A Shred of Truth by Eric Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

like tree roots—heavy and thick.
    What was wrong with me? Was I turning soft? For years rage had fueled my confrontations, erasing all other emotions while focusing my energies on rib-cracking victory. I’d taken on bigger men. I’d learned to throw the switch, cutting off any thoughts of injury or pain or consequence. I’d been unstoppable.
    Eighteen months ago I’d made the decision to give up all that and start honoring my mother. Time for a change. Time to start thinking of others, not just myself. In choosing the high road, though, I’d been burned both literally and figuratively.
    I looked down at my hand that still bore the scars. Apparently my psyche wasn’t faring much better.
    I scanned the clearing. This was me, Aramis Black, gathering evidence, reconnoitering, considering his next move. This was
not
a moment of weakness.
    So why couldn’t I budge?

    PS3414—Social Psychology.
    Lipscomb University, College of Natural and Applied Sciences.
    In last week’s class, Professor Newmann had addressed the mental hurdle of limb-numbing fear, reminding us that public speaking—forget spiders or heights—was Americans’ number-one phobia. This set off a lively debate. Most of us could recount paralyzing incidents—two hundred feet up the face of a cliff, a chance at a game-winning free throw. One boy even admitted to freezing up during his first kiss and got a rousing laugh from the class.
    “Look at Professor Bones,” Diesel prodded me. “He’s not even smiling.”
    “Probably still waiting for his first kiss.”
    “Naw. He was married once.”
    “Really? Now there’s an urban legend for you.”
    Newmann’s attention swiveled our direction. Behind tortoise-shell glasses large enough to frame a … well, a tortoise … his eyes locked on to mine. Above thin lips and pasty eyebrows, his hair was plastered across his forehead by one of those hair sprays that smells like something you’d use to polish your tires. His outdated tweed jacket didn’t do much to hide an almost anorexic frame. Poor guy. Even his role as a sub was nothing more than a scrap thrown his way after our original teacher was pegged and hospitalized by a hit-and-run on South Twenty-First.
    “Mr. Black, is there a comment you wish to add to our discussion?”
    I started to zero in on a snappy comeback to send the class into howls. I imagined this slightly graying man at home alone with a microwave dinner, listening to Michael Bolton. Could he be any more pitiful? And then something moved in me: empathy maybe. Or godly compassion. How pathetic to ridicule a man I knew so little about.
    “No sir,” I said. “Sorry for interrupting.”
    Newmann studied me, testing my sincerity. Nervous giggles flitted about Ward Lecture Hall 150, but I remained stone faced.
    Bones turned back to his notes on the lectern. Head down, he said, “We have ten minutes remaining before dismissal. Would you please stand, Mr. Black, and give a summation of our discussion?”
    “Uh. Okay.”
    “No reason for a show of shyness. Speak for all to hear.”
    I rose and cleared my throat. I was working without a script, and the class probably had some perverse desire to see me fall.
    Time to face the nation’s number-one fear.
    “Professor, can I address the class from the podium?”
    “You
can
. More accurately, though, you’d need permission to do so.”
    “
May
I?”
    He peered over his glasses. “Yes, you may.”
    I strode to the front and faced my peers. Nabbing bits of info from our past hour of interaction, I layered them with facts uncovered in my weekend homework, including recent theories that human DNA is encoded with ancestral memories.
    “You’re losing our attention,” Newmann said. “Perhaps you can clarify.”
    “Okay. Who in this room is scared to death of cats?” I paused for a show of hands. “No one? But if a rat came skittering in under our desks, I bet this place would go crazy.” The mere mention caused a group of girls in