Evil is evil. Evil is the face of the man and woman sitting at the table behind us. Evil is the bruises and the cuts on the little boy’s face as he eats his food. Evil is the icy glare his father aims at him when he spills his Coke on their seats. I turn back around. The waitress brings our food to the table and I start to eat. The boy begins to whine.

His mother, a gnarly woman with one tooth missing tells him to shut up while his grandmother rolls her eyes mumbling about running him over with her wheelchair. He brings out the Shoney’s coloring book and starts coloring, drawing red and blue lines all over the paper. “What’s that say, Dad?” he asks, pointing at a word. His dad ignores him, even as the boy keeps asking. Finally, the boy taps him softly on the shoulder and flinches as a hand comes up to smack his away.
“Leave me alone,” the man grumbles and the boy sits back down, quietly. Several times this happens each time the boy flinching like he knows what is about to happen. His mother cackles, “Quit actin’ like you got battered child syndrome!” as they pay for the food and begin piling on their coats. Evil is the way his father pushes him towards the car sneering, “Get a move on. We ain’t got all day,” and evil is the way the grandmother teases him as they drive off. I watch them leave out the window. Evil is evil.

Evil is evil. Evil is the way the kid at summer camp yells at the top of his lungs that he will kill the counselor who took away his tennis ball after he threw it at a group of kids. Evil is the way he stomps over to the grass and grabs a bunch of rocks. He eyes them deviously and looks for the counselor. When he sees him, he shuffles over, rocks in hand. The counselor looks up to see a spray of rocks coming towards him, the kid’s threats following it. Evil is evil.
Evil is the way my neighbor’s son tosses a frog around and his friend picks up the baseball bat. Evil is the look on his face when the frog goes up into the air. I catch the frog and let it run into the safety of the grass. He was lucky that time. He didn’t end up like last week’s grasshopper and last month’s rabbit. Evil is evil.
Evil is the way the headline jumps out at me from the magazine: ‘Child found dead’. ‘Dog owners are arrested for hosting dogfights’. ‘Teen suicide after being ridiculed by classmates’. ‘Mother abuses foster child’. Temptation is the way I turn the page to see what happened to the kidnapped girl. Disgust is the way I look at her captor, as he stares back into the camera lenses that snap pictures of his trial. The feeling in my stomach that I get right after finishing that story, that is sadness. Sadness for the girl and her little face peeking out from the page. Sadness for the dog who has to be put down to sleep. Sadness for the parents of the teenager who never once made sure their teen was not suffering. Sadness for evil. But sadness is sadness and evil is evil.
Good is when I smile at the boy in Shoney’s and when I help the kid from camp to calm down. Good is the way I rescued the frog and watched him hop back to his simple life. Good is when I help out with fundraisers and watch out for the kidnapped child and do not encourage dogfights. Good is good and sadness goes away for awhile after good pays evil a visit.