Mama’s Boy

Mama’s Boy

The voice startled Wes as he turned the corner to see a boy from his class, Tommy, surrounded by other kids, muddy and dirty from the knees down. 

“I don’t know, the farmer let me, and I’ve never been inside one of these things before,” Wes responded, an easy smile on his face as he played with the stems of the flowers.

“You don’t know what a corn maze is?” Tommy and the other boys laughed. 

 “Why do you have grass in your mouth?” Wes pointed to his own mouth in unsure curiosity after all the unprompted laughter. 

 “We’re playing Cowboys, and we always have a piece of straw in our mouth.” The other kids agreed with Tommy with shakes of their heads, some of their hats too big and falling off slightly. 

“Can I play?” Wes smiled. He liked the way the other boys held themselves playing Cowboys, brave and serious. No ounce of care in sight, mud-soaked socks. 

“No,” Tommy huffed, “unless you want to be a cowgirl.” The glint in his eyes changed into something much scarier. It held Wes under it, stuck. His skin crawled and the urge to run away shivered up his spine. It wanted to come out of his mouth like a gross hairball of embarrassment. 

“Why?” 

“Because you got flowers.”

“But they’re for my mother–I was going to–”

“Why would your mom like them? Y’know your mom likes other stuff. Like what your dad got for her on Valentine’s day.” Tommy rolled his eyes, as if he knew Wes’s mother like his own.

“She wouldn’t like them?” Wes’s lip wobbled. “No! You’re a liar.” His shoulders rose, hands clutching onto the flowers a bit too hard as his anger boiled. 

The group of boys gasped and cowered as Tommy slowly approached Wes with his eyebrows cinched in, complimenting a mean scowl. The anger of an ugly beast. 

“What did you just call me?” Fury written all over Tommy’s face, from his mean frown to his threatening height over Wes. 

“You’re a liar!” In the blink of an eye, a loud thump cracked through the air. The force threw the flowers out of Wes’s hand as he clutched his right eye, a weak cry spewing out of his mouth as pain grew and resonated. Sounds of the other boys shouting and rooting for Tommy rang in Wes’s ears as the brain-numbing pain in his eye spread towards the other parts of his pounding head. His other eye opened and saw the blood drip from his hand, and his polo shirt and khaki pants were now smeared with mud.

“Mama’s boy!” Tommy screamed, looming over Wes. “It’s not like your mom even likes you anyways!” The others laughed and laughed while Wes squirmed on the ground, shaking and resisting the urge to scream into the yellow sky. Scream at the kids, scream at his mother, scream at himself. 

“Hey! What is goin on?” An unfamiliar voice shouted  over the rest. Wes cowered away, what if they tell his mother? His father? Oh please not his father…

“This mama’s boy asked for it!” Tommy’s insufferable voice called back, his back turned to Wes, who shrunk into nothing on the ground, shaking.

Thankfully, the pain in Wes’s eyes faded, as the voices did in the background. All his cries of pain now felt silly, though he could only open one eye filled with tears. The other was big and fat, warm and sticky blood smeared across his face and hand. His clothes were stained, skewing the blue color and making it a dark purple or black. But when he looked up to see who saved him from the wrath of Tommy, he found a boy that stood in the muddiest boots he’s ever seen, pants with suspenders and a cut shirt that displayed some sort of band Wes didn’t know. 

 “He called me a liar!” Tommy screamed once again, with his arm pointed out to Wes behind the mystery kid. Mystery kid followed Tommy’s point and turned his head around to see Wes. The kid’s hair was longer, curly and frizzy, some stuck to his sweaty forehead, and in the evening sun the brunette color glowed to compliment the burned apples of his cheeks. 

Wes held his breath, wanting to disappear into the background. No, please don’t tell–

“Oh no, your eye!” The brunette boy said before he rushed over to Wes’s side on the ground, not worrying about the mud that definitely isn’t coming off of Wes’s shoes. “Did he hurt you?” 

A hesitant nod made Wes’s head spin like crazy. “What’s your name?” He stuttered, a tickling feeling in his stomach, butterflies attracted to a flower, not worried about the fact that the swollen part of his eye pounded and pounded against his head. 

“I’m Ollie, but are you ok? You’re not crying so I think you’re fine, but you’re still bleeding and acting a bit silly,” His hands reached for Wes’s face, but the other flinched. “It’s ok, I promise I’m not gonna hurt you.” The smile he gave to Wes settled right into his chest and rested there, warm and content. His hand approached Wes’s face again, slightly pushing the skin around to see the damage. Wes felt only whispers of touch, then a sharp pain. 

“It hurts there.” He whined and balled his hands into fists, the pain immediately going away as his eyes teared up again. 

“I’m sorry! Ok-ok, we need to get you ice or something, my mama can patch it up!” Ollie’s enthusiasm touched Wes’s pain and melted it all away. All of a sudden he didn’t care about his muddy clothes or shoes, or his flowers that were probably ruined now. 

“You’re a mama’s boy too? Looks like you need a matching eye.” Tommy’s voice erupted – it was obvious he learned that from his dad or some stupid movie. It sent a shiver down Wes’s spine regardless as a crooked smile smeared across the kids face who approached Ollie with his fists tied tight. 

“Why are you calling him that?” Ollie stood right up with Wes behind him.

“Because he wanted to give his mom those girly flowers, but he was playing with them first.” 

“So?”

“So what?”

“You’re just a bully, go away!”

“What are you going to do about it? Why do you even like him?” 

“I said go away!”

Tommy grumbled, losing his thunder, his gang of cowboys behind him with stomps of their feet and nasty looks over their shoulders as they walked into the dead stalks and disappeared into the shadows of the maze. 

“Are you ok?” Ollie turned back around to Wes, whose eyes twinkled while looking up to the other boy. “Oh, are those your flowers?” He walked over to where the flowers rested and picked them up with an expression Wes couldn’t decipher. 

“Yea,” Wes wilted like the green leaves accompanying the purple flowers. “But I don’t need them anymore.” He stared at the other boy who stood there with the flowers in his hand, his eyes wide open and his mouth slightly agape. He seemed a lot more shy, with his shoulders raised and chest sunken in with the flowers close to his threadbare shirt, his cheeks a lot more red than before, even though the sun was almost completely down. 

“Why not?” Ollie deflated and his eyes drooped like a cartoon. He brushed stray pieces of dirt off the petals, as gentle as can be. “Your mama will like them! Don’t listen to that bully.” He pouted, like he was frustrated with Tommy more than Wes. 

“Do you like them?” 

“You’re asking silly questions again.” Ollie’s giggle smoothed over the last bits of pain in Wes’s face, sending so many butterflies down into his already queasy stomach. “I like these flowers, did my mama give them to you? I think she has this type of ribbon in her hair today.” His hand played with the silk around the stems. 

“Oh, she’s your mother?” A snakebite against his heart, a pang of something rotten in Wes’s body that contradicted the butterflies. The feeling captured all the precious flutters and ate them for dinner. He held his breath. Ollie’s mama was very nice, she gave him flowers and her smile was so pretty, she might be prettier than his own mother, inside and out.

“Mhm–oh! We need to get to her before it’s too dark or we won’t be able to get outta here,” Ollie dramatically screamed and jumped up and down before he reached his hand down to Wes, who was still on the ground stupidly looking up at the curly haired boy with a curious stare. “C’mon! Don’t just sit there!” His hand stretched out as far as it went. There was a bit of red around his fingertips mixing with the dirt underneath his fingernails, but Wes’s hand took it anyway. 

“Do you want your flowers?” Ollie offered them with a faint smile that never seemed to get wiped off his face. 

“No.”

“Your mama will like them, trust me!”

“But you’ll like them more.”

Ollie thinned his mouth, his eyes wide like a bug, and then bursted into a fit of excitement. “I love them! They’re so pretty and purple, they are perfect this time of season. My mama loves to water them every morning.” The last bits of golden light peaked through the stalks around them and highlighted Ollie’s smile, where a chill struck through Wes, up his stomach, around his ribs and out to his arms and fingertips. 

“Oh.” 

🌣🌣🌣

The sun was just about down as they made their way out of the corn maze, the barn towering over them as they approached it. They went over to the  hay bales where Ollie sat Wes down and inspected the cut again, but not without gently placing the flowers out of their way. 

“I’ll be right back.” Ollie said, “Don’t go anywhere!” He giggled as he ran away around the corner of the barn and beyond. 

The flowers next to Wes’s legs were all pretty and neat compared to the mud smudges stretching from his shirt down to his shoes. He sighed and closed his eyes to give his pounding head a break. Patiently he sat, kicking his legs as he lost himself in the sight of the usual busy place turned into a barren farm. It was so obviously loved and taken care of. The way the animals idly grazed and how the crops and grass were still vibrant green while the hue of the season was always so dull and grey. It reflected on the people who live here: Ollie and his mother. There was a sense of homestyle comfort. The barn was not too cluttered, just enough to not feel too big inside without all the animals who were out in the fields. It feels like home, Wes thought, somewhere to have fun and spend all day in the fields running around with Ollie playing Cowboys or whatever they could think of to play. They could do all the chores together and make sure all the animals were big and strong. 

The barn cats gathered around Wes, curious and seeking food, but a rapidly approaching figure scared them all away. 

“Wes Anthony Thomas, there you are.” His mother’s hand grabbed his wrist, harsh and strong. “Where have you been? You’re covered in filth.” It flew out of her mouth like venom and sludge that plagued Wes’s heart. 

“Mother, I–”

“Silence. I do not want another word until we get home. We would’ve been home hours ago if I didn’t have to come looking for you.”

Wes pointed his head and eyes down with the all-too-familiar feeling of his eyes welling up. 

“Don’t you dare cry, oh don’t you dare.” Her cruel words clawed at his already aching head and down into his heart, the flowers long gone forgotten. “Let us go.” The grip on his wrist pulled him to his feet with a stumble and trip. Tears fell down his cheeks and streaked the mud. Over his shoulder, he looked to where Ollie disappeared and sniffled, the bundle of flowers left without another thought.

⚘⚘⚘

“I can’t believe he left.” Ollie huffed and dramatically kicked the dirt with his boot.

“His mama probably came for him, he left the dahlias.” Ollie’s mama ruffled her son’s hair as he pouted and crossed his arms.

“Proba’ly.” He sighed and picked up the purple dahlias, the petals not even squished after being thrown around in rough hands. “I was going to give him a pumpkin.”

“One of these?” She picked up the one he had hidden around the corner of the barn with a knowing smile. This particular one was shaped like a heart, a lumpy one at that. 

“Yea, he did give me these, so I thought it would be nice.” Ollie smelled the flowers and thought of the boy. “Oh no! I forgot to ask his name–dang it.” He sighed and pouted once again. 

“Well one day you’ll hopefully see each other again, especially since he gave you those flowers,” a beat. “I hope you remember what I taught you about dahlias.” His mother patted his shoulder for comfort.

“Yea I do remember, mama.” Ollie fidgeted his fingers together with a coy smile. “Maybe one day we can play again–and I can give him dahlias!” 

Author

Juliana Bridge is just a kid growing up with an imagination who never lost the spark of creating new worlds and characters to live inside of stories that reflect so many things happening in life. Creating stories to keep that kid alive and thriving is what kept her writing. 

The Boot Artist: Olivia Phelan