Facing Goliath (Part I)

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. But when it did start to happen, we were caught up in disbelief. A this-sort-of-thing-does-not-happen-to-our-family kind of disbelief. Like a thief in the night, it snuck up on us, and particularly, on Woog, on whom this post is based.

I guess Atch and I were mostly to blame. We were exhausted from the move, bent on making the new apartment as liveable as possible. And then there was Eli to attend to. I was a cranky sleep-deprived zombie, spending most of my non-nursing, non-diaper changing time trying to clean and redecorate. When Atch was at home, he was in full fix-it mode.

Poor Woog was left to his own devices, and to his young mind, alone, to face the insurmountable changes thrown into his life.

It started with his hearing. Or more to the point, his lack of it. We would call him in to dinner. And soon it would turn into a “call of the wild”, our voices yipping into the wind. And that wind would whip out unto the broad plains of the courtyard, echoing back at us, unanswered. All it would take would be the soft clinking sound of Atch's belt buckle leaving his pants to send Woog scurrying homeward.

After his siesta, he would hie off to Door Number Four for an afternoon of Disney Channel (they had cable, we didn't). Give it half an hour or so, and his 18-month-old cousin, Ia, herself approaching that difficult age, would be howling in vexation. Turns out Woog would be grabbing her toddler's toys, or shoving her off her seat, or plain standing in front of the tv to block her view. He would do all this with a diabolical sort of smile (or so Ia's yaya would report later).

Soon, even his eating habits, not the best to begin with, began to suffer. It would take him an average of six minutes to consume a spoonful of food (I know, I timed him). Multiply that by 10 spoonfuls, and you get a whole hour spent trying to get him to finish his meal. You can just imagine our voices grown hoarse urging him to eat his breakfast and get to school on time.

One such morning, while dawdling at breakfast, he decided to take a fork to the new dining table. And, oh the masterpiece that carver did carve! So enraptured was Atch at his son's newfound artistic ability, he applauded him loudly on the bottom with the wide end of a thick leather belt.

I sent him, tearless, unrepentant and breakfastless to sit outside facing the wall. He missed school that day. There is no good cop in this family.

When I checked on him ten minutes later, I found him at the far end of the apartment compound, fiddling with the carpenter's handsaw. I shrieked and he dropped it, terrified.

The whole mountain of manure came crashing down one morning when he came home from school with Yaya, who reported that we were being summoned the next day for a conference with his teacher. I barely had time to call Atch at work about this when I heard an angry voice outside shout Woog's name. This is getting so old, I thought. The only way these days to utter Woog's name would be in an angry shout, amongst other furious explosions.

It turns out, Atch's brother-in-law, Sam, a contractor by profession, had laid to dry two freshly painted plywood boards for one of his projects. Woog had taken a broom, dipped it in murky gutter water, and swept it diligently across both boards. In the span of time it took to yell out his name, he had created a muddy Jackson Pollock on the sticky sky-blue background.

I cannot describe how speechless with embarassment I was. A livid Sam was removing the ruined boards with gritted teeth, and Woog was simply standing there, dripping broom in hand. His doomed bottomless eyes were on me, waiting for the axe to fall...

August 2006