ly at all the people passing me by. And then it’s the next Friday and there I am again and I have just slapped his hand and he has let go of me. I turn to fight my way through the crowd. The Bull waggles his fingers and dances over. I swing my backpack at him. My momentum nearly topples me. He reaches his arms out to envelope me but I slip through. Desperate now, I elbow through the crowd. Somehow I push my way through and run all the way to the parking lot. There my brother, who is driving us home in the Sentra that will be wrecked next year in the ice storm, asks why I am out of breath. I tell him I just felt like running down. I get in the front seat. As we turn onto Chippewa, the fear leaves me, and the loathing seeps in. How can I be so weak? How can I not even muster a scream while this guy molests me? I blink rapidly. “Everything ok at school today?” Mom asks when we get home. “Fine, fine,” I say and set my backpack down by the door. Outwardly, I am calm. But what I am right now is rung— a heavy church bell settling after a vicious clanging. “Much homework this weekend?” Mom is at the stove making stir fry for dinner. “Uh, not too much,” I say. There is a slight pause. The vegetables sizzle and crack in the pan. Then, without thinking, just because it feels right, I blurt, “I think I’m going to be able to get it under control. I mean the homework and all. Not just this weekend, but you know, just, er, overall. I’m, um, not going to let school ruin my life.” My tone is sheepish, even apologetic. “Good,” Mom says without looking up from the stir fry. The flatness of her voice tells me that she does not believe my lie. But I am not telling it to her. I am telling it to myself. I take my backpack and go upstairs. In my bedroom, I automatically undress, just like I do every Friday afternoon. I go under my bed and extract the shoebox full of porn. I rifle through my pictures of Eva until I find my favorite—a shot of her standing on the porch of a well-kept ranch house, wearing white lacy lingerie, and holding a hose that shoots a strong stream of water from its head. I run my thumb over her breast and there is the wrinkly noise of paper being pressed 42
beneath a gentle finger. Vaguely, I recall that I have come up here to masturbate. From somewhere in my mind comes the calm assurance that, yes, I will do that. But not right now. I don’t feel like touching me—at least not yet.
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