Danny, born into a family too good for him, too holy for himself, and only one place to go. “It was a bright morning day,” his mother would have begun, “the birds were chirping, and the sun had come out just for me. My labor pains were nothing as they wheeled me into the hospital and minutes later Danny arrived. It was a miracle, he didn’t cry, I had to go to the prayer room as soon as I could and proclaim that my little boy was content in this new world!” Yeah that’s good old Mrs. Gardner. Danny thought he was born Daniel Robert Gardner(he adds an Esq. here) that morning just like his mother says. Little does he know…
Let’s try this on for size, it was about 1 in the morning on a cold, rainy day in Boston. His mother had been up all night pacing and working on some stupid household chore. In pain she bent down and collapsed. Her husband, slightly intoxicated drove her to the hospital meanwhile her screaming was said to be heard “from miles in all directions.” They arrived at the hospital, day breaking as she screamed in agony from her hospital bed. After about 26 hours of excruciating labor, Daniel was brought into this world. The only true fact about his mothers tale was the crying. Daniel didn’t cry. His lungs were too undeveloped to. As he was rushed to the neonatal unit his mother ordered nurses around and eventually got a priest to come to her. She proceeded to shout obscenities as to why her son was this way, all the while her husband lay passed out in the corner.
This was his beginning. His birth into a clean world. His mother was a backstabbing witch, sweet and candy coated. His father was a closet drunk, literally. We used to find him all the time ‘sleeping’ in the closet, brown paper bag clutched in his hand. They say it was Daniel’s mother that drove his father to the bottle, I for one wouldn’t blame him. In his 18 years of living with his mother Dan never once knew she smoked. I knew, of course, but he didn’t. Mrs. Gardner was real careful to hide it from everyone. I remember one day, oh we had to be about 7 and 8, I the older, and we were playing hide and go seek. As Daniel slid under the bed, he pushed something out the other side. As I came into the room I immediately saw the box and in turn looked under the bed. He came out and began to run back to base, seeing as I hadn’t tagged him. I stayed and when he saw I wasn’t chasing him, he returned. As he walked up beside me I opened the brown cardboard box, he leaned over resting his hands on his knees, a bit winded. I opened the first flap, and motioned for him to come closer, as he pulled in I moved my left hand back and tagged him, “gotcha,” I whispered. He snapped his fingers and I kept opening the box, the smell was overwhelming as we opened it to find a box of unbundled cigarettes. Being 8 I had no clue what they really were, but we heard Mr. Gardner come up so we shoved the box back and ran for it. As we ran past his father he shouted back down the hall in his timid voice, “no running in the house.”
That man cracked me up, most likely the most gentle guy you’ll ever meet, but so timid and afraid of his wife that you never ever saw the real him. People who are actually afraid of people like Mrs. Gardner make me laugh, I mean seriously, confront her, and she’s just as soft as he was.
I always called him Danny boy, like the song. Sheesh, Irish music sure is depressing. And you know, I never really paid much attention to the meaning of that song, perhaps I should go look up its words, perhaps. Well back to Danny, oh my Danny boy, he had always been a, oh it hurts to say this, but a little lacking when it came to common sense. That’s ok, I really can’t blame him, growing up in the place he did. His mom looked like June Cleaver and his father was really no where to be found. Maybe that’s why they lived in that house, somehow they managed to live in a mansion solely based on Mr. Gardner’s earnings.
Things like that amaze me, especially the fact that so many people in our town moved to it because it was ‘quaint’ and for some reason ‘prestigious.’ They’d come in their minivans, girls with pigtails, boys playing soccer, and they lived in mansions. This is the best part, mansions with nothing in them. The only reason people ever came over to Mrs. Gardner’s place was because she had furniture. Besides most of the other mothers were too absorbed in their own life to see who Mrs. Gardner really was.
While those kids were playing in their front yards I was doing something sinister in my basement of my mansion. I’ll admit it we had the biggest house in the town, too many rooms to count, it even had wings, but my mother was a closet ‘introvert,’ she avoided confrontation and public, whereas my father would rather lock himself in his lab than take me to the park. I didn’t care, in fact I’m rather happy, that’s how I ended up as me.
Since I wasn’t like the other kids it was hard to find people to bond with unless I put my shiny blonde hair into braids and went skipping down the street, that wasn’t me. In fact that’s how Danny and I really met. I had ‘put on my face’ as I called it, put my hair up, put on a dress and I left to go play with the ‘girls.’ The only reason I ever did it was because it made me laugh to see how fake they were. Later it would be for other reasons.
Well I had been playing with them when their mothers called them home, no reason, just because I suppose. Well I began to walk home, jumping over cracks, acting all girly when something caught my eye. I had accidentally passed the place where I should have crossed the street and I had gone straight. I knew that town back and front, except one place. Old Mr. Hatchet’s place. I was obviously there as I jumped into the creek with my new black shoes on.
Disregard for property lines, forgetting childhood lessons of private things, I had broken these I will admit…but his house was so, so tempting. I always knew a kid named Danny, but I had never been friends with him. So of course I was snooping about it the murky water, lacy white socks now stained and limp. Looking for toads or whatever the childhood curiosity it didn’t really matter what matters is that as I was walking around I saw something behind a tree move. At first I’ll admit I was a bit startled but soon it simply turned to pure interest. Sneaking up on the tree, like a lion hunts his prey, I jumped around back to find a little boy peeking about the other side. A tap on the shoulder sent him flying, haha that was great.
So I guess that was our beginning, the beginning of us. I miss it in fact I miss those care free days we had.
Danny was a romantic, picking flowers from his mother’s garden for me. Everybody in school said he liked me but I doubted that, I mean who trusts a bunch of nine year olds anyways. Well we went on through elementary and into middle school. Things were great for me but Mr. Gardner was becoming worse and Danny was seeing hints of his real mother, I’m not sure why but I hid him from those moments as often as I could. I swear we spent more time at my house or at least together than anywhere else.
Then came high school, Danny had managed his way through middle school working as hard as he could whereas I had no problems. I really don’t mean to boast but I didn’t. So because I was a year earlier I got my license and soon after my first boyfriend, I remember the night I told him.
We were up at our spot, a quiet little place up in the hills just outside of town. With the top on my car down we looked up at the stars. “Hey Danny?” I asked. There was silence but a response, “what?” I looked for the words to express it, but it was almost like it didn’t want to come out. “I…I…I just thought you should know something,” he listened intently, “the other day um, well Nick asked me out and that’s where we went after the football game this Friday and why I wasn’t there to go to coffee with you.” Danny didn’t appear hurt but he wasn’t talking and he was in no way encouraging, I continued, “well I guess he kinda asked me to go steady and to not just go out on dates but actually date.” I could almost feel him wince and by th time I had opened my eyes he was lifting himself out of my car. “Danny? What’s wrong? I know I should have told you but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, Danny? Are we ok?” I waited for an answer and he turned with a smile, “oh we’re fine, and congratulations.” I had waited for an answer like that only I thought it would be snotty and sarcastic, his was genuine. The rest of the night was more or less silence until I dropped him off and we said our goodbyes.
[To be continued…]