For a very brief time I was a substitute teacher at a Montessori school. For a few months, I taught fourth through sixth graders as their regular teacher was on maternity leave. After that few months I did on-call subbing. There was this little boy – a little man – blonde, moppy head of hair, little round-lens glasses – picture the kid from Jerry McGuire only daintier, cuter, and nerdier and in real life. He was always happy and excited and if you didn’t want to to scoop him up for a cuddle, I would have knocked your teeth out. Yeah, he was that cute. I was reminded of him today. A kid’s backpack abandoned on the freeway was all it took.
The backpack on the freeway was a little pink plaid thing with wheels. His was yellow and blue and red and green and black, I vaguely remember a pattern but the important thing was its size. That damn backpack was gi-normous compared to him. It had wheels too and thank goodness cause it was almost as tall as he was. I can see him dragging it up the stairs in the morning and back down at the end of the day .Goddammit, that little kid was adorable.