Christmas Eve with Danny.... − 24 December, 1983
Danny Hester was a ward of the state. His parents had given him up soon after birth given the lethal cocktail of his disabilities and their poverty. I got to know him at the Normalization residence (now there's a concept) when he was about 13.
Danny was Down's Syndrome. There are a lot of DS kids who show a range of cognitive skills. Odds are if you go to a lot of corporate cafeterias and/or some McDonalds, you can spot people with Downs (more specifcally trisomy 21, or an extra 21st chromosome) working in the back, usually bussing tables and the like.
Not Danny. Bless his heart, that boy was dumb as a rock. But he was built like an ox.
Danny didn't use words all that much. He tended to bounce his head up and down while humming. Given that most DS kids have larger tongues and thicker lips than non-DS, Danny's patois sounded like a washing machine or dryer that'd hit the spin cycle with an uneven load, "uh HUN HUN HUUUN" and so on.
Danny also had a temper, which was understandable. I think a good experience for most people would be to get plucked out of bed one night and be dropped into a foreign country before daybreak. You've got to figure out how to communicate in say, Serbo-Croatian pronto if you want breakfast. Over time, you can't help but be frustrated. More than few handicapped people go through that.
Dannny was no exception. Even though his ridiculous expanded face with protruding tongue wide jaw and shock of carrot-top head epitomized what the medievals would call the Village Idiot or the banjo-picking bling boy from Deliverance, there was a person behind those eyes, one who responded to the idea of "Danny", and one who'd worked himself into a semblance of a daily routine.
Danny didn't exactly take to me at the group home when we first met. He weighed in at about 135-140, compactly built, thick neck and shoulders. I was a good bit bigger and let him know that I was a bit of a new sheriff in town. Not that Dany had truly violent tendancies (that would be Greg who I'll write about later). No, it was simply the fact that he was used to getting his way in terms of retrieving cokes from the fridge or switching the TV on when he wanted. I brought a little more structure to the situation and we spent a few days sizing each other up before we learned each other's boundaries.
Anyway, Christmas was coming which meant that all the other clients (that was the official euphemism for referring to retarded kids) went either home to their direct families, their extended relatives, or some church or other program. Not Danny. Being a ward of the state, he would stay at the group home over the holiday.
It's amazing how empty a house can get during Christmas. It's not simply the idea of people not being there physically. Something about the holiday seems to exacerbate the situation. If you've got family and you're close to them, you never feel more that you belong to something wonderful. The alternative can be too much for many people to bear.
Anyway, I was scheduled to work second shift on Christmas Eve (3-11). I kept my suit in the car because I planned to put Danny to bed around 830, check out some TV and then meet my family for midnight mass.
He and I were the only people in the house, which had been converted from a six bedroom brick colonial to comply with all the state fire codes and other legal whatnot.
Danny was agitated when I got there and in an overall foul mood. He tore his room up in terms of scattering stuff all over hell. He was pushy in the kitchen, moving in and out around me, bumping me. Nothing seemed to please him, not even hot dogs and a Coke, a perennial favorite.
"Alright, big boy", I thought. "If that's the way you want to play it, we'll just get your ass in bed that much sooner." We finished dinner and I waited the minimum amount until it was time for a shower. I got him clean and in a new set of PJs and started to brush his teeth. The whole time he was being a hard ass. the head bouncing and humming had a growl or two mixed in.
I wasn't being particularly nice either. Very businesslike in fact. Finallyy, per the routine, I put him in his bed and told him good night. It was a little after 8pm.
I went back into the kitchen to read the paper. After five or so minutes Danny appeared at the door. "C'mon Danny, get your ass back in bed. You know it's lights out." I said exasperated. He grunted and hummed some like he was equally irritated with me but trudged back. I returned to reading my paper. We did a few more rounds like that. Dannny would pop his head into the kitchen. I'd tell him to get back in bed and the temperature between us would climb.
After about an hour of this stuff I started getting mad. It was 930pm and I thought about the shower I would take before changing for midnight service. Danny kept coming into the kitchen and trying to grab my arm. When I resisted he got more irritated---as did I.
After a while, he didn't come back and I thought it was the end of it. Then, I heard the TV switch on in the other room. "Goddamit to hell Danny! I want you to get back to bed and stay there!" Well, this got him mad and he plopped in front of the TV and started swatting my hands away with one arm while he fiddled with the channels with the other.
We almost came to the point when I was going to need to take stronger action when Danny flipped the channel to PBS where a choir was singing carols. Danny relaxed some and began humming along, badly, but humming to Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Shit....
He just sat in front of the TV, taking in all the carols, humming, not even bouncing his head that much. I felt ashamed of myself and fascinated at the same time. "So that's what you're about tonight", I thought.
I went back to his room and fetched a pillow for him to sit on the floor (his favorite way) in front of the couch that faced the TV. There, as the Christmas carols played out from the TV, I let him hum. I also combed his hair. Believe me, the regular chances were few. With each song, he relaxed more as did I. We even hummed a bit together.
Soon enough, it became 1000 and Danny was finally sleepy. I led him back to his room and he climbed into bed, the only client in that whole big house.
I was going to be relieved by the 3rd shift person in an hour. I went on the front porch to smoke a cigarette and while out on the swing that faced the street, I started to hear a low buzz. He was snoring.
I finished the smoke and retrieved my suit from the car. Back inside the house I took a quick shower and changed, all the time thinking about that 20 or so minutes when it seemed like we were the only two people in the world and Danny was the only one who'd remembered that it was Christmas.
I finished getting ready and heard Dee Dee's car crawl through the gravel next to mine. I went toward the front door where Danny's room was. He was deep asleep, snoring away. Still can't explain why, I looked through the door and in an audible voice sad, "Merry Christmas, Danny".
Dee Dee came to the front door right at that moment. He asked me a couple of questions about schedules and then we wished each other Merry Christmas.
After that, I went to midnight mass to meet my family....
