She looked through my back. I could feel it.
I wondered if she was getting the picture here. Maybe. Probably. Yes, probably, because she left then with a far too friendly “Okay, bye-ee.” Had I heard that before? Of course I had, and it gashed my throat with reality.
The whole altercation didn’t drive me through the day like the disappointment of last week had. No, this time I limped through it.
I felt something awful in me.
Limping on.
Dad saw me and gave me a serve for being so slow, but I couldn’t pick it up. I tried like you wouldn’t believe, but my back was broken. My spirit was crushe
I had the chance to tell her off.
I could have hurt her.
I didn’t.
It was no consolation.
As I worked, I constantly had to pull myself together and it was such a struggle. It was like every step was out to get me. Blisters on my hands started opening up and feeling kept creeping into my eyes. I started sniffing at the air to get enough in my lungs, and when the day was over I struggled out from under the house and stood there, waiting. I really wanted to collapse to the ground, but I held it together.
I felt itchy, dirty, diseased — by simply being me. What was wrong with me?
I felt like the dog that’s got rabies in this book I was reading in school, To Kill a Mockingbird. The dog, it’s limping and slobbering all over the road and the father, Atticus, he surprises his son by shooting it.
I’m walking along top a fence line that seems to stretch for an eternity. Somehow, though, I know that it will stop at some point. I know it will last as long as my life.
“Keep walking,” I tell myself.
My arms are out to keep me balanced.
On either side of me, there is air and ground, trying to get me to jump down into it.
Which side do I jump?
It is early, early morning. It’s that time when it’s still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying.
The fence.
Sometimes it’s stone, sometimes it’s wood, and sometimes it’s barbed wire.
I walk it, and still, I am tempted by each side that flanks it.
“Jump,” I hear each side whisper. “Jump down here.” Distance.
Out there, somewhere, I can hear dogs barking, although their voices seem human. They bark and when I look all around me I can’t see them. I can only hear barking that forms an audience for my journey along this fence.
Purple in the sky.
Pins-and-needles legs.
Shivers down my right side.
Concussion thoughts.
Footsteps.
Alone.
Take one after the other.
Barbed wire now
Where do I jump?
Who do I listen to?
Daisy sun, maroon sky.
First part of the sun — a frown.
Last part of the sun — a smile.
Dark day.
Thoughts cover the sky.
Thoughts are the sky.
Feet on fence.
One side of the fence is victory….
The … other side is defeat.
Walk.
I walk, on.
Deciding.
Sweat reigns.
It lands on me, controlled, and drips down my face.
Victory one side.
Defeat on the other.
Clouds are uncertain.
They throb in the sky like drumbeats, like pulses.
I decide —
I jump.
High. High.
The wind gets me, and high up, I know that it will throw me down to the side of the fence it wants.
Wherever I land, soon enough, I know I will have to climb back up and keep walking, but for now, I’m still in the air.
CHAPTER 14
Where did I go from there?
What did I do?
How did things turn out?
Well, this is basically the end, so the answers should be in these next few pages. I doubt they will surprise you, but you never know. I don’t know how
smart or thick you are. You could be Albert Einstein for all I know, or some literary prizewinner, or maybe you’re just middle of the road like me.
So we might as well cut to the chase — I will tell you now how things pretty much finished up in this wintry part of my life. The end began like this:
Moping.
I did it for the whole of Sunday, and on Monday at school. Something churned in me, start in my stomach and rising till it was reaching its arms up to strip my skin from the inside. It burned.
On Wednesday at school, I had a bit of a conversation with Greg, mainly because of the beaten-up look of his face.
“What happened to you?” I asked him when I ran into him in one of the walkways.
“Ah, forget it,” he answered me. “Nothin’.” But we both knew it was really pretty