Little Chicago (20 page)

But I don't pull it out. Instead I walk backwards through the front doors.

The sky is clogged and swollen.

I cut across the parking lot past the buses.

Not one bus driver looks up.

I walk home on Caton Farm Road.

It starts to rain and the street is shiny and dim at the same time.

It's so cold it's like nobody cares.

Just before I reach the yellow bulldozer, the Crewcut Brothers come out of the unfinished house. They are both wearing black baseball hats and snow parkas.

They walk at a funny angle so they can cut me off with hard-core bully tactics.

They are successful in doing so.

They must practice this kind of thing a lot, I think. It makes me wonder if they have a little brother or sister.

There is a Crewcut Brother on either side of me now.

Hey, skank, Greg Bauer says.

Andy Bauer is standing so close I can see into his nostrils.

His breath smells like sweat and grape gum.

He says, What's up, bitch?

I tell my legs to go.

In my mind I say, Go, legs!

But this is useless and my legs don't go.

What are you doing here? I ask.

We followed you, Greg Bauer says.

Andy Bauer adds, We felt like doin a little faggot huntin.

Then he turns his baseball hat around and puts his forehead on my forehead. This is a trick I have seen used by an eighth grader named Thomas Bazoo. He would put his head above your nose and then snap his neck back and headbutt you between the eyes. He got kicked out of school for it last spring.

Once he headbutted a seventh grader named Cecil Farmer and Cecil Farmer fell and couldn't get back up.

Now Thomas Bazoo goes to a special school for kids with learning disabilities and emotional problems.

Greg Bauer walks circles around me but Andy Bauer keeps his forehead glued to mine.

I know there will be pain, so I brace myself.

Please let me go, I say.

Andy Bauer says, Tornado position.

I drop to my knees and crouch.

Cover your head, Greg Bauer says.

I cover my head with my hands.

There is a noise in my brain like a dial tone.

Take it off, Greg Bauer says.

He's talking about Shay's sweatshirt, I know this for a fact.

No, I say.

Andy Bauer says, Take that skanky thing off or I'll rip it off!

The rain is sliding across his face and dripping off the end of his nose and into my eyes.

Fuck you, I say.

Just to get the words out I almost have to spit.

Greg Bauer slaps me with the back of his hand.

He yells, Take it off, bitch!

I say, Never!

I squeal it like a pig.

Then Andy Bauer unsnaps my Koren Motors wind-breaker and undoes the buttons of my J.C. Penney's jean jacket with twice the stitching. When he gets them both off me he throws them in the mud and bites the neck of Shay's sweatshirt and starts ripping it. When it's all the way torn, they pull my arms behind my back and choke me.

Andy Bauer holds my arms and Greg Bauer chokes me.

I see my face from above.

It's blue like a cartoon.

Greg's eyes are wild. I can see his pupils shrinking.

After a minute they switch positions and Andy chokes me for a while.

I'm choking, I whisper. I'm choking, Ma.

I can feel my head filling with blood. I can also feel my heart crawling up my throat like a snail.

After they're done choking me Andy Bauer looks around for a second and says, Let's piss on him.

His breath is hot and snotty.

Greg Bauer says, Yeah, let's piss on the skank.

Then Greg Bauer undoes his pants and takes his penis out.

It is small and white and rubbery-looking.

He wiggles it for a second and then urinates on my chest. His urine is warm and smells like Ajax floor cleaner.

It steams up into my face and I cough and puke air.

When he is finished they pull off Ma's nursing shoes and my brown Sunday slacks and fling them.

After a minute they let go and I cough and spit.

They are laughing and calling me a bitch.

Bitch! Andy Bauer says.

Bitch-ass ho! Greg Bauer adds.

I get one of my arms free and go for my windbreaker.

I move slow arid careful.

When I pull out my gun they jump back and fling their arms in the air.

I make sure to move the safety to the
OFF
position.

Where'd you get that? Greg Bauer asks.

I just got it, I say.

My arms are shaking and so are my legs but I stand and point the gun at them.

Stand back to back, I order them.

I keep the gun pointed at Greg Bauer's head.

Okay, he says. Okay, okay.

They stand back to back.

Greg Bauer is facing me now and his cheeks are wet with tears.

Jesus, Blacky, Andy Bauer says. Jesus.

He starts to cry, too.

Jesus fuckin A, man, Greg Bauer says. His voice is suddenly high and girlish.

When I fire, the noise is so loud it makes my ears ring. Some birds spring from the roof of another half-made house behind me.

I am disappointed to discover that I have missed.

Then Greg and Andy Bauer turn and start running wild. Greg Bauer falls and Andy Bauer has to help him up. There's mud smeared in his crewcut.

I fire again and hit the windshield of the yellow bulldozer. The glass turns into a spiderweb. The noise makes me slip and fall.

Greg and Andy Bauer run through the unfinished house and disappear.

After a minute I realize that I am in mud.

I'm wearing my underwear and socks and nothing else.

I've blown my only two bullets.

I wonder where all the men with the hardhats are.

My socks are black with holes and I can see my toes.

Wiggle, I tell them, but they won't move.

I realize that I haven't changed my socks in several days.

And I haven't taken a shower since that time in Gym after dodgeball.

The rain is cold and the cuts in my feet still sting.

I stay in the mud for a while and watch the sky. It's so gray it's almost brown.

Get up, I tell my body.

But I just lie there.

A few minutes later I try it again. I yell, Get up!

But it's no use.

I'm not falling! I yell at the house.

I yell it at the yellow bulldozer, too. I'm not falling! I yell.

After a while I finally stand and go get Ma's shoes and my brown Sunday slacks. They're sopping wet and muddy.

It takes a minute but I manage to get dressed and walk home in the rain.

22

From the street our house looks like it would disappear in the snow.

Maybe it's cause it doesn't really have a color.

It used to have a color, though, I think. It was blue just the other day …

I crawl in through Shay's window.

The screen scrapes my arm and I bleed.

When I walk down the hall I feel like I'm floating.

On the kitchen table there is a brochure from the Holy Family Home for Troubled Youths.

I open it up.

Inside there are a bunch of kids smiling. Most of them are African American or Latino.

One of them is talking to a priest.

Another one is making something with yarn and popsicle sticks.

Everyone looks clean and friendly.

I close the brochure and leave it on the table.

In the bathroom I take the clippers out of the medicine chest and shave my head. I can't get all the hair off but I get pretty close.

My black hair is piled in the sink. It is wet and gross-looking. I try to scoop it into the garbage but a lot of it sticks to the red paint on my palm.

In the mirror my skull looks strange.

I am ugly and there's no escaping this fact.

I am an egg, I think.

I am more egg than human.

After I put the clippers back in the medicine chest I go into Shay's room and burrow under the covers.

My head feels cold and hard.

Later I can hear Ma and Cheedle in the kitchen. They're trying to keep their voices low like they got big plans for stuff.

Is he home? Ma asks.

Cheedle says, I think he's in Shay's room.

Would you go get him, please? I'd like to get this whole Holy Family thing over with. Father Harold said we could register tomorrow.

I throw the covers off and quickly crawl under the bed.

I turn on my side so I can spy.

When Cheedle comes in the room he stands in front of Shay's mirror for a minute.

He's wearing a suit and tie.

He looks clean and impressive.

His hair is combed to perfection.

He takes Shay's lemon Airwick air freshener and smells it. When he sets it down he looks at his hand and rubs his fingers together. Then he touches his hair and turns and leaves.

He's not in there, I hear him tell Ma in the kitchen.

Well, Ma says, we have to tell him.

Later the TV goes on. It's
Blackbelt Theater
and there's lots of clanging.

That night I can't sleep.

I watch Shay's window for a while and smell my body.

I rub my new head, too.

I go out to the kitchen and try to call Mary Jane Paddington at the hospital. Ma keeps the number to St. Joseph's written on a piece of tape over the phone.

I dial the number but a robot woman from the phone company comes on the line and says something about calling the Illinois Bell billing center.

I say, It's okay, Mary Jane. Everything's gonna be okay, okay?

Then I put the phone back on the wall and just stand there in the kitchen.

The refrigerator hums.

The clock is still stuck on six-thirty.

After a while I go into my room.

I climb the bunk bed ladder and watch Cheedle. He is sleeping so hard it looks like it hurts.

I poke him in the shoulder and he stirs.

Hey, I say. Cheedle.

He says, Hey, but doesn't open his eyes.

Look at me, I say.

Cheedle looks.

I want him to notice my new head but he just makes a face like he's confused.

Mother needs to speak with you, he says after a minute. It's quite an urgent matter.

I look at him for a minute and then I say, What happens to Glen the Bear Boy?

He says, What?

The boy from your novel, I say. What happens to him?

Cheedle says, He learns how to hibernate.

Oh, I say. How long do bears hibernate for?

For several months at a time, he says. Often for an entire winter.

Oh, I say. What about deer?

He says, Deer don't hibernate.

I say, They just live in the snow?

He says, I think they do a lot of huddling.

What about humans? I say.

What about them?

Can they hibernate too?

He says, Not that I'm aware of. But I would venture to say that a human raised by a Wisconsin grizzly might learn how.

I say, You don't know as much as they say you do.

Cheedle watches me for a moment and then, just like that, he is sleeping again. It's like he has a switch.

I am tempted to plug his nose but I don't.

I let myself down and get my box and put on the sweater. It's dark blue with a red stripe. I also wrap the scarf around my neck and put the hardhat on for protection. Over the sweater I layer with my J.C. Penney's jean jacket with twice the stitching and Mary Jane Paddington's Koren Motors windbreaker.

I put my hand on Ma's door for a second but the fake wood feels funny, so I leave.

I crawl back through Shay's window.

I hardly make a noise.

In the poplar tree there is a frozen cat. It's the same gray one with white stripes. Its two front paws are raised over its head and it looks like it's flying. The strange thing is that one eye is closed and one is open.

Like it's winking at me.

Like it's saying Ha.

Ma has left the Wiffle ball bat underneath the swing set. The rug from the bathroom is heaped on the ground. When I touch it it's stiff with frost.

I take the Wiffle ball bat and knock the cat out of the tree.

When it falls it crunches.

It looks smaller on the ground than it did in the tree.

I try to close the open eye but it won't budge. There's an ant frozen on its pupil.

For some reason I start talking to the cat.

I say, Hey, but it doesn't respond.

I say, What's nine twenty-sevenths?

After it doesn't answer I fling it into Mrs. Bunton's yard. When it lands it sticks in a position like it's trying to swim.

I go to Ma's window and watch her in her bed.

Ma, I say, but she can't hear me cause she's sleeping. She's wearing her green technician's uniform and her eczema creams are resting on her stomach.

Her hair looks like hay.

I say it again.

I say, Ma.

When she doesn't stir I wave to her and walk away from the window.

The grass is frozen gray.

The sky is so black I think it might start bleeding.

The moon looks like an ice ball.

In the field the Ford Taurus is browner than I remembered. Someone has knocked out the back windshield.

At the edge of the woods I see the deer again. It's just standing there like it knows stuff.

Hey, I say to it. Wait.

The air is cold and sharp.

I put my hand in the pockets of my Koren Motors wind-breaker. I almost scrape my knuckles on my gun.

As I walk toward the deer it starts to snow.

The flakes are so big they look fake.

A hundred million snowflakes against the black sky:

I drag my left hand across the car.
FUCK YOU
, it says on the door. The metal is much colder than the air and I have to make a fist.

As I pass the dead Ford Taurus I take out my gun and drop it in the front seat.

Just before I reach the deer it turns and heads into the woods.