Portraits of Courage

Shawn



Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Boy puts his face behind him...

WHEN YOU FIRST see Shawn Jones, the Richmond boy mauled last year by two pit bulls, you don't see the boy. You see the packaging. It is human nature to run your eyes over the twisted scars and discolored gouges that have misshaped his face. You look at the swollen lip and the odd little holes where his ears should be. You see patches on his scalp where hair no longer grows.

And there he is. The 12-year old boy who likes PlayStation 2 games and Shaquille O'Neal and the St. Louis Rams and hanging out with his big brothers. He's right there. Taking you in. Waiting. He seems to know you'll get around to him when you have finished with his face.

He doesn't speak until you do, and then only softly. His damaged facial muscles prevent expression so you watch his eyes. They do the work.

"Is this the new wide receiver?" booms Matt Stinchcomb. He's an offensive lineman for the Oakland Raiders. We are in the lunch room of the Raider's Alameda headquarters on a recent Saturday morning. The Team invited Shawn and his aunt, Belinda Arnett, to have breakfast and watch practice.

"So you're a fisherman," Stinchcomb says. "That's my very favorite thing in the world. What do you catch?"

"Catfish," Shawn answers, his voice barely audible.

"What do you use?"

"Worms."

"Funny how whatever stinks worst is what the fish like," Stinchcomb says. Shawn's eyes squint. A smile.

Outside, every player on his way to the practice field stops to shake the boy's small hand and thank him for coming. They greet him with the respect usually reserved for visiting dignitaries and religious figures. The 49ers and the A's did the same thing.

Children who endure unimaginable suffering are accorded special, almost exalted, status. We want to give them things, everything we have, as a way of making up for what they have lost. So throughout the morning, the Raiders shower Shawn with stuff. Quarterback Rich Gannon hands Shawn a new pair of his own sneakers. Wide receiver Tim Brown gives him an autographed poster. Another player stuffs Shawn's pockets with candy. The equipment manager gives him two balls.

When practice is over, the players and coaches guide Shawn into the center of their huddle. They give him a jersey with "JONES" stitched onto the back, a helmet and a ball autographed by the entire team. They tell the skinny little boy he is an inspiration.

I ask Shawn why the players say this.

"I don't know," he says, shrugging.

Arnett, the aunt who is raising Shawn, discreetly wipes a drop of fluid that has seeped from one of Shawn's scars. She says Shawn has a new home-schooling teacher who takes him to museums and libraries. They're working on a writing project entitled "Wonderful Me." Shawn has to write five pages of his life story and three pages of goals (playing basketball, visiting Hollywood).

You're only 12, I say. How can you fill five pages of an autobiography?

"I skip three lines between sentences," he says, deadpan.

Arnett has been in contact with Robert Barron. He is a prosthetics expert who honed his craft making disguises for CIA operatives. Maybe he can make a "mask" that will normalize the boy's appearance as he slogs through the slow process of plastic surgery.

In January, Shawn will probably enroll at a school in the East Bay for kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He wants friends and a locker and a bologna sandwich in his backpack. Shawn Jones is not his face. He already knows this. The rest of us are trying to catch up...