I watched the little boy wiggle and waggle, as all four-year-old boys do in church and near everywhere else, no fear of God anywhere on his mind, but more afraid of missing out on the sunlight that was straining to break through the stained-glass windows, a mind trying to do the impossible math of how much longer he was confined in this sacred place that impressed him not in the least, his small body straining against an invisible leash like a puppy spying a kitten out of the corner of his eye.
Impossible to ignore, his activity purely unplanned, simply the spontaneous movements of a little body meant to explore and to expand, I saw his head move forward and backward and sideways like a bobble-headed doll on the dashboard of a convertible, anything of interest from a new sound to a new sight snagging his inattentive attention, wishing that there was something worthy of his sight in this stiff place, the drumbeat of dutiful voices mumbling prayers from rote memorization echoing around him, interrupted once in a while by a song unfamiliar and of no interest to him, unless containing a beat that he could play on the church pew with his small fingers.
Growing accustomed to his agitation, almost not seeing it after a while, much like a dentist immune to the squirming of a pained patient in his chair, then I saw a sight that made me smile, something I had not seen since the days of my own boyhood, when I also squirmed irreverently in reverent pews, just as he did now, the smile staying on my face for more than a few seconds as old memories began to fill empty places in the storage bin of my brain. Suddenly body-snatched from the present and air-dropped to the past, I laughed out loud, forgetting where I was, taking a closer look at what the little boy wore.
On his back, this little boy had a shirt printed and plastered with Popeye the Sailor on every square inch of it until there was room for little else, except these twenty or more figurines of Popeye, the spinach-loving hero of my childhood comics and TV cartoons, now resurrected in my mind by this little boy after years in the catacombs of all things buried from childhood. Surprised by the sight of this ancient pipe-smoking hero, amused that he still survived after all these years, I looked more closely at his figure on the boy’s back, etched on a wrinkled and well-worn white shirt, claimed as his superhero by a boy much like the boy I was in a bygone time.
Living as we do now in a galaxy guarded by guard dogs named Wolverine, Aquaman, and Iron Man, these extraordinary mutants revered as they are on our current Mount Olympus of god-like figures, Popeye the Sailor seemed to speak to a long forgotten day, a time before e-cigs and climate change and tribal wars, where a confounded and dumbfounded but good-hearted sailor man could eat a can of spinach, gaining from it super strength, thereby saving the world from all the bad things and bad people in it. If only, I allowed myself to think, a can of spinach could save us now.
Perhaps prompted by the muscles on Popeye’s forearms, clearly visible on the shirt even from a distance, abnormally large to emphasize his strength against all doers of evil, the little boy began to do push ups, using the top of the pew in front of him as a bar to lift up his small body, his feet dangling in the air as he balanced on the home-made cross bar. Blessed both with the agility and flexibility of a body neither tempered by time nor worn from work, a blessing given only to the young, the boy hoisted his arms onto this make-shift bar, a gymnast in church, an acrobat not needing angel wings to suspend him in the heavy air of sanctity in this room.
Occasionally stealing a glance up at his dad, secretly comparing his little self to his dad’s big self, and surely wanting to be like his dad, the fan of Popeye could only imagine a future day when he also was big and tall and strong. For now, he was a little boy with skinny arms and short legs, unquestionably believing his dad as strong as Popeye, as all little boys believe of their dads, men ably taking on any threat, maybe not even needing a can of spinach to be a superhero.
Seeing the restlessness of the boy and wanting him to sit and stand still, an impossibility for any boy, the dad brought his arm onto the shoulder of his son, the heavy hand intended to stop the jumpiness and the fidgetiness of a free spirit, the first of many times that the boy would be taught that the grown-up world consists of conformity and uniformity, the enormity of a free spirit compressed and contracted until it is an unfortunate deformity, like small parakeets with clipped wings, no longer soaring, but only stumbling around in the air.
For a brief while, a minute or two at most, the boy would comply with the unspoken command of his dad, until the unbridled life within him would break free again, allowing his body the freedom to breathe again, not unlike a diver who can hold his breath underwater only for a short spell, but then must break to the surface to breathe deeply.
“I’m Popeye the Sailor Man, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man, I’m strong to the finish, cause I eat my spinach.” Floating back to me from the dust-covered decades, cranking up like an old Model-T Ford, the ditty came to mind again as I stared at the shirt, each phrase of the song piecing together as would Lego blocks, until I swear I was returned to the little boy I once was, lying on the living room floor, singing with Popeye the Sailor Man, the TV in the background blaring away.
Replaying the words again as if they were from a chunky black and white TV set and not from the cobwebbed corridors of my mind, I found them familiar, yet out of place, like the simultaneous familiarity and unfamiliarity of a childhood friend appearing at a school reunion many years later. When, I wondered, had I last sung those words? When, I asked, had I believed those words for the last time? When, I pondered, had I seen at last that eating spinach does not ensure you will be strong enough for all that life brings?
Turning around and facing me and smiling at me when he made one of his many merry-go-round moves, I saw that the little boy wearing the Popeye shirt also wore over-sized glasses, large blue frames attached to small brown eyes. Surely he needed them to see clearly and he would learn, as we all do, that clear-sightedness sometimes comes with eye glasses, but more often comes from the battles lost, not the battles won, a truth Popeye the Sailor Man did not teach us, this hero always saving Olive Oyl, untying her from the railroad tracks right before the train roars by, thanks soley to a can of spinach that he miraculously finds at the last minute. Sometimes, outside the cartoon world, the hero doesn’t get the girl.
Standing to the right of the dad, another boy stood, this one older, wearing no cartoon-themed shirt and no blue-framed glasses. He was the boy’s brother, having two or three years on the younger boy, but still enough time to have outgrown Popeye cartoons, enough time to have learned the rules for behaving in church. He stood still, moving ne’er a muscle, not a glance to the left or right, no silent reprimand coming to him from his dad since he neither itched nor twitched. That he was the young boy’s brother was a simple and safe conclusion based on their similarity of features and their proximity to the older man.
The younger boy with the more inquisitive mind and the more restless body would steal a glance now and again around his dad’s stomach, spying on his older brother, seeing if he had found anything to distract him from the tedium, but his brother rarely, if ever, looked his way. Although the years between them were not great, the experiences were, with the older brother having already several years in school, where children learn soon enough to sit still, to say little, and to face the front of the room. The classroom is always a boy’s first boot camp.
As the service methodically moved along, the dad reached into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet, taking two dollar bills from it, handing one to each son, both of whom waited to throw it into the collection basket as it made its way down the aisle. The older son dropped his bill into the basket with ordinary effort, whereas his brother jumped across his dad’s lap and tossed his wadded up dollar bill towards the basket, as if it were a basketball and the collection basket was the hoop. I watched to see if the shot would make it through the net. It did. Three points, buddy.
As the time inched towards the end of an hour, the service winded down like a spinning top, with little left to do but tie up the loose ends and move to the exits. The young boy in the Popeye the Sailor Man shirt jumped from his seat and raced towards the door, not waiting, not wasting a moment more, his duty done, and now his freedom restored. As he ran through the parking lot, his Popeye shirt becoming a sail in the wind, the boy floated freely, unchained to the world, unfettered by grown-up expectations. The last I saw of him he was flying, with Popeye hanging on for dear life.
—Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 