_*_ 3 _*_
Between the attitude chat (lecture) by Mr. Diaz after detention and my stupid locker, I missed the late bus.
There was no point in calling my dad.
I had four miles to walk. I’d done it before, but I didn’t like it. I swallowed hard and started down the sidewalks of the neighborhood closest to school, my chin up, fake smile waiting in case an old guy at his mailbox waved at me, or a mom unloading groceries from her van checked me out. My earbuds were in, but I wasn’t playing music. I needed to hear the world, but didn’t want the world to know I was listening.
Fifteen minutes later, the safe little houses turned into strip malls and then a couple of used-car lots and then what they call “downtown” around here. I did a quick scan left and right every couple of steps: abandoned mattress store; house with boarded-up windows; newspapers covering a drunk or drugged or dead homeless body that reeked, but was not a threat. A tire store. Liquor store. Bodega with bars on the windows. Two empty lots with fields of gravel and grass and broken furniture and limp condoms and cigarette butts. Storefront church with a cross outlined in blue neon. Two guys leaned against the church.
Threat
Took my hands out of my pockets. Walked like I owned the sidewalk: legs strong and fast, hips made for power, not playing. The guys would size me up as female, young, five foot eleven-ish, one-sixty. Those facts were the language of my body, couldn’t change it. But the way I walked, that made the difference. Some girls would slow down in a situation like this. They’d go rabbit-scared, head down, arms over chest, their posture screaming: “I am weak you are strong I am afraid just don’t kill me.” Others would stick out their boobs, push their butt high and swing it side to side to say, “Check it out. Like it? Want it?”
Some girls are stupid.
I swallowed the fear. It’s always there—fear—and if you don’t stay on top of it, you’ll drown. I swallowed again and stood tall, shoulders broad, arms loose. I was balanced, ready to move. My body said, “Yeah, you’re bigger and stronger, but if you touch this, I will hurt you.”
Five steps closer. The guy facing me looked up, said something to his friend. The friend turned to look.
Assess
There was nothing in my backpack worth fighting for. In fact, it would have been a relief if they stole it cause I’d have a legitimate excuse about why I didn’t do my homework. If they grabbed, I’d twist so that their hands landed on the backpack first. Then I’d shove one of them against the cement church wall and run like hell. They both looked stoned, so I’d have a huge reaction-time advantage. Plus adrenaline.
Plan B: the Albany bus was two blocks away. I’d let them pull off the backpack, then sprint toward the bus, yelling and waving my arms like I didn’t want to miss it, ’cause if you act like you’re running from wolves on a street like that, people pretend not to see you, but if you’re trying to catch a bus, they’ll help.
My last defensive option was the empty bottle of Old Crow whiskey carefully set next to the base of the streetlight directly across from the two guys looking at me. The long neck of the bottle would be easy to grab. I’d have to remember not to smash it too hard against the wall or the whole thing would shatter. A light tink with the same amount of pressure you’d use to crack open an egg, that would be enough to break off the bottom. One tink and a sorry whiskey bottle turns into a weapon with big, glass teeth hungry for a piece of stoned wolf boy.
I was one step away.
Action
The eyes of the guy who turned to look at me were so unfocused, he didn’t know if I was a girl or a ghost. I looked through him to the other guy. Less stoned. Or more awake. Eyes on me, narrow eyes, cement gray with muddy hollows under them. He was the one who smelled dangerous.
For one frozen second I stared at him—glass bottle at eleven o’clock knee his nuts reach for the weapon cut everything—then I nodded curtly, chin down, respectful. He nodded back.
The second melted and I was past them and past the bottle and the bus rumbled along to Albany, loaded with old zombies staring at me with dead eyes.
I listened for footsteps until the empty lots and closed-up businesses turned into strip malls and then turned into almost-safe little houses. At the end of the last street, past a forgotten cornfield and the ruin of a barn, sat the house that I was supposed to call “home.”