Dandelion

by
Elmo Lum

He does no different, of course. Than any other boy. Swish, swish — he whips the switch. Off with all of their heads. Puffing decapitation. Puff, puff. Decapitation. Beheading each dandelion for the unspeakable crime of being a dandelion. Swish, swish. Criminal flowers, off with your heads. One by one. Two by two. Your entire weedy tribe.

When the boy turns ten he will throw his first punch — his first genuine punch, not the half-flinching swinging and flailing he sometimes indulged in before he turned ten. No — at ten he will throw with a purpose. One, then two. His first and second punches into the lip and the cheek of the other boy. His own knuckles will be bloody. But down the other boy will go, his back sliding down the wall, and surrounding them both the semicircle of other kids. The boy’s kids — his audience — his captives. And then the boy will think: Why didn’t I ever do this before?

But not yet — he doesn’t think that yet. For now all he thinks is swish and swish. He has no way of knowing, after all, the oncoming future of any boy. No boy is an oracle, after all — no boy is a sayer of sooth. So all he knows (and wants to know right now) is swish, and then swish. Off with your heads, dandelions — off with your heads. Away with your heads over your hairy green stems, over your dark and spiking leaves. Off with your heads and your neighbor’s heads, off with all of them.

It’s a massacre. Not a single dandelion stands except for its stem. Across the lawn, each stem stands headless, even as the boy still whips the stems. To break their necks (what necks remain). To snap them cleanly off. Although some break only enough to droop and dangle by their fibers. Which the boy keeps score: which necks break clean and which dangle by their fibers.

When he turns sixteen the boy will tell the girl it’s his birthday. He will say, it’s my birthday, and it’s my birthday, but it’s my birthday. And he will unbutton the top button of her pants. And she will say wait, and she will say wait, and she will say, baby, please wait for me. But he will say, baby, and it’s my birthday, and then he will pull her panties down. Then both of them will say nothing, the two of them gasping until the boy finishes with his hunching. Then he will lay there pressing his weight while she bites back tears from her eyes. When she will tell him, no, it’s okay, and he will tell her, we got what we deserved, and he will say, since it was my birthday, anyway.

But not now. Following the slaughter of dandelions, then dandelion necks, the boy takes an experimental swish with the switch at one of his mother’s roses. Which bends but still survives by the woodiness of its stem. Swish, swish. The boy swings through the air. Testing his arm, testing his swing. Testing the sound of his swing: swish, swish. But enough. Now he winds up and double-arms a mighty swing. He aims at the offending rose — he swings to decapitate. Which snaps the switch itself, splitting it partway down the middle. Making it no longer a switch. Broken and no more, and no longer a thing that deserves the name of switch.

Which the boy now stares at, furious. At the switch’s own splitting. He throws the switch aside, the remains of the now-no-longer-switch. But he is not finished yet. From the pile left over from when his mother staked out her tomatoes he pulls out a shaft of bamboo. Thicker than the switch before. Again he swings two-handed: swish! The head of the rose snaps clean. The boy stands as a titan on the lawn.

In a bar in his twenties the boy-turned-man will lay it out against a different boy-turned-man. (Who will also be in his twenties.) One, then two. The boy-turned-man’s knuckles will not be bloody. What will be bloody is the other man’s nose. Then mouth, then shirt. What will be bloody is the scene. One, then two — that’s all it will take. The bloody man will twist in pain. One, then two. After which the twenty-something-boy-turned-man will lift his chin to face the circle. Which keeps their distance while some in the circle call the police. And when the lights flash blood outside and the officers come in to bring out their handcuffs, the woman with the boy-turned-man will ask: What did you do that for? And the boy-turned-man will answer: For you. And the police will cuff him and lead him outside to duck him in the car to book him at the station. And the boy-turned-man will have proven that reaching his twenties was old enough to learn how to lie.

But not yet — still not yet. For now: only swish and swish. Rose after rose he beheads. They are sturdy except for where they narrow, just below where their petals blossom. Swish and swish. Here is where he aims to snap the roses from their stems. Swish and swish. Although he abandons keeping score (the woody stems almost never snap). Swish and swish. The roses dangle, almost all of them, so he counts only those exceptional: only those guillotined, which fly through the air as separate blossoms. Swish and swish. The blooms fly free. The boy is sweating from his swinging. But before him the tribe of roses lies vanquished.

In middle age, at thirty-something, the boy-now-man will lay his plans. And he will execute: he will replace the names of others, will swap out files and records. He will delete specific emails, will modify particular documents. Then he will brag to his bosses and others about whose ideas and whose work was done. Which others and bosses will sing his praises to others and other bosses, who will promote and endorse (and who the boy-now-man will promote and endorse in return). And at home after he returns after work (after promoting and planning, endorsing and praising) when his woman-turned-wife complains they don’t do things anymore, the boy-now-man will say: Who bought you that car in the driveway? Which he will know will keep her quiet. Through his thirty-something years, the boy-now-man will have learned how to aim.

Now come the tomatoes next, bleeding their green at the strikes of the bamboo: swish, then swish! Their skins break to ooze their inner fluids and dripping seeds. Swish, then swish! The boy is a captain. Swish, then swish! The boy is a king. Swish, then swish! The boy stands as a god among the gods. Standing in the yard the boy has become everything, including master of everything — himself included. Swish, then swish! Nothing can withstand. The boy is master of his man: swish, then swish! Before him the tomatoes lie helpless. Which he genocides, then stands flushed with the genocide. The tomatoes are finished but he keeps whipping the vines. Swish, then swish! Which crack to seep their juices from within. The boy keeps whipping: the genocide itself is not enough. He drops the bamboo to take up a stone. Heave — take that, reflection! Reflection of himself in the sliding door, take that!

In the aftermath the boy catches his breath. He holds his breath in the following quiet. The pebbled glass shines stars; his moment rises and lifts. He stoops to reach for a second stone. Then cocks his arm to throw. And clenches shut his eyes before plunging into his imagination to cleave his gladness free.

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