Fiction 101: Something Light

Note: The names and various other details have been changed to protect the innocent and the not so.

Untitled & Unfinished

Boyfriend No. 2, now he could have been a prize fighter.

Left foot forward, knees bent slightly. His left arm is bent, too; left hand clenched into a fist (thumb on the outside, so he won’t break it), just below his chin, right shoulder down. His mouth sneers, eyes look right at me (yet not) as his right fist comes up straight from the floor, knuckles parallel to the floor, and he delivers the perfect uppercut.

My head snaps back, and I stagger backwards a step and fall flat on my back.

I look up and he looks down at me, his eyes red and wild, and then his face flattens and he drops to his knees, beside me. And I try not to cry — do not cry do not cry do NOT cry, I say, over and over and over, inside, but fuck: I am a little kid.

And so I cry.

My mom, her jeans and underpants still down around her ankles, screams at him and grabs him around the neck. Tries to put him in a half-nelson and pulls him back, just as he has grabbed my arms to try to pull me to a sitting position, so I jerk forward and then I sit. Feet straight in front of me, my breath comes in huh-huh-hitches as I try to quit crying quit crying quit CRYING.

(Many years later, when I visit this house for Thanksgiving or Christmas or maybe Easter, I will remember, and I will measure the space from the edge of the kitchen doorway to the wall, and I will wonder what kept my head from splattering against the bookcase there, filled with encyclopedias and fairy-tale books and an atlas. And in that moment, I will have my belief in angels watching over me — all night, all day, just like the song — affirmed.)

On this night, though, Joey watches from the end of the bed, peers out from between the knobs where the beds connect. Her eyes are big and brown and filled with tears.

And then he whispers, “I’m so sorry so sorry so so sorry,” over and over and over, and he carries me to bed, lifts me up there and keeps whispering, the words coming in soft blasts of beer breath as I close my eyes and try to get to sleep.

Down below, Joey cries for the rest of the night, in little squeaky sobs, while she waits for me to tell her I am OK.

• • •

Monday at school I have the best chin shiner, ever, in the history of the fifth grade. Just left of center, by now it is a bright purple splotch about the size of a quarter, with red around the edges; by the time it fades away, three weeks from now, it will have gone from blue-green to purplish-red to the color of an overripe banana to yellow and then just regular skin-colored.

Hodson is the first to see me on the playground.

“Gaw, Janey, who hit ya?” he says as he smacks me on the back. “Jarnagin?”

“Shut up. And get off me!” I say, shoving him away.

Jarnagin likes me, that’s all, and Hodson can’t resist. He likes me, too, but we’re best friends, so it’s impossible.

“So, what happened?” Hodson asks, walking beside me as we head to our lockers. “Who hit ya?”

“Nobody,” I say. “I fell out of bed trying to get my robe tie around Joey’s head.”

Hodson steps back and looks at me. “Yeah, right,” he says. “That’s retarded.”

I shrug and he pushes me into the locker. I push him back, and we laugh. Then the bell rings and we run to get to class before the second bell.

• • •

When social studies is over, Miss Kite makes me stay after. Everyone else rushes out, and as I gather up my books and paper and pencils, she walks to my desk and leans down. I look up at her, then away.

She smells like musk oil and Doublemint; I like being close to her. She smiles at me, but her eyes, behind her wire-frame glasses, are open a little wider than usual.

She kneels in front of my desk, then places two fingers alongside my left jaw, her thumb along the right. Softly, she moves my head from side to side, slowly.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

Honestly, it doesn’t. In fact, it hasn’t hurt at all, even when he hit me. “Only when I push on it,” I say, and I laugh. A fake laugh, and Miss Kite knows it.

“I want you to know, Janey, that if you ever need to talk, you can come to me. Any time.”

“Well, OK. Thanks.” I’m going to be late for math.

She stares at me, smiling a little less now. “You’re welcome,” she says. Then she stands up. “Don’t forget about practice after school.”

“I won’t!” We walk toward her desk and then I race for the door and on to math, where I’m late but only a little.