I backed up some more, out toward center field, where the weeds were
sprouting. I lifted the mitt up over my head. “Right here, Nemo!”
Nemo crouched down, almost on his knees. His head was bent forward, as if
he were trying to squeeze himself into a tight knot. He stayed that way for a
few seconds, the sunlight glinting off his glasses, and then he exploded.
He flew up from his crouch like Superman bursting out of a phone booth.
His throwing arm whipped back and then forward. If anybody’s jaw had been
caught by that flashing, bony elbow they’d have been spitting out a mouthful
of broken teeth. The ball left Nemo’s hand and it came at me like gangbusters.
It was a low ball, and it almost skimmed the dust between the batter’s
box and the pitcher’s mound. But it was rising as it passed over the mound,
and it seemed to be picking up speed, too. It was still rising as it zipped
over second base. I heard Davy yelling at me, but I don’t know what he was
saying. My attention was riveted to that flying white sphere. I kept the glove
up over my head, exactly where it had been when the ball was thrown, but I was
prepared to duck to keep from getting plastered. The ball entered the
outfield, and I could hear its hissing, full of steam and menace. I didn’t
move my feet. I had time to swallow—gulp—and then the ball was upon me.
It popped into the mitt’s pocket, its impact strong enough to make me
step back a couple of paces. I closed my hand around the ball, trapping it,
and I could feel its heat throbbing like a pulse through the cowhide.
“Cory!” Davy Ray was shouting, his hands up to bracket his mouth. “Cory!”
I didn’t know what Davy was hollering about, and I didn’t care. I was in
a trance. Nemo Curliss had an unearthly arm. How much of this had been a gift
and how much he had trained himself to do, I didn’t know, but one thing was
clear: Nemo Curliss possessed that rare combination of arm and eye that
elevated him above mere mortals. In other words, he was a humdinger.
“Cory!” This time it was Johnny yelling. “Look out!”
“What?” I called.
“Behind you!” Johnny screamed.
I heard a sound like scythes at work, slicing wheat. I turned around, and
there they were.
Gotha and Gordo Branlin, grinning astride their black bicycles, their
peroxided-yellow hair aflame with sunlight. They were coming at me through the
knee-high grass beyond the mowed outfield, their legs pumping the pedals.
Green grasshoppers and black field crickets leaped for their lives under the
grinding wheels. I wanted to run, but my legs were locked up. The Branlins
stopped with me between them, Gotha on my right and Gordo on my left. Sweat
glistened on their angular faces, their eyes cutting into me. I heard a crow
cawing somewhere, like the devil’s laughter.
Gotha, the oldest at fourteen, reached out and prodded the baseball mitt
with his index finger. “You playin’ ball, Cory?” The way he said it, it
sounded dirty.
“He’s playin’ with his balls,” Gordo snickered. He was thirteen, and just
a shade smaller than Gotha. Neither one of them were very big, but they were
wiry and fast as whippets. Gordo had a little scar between his eyebrows and
another on his chin that said he was no stranger to either pain or bloodshed.
He looked toward home plate, where Davy, Johnny, and Nemo stood. “Who the fuck
is that?”
“New kid,” I said. “His name’s Nemo.”
“Asshole?” Gotha stared at Nemo, too, and I could see the wolfishness in
the Branlins’ faces. They smelled sheep’s blood. “Let’s go see Asshole,” he
said to Gordo, and started pedaling. Gordo hit the bottom of my mitt with his
hand and made the ball jump out. As I bent over to pick it up, he spat a wad
into my hair. Then he pedaled away after his brother.
I knew what was going to happen. It was bad enough that Nemo was so small
and skinny, but when the Branlins heard that lisp, it was going to be all she
wrote. I held my breath as the Branlins approached Rocket. As they passed,
Gotha kicked Rocket to the ground with supreme indifference. I swallowed my
rage like a bitter seed, not knowing that it would bear fruit.
The Branlins pulled their black bikes to a halt, with the three boys
between them. “You guys playin’ a game?” Gotha asked, and he smiled like the
snake in the Garden of Eden.
“Just throwin’ the ball around some,” Davy Ray told him.
“Hey, niggerblood,” Gordo said to Johnny. “What’re you lookin’ at?”
Johnny shrugged and stared at the ground.
“You smell like shit, you know that?” Gordo taunted.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Davy said. “Okay?”
“Who said anythin’ about trouble?” Gotha uncoiled from his bike and stood
up. He rested the bike on its kickstand and leaned against it. “We didn’t say
anythin’ about trouble. Gimme a cigarette.”
Gordo reached into a back pocket and gave his brother a pack of
Chesterfields. Gotha produced a matchbook that had Zephyr Hardware & Feeds
across the front. He put a cigarette into his mouth and held the matchbook out
to Nemo Curliss. “Light one.”
Nemo took it. His hands were trembling. It took him three scrapes to make
the match flare.
“Light my cigarette,” Gotha ordered.
Nemo, who perhaps had seen many other Gothas and Gordos in many other
towns, did as he was told. Gotha drew in smoke and exhaled it through flared
nostrils. “Your name’s Asshole, ain’t it?”
“My… name ith… Nemo.”
“Ith?” Gordo sprayed spittle. “Ith? What’s the matter with your mouth,
Asshole?”
I was picking up Rocket from the grass. Here I faced a decision. I could
get on Rocket and ride away, leaving my friends and Nemo Curliss to their
fates, or I could join them. I was no hero, that’s for sure. My fighting
ability was a fantasy. But I knew that if I rode away from that place and
point in time, I would be forever disgraced. Not that I didn’t want to, and
not that every fiber of good sense wasn’t telling me to haul ass.
But some good sense you listen to, and some good sense you can’t live
with.
I walked toward a beating, my heart pounding on its root.
“You look like a queer,” Gordo said to Nemo Curliss. “Is that what you
are?”
“Hey… listen, guys.” Davy Ray managed a frail smile. “Why don’t you
guys—”
Gotha whirled on him, took two strides, planted a hand on Davy’s chest,
and shoved him hard, knocking him to the ground by hooking a sneakered foot
around Davy’s ankle. Davy grunted as he hit, dust pluming up around him. Gotha
stood over him, smoking the Chesterfield. “You,” he said. “Just. Shut. Up.”
“I’ve gotta get home.” Nemo started to walk away, but Gordo grabbed his
arm and held him.
“C’mere,” Gordo said. “You don’t wanna go nowhere.”
“Yeah, I do, ’cauth my mom thays I’ve gotta—”
Gordo howled with laughter, the sound startling birds out of the trees
around the field. “Listen to him, Gotha! He’s got shit in his mouth!”
“I think he’s been suckin’ too many cocks,” was Gotha’s opinion. “Is that
right?” He aimed his hard stare at Nemo. “You been suckin’ too many cocks?”
What made the Branlins the way they were was anybody’s guess. Maybe the
meanness had been born in them; maybe it had developed, like the pus around a
wound that will not heal. In any case, the Branlins knew no law but their own,
and this situation was rapidly spiraling into the danger zone.
Gordo shook Nemo. “That right? You like to suck cocks?”
“No.” Nemo’s voice was choked.
“Yes he does,” Gotha said, his shadow heavy across Davy Ray. “He likes to
suck big fat donkey cocks.”
“No, I don’t.” Nemo’s chest shook, and the first sob squeezed out.
“Oh, momma’s little baby’s gonna cry now!” Gordo said, grinning.
“I… wanna go… home…” Nemo began to sob, the tears flooding up behind his
glasses.
There is nothing more cruel in this world than a young savage with a chip
on his shoulder and anger in his soul. It is worse still when there is a
yellow stripe down his back, as evidenced by the fact that the Branlins never
went after boys their age or older.
I looked around. A car was passing the field, but its driver paid us no
notice. We were on our own out here, under the scorching sun.
“Put the baby down, Gordo,” Gotha said. His brother shoved Nemo to the
ground. “Feed the baby, Gordo,” Gotha said, and Gordo unzipped his blue jeans.
“Hey, come on!” Johnny protested. “Don’t!”
Gordo, holding his exposed penis, stood over Nemo Curliss. “Shut up,
niggerblood, if you don’t want some rain in your face, too.”
I couldn’t take any more of this. I looked at the baseball in my hand.
Nemo was crying. Gordo was waiting for the water to flow. I just couldn’t take
it.
I thought of Rocket being kicked over. I thought of the tears on Nemo’s
face. I threw the baseball at Gordo from about ten feet.
It didn’t really have a lot on it, but it made a solid thunk as it hit
his right shoulder. He wailed like a bobcat and staggered away from Nemo just
as his fountain arced. The urine wet the front of his jeans and ran down his
legs, but Gordo was grasping his shoulder and his face was all screwed up and
he was yelling and sobbing at the same time. Gotha Branlin turned toward me,
the cigarette clenched between his teeth and smoke whirling from his mouth.
His cheeks flamed, and he propelled himself at me. Before I could think to
dodge, he rammed me full force. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back
with Gotha sitting on top of me, his weight crushing my chest. “I… can’t… I
can’t… breathe…” I said.
“Good,” he said, and he hit me in the face with his right fist.
The first two punches hurt. Real bad. The next two about knocked me cold,
but I was squirming and yelling and trying to get away, and the scarlet blood
was all over Gotha’s knuckles. “Ohhhhh shit, my arm’s broke!” Gordo moaned, on
his knees in the grass.
A hand grabbed Gotha’s peroxided hair. Gotha’s head was jerked back, the
cigarette fell from his mouth, and I saw Johnny standing over him. Then Davy
Ray said, “Hold him!” and he smashed his fist into Gotha’s nose.
The lump of flesh burst open. Blood streamed from Gotha’s nostrils, and
Gotha roared like a beast and got off me. He attacked Davy Ray, hammering at
him with his fists. Johnny went after him, trying to grab Gotha’s arms, but
Gotha twisted around and swung a blow that crunched against the side of
Johnny’s head. Then Gordo was up again, his face a blotched rictus of pure
rage, and he ran in kicking at Johnny’s legs. Johnny went down, and I saw a
fist bust him right in the eye. Davy Ray shouted, “You bastards!” and flung
himself at Gotha, but the older boy grabbed him by the collar and swung him
around like a laundry bag before throwing him to the ground. I was sitting up,
blood in my mouth. Nemo was up and running for his life, but he tripped over
his own tangled legs and fell headlong into the grass.
What followed in the next thirty seconds I don’t like to think about.
First Gotha and Gordo left Davy Ray crumpled up and crying, and then they
pounced on Johnny and worked him over with brutal precision. When Johnny was
gasping for air, the blood bubbling from his nostrils, the Branlins advanced
on me again.
“You little piece o’ shit,” Gotha said, his nose dripping. He put his
foot on my chest and slammed me down on my back again. Gordo, still holding
his shoulder, said, “Lemme have him.”
I was too dazed to fight back. Even if I hadn’t been dazed, I couldn’t
have done very much against those two without a spiked mace and a broadsword
and fifty more pounds on my bones.
“Stomp his ass, Gordo,” Gotha urged.
Gordo grabbed the front of my shirt and started to haul me to my feet. My
shirt ripped, and I remember thinking that Mom was going to tear me up.
“I’ll kill you,” somebody said.
Gotha laughed like a bark. “Put it down, kid.”
“I’ll kill you, I thwear I will!”
I blinked, spat blood, and looked at Nemo Curliss, who stood fifteen feet
away. The baseball was in his hand, his skinny arm cocked back.
Now, this was an interesting situation. I’d been lucky in hitting Gordo’s
shoulder; in Nemo’s hand, however, that hard round sphere was a lethal weapon.
I had no doubt that Nemo could hit either one of the Branlins right between
the eyes and knock their brains out. I had no doubt, either, that he would.
Because I saw his eyes magnified behind those glasses. The fury trapped in
them, like a distant conflagration, was terrible to behold. He was no longer
crying or trembling. With that baseball in his grip, he was the master of the
universe. I really think he was ready to kill somebody. Maybe it was the rage
at being born a runt, of having a lisp, of attracting bullies like a weak calf
makes a predator’s mouth water. Maybe he was full to the gullet with being
shoved and taunted. Whatever it was, it was there like a deadly resolve in his
eyes.
Gordo let me go. Lip-ripped and shirt-ripped, I sat in the grass.
“Look at me shake,” Gotha said silkily as he took a step toward Nemo.
Gordo fanned out a few paces from his brother. His penis was still
hanging out of his jeans. I wondered if that would make a good target. “Throw
it, chickenshit,” Gordo said.
A Branlin was very close to death.
“Hey, you boys! Hey, there!”
The voice came across the field at us, from the road that ran along its
edge. “Hey, you boys all right?”
I turned my head, my face as heavy as a bag of stones. Parked on the
roadside was a mailman’s truck. The mailman himself was walking toward us, a
pith helmet shading his face. He wore shorts with black socks, and sweat
stains darkened his blue shirt.
Like any animals, the Branlins knew the sound of the hinge on a cage’s
lid. Without a word to each other, they turned away from the carnage they had
created and ran to their bikes. Gordo hurriedly pushed his penis back in and
zipped up his fly, then he swung himself up in the seat. Gotha paused to kick
Rocket over again; I suppose the temptation to ruin was just too great. Then
