Undiagnosed ADD Becomes Adult Catastrophe

The early
morning sun tinges a
collared, tieless white shirt,
grey dress pants and black shoes,
suitably transforming the small figure
standing framed by the bedroom mirror into
a traveler on his way to an important meeting.




It is the warm and sunny fall of early 1962.
The second week of kindergarden
begins in an hour as she bends
to tie his shoes.
"No, wait!"
He declares
independently,
"I can do it myself!"

"So you think you can tie
your shoes yourself, heh?
Maybe somewhere in
your mind you can!"
Reaching down he
repeats the

lacing
patterns
he studied
each morning
the prior week.
First, the left shoe,
then right; snugly tied
lacings loop perfect bows.
She reaches to brush his hair.
"I can fix my own hair myself!"

He takes the hairbrush from her
as a smile replaces his pouted lips.
Animation is trampled by the anger in
her impatient words: "For Christ's sake,
little girls comb their hair on the right!
Do you want to look like one of them?
You god-damned glom! Come here!"

Brusque strokes whip the hair
back over his head, but it
still does not look right.
He picks up the comb
and changes it once
more to his liking
not hers.

Soon
he will
be at school
in another world
of classrooms where
they help the teacher
churn butter or pretend to
nap at noon and have books

inside brown paper jackets with
drawings of disc jockeys Carl DeSuze,
'Jucie Brucie' Bradley and Dave Maynard
and donated by WBZ-AM right up the street.
His wildest dreams exclude meeting, let alone
rubbing elbows daily with them, but twelve years
later he will work at 'BZ's FM station in their midst.

He resembles himself once more and is content about it.
Muttering disgust at his inability to properly groom himself,
she declares he can go wherever he wants looking like an idiot,
then leaves him, her bombastic stomps echoing down the hallway.

It's the first time this deeper aspect of her character reveals itself, and
is opposite the love and good wishes sent with him all last week.
The well-concealed narcissism in her personality misconstrues
a simple desire to 'look right' as willful defiance;
an affront so egregious as to rationalize future
lifelong physical and emotional harms.

Varying by intensity and degrees,
her seven children will grow
up impaired under the
whimsical ravages
of her devious
abberrations.

But this one
spawns pure rage
in his quiet meekness
and timidity; they undermine
her pleasure at getting any kind of
rise from him, infuriating her to no end.
The magnitude of her displeasure at his assertive
independence on this day sets the tone in relationship
that will resonate through the remainder of both their lives.