Page 14 - Tank

“Tank was an ugly baby.”

Matt told Annabelle. The little girl giggled. Looked at his friend as Tank’s chest
heaved up high then fell away. His friend was still alive. Both a blessing and a curse.
If Tank survived this, he would be a vegetable the rest of his life. He would live in
pain and suffering. Nothing unusual for his friend Matt told himself.
"Tank was born all kinds of deformed,” he continued. Told Annabelle it was the
drugs his momma ingested which caused Tank’s weird shape. Tank was shaped like
the infamous Hunchback of Notre Dame.
His legs were short tree like things. Twice as thick as any mans. Powerful legs. His
arms were the same. Thick arms knotted with muscle. His biceps were the envy of
every boy in the home.
Tank stood taller than most of the boys in the home. He was all trunk. Someone
once said he was a bear someone taught how to walk upright. His chest was massive
and his stomach hard as a rock. He looked like a patch work doll made up of
leftover pieces.
Unfortunately, his face was far worse. It sagged like he’d suffered a stroke. In fact,
the doctors believed he’d suffered many as a child. His face impaired his ability to
talk. Made it almost impossible.
“You mean he looked like the cartoon?” Annabelle asked.
Annabelle’s mom explained her daughter loved cartoons. Loved the Disney
animated movies. Compared Tank to the Disney version of the Hunchback.
"Excellent,” Matt exclaimed. “We loved cartoons too. Especially Batman. We
loved BATMAN!"
"Ok,” Matt continued once they stopped laughing. “So, Tank was no beauty. His
right eye was big and bright while his left eye was smaller, plus it drooped! It was
lazy. It would move on its own. I know it hurt him. Gave him horrible headaches.
He would call out to his momma it hurt."
Matt stopped. Let his mind turn back to those hated days in the boy’s home.
Returned to the teasing Tank took from the other boys. To the torment heaped on
him by the owner. To the pain his friend endured.
A pain his friend lessened by pretending he had a momma. A beautiful woman
who came to him in his dreams Tank told Matt one night all about his pretend
momma. In his own way. Told Matt his Momma could fly. A Momma who took
Tank away to the most wonderful places in his dreams. A woman only he could see.
“Dreams are the hopes of boys inside an orphanage,” Matt told Annabelle.
Annabelle’s mother blurted out no such thing existed in this country anymore.
Matt just laughed. Told her they gave them different names now. Told her the one
he and Tank grew up in was called a home for boys.
Matt’s hatred of the system couldn’t be contained. He denounced the system for
the way it treated unwanted children. Condemned foster care as a money making
industry for those who abused it.