ten

this is something i suppose we've been expecting for a while. i mean, really, this is something we've seen coming on down the road since he was born. but it's one of those things like waiting for your child to hit puberty. some part of you secretly hopes the whole thing will never happen, but you know it will so the rest of you wishes you could just squeeze shut your eyes and hope that when you open them the child will be 23 or so. but transformation does not wait for us to be ready and so now we are seeing it firsthand.

the original supernatural nephew is ten. and ten is a milestone for everyone. however, it is far more important, far more dangerous and significant, if you are supernatural. this is the year any previously unknown powers settle in, make themselves known. for you the ability to see through walls might be pretty entertaining but for a ten year old boy it can be a little uncomfortable. and who wouldn't like having the ability to heal with just a touch? but you slap something like that on a ten year old and you've got an accidental infestation of reanimated mice or earthworms or mosquitoes. tell him to take out the trash and a chicken breast leaps from the bag, flapping the wing still attached to it. upsetting. potentially very messy.

for many children in the original supernatural's shoes, this is the year they become entirely human, give up the supernatural lifestyle. school gets harder. relationships get more complex. parents, who have never been particularly understandable before, become completely incomprehensible. and you would think that the ability to fly might be helpful somehow in managing these things but it is not. you would think being able to communicate with animals would help. but no. dogs know some math, certainly, but they're notoriously awful at long division and anything after that requiring such skills is beyond them. besides this, they do not seem to care. and while birds understand the scientific method just fine, their ability to explain it is extremely limited. i mean, it's a set of six steps easily represented in a flow chart but they just get so caught up in if-then statements they are worthless. squawking and flapping and screaming, "analyze the results. is the hypothesis true or false?" over and over. there is no help for a supernatural ten year old.

and all this sounds awful. why would any supernatural folks ever make it to adulthood with this misery? but ten is a magnificent year for those who can stand all the shifting. ten is the year of identity. we weren't thinking about it, really. we are so far away here in brooklyn. his parents have been busy with the beginning of school. the local aunt and uncle are still settling into a new home with their own supernatural child. and the grandparents didn't say a word. not a word. but they knew. i will try to explain.

the patriarch of the family, grandfather to both supernaturals, is a garage sale/flea market fiend. the original supernatural nephew, unable to escape this trait any more than he can escape the ability to fly, goes with his grandpa when he can and surveys piles of musty, rusted, broken things, looking for what is beautiful. there is no one in his family who doesn't love a flea market. this, too, is a special power. these two stand together, nearly sixty years apart, but with the same sharp eyes and chatty charm. you can't get something for nothing but these two come close more often than the rest of us.

and while the grandpa is looking at something, a watch, a pipe, some sort of sword, the child's eyes fall on something that catches his heart. i know what his face looks like, eyes wide and soft, mouth open a bit until he realizes it and snaps it shut. his head whips around to his grandpa. maybe he holds the briefcase up for his grandpa to see. maybe he just points at it, still so smitten he cant' pick it up. and the grandpa knows right away. he pretends he doesn't, tells the child no ten year old needs such a thing. then he waits. the supernatural nephew makes it very clear that he might die without this briefcase, that he has his own money. he will take the thing to school instead of his backpack. the grandpa waits. unlike the rest of us he has not forgotten the child will be ten soon. he has not forgotten this is the year of identity. the way the child expresses need for the old briefcase is what he's looking for. the child holds the briefcase to his chest, looks up at his grandpa, smiles. the woman selling things wasn't expecting this particular item to go home with a large eyed, serious ten year old boy and she smiles, too. the child's grandpa sighs and nods. the supernatural child slides coins over to the woman and takes what is now his.

i call him a few days later to ask him about the briefcase but we get distracted in our conversation (the rock postcard i sent him arrived with pieces broken off and he is furious with the irresponsibility of postal employees. we make plans for a possible thanksgiving in the catskills.) and i forget to ask. he does not mention it. i think it is because he knows. we have never spoken about it but he is, even as a ten year old, supernatural. he has to know. we have been sending him things over the years, strange musical instruments, ancient helmets and shields, survival backpacks, things he might need for his future life. there is no way to predict how he will rescue, how he will protect, what he will do. there is only knowing that's what's out there for him.

what is best about this is we don't know where that briefcase belongs. will it be part of his mild mannered alter ego or will it be part of his heroic self? all we can tell right now is what he told his local aunt while running a hand over the worn leather outside of the case with a flourish. "you can't," he said, opening the case to reveal a luxurious blue silken pocketed interior, "judge a book by its cover."