LJ Idol, Season 9 - Week 10
title: Silence
topic: If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time.
Harley Coleman is fourteen years old when his dad is killed in Iraq. The vice-principal pulls him out of math class and escorts him to the office, where his best friend Corbin's Grandma Ida is waiting. She's been taking care of him while his dad is overseas, and he knows from her face that something is wrong.
She drives him back to her house in her old Buick, but she won't tell him what happened until after they go inside and there are two men in military uniforms - officers, he's sure - sitting in the den with one of Grandma Ida's neighbors.
Harley barely hears the officers when they tell him, calmly and with great sympathy, that his dad has been killed in action.
They give him his dad's dog tags. He puts them around his neck, says "Thank you", and those are the last words to come out of his mouth for two weeks.
He's quiet all through the funeral, the wake, his return to school. Teachers call on him in class and he just looks at them, whether he knows the answers to their questions or not, until they call on someone else. His science teacher, exasperated, sends him to the vice-principal. His math teacher has him come up to the front of the room to write his answers on the blackboard, so he can demonstrate proficiency without having to break his silence.
Kids tread carefully around him, as if his tragedy and his grief might be catching. Corbin tells him that the other boys think he's weird because he stopped talking. Harley just shrugs. He doesn't care what people think. He has nothing to say that anyone wants to hear.
He just wants his dad back.
The fact that his dad is never coming home feels to him as if a gaping hole has opened in the world, a hole too vast and too deep to comprehend. There is nothing anyone can say or do to close it. There is nothing he can say to explain it. He has always been a self-contained boy - he has always worked things out in his head, by himself - and even though he cannot look at his dad's death, sideways or head-on, he can try to come to terms with it. And it is easier for him to do that if he can pull back into his own head and just not talk to anyone.
Corbin, alone among the people in Harley's life, talks to him without any expectation of a response, and he is grateful. Even Grandma Ida sometimes seems as if she's waiting for him to say something to her.
And then one day a woman comes to the house. Harley and Corbin are sitting in the den trying to put a puzzle together, and they both hear her tell Grandma Ida that she's a child psychologist, didn't Major Hansen tell them she was coming, would Harley talk to her?
Corbin looks curiously at Harley, who shrugs. Will he talk to her? No. He hasn't said a word to the people he knows and loves - the people who know and love him - so what makes her think he'll talk to a stranger?
"I don't think it will make a difference," they can hear Grandma Ida tell the woman. "It's only been ten days, Ms Page. He just needs some time. I suggested he write his father a letter, and I think that helped."
"May I talk to him?" the woman - Ms Page - asks, for at least the second time.
"No," Corbin says under his breath, poking through the puzzle pieces. Harley can't help but grin, just a little.
"With all due respect," Grandma Ida says, "I think it would be a waste of everyone's time."
Harley goes into the kitchen. He doesn't even want to meet this woman. He won't talk to her and he doesn't know why it's so important to her that he does. Corbin follows him through the kitchen and out the back door and behind the woodpile. They sit on the ground and look at each other.
"You don't want to talk to her, do you," Corbin says, almost whispering. It isn't even a question.
Harley shakes his head.
"That's ok. We'll just hide out here until she leaves. Grandma's gonna be mad, but whatever. She should know you're not gonna talk to anyone."
They tilt their heads in the direction of the back door, listening for someone to come out of the house and call their names. No one does. Harley is relieved.
Eventually they hear Grandma Ida - "Harley! Corbin! Come inside and set the table!" - and go back in the house, to where she's standing by the kitchen counter shaping ground meat into patties.
"Who was that?" Corbin asks.
"The Army sent her," Grandma Ida says, not looking up from her patties. "Took some work to get rid of her, let me tell you." She looks at Harley. "Nothing's going to help you but time and love."
He nods. He knows she understands that much about his grief, even if she can't begin to comprehend his silence.
He'll come out of it when he comes out of it. He can be very stubborn when he reaches a decision. He has decided to hold his tongue, and to sit with his grief on his own, and to keep a lid on his simple answers to people's complicated questions, and when he is ready to talk, he will.
topic: If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time.
Harley Coleman is fourteen years old when his dad is killed in Iraq. The vice-principal pulls him out of math class and escorts him to the office, where his best friend Corbin's Grandma Ida is waiting. She's been taking care of him while his dad is overseas, and he knows from her face that something is wrong.
She drives him back to her house in her old Buick, but she won't tell him what happened until after they go inside and there are two men in military uniforms - officers, he's sure - sitting in the den with one of Grandma Ida's neighbors.
Harley barely hears the officers when they tell him, calmly and with great sympathy, that his dad has been killed in action.
They give him his dad's dog tags. He puts them around his neck, says "Thank you", and those are the last words to come out of his mouth for two weeks.
He's quiet all through the funeral, the wake, his return to school. Teachers call on him in class and he just looks at them, whether he knows the answers to their questions or not, until they call on someone else. His science teacher, exasperated, sends him to the vice-principal. His math teacher has him come up to the front of the room to write his answers on the blackboard, so he can demonstrate proficiency without having to break his silence.
Kids tread carefully around him, as if his tragedy and his grief might be catching. Corbin tells him that the other boys think he's weird because he stopped talking. Harley just shrugs. He doesn't care what people think. He has nothing to say that anyone wants to hear.
He just wants his dad back.
The fact that his dad is never coming home feels to him as if a gaping hole has opened in the world, a hole too vast and too deep to comprehend. There is nothing anyone can say or do to close it. There is nothing he can say to explain it. He has always been a self-contained boy - he has always worked things out in his head, by himself - and even though he cannot look at his dad's death, sideways or head-on, he can try to come to terms with it. And it is easier for him to do that if he can pull back into his own head and just not talk to anyone.
Corbin, alone among the people in Harley's life, talks to him without any expectation of a response, and he is grateful. Even Grandma Ida sometimes seems as if she's waiting for him to say something to her.
And then one day a woman comes to the house. Harley and Corbin are sitting in the den trying to put a puzzle together, and they both hear her tell Grandma Ida that she's a child psychologist, didn't Major Hansen tell them she was coming, would Harley talk to her?
Corbin looks curiously at Harley, who shrugs. Will he talk to her? No. He hasn't said a word to the people he knows and loves - the people who know and love him - so what makes her think he'll talk to a stranger?
"I don't think it will make a difference," they can hear Grandma Ida tell the woman. "It's only been ten days, Ms Page. He just needs some time. I suggested he write his father a letter, and I think that helped."
"May I talk to him?" the woman - Ms Page - asks, for at least the second time.
"No," Corbin says under his breath, poking through the puzzle pieces. Harley can't help but grin, just a little.
"With all due respect," Grandma Ida says, "I think it would be a waste of everyone's time."
Harley goes into the kitchen. He doesn't even want to meet this woman. He won't talk to her and he doesn't know why it's so important to her that he does. Corbin follows him through the kitchen and out the back door and behind the woodpile. They sit on the ground and look at each other.
"You don't want to talk to her, do you," Corbin says, almost whispering. It isn't even a question.
Harley shakes his head.
"That's ok. We'll just hide out here until she leaves. Grandma's gonna be mad, but whatever. She should know you're not gonna talk to anyone."
They tilt their heads in the direction of the back door, listening for someone to come out of the house and call their names. No one does. Harley is relieved.
Eventually they hear Grandma Ida - "Harley! Corbin! Come inside and set the table!" - and go back in the house, to where she's standing by the kitchen counter shaping ground meat into patties.
"Who was that?" Corbin asks.
"The Army sent her," Grandma Ida says, not looking up from her patties. "Took some work to get rid of her, let me tell you." She looks at Harley. "Nothing's going to help you but time and love."
He nods. He knows she understands that much about his grief, even if she can't begin to comprehend his silence.
He'll come out of it when he comes out of it. He can be very stubborn when he reaches a decision. He has decided to hold his tongue, and to sit with his grief on his own, and to keep a lid on his simple answers to people's complicated questions, and when he is ready to talk, he will.