The Gospel of the Knife | Page 4

Not because it's funny. It's impossible, and you have to free the pressure in your chest. What are the odds there'd be a pole where you need one?
You take another breath. You can't look away from the pond. How lucky were you? Enough to use up your luck for the rest of your life. You begin to shake. Sweat bursts out again on your skin. If there wasn't a wall of trees around you, you would run anywhere that's away.
Looking for a place to run calms you. It's a pond, a pole, and a great whopping chunk of luck. You tell yourself you should be glad or grateful. But you hurt, you stink of fear, and someone nearly drowned in front of you.
You slap a mosquito, then another. Shade makes the woods cooler than the highway, but the air is hot and damp. Time to get moving.
You aren't about to try your luck again with the underwater pole. You find the thinnest place in the bushes around the pond and back through, protecting your face while dragging your bike after you.
When you come to a track, you follow it to the path back to the road. At the fallen tree, you stop.
In the theater of your mind, you replay the last minutes: rednecks attack, the Kid runs away. Giving them the finger is dead time in the story. They attack; you run. Giving them the finger is worse than dead time. It's an idiot move, a red flag waved at a bull by a matador without a sword.
You aren't a saint turning the other cheek or a samurai refusing to fight inferiors or a smart kid keeping his clothes and bike safe by running away. You're just a coward running away.
Your nose is wet. So is your lip. You dab the moisture with the sides of your fists, then realize where it's from. You say, "Fuck." You can't say anything else. Something's swelling in your chest and behind your eyes. If you make another sound, it'll break free. Then you'll be a coward who runs away and cries.
A gray squirrel the size of a chipmunk scurries around a tree, sees you, and freezes. You stare at each other. When he doesn't run off, you wipe your fists on your jeans, hold out an open hand, and whisper, "Hey, li'l Reb. You sure make piss-poor moss."
Reb sticks with the statue impersonation. You pat your pockets and find a wadded-up bag of cashews. You thought you'd eaten most of them, but the bag is half-full.
You toss a nut near Reb. He darts up to it, touches it with his nose, lifts it in his paws, then pops it in his mouth. You smile, toss him another, and pop one in your mouth.
If Reb minds the salt, he's too polite to say. You throw more cashews until he stuffs his cheeks, wheels around, and runs into the brush.
The woods aren't as hot as the highway, but the air is damp and still. Gnats swarm around you. Your bladder needs emptying. You unzip and check yourself: your left ball is red and sore. Otherwise everything seems normal. Meaning you wish everything was bigger and hairier, but knowing you should keep what you have is good. Your piss is yellow, untainted by blood. That must be a good sign.
You touch your left ball several times, trying to decide each time if it hurts any less. Then you imagine drawing this: The Kid crouches in the woods, his hand in his jeans fly, a cloud of thought balloons over his head: "Does it still hurt?" "Ow!" "Yes." "Does it still hurt?" "Ow!" "Yes." "Does it still hurt?"
Cindy Hurly might ask if the cartoon is a metaphor for the war. If she does, you'll shrug as if she caught you being clever and never admit it's just about being a boy afraid his balls are mashed.
Chapter Two
Halloween hit your neighborhood like a storm. Mrs. Moody put a red lightbulb in a plastic skull hanging in a black hood and cape on her porch. The Thornton kids carved pumpkins, five lopsided grins and one scary scowl. The old guy with the noisy black Model A parked it in his yard with a sign: "Capone's Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em."
Homes here are small, single-story, cinder-block boxes. Most have carports. None have garages. Fences are chain-link. Driveways are cement or gravel stained with oil. Yards have grass that's green when it's rained and brown when it hasn't. Gardens are a few flowers under a window or at a corner of the lawn. Lawns tend to have a pine tree or two. Several have a car or a truck on blocks.
Your house: long grass, two pine trees, no fence, no cars on blocks. The front door has a cardboard