The Embracing Woods

Later he was to tell me that things began to glow with vibrant, odd colors and he heard an angelic chorus in his head. He thought he was going to faint when, from somewhere so deep inside him that not even he could fathom it, he found that spark which – even if it didn’t produce the courage of a hero – at least allowed him to take one more step on the eternal path toward human dignity.

In those intellectual terms, I describe what in simpler terms would be called insanity. In the gym that day, facing big fat Hambone, surrounded by smirking enemies -- Peter snapped. He attacked in a blind, mindless fury without knowing what he was doing. He pounded Hambone’s head with his fists and kicked him to the floor. Three hundred pounds sprawled like a hog’s cadaver. Hambone howled like a stuck pig and cried out, “You ain’t got no call to hit me!” Peter began kicking him as hard as he could, tears streaming from his eyes, curses pouring from his mouth. . . he kicked until he could kick no more. He kicked until fat Hambone bled from the lips and nose. Then he collapsed and lay crying with his arms over his head. He had won but his classmates had seen him cry. His shame was unbearable.

But I had learned that men have no conscience, no mercy, when in mobs.

The dumbfounded crowd stared at Peter with amazement and gradually, one by one, walked away. Hambone rose to his feet and said again, “You had no call to hit me.”

It was Peter’s time to be dumbfounded. “I beat you,” he answered, “you . . . you . . .

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