Beat Up By A Three Year Old While Sitting On A Park Bench

Sitting on a bench, next to a three year old boy holding a kleenex box, and his mom who is wearing a green subway polo shirt.

The three year old boy has short brown hair that looks like a freshly mowed lawn hugging his skull.

He looks at me with his big brown eyes that match his hair, smiles, puts the kleenex box down on the green painted meshed metal, then hides behind his hands, peeks out, laughs, and hides again.

I put my hands up, and do the same.

Playing peek-a-boo.

We keep exchanging hiding for showing, and laugh the entire time, as his mother watches us through circular framed glasses.

He stops.

I stop.

He picks up the kleenex box with his tiny pink fingers, rolls along the bench, and places the kleenex box on my lap.

He remains right next to me.

Along my side.

Touching me.

In the fetal position.

Covering his head with his arms, in a puffy navy blue and black winter coat.

Staring straight down.

I pick the kleenex box up, and put it on his back.

His mother laughs.

He comes out of his cocoon like a mummy emerging from a sarcophagus in a 1950's b-horror film.

Then makes a fist, and puts it through the plastic slot, and into the tissues.

He kneels so he is face level, then cocks back, and hits me with a straight right to the nose.

He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, before his mother screams, "Johnny! That wasn't very nice! Say you're sorry." Her face scrunched up the entire time.

He looks at his mother.

His face droops, which looks like a hound-dog puppy that just got hit on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

I start laughing back at him, which creates a smile.

I wave my hand at his mother, and through the laughs tell her, "It's okay. It's okay."

I repeat myself twice to reassure her.

I don't know if it worked, but whatever.

My nose was a little sore, but it didn't matter.

Everything felt like it was in it's right place.

I see myself opening up a booth on the street in a year where I paint a red and white target on my face, place my chin on the counter, and let little kids punch me with kleenex boxes for free.