The Spotted Ball, A True Story by Larry Cohen c 2025
Chapter 23
“A Connoisseur of Crayons”
Since this is a true story written in free form, sort of stream of consciousness, I am taking that liberty of digressing in order to return to my elementary school years of Mr. Howard and the spotted ball machine. This part of True Story has nothing to do with gambling per se, but rather with one of my classmates, who, on occasion, would accompany me to Howard’s since he lived only three streets away.
Kenny R. was one of the “bright” kids in my class whom I had known from Kindergarten right through 8th Grade. Kenny was an only child and had an unusual habit. He would eat crayons. This was not some “kid thing” where he would temporarily put a crayon in his mouth. No, sir. Kenny was a pro. He was a veritable Connoisseur of Crayons. When the crayons were dispensed in old cigar boxes, Kenny would search out the Crayola(™) Red Crayons. He would find as many as he could disregarding the fact that just possibly some of us might actually need a red crayon for its intended use. He would eat the crayons after stripping them of their paper covering.
Kenny was finally discovered with his crayon-eating habit sometime well into the 5th Grade. Kenny was discovered not while actually eating a crayon but by the aroma of melting wax. Our grey-haired art teacher, despite the fact that she was old…very old, still had a good sense of smell. If the heat were on in our classroom, Kenny would melt his selected crayons on the hot entry pipe of the old-fashioned radiators that were still in use. Kenny later unabashedly told me, “Nothing is as good as a red crayon melted on the radiator.” He said this with dead seriousness, with no hint of humor. As I said, Kenny R was a pro.
If I were a child psychologist at the time, I might have been able to offer some advice to my grade school friend. Today, we know that Kenny had some form of pica (PIKE’ a) where humans eat something of a non-nutritional value. It used to be thought that pregnant women who ate dirt did this because they were low in iron, a theory that has since been disproven. As to Kenny’s case, I still don’t know the after effects since the last time I ran into him, he had recently completed a Ph.D. in some form of engineering, possibly mechanical. Thus, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that Kenny ate red crayons, he made it through college and beyond.
As I explained earlier, since the Spotted Ball is a true story, when I get the chance to draw in (no pun intended here) a childhood memory, I take the chance. As to eating crayons…. well, I wouldn’t recommend it.
To be continued…