Monday, April 13, 2009
Social Obligations and the Redistributed Sloth: A Case Study
It’s the eyes that seem to speak to me. They peer out from the jumbled menagerie on the shelf behind Zach’s bed, where Kermit huddles with the fuzzy doggie and some plush hand puppets and an ever-rotating coalition of other cuddly toys. From there, the sloth gives me the eye.
All the dolls have similarly vacant expressions (except for Kermit, his bulged eyes glaring as if he were being forcibly inflated with a nitrous suppository). But from this pantheon of fuzz and stuffing, the little sloth distingishes itself. How, I’m not sure; it’s one of the smaller doll denizens, camouflaged in browns and tans, hardly remarkable in itself and less so amid all the other stuffed animals. Maybe it’s because I know its its history, or part of it. I see something more than just a doll - I see a slice of a life, one I’d ignore in any other case. This time, though, I just can’t.
As time creeps past me, or I along it, the details of that provenance begin to escape me despite myself. The sloth’s gaze grows less friendly and more maligned and accusatory, calling me out for letting its unique qualities slip away. Its history is all that distinguishes it, and I am the sole repository thereof. If I lose the remaining strands of that skein, the sloth will revert to being nothing more than an empty shell stuffed with polyfoam. It remains more than that now, I know, at least for the time being. So I will take the time to retrieve that story, so far as I remember it. I wouldn’t want its loss on my conscience. That little sloth’s beady gaze wouldn’t ever forgive me.
It all went down at the Panhandle playground. The ‘handle is a piece of GG park that stretches a statute mile into surrounding neighborhoods, just one block wide and lined with bike paths, hoops courts, and one funky playground for kids. We’d often see that playground as we zipped past the ‘handle on our way into the park alonng a standard shortcut home. Though there’s no dearth of facilities in our neighborhood, sometimes variety is worth pursuit on its own merits alone, so one golden afternoon a few years back we went just a little out of our way when it waws time to exercise the toddler, and headed over to the Panhandle Playground for to check it out in person and hands-on.
It was quintessentially urban - a tired railing hemming in well-seasoned structures of worn metal and faded plastic, some bits vaguely dangerous-looking and all the more fun for it, some tagged indecipherably and some poignantly unremarkable. Standard animal-headed spring-rockers stood grimy sentry, a hand-cranked trolley enticed kids and parents alike to take a little spin, and outside the ratty fence a pickup basketball game served up a backing track of friendly shouts and the hollow echoing percussions of the ball on the blacktop. I even think a couple homeless dudes roamed aimlessly around the general vicinity, but inside the rail everything remained comfortingly juvenile and very much playgroundesque.
Consistent with the subdivision of the Code of the Playground that applies to parents at parks with their kids*, those of us there with progeny exchanged benign greetings and humored each other with compliments about the little ones and comments about the equipment, the weather, and the park itself. The panhandle is a gentrified neighborhood and a wide cross-section was represented. I wouldn’t have called it idyllic but it was pleasant enough, with smiles all around and an easy concord.
And, of course, there was the big guy. The way I remember things, he was significantly taller than anyone else there, even without taking his thick shock of greying dreds into account. His shades were enormous, lenses wide and deep and very dark in thick black frames - yet not too thick for his big round face, cheeks like bocce balls, lips like slabs of brisket, and a benevolent visage that seemed to start with the confidence instilled by physical hugeness and to conclude somewhere both distant and deeply internalized. His enormity extended to a chest more like a cask than a mere barrel, arms like cannon and an abdominal rotundity that rendered him nigh-spherical. He wore a baggy XXXL collegiate sweatshirt and presentable blue jeans, and he carried a battered shopping bag from some major retail outlet. A boy of eight or nine, slim, coffee-complected, and delicately disinterested, was apparently there with the big guy more than the other way around.
The kid entertained himself as best he could on equipment generally designed for and occupied by kids younger than he, keeping pretty much to himself. The big guy was approaching the other parents, as we all approached each other - smiling, friendly, nice day, good playground. Cute kid. Here, take this.
“This,” as it turned out, was a stuffed animal, drawn from the big guy’s shopping bag. As he extended the toy toward one of us, he would say something about his kid’s birthday, that he was giving away the toys his son no longer used or needed. The boy’s gaze lingered assiduously elsewhere. He was, obviously, uncomfortable, feeling our glances flick over him as the huge cheerful dude approached us, one after another. The dude made no inquiry as to our interest in his gifts - he’d simply pluck a toy from his sack and hand it over, with no apparent consideration for any poossible rejection. “Here, this is for your kid. Mine just had a birthday, he doesn’t need this anymore.”
None of us knew what to make of it. No one wanted to antagonize Gargantua, but similarly, no one wanted or even trusted the dinky little toys he was thrusting upon us. His proffered novelties were dwarfed into insignificance by his massive ursine paws.
It was thus that I first met the sloth.
To tell the truth, I felt sorry for it, as I did for the kid ignoring it being given away to us. Just a handful of fuzz, glossy eyes unblinking immodestly, and a face small, pinched and masked with dun stripes over the eyes. I took it from the big guy with a moderate qualm, even as Kel quietly conveyed to me her opinion that our child should never be exposed to so questionable a plaything. But by then I had the sloth in hand, could feel that it was clean and well-maintained, resilient yet cuddly. I slipped it, already feeling a little protective, into my jacket pocket like some marsupial mom.
Later, Kel superfluously reminded me that “that thing” would have to go through the wash at least twice before it could even be shown to our child. She remained deeply suspicious of it even after our thorough “due diligence” laundering, but once it was properly re-sanitized I offered it to Zach. He treated it with the same amused disinterest with which he treated almost all his stuffed animals, none of which he’s named except for his favorite, a blue bear called “Blue Bear.” The sloth, to him, was just another set of eyes staring out from the shelf behind the headboard.
But somehow for me the sloth’s eyes are distinguished - thoughtful, or at least sympathetic. They are eyes that have a story to tell, though how it ends or began I am not sure. I know one of the middle chapters, though, and feel thereby a fraternity with the redistributed sloth. Through that fraternity I gradually felt a responsibility - to the sloth, to its story. I had saved the one from the trash-heap; I should save the other from being lost as well. That, too, I have now done. I wonder if I’ll notice now in his black button eyes any recognition of the favor I’ve done him. While I doubt I’ll see any gratitude, I will be happy to see at least the end of that accusatory glare.
* Division III, Part d, Section 5: “Recreational Accompaniment"
