Jón Gnarr - The Indian

The whole time I’m looking this way and that. Cars hurtle past at tremendous speeds, making deafening sounds. I’m never ever going to get out of here. Mom won’t be able to reach me. I burst into tears. Nobody does anything. Cars don’t care about boys like me. Instead of stopping, they just increase their speed and make more noise. My head is spinning. I shut my eyes and let myself fall to the grass. Grass has a good smell. Yet I can also smell something oily. Far away, I hear my mother calling.

— Lie down right there and don’t move!

I sink slowly and calmly into the grass, into the soil, deep down into the earth, towards the worms. I hum and the sounds around me fall silent.

Someone takes my shoulder. A man.

— Are you alright, little fella?

I don’t say anything. I won’t say anything. I want to be left alone to recover. I’m scared.

But the man is tough. He lifts me up and takes me in his arms. I feel okay with him. I am safe, secure. He walks across the street with me. The cars are afraid of him and slow down. He owns all the cars and is in charge of them.

Across the street, Mom is waiting. She’s different than usual. She isn’t tired; instead, she seems upset and she has tears in her eyes. It reassures me to see that.

— God, Jesus, child!

[…] The mother is often tired; she is stout, neatly dressed, pleasant in appearance, has a pessimistic outlook, finds it a little hard to express herself, yet has a fairly good insight into the boy’s difficulties and the extent to which he differs from his peers […] it is clear that the mother finds it too much dealing with her challenging son […] the parents, especially the mother, seems to truly realize the boy has problems so have sought assistance here; both seem well-motivated, though mainly the mother.

(National Hospital, Psychiatric Ward,

Children’s Hospital Trust, 02/04/72)

I’m in my best clothes. Mom dressed me in them. I’m wearing my jacket, too. We’re sitting in a waiting room. I’m reading my newspaper. The smell is overwhelming, deep and alien, sweet and clean. I don’t know what makes a smell like this. Maybe a swimming pool?

— Jón, it’s your turn, says a woman.

Mom indicates I should go. I stand up and pad down the hall but find no one there. Only the smell. I walk back and go into another corridor.

I try to open a door but it’s locked. I look around me and see that the doctor is following me. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything either; I simply walk in and sit in a chair. He closes the door and sits opposite me.

I sink back into my newspaper. It’s a cowboys-and-Indians comic. I don’t know how to read it but I look at the pictures. I look at them really well. The Indians are spying on the cowboys. Indians are good and cowboys are evil.

— Don’t you want to take off your jacket? he asks.

I am hot. I take off my jacket without looking up from the paper and throw it on the floor.

The doctor is called Einar. He’s fun but weird. Whenever I say something he thinks about it and writes in his book. I don’t know what he is writing. Maybe he’s writing a story. Maybe it’s a story about a boy like me who disobeys his mother. Maybe he understands me; maybe he understands that I’m not bad. But maybe I am bad. Sometimes I pull other kids’ hair and I’m mean to Mom. Sometimes I damage my toys when I’m playing with them. Sometimes people are angry at me and scold me, but I usually don’t know why. There are bad guys who come and take rude boys.

There’s a crane up on the shelf.

— What’s that? I ask, and point to the crane.

— It’s a crane.

— It’s strange.

— It is made from Bilofix.

I look at the crane. Bilofix is a toy like Lego. It has pieces of wood with holes and colorful plastic screws that fix them together. There are also tires. I’ve played with Bilofix before.

— I want it, I say.

He stands up, fetches the crane, and gives it to me. It’s really cool. It has a band in it that can be pulled up by turning a wheel. Some of the screws are loose. I undo them completely and put them in different places. I’m going to take the crane apart and put it back together again. Sometimes I build things from Lego bricks, like houses, then throw them against the floor so that they smash. It’s okay to break Legos because you can always build it again. Bilofix is like that. Meccano too. Meccano’s just the same, only made of iron.

The crane falls apart. I can’t put it together again. The band has gotten all tangled. But it’s okay. I haven’t damaged anything. I know I haven’t because Einar isn’t angry. He just looks curiously at me then writes in his book.

I wind the band around the sticks and throw it all on the floor. Then I pick up the paper that comes with Bilofix. It’s got instructions and pictures but it’s all too difficult.

— I don’t get it.

Einar stands up, takes the Bilofix, and puts it in a box. Then he sits back down, and writes in the book.

— Your mother tells me you don’t enjoy playing with other kids?

It’s true. I don’t think it’s any fun. I think it’s better to be by yourself. I never know what they want. They take toys and they confuse everything. I can’t tell from their expressions what they are thinking. They’re just weird.

Often I get bewildered when I’m around them and that makes me feel bad. Sometimes, I feel so bad that I start crying. I’m afraid of them. Still, they don’t do anything nasty to me. I just don’t understand them and they don’t understand me. It’s like we don’t talk the same language. They’re smarter than me. They know all kinds of things I don’t know. And no one ever tells them off. Though I’m stronger.

But they’re always surprising me. I don’t think they’re annoying. I don’t want to be bad around them. But when I get scared, I pull their hair. Ideally, I just want them to go away and leave me to be me.

— Why don’t you want to play with them? he asks.

I don’t know what to say.

— Are you being shy, Jón?

I’m not shy. But I am afraid. I’m afraid of people, including Einar. They don’t understand me. I want him to stop talking to me and to stop looking at me. I want to go home and go into my bedroom. I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to be here. I want to go far inside myself, further, further, deep down where no one can bother me and no one is mad at me.

Sometimes, when I’m completely asleep, I feel strange. My thumb seems gigantic and I disappear inside it. Inside the thumb, two people are talking. They speak slowly and I can’t hear what they are saying. They don’t notice me. I walk past them and into a long hallway, down some steps and down a long stairway. I walk along another long hallway and at the end is a room that is as soft as a cotton ball. I come back outside myself and lie on the floor in the room. And I sleep.

— Jón?

Suddenly I hear a roaring from outside the house. The floor is shaking.

— What’s going on? I ask.

— What do you think? he asks in return.

I do not know. Perhaps it’s some battle we’re fighting. Perhaps it’s Satan. Maybe he’s come to get me. Satan knows about me. He is the Bad Guy.

Once, Mom called me and told me to come into the telephone room. She handed me the phone and said a woman wanted to talk to me. I was scared. The woman asked if I was rude. I denied it, but she said she knew everything about me. She asked me if I knew what happens to bad boys. I didn’t speak. She said that Satan comes to get the rude boys like me and stuffs them into a black bag. She asked if I wanted Satan to come get me. I said no.