Wallowing with Walter

I sit in the Black Angus Steak and Seafood House. The restaurant, a converted warehouse in a small northern Mississippi town, bustles with Saturday night patrons.

The menu makes choosing an entree simple. “What’ll it be, sweet baby?” the waitress asks. “Steak or fried catfish?”

Walter, the youngest nephew, sits beside me. I like Walter just fine; tonight, he likes me a great deal. He wants his chair right next to mine. He makes a paste with pulverized crackers and spittle; he wants to share this with me, smacking gobs of it on my arm and shoulder. He nibbles odds and ends from the salad bar, smearing them around his mouth, and then he leans in to rub his face on my sleeve.

Walter is no darling infant. Walter is ten years old.

“My brothers say I’m disgusting,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. He picks his hamburger apart, flicking bun in all directions. He scoops up a handful of ketchup, sucks it off his fingers, and stamps handprints on my shorts.

“Walter,” I say, trying to be the patient, loving uncle, “use a napkin.”

Walter complies, snatching up a napkin, coating it with smeary condiments, wiping his face, and slapping the stained, ragged remains square in the middle of my lap.

Each course of the meal brings its own horror. I sit down with my salad; Walter runs a hand through it. I object; he grins. “I love croutons,” he explains.

“I’ll get you some,” I say, wincing as he licks the dressing off each cube of stale bread.

He gums the item, then tosses its remains over his shoulder. “I like other people’s croutons.”

He reaches for more, and I grab his wrist. “You’re not even eating the ones you take!”

Walter wrenches his hand away and scoops up three more. “I don’t like to eat them. I just like to have them.”

“You don’t do this at school, do you? What do your friends think?”

Walter sobers for a moment. His lower lip trembles. “I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any friends at all.”

My immediate, unexpressed response? Of course you don’t. I don’t say this, though, because I’m a patient, loving uncle — and because, for the first time, Walter seems to express a human emotion. “Walter, I’m sorry. Maybe you could–“

He bursts out laughing. He snitches a handful of fries from his grandfather’s plate, along with every hush puppy on the table. He uses his upper teeth to scrape the brown crust off each, then drops the pale, bare hush puppy cores under his chair. He pulls back his lips and launches a mouthful of gritty, greasy goop in my direction.

“Gotcha,” he says. “I got you good.”