xvi I only did what I did because I was sixteen and didn’t know that I wouldn’t be sixteen forever, even though that’s what it feels like to be sixteen: young and bleeding and merciless. Sixteen, a whelped fox cub. I could see the blue of my veins so clearly through my skin, secret rivers rising under a snow rotting to the color of curdled milk. I spent my afternoons on the opposite side of the soccer fields, smoking behind the track house and fighting the urge to peek around the corner. I didn’t want to know if anyone was coming for me. I didn’t want to escape. There was only one place in town that would sell to minors, and only because the man behind the counter was a Native American who’d stopped caring many decades back. His name was Tom and the other boys I roughed with just called him the Indian. I called him the Indian too, never to his face. ‘I want a pack of those Capris, Tom,’ I’d say and sneak a handful of whatever counter candy he had displayed when he turned his back to me. I thought I was so sneaky, so deft and quick. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tom secretly wanted to wring my neck when I strolled through his door. I fought with the older kids. I fought with the athletes on the football and wrestling teams, the ones with arms as big around as my waist. I walked home most nights nursing bruises and spitting something black like poetry. If I woke up in the morning, still dressed and aching, I called it a miracle and prayed to myself. I kissed girls at the same spot, at the rotting gazebo at the end of my street. I made them all the same promises, named the same evening star after them. I tasted nothing but dust. (Photo: Randy Fox)
