A Birthday, A War, and A Hurtling Globe

Jimmy’s boy knocked at the door while I was taking a nap, and then again while I was trying to wake up. I came stumbling down the stairs to see him on the doorstep in his brand new bike helmet, which is a bit too big and makes him look like a Lego man.

“Can we plant peas now?” he asked. “You promised we’d do it on my birthday.”

The last thing I wanted to do was go outside. It had turned chilly again. Last year on Jimmy’s boy’s birthday, it was warm, and we planted peas in the sunshine with the Artful Dodgers. This year, the Artful Dodgers were gone, and it was overcast and cold. Still, a promise was a promise. I dug through my seed drawer and found the package of sugar snap peas. The garden was gray and barren, scattered with litter from yesterday’s wind storm. Jimmy’s boy and I shivered as I counted out peas and poked holes in the soil with a stick. He placed each pea in the ground, covered it with soil, and then asked to come in for a snack.

“Do you want to bake muffins with me? I’ll teach you how to do it for yourself.”

Jimmy’s boy was excited to bake muffins with me. Next thing I knew he was standing on a chair in the kitchen, learning what it meant to cream butter and beat eggs. He was pretty good at following instructions, all things considered, though every time he got down from the chair he’d do a frog-jump and touch the kitchen floor, and I’d have to make him wash his hands again.

“You’re so good at this!” I praised. “When you grow up and get a wife, or join the army or live in a dorm or something, you’ll be very glad you learned to bake. Your wife and your friends will be thrilled.”

Jimmy’s boy got even happier when I mentioned the army. “I’m going to be in the army. Did you know our army is winning the war?”

I cringed. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Jimmy’s boy’s sudden fascination with warfare, but it was too late now. He’d been watching television with one of his adult brothers again. Before, he’d been excited to tell me about the supposed drug cartels in the Caribbean. Now he was excited about the war in Iran. He went on at great length about our drones and our fighter jets, and all the trucks full of missiles we were blowing right off the road in the Middle East.

“Well,” I stammered, “I like drones better than fighter jets, because at least there’s nobody in a drone to get hurt or killed. If all war were just drones crashing into drones and no humans were ever killed, I’d be as excited about war as you are. But people are getting badly hurt!”

Jimmy’s boy did not stop. “No, they’re not! No they’re not! We’re blowing up four, six missiles at a time! We’re saving the world! The worst thing that could happen is that they got a nuke.”

“I agree, nobody should ever have a nuke. Nuclear weapons are the worst weapons in the world. In my last after school geography class, we talked about Nagasaki–”

But Jimmy’s boy wasn’t listening. All I heard for the next five minutes was drones, missiles and nukes.

Finally, as I was pouring frozen blueberries into the dough, I managed to get a word in. “I think the best, most heroic, masculine, exciting thing a person could ever do, is put down their weapons and work for peace.”

Jimmy’s boy did not have an answer to that.

The next thing he asked to do was play with Adrienne’s old Legos, while the muffins were baking. We have an enormous collection of Legos because we used to always buy them for Adrienne– a set here and there whenever an action movie closed at the box office, and the Legos promoting that movie went to the clearance rack so a new licensed character Lego set could be advertised. Legos used to be the favorite present for Christmas and birthdays, but also stuck in the Easter basket or just kept in the closet for a surprise gift. Now we have a plastic chest of drawers in the dining room, stuffed with Legos for the neighborhood children to play with. Jimmy’s boy usually loves to sort through all the Legos and make them into cars and helicopters for me to display in the China cupboard. Today, though, he happened to find a bullet-shaped piece that I think was supposed to be a torpedo for a submarine. And then he found the rubber balls I had gotten to give away as prizes in my geography class: balls a little smaller than a baseball, printed with a globe of the earth. I’d stuffed them in the Lego drawer, absentmindedly, when I was cleaning the living room.

“It’s the earth!” said Jimmy’s boy, holding up the globe. “The earth looks so peaceful! It’s a good day on the earth! Uh oh! I spoke too soon! I jinxed it! I jinxed it! Here comes the missile!”

The Lego torpedo crashed into the continent of South America. Jimmy’s boy giggled as he hurled the earth across the room, narrating that the whole planet had been thrown out of orbit from the force of the nuclear warhead. The globe hurtled through the living room doorway. It landed in the foyer, neatly on top of my shelf full of cloth grocery bags, tilted with the South Pole on the top.

I laughed, outwardly. Inwardly, I shook.

Yes, I know that violent games are normal for boys and girls to play at this age. Adrienne did many such things with the Legos years ago. But somehow, just then, I was terrified.

Of course, the primary victims of war are the people wounded and killed in the war zone. That goes without saying. But somewhere along the domino chain of destruction, are the people who hear about all that bloodshed and murder and decide it’s not only acceptable but a good thing. War destroys people, families, cultures, and ecosystems. But it also corrupts children halfway across the globe, who hear about it, and think that it’s heroic and exciting. When powerful men become monsters and murderers, killing becomes normal and acceptable. That, itself, is another kind of violence.

Jimmy’s boy watched television and ate muffins until it got dark. I walked him home with his bicycle, promising to take him along to the garden center later in the week.

I’ll put that globe in the icon corner, as a prayer for the whole world.