Leroy. His name was Leroy. AKA Meaner-than-snot-Leroy. And he was in the office, again. It was the third time this week, the office aide whispered to me. I was the librarian, covering the front office for a few minutes when Leroy’s one hundred roly-poly pounds of first-grade diabolical scheming flesh was left in my care until the principal returned.
“What happened, Leroy?” I asked, trying to establish authority, trying to hide my fear of being his next target.
“Aw… the old tattletales…”
Before Leroy could finish his sentence, the school nurse came in with Robbie, a small wiry blonde with cross-eyes and numerous disabilities, with an ice pack on his neck. Leroy cowered in his chair.
“Leroy…,” her voice rose as she held the last syllable. “Leroy, you really did it this time, didn’t you. Robbie, come over here and show Leroy your neck.”
Robbie came over and pulled the ice pack off his neck. The nurse pulled up his shirt. A red, swollen welt line came up his arm, across his back, and rested finally on his neck. It seemed to be pulsating.
“Yeah, Leroy,” Robbie said shakily, “You look at what you did when you put all those fire ants on me. They crawled up my… my…arms and back and bit me. Bit me over an over again, you look Leroy, you look what you done.”
“I’m sorry,” Leroy said in his best penitent voice. “I won’t do nothing like this ever again. I’m real sorry Nurse Laurie, real sorry.” Leroy opened his eyes wide and hung his head, his blue eyes peeking out from his tufts of white blond hair, just to check the reaction to his sorrow.
“Robbie, you go back in my office and lay down on that ice pack, while I talk to Leroy,” Nurse Laurie directed.
“Okay,” Robbie replied, “Leroy, you in big trouble now. Big trouble. I’m gonna go ice my back, you coulda killt me, an then you’d go to jail, and not ever get out. If I died you’d be real sorry, and you’d be in even more trouble, real big trouble…” Robbie continued to talk as he trailed down the hall to the nurse’s office.
“Leroy, don’t you play that innocent sorry act with me. I’ve seen it too many times. I’ve seen it twice this week alone! Listen, you are really scaring me with the naughty things you are doing. But this, this, Leroy, tops it all. To put fire ants on a special ed kid. Why that’s… that’s… really bad. You need to turn things around before you really kill somebody. You gotta think ahead to what might happen, to what kind of trouble you might get into, you gotta…”
Nurse Laurie rambled on and on giving him the whole picture of his future as a juvenile delinquent. Any time that Leroy even looked like he was going to open his mouth, Nurse Laurie cut him off and started in again. Finally after about fifteen minutes, she took a breath and said, “You know you’re in trouble for this one, huh?” Leroy shrugged and mumbled.
“Yes you are, because you are going to be in trouble at home, too, huh, Leroy,” Laurie went on as Leroy sunk down in his seat. Nurse Laurie revealed that Leroy was actually Robbie’s nephew. Truly. Leroy’s face turned red then purple as he finally busted out,
“Nurse Laurie, I keep forgettin’! Honest! I try to ask Jesus in my heart, I try to ‘member, but I keep forgettin’, I keep forgettin’!” Leroy held his head in his hand, banging his fist against his forehead with each ‘forgettin’.
I had to put my head down on the desk to stifle my horror at the hilarity and truth of such a statement. Although Leroy’s grasp on salvation may have been shaky, he captured the truth Paul relates in Romans 7:15 when Paul says “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”(NAS) Since that morning with Leroy, I have often caught myself “doing the very thing I hate,” and I have remembered with a chuckle and a wash of sadness Leroy’s forgettin’ to ask Jesus in his heart. Thank goodness for grace, Leroy. You and me, we keep forgettin,’ but Jesus loves us anyway.