[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Sticky strings of web are covering my mouth and nose.I’m afraid I’m going to scream.There’s an opening in the hedge I’m under.I roll through it down a steep bank onto the sidewalk and over the curb into a muddy puddle in the gutter.The puddle is slimy and greasy and I can smell car oil and dog turds.I see Mr.George thrash his way out of the hedge in the dark between two streetlights.I lie still in the gutter and sidespy up at him.He’s looking up and down Heney Street, calling now, “Boyo! Boy O’Boy! Don’t hide on me!”He seems afraid, the way he’s looking back and forward.Back and forward.This way.That way.“Boyo!”He pushes back into the hedge.Maybe I’m still in there.Here come the lovers again.They’re on the sidewalk right where I’m lying.They’re having another hug.Haven’t they had enough hugs? What’s the matter with them, anyway? Now they’re kissing again.I come out of my puddle on my hands and knees.Now I stand up.I’m like something out of a horror comic coming out of a slimy lagoon.A creature.The girl screams.The boy jumps back.He takes her hand and pulls her down the street.I run down Heney Street to Cobourg.I stop to get my breath in front of Lachaine’s store.Mrs.Sawyer comes out.She has a bag in her arm with a loaf of bread sticking out.“Good evening, Martin,” she says, surprise in her voice and comes over to me.I’m looking in Lachaine’s window at the stuff in there.Potatoes and hard candy and bars of soap and caps for cap guns and yo-yos and black and red licorice and shoelaces and bobby pins for your hair and a box of red beets.And Lachaine’s black store cat asleep curled in the corner.And I am also looking at myself in the glass.“How are you this evening, Martin O’Boy?” says Mrs.Sawyer.I look up at her.“Why are you crying?” says Mrs.Sawyer.“I’m not crying,” I say.“I don’t think.”“You seem to be crying,” she says.“There’s something in my eye maybe,” I say.“Is there something in both your eyes?”I guess so.“You have to be very careful of your eyes,” says Mrs.Sawyer.“They’re the only eyes you have.” She goes back a step and looks me up and down.“And your knee is bleeding.Bleeding bad.You’d better be going on home now.It’s getting late, don’t you think? What have you been doing? Look at you!”“I’m… I was fighting after choir.Just playing.Wrestling in the park.After choir.Play fighting.Like we used to do with Buz.“You’d better come home.I’ll walk with you.Your mother’s going to be worried…”“I’m going in the store…and then I’m going right home…”“Your mother’s going to be worried.you look like you just lost your best friend…” She turns and moves away.“Straight home now,” she calls back.I pretend to go into the store but I don’t.After a while I go down Cobourg and to my house at 3 Papineau.I stand at the door.I don’t want to cry.I’ll show my mother my knee but I won’t cry.I’ll tell her about fighting after choir.She’ll see my knee and take care of it.I open the door.The door to the house where I don’t want to live.Please, somebody.Take care of me.Love me.18The Riddle and a LetterWE’RE EATING bacon for breakfast this morning.My fathers late for work so he’s eating the bacon standing up.The bacon is a bit burnt.My mother and father just had a big fight about it.My mothers gone back upstairs with Phil.Phil howled all the way up.He always howls when my parents fight.He’s howling now.Lenny Lipshitz can probably hear him all the way down at number nine.“You know,” my father says, “your mother once went to the doctor to have her head examined but they couldn’t find anything.”It’s an old joke.I’ve heard it many times.I give Cheap a piece of bacon under the table.“Don’t feed that cat bacon.It’s expensive,” my father says.I look in my father’s face.I don’t say what I’m thinking.“He doesn’t care about you, you know,” my father says.“He only cares about food.”“Cheap likes me, I can tell,” I say.“Animals aren’t like people.Cats don’t act like people [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]