Take the hill
by Johnny Fontaine
A flushed heat of anger bruised my cheeks and stallions of fear galloped in my heart. School had let out for the day. I was walking home alone down the snow covered sidewalk of Sunset Boulevard in the sleepy hamlet of Coxsackie, where the family moved after my childhood in New York City.
I was carrying my trombone case and desperate to ignore the taunts of a bully pack lagging behind me. By the time I reached Mansion Street, they began to launch snowballs and hurl threats of a beating at me. I was twelve, untrained to fight.
The pack waited at the corner.
I began a full sprint down the slippery slope of Mansion Street. The intent was to lose them through access to my house on Church Street by scaling a large hill at the bottom of my escape route. Out of breath and full of fear, my running away ended in hiding behind a tree near the base of the hill that rose precipitously upwards towards home.
From nowhere an older voice leapt from my heart:”This fight’s not over.”
I launched myself into the snowy climb ahead, lugging my trombone case and for a moment savoring the victory of a strategy that seemed to work. Moments later, I heard their screams from above the hill, a launch of
snowballs raining down on me, some hitting me, others whizzing close by.
They had not been fooled by my maneuver. The steep grade of the climb made my steps awkward, breath racing with fear and anger. Where’s my Dad when I need him, my brothers?
I raised the trombone case like a shield, my body moving in anticipation of the battle. As I reached the crest and saw the old, rusty guardrail next to the road, I knew a part of my manhood waited for me on the street right in front of my house.
The bully pack, four in size and made up of other neighborhood kids, kept hurling insults and snowballs as I pushed myself over the guardrail and into the street. The one closest to me, the main instigator from three houses down, moved towards me with a stick in his hand.
The fear of youth and the anger of manhood danced inside of me. I swung the trombone case like a sword, catching him square against his shoulder and bouncing up into his jaw. As he crumbled to the street, another kid came up from behind, so I pivoted quickly and my trombone case met his chest, knocking him backwards.
Another tried to rip the trombone case from my hand, but I elbowed him in the face. He began to cry uncontrollably and back away with raised hands His reaction filled my marrow with courage.
As the fallen bullies picked themselves off the ground, I looked at the last one. “Are you next?” I asked. They all began to back away and move off in different directions. I stood there in the wake of the battle and watched
them stumble and run off my turf.
I walked over to my front porch and sat down, catching big gulps of air and shaking off a few tears that fell from my eyes. I never told my father or brothers about the incident. The bully pack never followed me again. To this day, I remember that cold day when a part of the boy became a part of the man who learned to run into the fight — not away from it.
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Johnny Fontaine is a writer living in Louisville, KY. His short fiction has appeared in decomP, LEO, The Legendary, and Thieves Jargon. He is currently writing his first novel. He publishes two blogs, His Grace Amazing and Fierce.Wild.Passionate. |
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