“It” Was on TV

It is 1990.  My hair is huge; my car gets 14 miles to the gallon; and thas a remote control in the shape of the  14 miles to the gallon, and t my neck.  ""nd the dramatic pronouncement of his " his fhe TV, a thick-bodied, multi-dialed contraption, has a remote control in the shape of the three-and-a-half-foot, blue-eyed, blonde-haired child standing in front of it.

The Boy.

His right hand on the channel changer, he turns to me, a look of willful mischief on his face.

I narrow my eyes at him, and he mirrors the expression. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.”

I narrow my eyes a bit further. 

“Weally!”

“I don’t believe you,” I say.

He smiles.  “I’m gonna too-en the channel.”

“You are not,” I say.

He laughs.  “I am!” he says.  “I’m gonna too-en it.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, suddenly nonchalant in an ice-cream? what-ice-cream? kind of way.  “I dunno.”

I lean forward, pull the TV Guide from the coffee table.   I flip to the day’s page.

“Stephen King's classic novel made for a terrifying mini-series about seven childhood friends whose lives are threatened by a demonic creature known as IT and how they try to put a stop to the killings he commits in routine. Twenty-seven years later, they must face him once again as they discovered that IT was not killed after all.”

I look up.  “You gotta be kidding me.” 

“Othew people ah gonna watch it.”  We are in the precious phase between the start of speech therapy just a week ago and the dramatic pronouncement of his “r”s just two weeks from now.

“Other people, sure,” I say.  “Just not other kindergartners.”

He nods at me emphatically.  “They ah too,” he says.  “Weally.”

“Dylan,” I reason, “Stephen King writes scary books.  This is a scary movie based on his scary book.”

He smiles the smile of a well-loved child.  “I’m gonna too-en it.  I’m gonna do it!”

“Don’t do it,” I say.  “Don’t do it.”

“I’m gonna!”

I shake my head.  “Listen to your mother,” I warn.  “Don’t turn that channel.”

“I’m gonna do it!”

And so now it’s my turn to shrug, which I do.  “As your mother, I’m advising against this.”

He smiles, shrugs again – and turns the channel. 

And it is in that very instant that the hideous face of a grinning, maniacal clown fills the 19” screen, lurid and horrible.    

“AH!”  The Boy jams the off button; and the screen goes black.  He launches his body across the room and onto mine, knocking me back in the rocker.

I hold him tightly as he whispers into the side of my neck.

“What’s that?” I say.

He turns his head slightly, his small, vulnerable forehead pressed to me.  “I said that you wew wight.”

And it seems wrong, but I smile.  

And I hold him tighter.