Kevin Brockmeier - The Illumination

Matthew Berry gave a shudder and said, “Dude, that’s nasty.” Todd middle-fingered him, jamming his hat back on his head. He saw Chuck watching him quietly from a faraway seat. “What the hell are you looking at, Chuckles?” he growled. “You’ve got maybe three seconds to wipe that face off—”

The lunch monitor shouted, “Fifth grade table, quiet down immediately!”

There was a brief silence before the whispering began again. Todd Rosenthal filled eight minutes flicking French fries at Chuck. The fries blossomed with light as they broke into pieces. Food fights were against the rules, but Todd didn’t care. When the bell rang, everyone filed back to the classroom.

That afternoon, the rain cleared, and they had recess outside. The sun shone through the limbs of the big magnolias. Chuck looked for a spot where he could play alone. The green foam that carpeted the playground was still damp. He imagined his footsteps leaving dry peanut shapes behind him. Instead, they filled with water, then slowly emptied back out. Chuck stopped by the wooden tower and watched them disappear. He noticed Todd Rosenthal glancing over his shoulder at him. Todd turned and said something to Craig and Oscar Poissant. The two Poissant brothers were sixth-graders—twins, but not identical. The three of them were standing on the steep hillside. Their own footprints were pressed like stitches into the grass.

Chuck was living beneath the slide when they came over. Craig Poissant let his meaty arm rest on Chuck’s shoulder. “We were over there talking and had this crazy idea. We thought it would be fun to kick your ass.”

“Doesn’t that sound like fun to you?” Todd Rosenthal asked. “If it doesn’t, you only have to tell us so.”

“We only beat kids up if they really want it.”

“Yep, we’re nice that way, us three,” Todd Rosenthal said. “So what’s it going to be—ass-kicking or no ass-kicking?”

At first Chuck thought they were kidding around with him. They showed him their teeth, and he showed them his. They were four friends sharing a joke on the playground. Chuck didn’t get the joke, but he almost never did. Then the other Poissant brother, Oscar, said, “Kid’s not talking.”

“No, he doesn’t have a word to say for himself.”

“That must mean he wants us to beat him up.”

“Well, if that’s what he really wants,” Craig Poissant said.

Todd Rosenthal brought his palms out to push Chuck down. He leaned in so that Chuck could smell his breath. Chuck ducked and ran away as fast as he could. He could hear Todd and both the Poissants chasing him. He went tearing through the crowd of kids playing basketball. Some of them stopped and stared, some just kept shooting. Chuck curved away, sprinting behind a row of parked cars. Oscar Poissant dashed around the side to cut him off. Chuck avoided him by sliding between a pair of SUVs. He wriggled under the chunky mirrors and past the bumpers. Before he knew it, he was back on the playground. He crossed in front of the swings, dodging someone’s feet. Then he darted beneath the tower and the monkey bars. Suddenly he came face-to-face with the wooden fence.

He heard the drumbeat of sneakers landing on the foam. He barely had time to turn around before it happened. Todd lunged at him, landing a punch on his stomach. The second hit his neck, and the third his chest. The boards rattled as Todd shoved Chuck against the fence. A hard kick swept his legs out from under him. He found himself lying facedown, Todd squatting on his back. Todd didn’t say anything, just kept punching Chuck, smacking him.

The teachers came running with their strong arms and whistles.

Someone shouted, “Get off of Chuck Carter right this instant !”

Someone else shouted, “All right, break it up, you two!”

Todd Rosenthal’s cap slipped off as the teachers grabbed him. His scalp looked like a firework that had burst open. He said, “There, punk,” and gripped Chuck with his knees. “There it goes, and what do you think of that ?”

Then Chuck felt himself losing a hundred pounds of weight. He was too shaken to stand up on his own. A green-shelled bug was crawling toward him, twitching its feelers. Its face was like a face from some other planet. Chuck wondered how long it would remember staring at him.

That afternoon, when he got home, he ached all over. He went to his room and took his clothes off. His bruises shone in the mouth of the bullfrog mirror. There were bunches of them, so sore that they glittered. A bruise below his ear and another on his shoulder. A bruise the size of an apple on his back. A row of small knuckle-shaped bruises above his belly button. Where he didn’t have bruises, he had cuts and scratches. He twisted his neck and listened to the joints pop. He wiggled one of his front teeth with his tongue. Falling down, he had scraped a patch from his chin. There was a crust of dried blood around the edges. The school nurse had put a Scooby-Doo Band-Aid on it. When he peeled it loose, it tugged at his skin. For a few seconds, the light poured out like water. It hurt just a little too much to be beautiful.

His body felt uncomfortable and strange, like someone else’s clothing. It seemed too small around him, or maybe too big. He collapsed in bed with his elephant and his bears. On TV, cops and detectives didn’t mind getting beaten up. They just brushed themselves off and began smoking a cigarette. In real life, getting punched made you tired and queasy. Chuck only wanted to lie there staring at the ceiling. Unfortunately, he had chores to do and homework to finish. His mom made him get dressed and sweep the driveway. The concrete was still wet from the hard morning rain. The water foamed and bubbled beneath the broom like soda. After he finished sweeping, he threw away the soggy leaves. He hauled the big green trash can to the curb. Then he went to his desk and did math problems. He read chapter nineteen from The Story of America . He studied the next ten words for his vocabulary quiz. Exasperation, paradise, fraying, infected, temporary, candid, camouflage, indignant, animated, cuticle . He knew the last word already, but not its spelling. The quizzes were actually working, he thought, improving his vocabulary. He wouldn’t have guessed they would work, but they did.

That evening, after dinner, his pretend dad called him outside. “What’s this I hear about you and the Rosenthal boy?”

Chuck bowed his head and looked down at his knees.

His pretend dad sighed and took hold of his chin. “It’s high time I taught you how to fight, son. Every man’s gotta know how to defend himself,” he insisted. “Now put up your fists,” and he thumped Chuck’s forehead. “You have one job: to keep me from doing that. Understand?” he asked, and though Chuck’s head hurt, he nodded.

Chuck moved his hands around in front of his face. He imagined that he was the Flash and had super-speed. He imagined that he was a robot with steel hands. It didn’t matter—his pretend dad kept thumping his forehead. He was a lot faster than Chuck, a lot stronger. Sometimes he came from the left, sometimes from the right. He used his index finger and also his middle finger. “Show some muscle,” he told Chuck, and, “Stop jellyfishing around.” “Come on,” he said, and, “What’s the matter with you?” “Dodge and parry!” he shouted, but what did that mean?

After a while, Chuck quit believing he could stop him. This was just what the world was like, he thought. This was how the rest of his life would be. He was the boy who couldn’t learn to defend himself. The boy who stood outside waving his tiny fists around. The boy whose pretend dad would not stop poking him. The wind was moving across the yard, swirling, then resting. The leaves on the grass were all glossy and speckled. They kept lifting onto their edges, then slowly toppling over. It happened thirty or fifty times, too many to count. He was reminded of waves rolling gently onto a beach.