snakesayer

We had been hanging out several times a week for the whole summer. I had spent more time with him than any of my other friends, though by a slim margin. We were established buds at this point, though it was dawning on me that maybe, at some undefined period over the summer, we had started to become best friends.

In the week before 8th grade starts, as with the whole summer prior, we’re together doing nothing much at all.

We’re hanging out in the Missouri heat, in the shade behind the stage at Oak Grove Park, with a football under my arm and stupid grins on our faces. We’ve given up on tossing the pigskin since it’s too damn hot, and we’re sat with our backs to the cool concrete. Our bikes are leant beside us in the shade.

“Hoping to get dad to take me to the Chiefs game,” I said.

We’re at the point of conversation, and the point of summer break, where nothing’s all that interesting, and nothing’s all that important, and with nothing pertinent left, it’s all down to hypotheticals.

“You gonna invite anyone?” Roy asks.

I toss a rock out from the shade, and it plinks off the concrete and into the grass.

“Well, you,” I said, facing the field, “if he’s gonna take me.”

Roy cracks a stupid grin.

“Kinda faggy of you to ask, but sure.”

I turn to face him. “Hey, I’m no fag,” I said.

“Like father, like son,” he replies.

I elbow him in the side. “If taking you to the Chiefs game makes me a fag, what’s that make you?”

“I dunno,” he says. “Ask your mom.”

“Oh, come on,” I laugh. “My mom isn’t a whore, unlike yours.”

Roy’s smile drops.

“Fuck off.”

I laugh more, and say, “what, is it true?”

“Fuck you,” he says.

“Y’know, I heard someone call her the ‘town bike’, because-”

“Because what?”

I cackle, barely restrained. “Because everyone’s had a ride!”

It takes the entire sentence leaving my mouth to realize that he wasn’t responding in kind, and that he was in fact, very, very upset.

It’s at this point that I realize I should not have doubled down.

It’s at this point Roy’s fist connects with my face.

II

We stormed home alone, the both of us.

The ensuing brawl was brief, but neither of us walked away unscathed. I think I had decked him a few times, but ultimately, I was beginning to suspect he got me worse. 

It’s hard to recall what you do, in the heat of moments like that, and where the blows landed on either party. The harsh words that are exchanged after the inciting incident. Even on the bike ride home, the memory was quickly fading into a singular passionate interaction. As if one fluid motion had passed, and then we were apart, and next thing I know, my knuckles were beginning to bruise as I gripped the handles.

I burn with a white-hot reactionary rage so intense that I didn’t even notice the blood streaming down my face.

The thing is, I never actually met his mom, and aside from defending myself, I wasn’t really sure what any of that was all about. Did I go too far? Was she actually a prostitute? Or was she actually a really nice lady? I didn’t even know if she lived nearby, or if his parents had divorced, or if she was even still alive. He never talked about her, and he certainly didn’t live with her. As the rage dissipated on the ride home, I realized that I had no idea. 

I didn’t notice the blood on my face and shirt until I unlocked the front door.

“Welcome home - Jesus, Al!” dad exclaims. He rushes over. “What the Hell happened?”

I shrug, and I throw the football onto the ground. “Ran into a pole,” I said.

He’s already on my level and inspecting my face. I’m flinching away, because it’s just now dawning on me that my face hurts like fuck.

“Did someone do this to you?” he asks.

“No,” I said. I jerked my head away.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “You should tell me.”

“No,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“Well,” he sighs. “Whether or not you’ll tell me, let me clean you up, at least.”

III

I found out that he broke my nose.

I did not find out what I did wrong.

I didn’t contact Roy, and he doesn’t contact me. He doesn’t show up to my house, and he doesn’t show up when I’m with the others, though I’m sure they tried to get him in on it.

That’s where I am now. Mickey, Scott, and Johnno are here, and we’re playing Scrabble on Mickey’s back porch, at the outdoor dining set.

“Is that a word?” I ask. The piece in question reads: “JOINTED”

Mickey huffs, and says, “you’re not gonna give me that fifteen points?”

“Seventeen,” Scott adds. “Two pointer on the D.”

“That can’t be a word,” I reiterate.

“I dunno,” Mickey says. “You tell me.”

I laugh and say, “sure, whatever.”

The turn passes.

“Hey, Al?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

She makes a face, subtle and involuntary, and I can’t tell if she’s concerned or morbidly curious.

“You gonna tell us who broke your nose?”

“I ran into a pole,” I say. “Already told you.” I’ve at this point rehearsed this line countless times.

“Sure,” she says, “sure.”

Johnny kicks back in the outdoor dining chair and says, “if you tell us, I’ll kick the shit out of him.”

Scott laughs, and says, “totally, just say the word.”

“What,” I say, “you’re gonna go at the pole? Nice try.”

“Fine, fine,” they concede.

And the game continues. Mickey is allowed her 17 point word, and ultimately takes the game, with Scott at a close second, and Johnny and I trailing in third and fourth.

They don’t bring it up again, which is unusually gracious for us four. We go home on the last Friday night before 8th grade starts, Johnno and Scott and I, and turn in for the night.

When I said I ran into a pole, I didn’t feel bad about it, but I did start to think that maybe it was my fault. As if I was gunning it full speed and didn’t see the lamp post in the field or something, and should have looked harder, or course corrected, or stopped sooner.

In a sense, when I think about it, maybe I should have.

IV

It’s the first day of 8th grade.

The first day nerves have me jittering in my seat in homeroom social studies. The seat beside me is empty, and by the time the class fills, it’s the only one left.

The class starts with roll call, and I hear it right away, first in line, straight from the teacher’s mouth - 

“Roy Angelo?”

I freeze. Then I look around slowly, nervously, and listen out for anything.

“No Roy? Alright, moving on.”

Jeeze, a close one.

She moves down the list for a few more names, each answering in the affirmative.

“Allen? Allen Fletcher?”

“Here,” I call, my hand raised. She notes it down.

As my hand goes down, the door creaks.

And as if an answer to prayer straight from the Devil himself, in comes Roy. Five minutes after the bell.

“Roy,” the teacher says, motioning to the last empty seat left, right beside me.

“You’re late. Take a seat by Allen.”

He nods, and quietly brings his bag to the desk beside me.

I don’t even dare look. I haven’t felt a cold shame like this in a long time, maybe ever. I want to say something, something amorphous and unworded bubbling inside me, but I can’t even begin to articulate, and roll call is not the time to.

I’m staring straight ahead, and I can feel sweat running down my neck. What do I do? Do I confront him in the hallway? Do I talk to him at lunch? Do we even have the same lunch block? God, I can’t just show up to his house after this. What if his mom’s fucking dead? I couldn’t live with myself if I called his dead mom a whore. That’s too awful to bear.

As if to interrupt my internal breakdown, I feel a poke at my elbow. I flinch, and look to my right:

Roy has slid me a note.

His eye is bruised as fuck, and almost like it can’t open all the way. It’s kinda funny to see him like this, but mostly makes me feel like a huge dick. He looks serious, or like a kicked puppy. Unsure which, due to the eye thing.

He gives me a solemn nod, and turns back to the teacher. The introduction to this year’s coursework has begun in earnest.

As the teacher faces the blackboard to start making her grand social studies gestures, I turn my eyes down and take a tentative peek at the note: torn-off college rule, folded in half.

When I look inside, the message is immediate:

SORRY.

I look at him briefly, and we meet eyes. Just long enough for me to nod back.

V

We sit next to each other at the lunch block, with our trays of pizza and chocolate milk and whatever else the cafeteria deemed edible that day.

It seems right. He doesn’t ask, but neither do I, and neither of us make moves to go elsewhere. No one has joined us with their trays or lunch bags yet.

We eat in silence, at least for a little while. It’s awkward, but it’s better than the tension of the week prior. He’s halfway through his pizza, but I have only just started on mine. I put it down, just a second, to say:

“Sorry.”

He stops eating, and looks away - at the far corner of the cafeteria, as if he sees someone, or something. He sits there in silence, staring at that corner, for at least a minute.

Finally, he says, quietly and hushed, “Did you tell anyone?”

I shake my head. “I ran into a pole,” I say.

He laughs, a chuckle at first, but it turns into something bigger. “Who the fuck would believe that?”

“I dunno,” I say. I feel an involuntary smile spread over my face. “Ask my dad.”

“Are you serious?”

“That’s what I told Mickey, too,” I say. “Why, what’ve you been saying?”

“Dunno,” he says. “Pops hasn’t asked yet. No way Mickey believed that, though.”

I take a bite of the pizza, and through the mouthful I say, “Yeah. Probably not.”

VI

He came over to my house that night. 

It felt good, and it felt like it should have always been this way. It felt like no time had passed at all, like it was summer again.

If dad notices anything, he doesn’t bring it up when Roy walks in the front door with a semi-fresh shiner.