were all part of a Dallas-esque dream and says,
“Have good night Ninja! See you next week!”
He smiled and ran (awkwardly) into his house. As soon as the car door slammed, my mother turned to us all and yelled,
“HOW THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW HE WAS BACK THERE?!? HE’S SO GODDAMN QUIET!!!”
My sister didn’t cry the rest of the night.