Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

There were a couple of minutes of milling around before Mr. Cotswald blew the whistle to start class. He kept to himself the way he had ever since the day he’d allowed himself to be hoisted up to the basketball hoop by Pete and Juan, who’d interlocked their fingers to make a step for each of his feet. Other kids had been getting lifted up there and getting the ball passed to them, and then dunking and dropping off, and since it looked like fun he’d let his guard down when Pete and Juan waved him over. Instead of passing him the ball, Shane had pulled his shorts and underwear down. He still felt weird about telling his parents it had happened to someone else. He still had no idea why he hadn’t just dropped off the rim when they’d done it.

At the end of the day he sat in homeroom waiting for the bell. He wanted to spring to his feet when it rang, but he knew better than to let that happen again. Last week he jumped the gun on the okay-to-rise sign and the class erupted in laughter.

Mrs. Balarezo gave the signal for everyone to stand. Then she gave a second go sign to John Ng to lead the ordered procession out. Connell was at the head of the second row. He slid in behind Christina Hernandez and waded out into the sea of kids heading down the stairs. Thank God Ms. Balarezo sat him up front. It gave him a fighting chance to escape. It was the one good thing that had come of being singled out. A while ago she’d switched his and Kevin’s desks. She didn’t have to say why she was doing it; everybody knew he was getting murdered back there.

He got down the stairs and out to the street, no lingering, no talking to anyone. Passing through the gate he exhaled deeply. He loosened his tie, undid the button. He couldn’t relax entirely. It was a long couple of blocks, each house feeling slightly safer than the last. The route was a fist slowly releasing its clench.

The first block was the avenue that ran along the school. It was a short stretch before he turned at Eighty-Third, and it should have been the safest one, with all the cars and adults around, and the church on the corner, but it wasn’t; it was the worst. He walked past the rectory. Somehow they had all gotten there first, as if by teleportation, and were sitting on the steps. He felt them deciding his fate: Tommy, Gustavo, Kevin, Danny, Carlos, Shane, Pete. Danny lived on his block; that meant something — after school, anyway. At school, Danny was like everybody else. When they cracked jokes, he laughed louder than the others. He never hit Connell, though. He’d push him, but he wouldn’t fight.

As Connell passed the church, his mind was afire. Did he do anything today to get their notice? Did he talk to a girl? Did he talk to anyone at all? Did he offend anybody by not talking? Anything was possible. He wanted to be invisible. If he could get to the corner unnoticed, and across the street, the chances of their following him home dropped, but then it was one and a half long side-street blocks, narrow ones, less busy, and he had to hurry. If they wanted to get him in that stretch, he was a man in the desert without a horse.

He crossed the avenue. Out of the corner of his eye he could see them following him. When he reached the other side, they were upon him. They surrounded him quickly, a phalanx closing its gaps. There was a moment of indecision, in which the fact of their outnumbering him seemed to hang in the air like a question. He thought they looked vulnerable in this in-between moment, as though they saw something absurd in the ritual of his submission. He imagined them calling the whole thing off, Danny saying, “Hey guys, let’s forget about it,” and then the group breaking up and walking home.

Sometimes lately he looked at them, even at times like this, and saw not bullies but lost children and, down the road, lost adults. He didn’t know why he thought all this stuff, why he did laps around the block after dinner, saying hello to strangers and waving at old ladies perched on their stoops.

The hiccup of indecision passed. As though propelled by an electric wind, one kid shot out of the circle. Today it was Carlos Torres, quiet Carlos, disappearing Carlos, and the role was bigger than him, so he puffed himself up to fit it. He approached Connell awkwardly, jabbing at the air. Connell did his best to avoid the blows. He felt his shirt riding up on him, the buttons straining as he darted around. It was only a matter of time. The circle grew smaller and smaller. A stinging slap landed on his ear and he heard a deafening pop. The one thing he needed to do was hold on to his bookbag; God forbid they should get that from his grasp. Another smack landed hard on his face. The kids gaped in a kind of amazed half respect as they watched him take the blows. Then it turned to anger: why wouldn’t he defend himself? He wondered too. He was bigger than them, stronger too. Maybe it was the fact that some of them carried knives to school. He saw them show them off. One recent graduate, whose older brother was in the Latin Kings, had become a legend for bringing in a gun. It would be nice to have an older brother, Connell thought sometimes: to be in a band of brothers that took on the world, instead of getting his solitary ass beaten to a pulp. It wasn’t always fear that he felt, though, when he didn’t fight back. It was something else, something mysterious.

His hands went up to cover his face and he felt a thud in his side. He was winded, and he focused on keeping his feet. If he fell he would have to cover his body with his arms, leave himself to their mercy and hope they didn’t kick him in the head. Something about his keeping his feet kept them civil. He staggered around, Carlos screaming at him, growing in confidence with every blow he landed.

“Fight back!”

He looked to the blurry group for help. It was the same way he always looked at them, and he sensed something like sympathy in the way some of them looked back, but they were also revolted, and they joined Carlos in hectoring him.

“Fight, maricón !”

They pushed him into Carlos.

“Oh, snap, Carlos, you gonna take that?”

He kept his hands up.

“You wanna fight, huh? You wanna fight?”

“No,” Connell said. “No.”

He felt a fist explode in his gut and he doubled over. His stomach was burning, but the tears didn’t come. He wasn’t afraid for them to come. He had wanted to cry for a while, but he just couldn’t.

Carlos was grinning maniacally. For a second he looked like he was sharing something with Connell, letting him in on a joke. “Fight back!” he screamed. “Faggot!” Connell saw the hatred in his eyes, tried to watch his hands. Carlos smacked him so hard that Connell could actually hear it resound, as though it had happened to someone else. The kids were startled. Connell staggered, and an adult, a stranger, came to break up the fight. Everyone scattered.

Connell let himself in with his key. He collapsed on the couch and awoke to the sound of his father coming home. He could hear him in the study, where he always stopped to drop his briefcase. Soon he would move to the living room. Connell didn’t want to be on the couch when he walked in. He didn’t want him to see any marks or bruises and start asking questions, but more importantly, he didn’t want to deal with the weird negotiations that could ensue if he were there, his father hovering over him, waiting for Connell to move so that he could resume his headphoned isolation.

He thought of how he used to tell his father anything. His father knew how to make him feel better about things. He would hang on his father and cover his face and neck in kisses. It embarrassed him to think of it. He knew it wasn’t as long ago as he liked to pretend.

He stood up. “I’m going out,” he said to his father’s back, which was bent over the desk. His father nodded wordlessly. He started walking up the block. He turned up Northern, heading toward Corona. He had started taking longer trips into areas he didn’t feel safe in, but it didn’t matter. He would walk until it was time go home and eat. He could feel the fat on him burning up with every step.