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WHAT IT TAKES TO WRITE AND PUBLISH A BOOK I went to the super market one day to buy a couple of potpies. As I rounded the corner of the freezer, I saw this woman who had a young boy with her who appeared to be about 5 years old. He was looking at himself in the freezer door as they walked along. He raised his little hand and waved at me, and I waved back. As he walked down the row of glass doors following his mother, he once again looked at himself in the reflection of the glass and reached out to touch his image. "Don't touch that damn thing!" yelled his mother. The little boy jerked his hand back and just kept walking as if his mother had said nothing. His mother then reached over and started picking through the turkeys in the open freezer to our left. As she bent over the open chest, the little boy looked back at the freezer doors on the right and waved at himself in the mirror-like glass. He looked back at me and smiled, so I raised my hand, looked at my own reflection in the mirror and waved at myself, just as he had done. He smile at me again, raised his hands to his head, sticking his thumbs in his ears and then he wiggled his fingers at his own reflection. I bent over the freezer and started picking out two turkey pot pies when all of a sudden I heard this loud pop, which I know could have been heard two or three isles over. The woman yelled out "I said don't do that!" The little boy was lying on the floor and frozen vegetables were all over everything. The little boy just looked up at her and I saw tears come to his eyes. "Just what the damn hell is wrong with you," she said as she picked up another frozen package of vegetables and raised them above her head, as if she was going to strike him again. "That was very uncalled for," I said to her as I reached down and raised the boy to his feet. "This is none of your concern. None of your business!" she yelled at me. I turned, walked back to my shopping cart, put the two potpies in the metal basket and just stood looking at her. She turned and grabbed the crying boy by the arm. "I asked you, what is wrong with you?" she hollered. The boy just stood there saying nothing, his lip quivering and a tear dripping to the floor once in a while. "What is wrong with you, I said. Can't you do as you are told?" "Mommy, I can't say what's wrong, 'cause I don't know how to say it," he said softly looking at the floor. The woman gave me a dirty look, turned and started pushing her cart on down the super market isle, shoving the boy along with her fist in the middle of his back. I must have stood in that very spot for five minutes or more. All I could think about was the statement, "Mommy, I can't say what's wrong, 'cause I don't know how to say it." Right then and there I knew exactly how that little boy felt, because I too was treated the same way as a 5-year-old boy. I knew what that little boy wanted to say and I knew the sadness that he was feeling inside. But he just didn't know what to say, because he hadn't learned enough words yet. "I'm going to tell that woman what her little boy was feeling inside,” I thought. “I'm going to tell the world the story of a little abused boy and I'm going to do it using little boy feeling and little boy words. I can do that now, 'cause I'm a grown-up little boy who learned the words.