HAROLD BRODKEY
49
a lesson:
she , ~as, ~aking
care of justice in the world,
She
haq '~ loo~
of scrubbing away-at
~
foulness-a look of excite–
ment of a kind, She was intent, more than before, busy, pleased
and busy,
My back, untouched by the pole, bristles, wrinkles,
I
stare uncontrollably at her.
All at once she takes a short swing and hits me '6'n the side of the
head with the pole,
,,",
The bone of the skull vibrates,
,s~ud.ders
in
~rDall
arcs.
I
dq ,not
know
I
am hurt. My head and
eyes-a~)4
m?,'ut'h-are
~Qvadea
by, '
tT~ey
gorge on, skinny sensations, shiny,
C91~,
lengthy, hurting.,
,c
"
The sensatIons spin and ring (like :coins on marble or.
gl~ssJ
.but
almost at once
~hey
grow thick, like dirty washrags in the
basein~nt ,
wet and foul: 'they grow thick and wadded and vile in me.
1 '(".:'
....
The air, here, under the porch, begins ,to sl;1ow hostititY,.toward
me: it claps ,bits of my soreness between 'its ,fine, ai!lessj ,:cold-hot
wings; it catches in its thin ribbon claws bits of ra'w, pumrpelled, half–
bruised skin:
Ii
rubs with abrasive cold: stabs at the sewn iQ, clutching
stars of heat 1nd a,he. Still, there is no disbelief.
.,
What does Nonie see in the child's face? Perhaps what she sees
illuminates her life.
Walls ofoilskin ,'drooping, wrinkled , slimy, rise around me.
I
can
h~aly
see.
I
am pan'ting now.
She says, "See, you don't know how
to
play, you don't play right,
I
can hurt you, you can.:t hurt me."
On this occasion, it first occurs to me-it brings on overwhelming
rage-that she brought rAe here in order to
de
this, she meant
to
hurt
me.
We are brother and sister.
i
.am
dazed and entiged and struck in
Hie
increasing animal
difficuI'ty for me of the moment.
That part of religious emotion which is
i-~aS-B~ppy-once-but-it
was-taken-f.r.om-me-and-will: be-restored-to-me
was
'on Nonie's face.
A child's dislike for SO(fl'eone often takes
the
form of an erasure,
an obliteration in the child's mind: "Wiley,
:d6'n 't:,
you see Nonie is
talking
to
you. . . ?"
I
didn ' t hear her or see her : she went spinning
