The Pedophile

A six-year-old boy is walking down the slope of his backyard. He has on a winter coat. His cheeks are sweating. There's a rake in his hand. At the bottom of his backyard, a man stands next to a bare tree, one hand on his chin and one hand on his hip.

"Here," the six-year-old kid says, handing the rake over.

The man takes it without looking. "Every year with this," he says, frowning at the tree.

The six-year-old boy looks up and breathes. He can kind of see his breath. He licks snot off his nose. The man lifts the rake up into the bare branches of the tree and knocks down a skeleton. There is a large web of human skeletons in the bare branches of the tree.

"Every damn year," he said. Then he brightened. "But, I mean, there's nothing you can do right? They're gonna come either way."

The boy said, "I don't know what you're saying." He ran back up the hill.

The next day, the man was by the tree again. And again he yelled to the six-year-old boy. The boy brought the rake to the bottom of the hill. The man took it with one hand on his chin and one on his hip. He knocked down another skeleton. The skeleton fell right by the six-year-old boy's feet.

"Hey look," the man said, taking the rake down from the branches. "That one kind of broke."

"Yeah, sorta," the six-year-old boy said. "Only sorta though. It only broke—right there," he said, pointing to where the hipbones had detached from the spine. He kicked the skeleton and it collapsed. "Now it's broken," the six-year-old boy said. "Now it's surely broken." He threw his hands into the air and screamed and jumped and fell to the ground, laughing.

The man laughed and said, "You are the silliest person I know. But I like you." Then he knocked down another skeleton. He looked at the boy and asked, "I like you. Why don't you want to kiss me? I think you want to kiss me. Am I right? Do you want to kiss me?"

"You are not right," said the boy, before running back up the hill.

The day after that, the boy had school, so the man stayed at the bottom of the hill and just looked at all the skeletons piling up in the bare branches of the tree.

The day after that the boy had school again. So the man just stayed by the bottom of the hill and looked at the branches of the bare tree, piling up with skeletons, one hand on his chin and one hand on his hip. There are more than usual, he thought. So many.

The skeletons were almost falling out the next day. The boy was still at school.

The day after that the boy didn't have school. He brought the rake down to the man, who, hand on his chin and the other on his hip, took the rake and tried to knock down some of the skeletons. But there were too many by then.

"There are so many," he said, quietly.

He realized he couldn't get them down with just the rake anymore, so he climbed the tree and reached out. He grabbed a skeleton and started shaking it. The rib cage of the skeleton was stuck around a branch. The skeleton barely moved. The man shook harder and harder until he slipped out from the branch, screaming at the skeleton. He hung from the skeleton by his hands. He screamed and hung, kicking his legs. Eventually the skeleton broke free and the man and the skeleton fell down to the boy's feet. With his hand still on the leg of the skeleton, the man asked, "Do you have school tomorrow?"

The six-year-old boy said, "No, I have a three day weekend." He held up two fingers. "Two more days until I have school again."

"Good," the man said, "That's…good."

Then the man climbed the tree again. He looked down at the boy, who was looking at his shoes. He thought about killing the boy for not wanting to kiss him, maybe just split his small skull open with the metallic part of the rake. One hit would do it. "Are you sure you don't want to kiss me?"

"I am sure," the boy said.

The man tightened his hands around the rake.

The boy ran back up the hill.

The man wanted to cry but instead he returned to the business of knocking the skeletons down. There were so many by then that he had to break some of them before knocking down the pieces and he wasn't even sure he cared about doing it anymore, not at all sure. All he wanted to do was kiss the boy.

Sam Pink