The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,10
Anyhow, we were playing in the sand box, when he decided that he was going to climb up one end of the swing set, crawl across the top of it and down the other side, like the bigger kids did. I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea, since our parents told us not to do that. He knew, but said he was going to do it anyway.”
“Did you tell him ‘no’?” Miss Planter asked.
“No, I decided to let him go ahead, since I had warned him. I had my back to the swingset, and was working on a project in the sand box. I could hear him climbing up the swing frame, and getting to the top. Then he started across on the support beam, and that’s when he ran into trouble. I don’t know whether he slipped and couldn’t make it, and decided to come down the chains on the swings instead of the poles… well, that’s probably what he did. I didn’t know; I didn’t turn to see. He called for help, but I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to help him; I was just a little kid, too. His mother heard him crying for help. She called to me from their backyard next door to help him, but I just ignored her. She ran around the fences through the front yards to get to our backyard to help Billy down from the swingset. She then carried him back to their house. I sat the whole time in the sandbox, working on my little sand project.”
“You ignored his cries for help?”
“Yes.”
“And you still feel guilty about this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Billy was my friend, he was younger than me, and I should have helped him. But at the time it seemed to be a matter of self-preservation.”
“Why? You wouldn’t have been able to do anything anyway,” she said.
“I didn’t even try. I could have at least tried to help.”
“You may have got caught up in the swingset chains yourself,” she said, trying to help, or else was acting the devil’s advocate.
“Maybe so, but that would be better than carrying this guilt around all these years,” I replied.
“Did Billy ever hold this against you?”
“No, strangely enough, he didn’t. We were playing again a couple of days later. His mother didn’t say anything to me about it, either.”
“What did your parents say?”
“I never told them. It’s as if it never happened.”
“Why do you think you reacted as you did?”
“I don’t know. I did that as a child; whenever something too big for me to handle came along, I just froze or pretended it wasn't happening. That’s what I did in this case.”
Miss Planter spent a few moments writing on her tablet, not looking up, which was smart of her because I really couldn’t read her too well when she had her head down.
“What do you think was learned from this experience?” Miss Planter asked, suddenly sounding like a school teacher.
“I think Billy learned that when adults tell children not to do something, you don’t do it,” I said.
“What did you learn from it?”
I already knew the answer. “I learned that I could be a coward.”
“You were a child,” she said.
“Yes, and Billy was my friend. He was younger and smaller than me; I should have looked out for him. I heard him calling for help; he relied on me.”
Miss Planter wrote some more, then said, “You’re being too hard on yourself, I think, Mr. Owen. As you said, this happened a long time ago.”
“Maybe I am, but Billy trusted me, and I let him down. I now think it’s better to get hurt than to let someone down like that.”
Miss Planter thought a moment, and wrote some more on her notepad, saying, “Perhaps you did get something positive out of this experience.”
“I’d hoped to be able to make it up to Billy, but his father took a job transfer and they moved away to another city shortly after that.”
“You can’t always get to do what you’d like to do, Mr. Owen,” Miss Planter said.
“How well I know that, Miss Planter.”
Miss Planter Gets Personal
After a few more meetings, Miss Planter zeroed in on some matters that some might consider personal.
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Owen? I hope you don’t mind my asking this.”
Why should I mind her asking this? She was a mental health counselor, which pretty much gave her the right to ask anything. I had put myself on the line, so it was