But the boy remained silent, fingering his watch and swiftly scanning the scene before
returning his darkened eyes to me.
“I’m Emily.” I extended a hand out and moved in closer to see his face. Names, I thought,
were a good start. But he stepped back and glanced down.
“Your shoelace is untied,” he told me, almost angrily.
I pulled my hand back, feeling a little like a moron, and followed his gaze to my feet.
I crouched down to tie my shoelace; this provoked the dog to bark and lunge to the end of its
leash. I couldn’t tell if it was happy or angry. It didn’t matter—I jumped back, fell on my
behind, wondered how long it would take before the leash snapped and the dog was back on me
again.
“He’s not going to hurt you.” The owner had said this with irritation—like he was upset with
my fear of the beast that had attacked me a few seconds before.
I huffed and tugged on my thread of a shoelace—of course, it snapped.
“You need new shoes,” he uneasily commented again.
“My shoes were fine till your dog used me as a springboard.”
While I struggled to tie what was left of my shoelace into a knot and try to make sense of this
guy’s social awkwardness, I glared up and watched as his hands clenched into a fist and his
shadowed jaw tightened. We were interrupted before the hairs on my arms had time to fully
stiffen.
“Hey, girl,” said a voice behind me. “Think you dropped this.”
I came to my feet and spun around. A man in a baggy tracksuit handed me my Bob Marley tape: it
had finally dislodged itself from my Walkman, taking pieces of the Walkman with it. I knew
enough about the local gang colors and teardrop tattoos that this man was showing off to know
that I should stay as far away as possible. It was clear to me that I was slowly being
surrounded, outnumbered.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“What is this thing anyway?” he asked me.
When I extended my hand to meet his and quickly grab the tape, the Rottweiler went wild again,
barking, growling, almost snapping its leash.
I came to be very still.
The gangbanger stepped back, but his frightened gaze was not directed to the hostile dog, but to
the dog’s owner. “Sorry man,” he stuttered, taking a few short steps back before turning
around. I watched him leave and noticed that everyone around us was doing their best to avoid
looking in our direction. Accidents, like holes in the ground, usually attract crowds of gawkers
and do-gooders—don’t they? Yet no one else had dared to come near us.
Perturbed, I turned back to the boy and confirmed that he looked quite plain—no signs of any
gang affiliations. Though his dog had calmed down again, the boy holding the leash looked as if
he were about to spontaneously combust. When he spoke, I realized it was me that he was angry
with.
“You really shouldn’t be running by yourself in this neighborhood. It’s a really stupid thing
to do.”
With this revelation, I took a moment, and waited for further enlightenment.
But nothing else came from him.
“Are you serious?” I probed after a few seconds.
He stayed silently erect.
I lashed out. “Must I remind you that your dog attacked me and your dog broke my Walkman? You’
re not seriously blaming this on me?”
The boy once again scanned the grounds and stopped at me without any retort. I could feel my
ears turning red, which meant that I probably looked like a tomato that was about to explode in
the microwave.
“Am I keeping you from something more important?” I asked.
He continued to stare at me from the darkness.
I was at a loss for words, which was a strange, new feeling for me.
Finally, with a punch to his chest, I handed him my broken tape and let it drop in front of him.
He caught it before it fell to the ground.
I couldn’t think of a good exit line like “See you in hell,” or “Have a great life,” or
“Hasta la vista, baby”—nothing cool like that came to mind quickly enough. So I spun on my
heels and started running again, before furious tears broke the surface.
I didn’t look back again, but I could sense that he was still standing there, staring from his
darkness, watching me run off. I waited until I was sure that he couldn’t see me anymore before
I slowed down to a walk, limping the rest of the way home.
I wished that I would have turned around the other way, back through the cemetery—this would
have been a much shorter route home. But this would have also given him the benefit of seeing me
limp away and cry a little. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
By the time I got back to the house, it was getting dark. The street lights were on, and Skylar
was lounged on the front steps.
“Where were you? I’ve been waiting for almost half an hour,” he said with his casual smile,
ignoring the fact that I was limping toward him.