Knowing

Petey knows that he loves his Mom and Dad, he also knows that he loves his older brother Paul, not as much as he loves his dog Sailor but more than he loves the set of tin soldiers that uncle Stu gave him, and he knows that his family loves him. He also knows that girls are tricky and can be mean, but they smell nice. He did not consciously set out to discover these truths; he just knows that he knows.

At the sturdy age of twelve Petey has strong opinions about things, he knows stuff, and the single most important thing that he knows is that once you know something you can’t unknow it.

In Petey’s view the trouble with getting older is that you pick up a lot of knowing along the way. Petey can clearly see the weight of his Dad’s knowing when his Dad is at rest, nodding off in front of the TV. Seeing all that knowing so vividly etched into his Dad’s face has placed a tiny kernel of unease deep inside Petey’s chest.

Petey knows that he is different, but he doesn’t know what makes him different. Being different is just another one of those things that is known. It is known by him, by his brother Paul, by all the kids in his class and by every girl that he has ever met.

Of the kids in his class the only home that he has visited is Corky’s, his best friend. Corky is an only child who’s Mom died in a car accident when he was two. His Gran lives with him and his Dad and their house is always as neat as a pin and very quiet. As a comparison, as a point of reference along the scale that measures being different, Petey instinctively knows that Corky doesn’t count. Being different to Corky does not mean that you are different.

When Petey goes on one of his “stupid head trips,” his brother Paul’s exasperated description of his forays into that place where he tries to understand this thing called knowing, he wonders if anyone else has a problem with knowing, or is it just him. Sometimes he wants to stand up in assembly at school and shout out. “I. Don’t. Want. To. Know!!”

Petey will often do things that the other kids consider weird, which frustrates him to the point of fury, because he only does them to prove that he isn’t different, and they always, always seem to do just the opposite.

He is deeply ashamed of the white-hot anger that flared for an instant in the pit of his stomach when his Mom had squatted down in front of him, placed her hands on his shoulders, smiled at him and said “You’re not different Petey, you’re special.” He’d’ wanted to grab his Mom’s arms and scream at her “I am different, I know I’m different”

When he’d spoken to his Dad about being different his Dad had said “Different, we’re all different kiddo, that’s the grand design, being different is what makes the world go round” He’d then ruffled Petey’s hair and gently tweaked his nose, making that baarp sound, Dad-Speak for “Don’t worry about it”

Petey once heard about a man who had a small lump just below his right ear, it wasn’t sore or itchy it was just there. Most of the time he didn’t even think about it. One morning whilst shaving he’d cut the lump and a mass of tiny little spiders had crawled out of his head. His wife had found him whimpering on the bathroom floor. He is now in a mental institution, where he spends his days sitting in a chair gently rubbing his thumb back and forth below his right ear.

When Petey heard the story it had made perfect sense to him. It wasn’t the spiders; it was knowing about the spiders, it was the knowing tippy-toeing inside that man’s head that was the problem. It wasn’t being different that got to Petey; it was knowing that he was different, always there inside his head gnawing away.

Petey had two options, he could either stop being different or he could find a way to stop knowing that he was different. He didn’t know how to not be different, it seemed that the more he tried the more different he became.

After school one afternoon Petey was lying under a tree in the back yard with Sailor’s head resting on his tummy. Gently rubbing “the spot” between Sailor’s ears he closed his eyes and thought about the knowing. He could feel it pulsing just above his right eye. He thought long and hard about the knowing. He didn’t care anymore that he was different, some days he even thought that it was cool to be different, he was just sick and tired of knowing that he was different.

He wondered if he could use his Dad’s drill and drill a tiny hole just above his right eye, reach in with an ear-bud and remove the knowing, like removing the wax from your ears. Petey lifted Sailor’s head off of his tummy, got up and stood very still, staring off into the distance.

With Sailor bounding along next to him Petey went inside, grabbed some ear-buds, that little box of his Mom’s with a mirror inlaid into the lid, the extension cord from behind the kitchen door, and with Sailor at his side went into the garage where his Dad keeps the drill.

Later that evening Petey’s Mom called out from the kitchen “Paul, please can you go and find Petey and tell him that supper’s ready, I haven’t seen him for a while and he’s being awfully quiet”

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