The Song of David

That feeling had continued until I’d seen Millie. Then the nerves had hit me like a fire hose and I’d been terrified that I would let her down, worse that I would get my trash kicked and she would have to stand there and witness it happening. I’d seen her face after that first round. She was miserable. And I’d called out to her. I couldn’t help myself. I had to reassure her. I’d done it again after the next round. And again. And then I’d won. Her face had worn the most beautiful smile, and Henry was screaming my name. Moses still looked pissed.

Then the room spun. One screaming face blurred into another, as if I was on a carousel. The octagon was revolving. I didn’t know that was possible. Must be a new feature. Then I realized it was me. I was the one spinning. And then I was falling, and my body bounced off the floor, my head connecting half a beat later, the dot on the ‘i’, the point on the exclamation mark. And the crowd roared. I didn’t lift my hands to catch myself or cover my face. The fight was over, wasn’t it? The bell had rung. Instead my eyes focused blearily on Moses, his smeared face further obscured by the criss-crossing web of the cage. Moses didn’t look angry anymore. He looked stunned, and I saw him run toward me. Up over the side of the octagon, he came. I felt like I was in a fog and I couldn’t control my right arm. My muscles were suddenly twitching, jerking, trying to jump out of my skin. And then the roaring began. It sounded like a big rig bearing down on me. Like I stood on the side of the road. Like I stood beneath the overpass not far from where they found my sister’s body.



“Tag, can you hear me? Damn it. I think he’s having a seizure!



It was Moses talking to me, but he sounded odd, far off. Like his voice came from far across the field where Molly was buried. Across the field and past the truck stop that paid a negligent vigil on a dead girl. The roaring of the trucks continued, one after the other, a typhoon of semis flying past me.



“He’s biting the shit out of his tongue! Put the mouth guard back in his mouth! Tag! Tag, come on, baby!”



The pain in my head was suddenly so enormous there was no way I could open my eyes. Maybe I was the one with a bullet in my brain. Maybe my sister’s killer had killed me too. No. That wasn’t right. Molly’s killer was dead. I killed him. I found him and killed him. And the dogs found Molly.



“Mr. Taggert, if you can hear me, can you try to open your eyes?”



I tried. I tried to open my eyes. The pain ricocheted in my head again, the sound of a gunshot reverberating from my memory into my present. Nah. That wasn’t it. There wasn’t a bullet in my brain. There was another problem with my brain.

Once, my sister Molly had dared me to eat two handfuls of sand. She’d said I couldn’t do it. So of course I had. It hadn’t even been wet sand. It had been gritty and sharp, and so dry that it got stuck in my throat and I’d coughed sand for three days afterward. My mouth felt like that again. I couldn’t swallow and my tongue was fat and foreign behind my cracked lips. My throat was on fire.

Maybe I was back on the beach with Molly, the sky a never-ending blue, interrupted only by a low-flying plane pulling a streamer about car insurance behind it. But the buzzing and the light didn’t come from the bright sky above a long stretch of beach, and my throat wasn’t filled with sand. Bright lights circled my head instead of bi-planes, and the buzzing morphed into beeping machines and worried voices.



“Mr. Taggert?”

“Call me Tag,” I rasped.

“Tag, do you know where you are?”

“Montlake Psychiatric Hospital,” I whispered. I could even smell the bleach.

“Mr. Taggert?” Moses didn’t call me Mr. Taggert. No one at Montlake called me Mr. Taggert. Not even Dr. Andelin. Maybe I wasn’t at Montlake. But I was in a hospital. I was sure of it.

“You were in a fight, Mr. Taggert. Do you remember the fight?”

“Did I win?” I whispered, trying to lift my hands to see my knuckles. If I was in the hospital because of a fight, then I probably hadn’t won. My dad would be so disappointed. I shut my eyes against the light and the voices, trying to remember how I lost.



“I’m proud of you, David.” My father hadn’t ever said that to me. Eleven years old, and he’d never said he was proud. But he was proud now.

“You are?” My voice cracked in amazement.

“Yeah. Sometimes we have to get mean in life to get some respect. There’s nothing wrong with defending yourself. It’s not a popular thing in this day and age. People think it’s enlightened to be weak. It isn’t. There’s a time for words and a time for action.”

I nodded. I liked words. But action had felt amazing.

“Words work much better if the person you’re talking to knows you got something to back it up if words fail. How long you been tryin’ to be friends with that kid?” My dad looked over at me and then back at the road.

“A long time.”

“I thought so.”

“I think I broke his nose.” I tried not to sound as pleased as I felt.

“Yeah. You probably did. But now that he knows you can, he won’t be quite as quick to start a fight, now will he?”

“Nope.” I was silent for several minutes, until I forced myself to confess. “Dad?”

“Yeah, son?”

“I liked it. I like fighting. I want to do it again.”