When he was born, his mother cried for two days, and his father got desperately drunk.  His grandmother—who wore many shawls, had seen many things, and whose passions time had ground to dust—regarded the newborn’s odd bony protuberance with nonchalance.  If God had put a knob on her new grandson’s back, he must have done so for a reason.

            For those two days, the grandmother sat close to the fire—for her shawls were thin—stirring the embers and rocking the baby.  On the third day, she slapped and punched her drunken son until he wept—not an easy task since in his state he felt little physical pain—and plied her daughter-in-law with brandy until she was drunk—not a difficult task since all that crying had left her dehydrated and thirsty.  In that way, the balance of the household was reversed and eventually restored.

*  *  *

            Whatever God’s intention, as the boy grew, the knob proved handy to the grandmother.  When he began to crawl and was apt to wander too close to the fire, the grandmother looped some cord over the knob and tied the end to her chair to prevent any such mishaps while she napped.  When he began to walk and toddled too close to the creek’s edge, the grandmother easily grabbed the knob to keep him from toppling into the water.  For a while, the knob was just the right height for the grandmother to guide the boy through the woods, thus leaving his hands free for mischief and discovery.

            On the special saints’ days, of which there were many, the grandmother would hang her rosary on the boy’s knob and pray for God’s plan for her grandson to be revealed to her and for humility when that time came, so as not to gloat excessively in front of the other grandmothers.  She even kept a celebration shawl folded away and ready for that happy day.  But she died before the boy was old enough to get his second teeth and in her death throes was still ignorant of the knob’s divine purpose.  The celebration shawl, when it was finally discovered by rummaging relatives, had succumbed to befouling multitudes of mice and was used as a rag to mop the floors.

*  *  *

            Both before and immediately after his grandmother died, the boy lived a relatively normal life.  His defect, though a curiosity, was no more or less repugnant to the villagers than the clubbed foot of the butcher’s son, the chronically pussy eyes of the dressmaker’s daughter, or the throat-catching aroma of the undertaker’s nephew.

            There weren’t enough children in the village for any of them to stay lonely for long.  They sought each other out and romped the days away in biting, kicking, giggling packs like the wild mongrels that haunted the dump.

            It wasn’t until his voice began to deepen and chaotic down appeared on his cheeks that the boy’s singular knob caused people to take renewed notice.  For as he transformed from a child to a man, his knob also transformed—growing longer and thicker and oddly expressive. 

            It began to move.  Sometimes it pointed up to the heavens; sometimes, it aimed to the left or to the right or down. It might point in all of these directions in the span of an afternoon, or it might point in one direction for days.  The behavior of the knob was worth remarking on, like the weather or the harvest.  But for the superstitious, this newest attribute was imbued with meaning: the knob’s every alteration one degree in any direction became the subject of speculation as to impending woe or joy.

            It was a puzzlement.  And even the village priest, who had formerly looked upon the boy as one of God’s tragic creatures, like those remote biblical lepers, was made uncomfortable by the shifting positions of the knob on the young man and the murmuring speculation of his congregation.

            The mayor felt the knob judged him, for it seemed always to be wagging like an accusatory finger when he passed the young man in the street.  The recently widowed but privately happy wife of the mill operator was sure the knob mocked her mourning the way it thrust upward and jiggled about as the young man, sensing he was unwelcome, hurried through the streets.  The saloon keeper stopped serving the young man because the gyrating knob made the other patrons uneasy and disinclined to spend money.

            One day, a child threw a stone at the knob, and because he went unreprimanded, his friends joined in. Soon the air was filled with rocks lobbed from old and young hands alike, from former friend and foe, from family and stranger.  With that, the young man was officially ostracized, and the villagers were left to consider their foibles at their leisure and in private.

*  *  *

            Hermitage did not suit the young man, and he was soon emaciated, which made the knob protrude even more.  In this state, he was a fright to behold, as reported by traveling merchants and beggars who chanced upon him in the woods collecting twigs for his meager fire or drinking from the stream. 

            He took on mythic status and became entwined in the lore and the old stories of the place.  Parents found it useful to mention the knob “monster” when they wanted to keep restless children in bed at night.  Blossoming young women were warned away from secluded midnight lovers’ trysts with gruesome innuendoes about the ravaging knob.  The curse of the knob monster became the excuse for bad harvests, ugly children, and loveless marriages.  Even the village priest began to use the poor beleaguered knob monster as an example of an unsaved soul.

            To escape the hoary hands of winter, the young man took refuge with an old woman who lived on an even older farm.  He was safe there, for most of the villagers had trouble remembering just where the farm was because it was decrepit and didn’t incite their envy. They would have forgotten about the old woman, too, except that on occasion, she appeared at the market to sell her crooked cucumbers and brilliantly white rabbits. 

            She might not have seen many things during her reclusive life, but the old farm woman knew that the young man was about as dangerous as one of her suckling bunnies, and because she was guileless, the knob on his back, no matter where it pointed, caused her no distress.  Like the grandmother who trusted that the knob had a place in God’s scheme, so too the old farm woman felt that Nature had some purpose in bestowing the knob.  As she went about her chores, she quietly watched the young man and his knob, hoping that the secret would be revealed.

            But she didn’t know what she should be watching for, and when in the spring the young man died from the deep sadness that comes from being shunned, she was resigned that she would never know the message of the knob.  She had grown fond of the young man, and it was with a heavy heart that she dragged a shovel to where he had fallen. 

            At her age, she knew that her capacity was finite:  she could chase a loose rabbit or skin five others, but not both in the same afternoon.  She could carry the young man to a more peaceful grave or dig it, but not both in the same day.  She took the shovel in her arthritic hands and began to dig a hole where he lay, the knob seemingly pointing to a good spot.

            And that is how she became secretly rich.  For with the third thrust of her shovel, the old woman struck gold, in exactly the place the knob pointed to.

            The message of the knob had finally been revealed.  The knob had wagged at the mayor because his gold-filled pockets danced as he walked, as did the gold watch that hung from a golden chain on his vest.  The knob thrust upward at the miller’s widow because, under her black mourning veil, in her hair, she wore a golden comb: a gift from her illicit lover.  The saloon patrons, who clutched their gold coins in their sweaty, calloused palms and jostled for seats at the bar, had made the knob gyrate sympathetically.

            Before the impact of her new good fortune could overwhelm her, the old woman sat quietly and wrote down every place the knob had pointed to on her property.  Then she secured what of her fortune she could to her wagon, set her rabbits free in the cucumbers, and walked to the nearest city.  There she lived well, married a grateful but much younger man, and gave generously to the poor.

*   *   *

            The villagers quickly forgot about the old woman and her farm.  The brilliantly white rabbits they saw running about for a time they attributed to an Easter miracle.  Only the knob monster lived on in their imaginations and caused children, and solo travelers anguish each time they saw a gnarled tree or a twisted shadow as they scurried by the woods.

            There was only one person who walked those paths unafraid of the knob monster.  She was a very old woman who could be seen passing through from time to time, and in her wagon, she carried a shovel.

– Mary Lou Wilshaw-Watts