I'm Down: A Memoir by Mishna Wolff Read Free Book Online Page A

bottles of hot sauce. They each had a beer and Big Lyman was laughing hysterically as Dad cried and blew his nose.
    “What are you guys doing?” I asked.
    But Dad couldn’t answer. He was bent over and his face was flushed red as tears rolled down his cheeks. Lyman said excitedly, “We’re doing a hot sauce tasting. Went to Chinatown today and bought some crazy shit.”
    I looked at the cryptic Asian labels on the jars and bottles sitting in front of them. My father was still blowing his nose as Lyman prepared a little hot bomb for himself.
    “Is that stuff hot?” Anora asked.
    Lyman said, “Let me put it this way . . . When was the last time you saw your daddy cry?”
    Dad regained his composure and his breath and said, “What are you girls doing inside anyway?”
    “I just wanted to show Zwena where my new room is gonna be,” I said.
    “Nah, nah . . . It’s not safe.” This was from the guy that had introduced me to bottle rockets. But I needed him to show Zwena that the house was gonna be good.
    “Can you just show us?” I pleaded. “We won’t go in, we’ll just look.”
    “Not right now,” Dad said. “We’re busy.”
    He didn’t look busy. He looked like he was giving himself diarrhea.
    “Why don’t you go to Zwena’s and Slip ’n stuff . . . Slide or whatever,” he said.
    I never should have gotten out of the way of that backhoe.
     
    I was feeling bummed until Zwena suggested grits and hunger took over. She led the way back to her house, walking ahead while I lagged behind looking for lucky money on the sidewalk. Coming up the rear were Anora and Little Lyman—ten feet back holding hands. I looked up from what I thought might be a dime but turned out to be a wadded-up gum wrapper, and spied Janella in front of her house with two other girls. And the way the three of them looked at me gave me a bad feeling. But I passed them without incident and wrote off my bad feeling. Until they started whispering to each other, and that’s when I got a
really
bad feeling. You know, the feeling you get when you realize you should have listened to that bad feeling. And I followed their stares to Tre running toward me from the side of their house at full speed.
    He pushed me down and then darted a few feet away, taking a fighting stance. Janella and her friends surrounded Tre and me chanting, “Fight! Fight!” And I got excited, still not fully realizing I
was
the fight.
    “Tre . . . I thought we were friends?” I said as he hit me in the ribs—not in a friendly way. But he didn’t respond. Instead, he looked blankly ahead determined to avoid eye contact while he blindly swung at me. Anora and Lyman approached the small crowd while Tre continued punching me in my chest and head with more force than I would have expected. I was still bigger than boys my age, but judging by the pain in my ribs, I sure as hell wasn’t stronger. The fighting finally made Anora cry, so on top of getting beat up, I was worried I wasn’t earning my allowance. When I saw Zwena approach, I felt reassured.
    But rather than defend me, Zwena coached me. “Hit him!”she screamed. I made a lame attempt to swing at his head. “No, stomach!” she corrected me. Unfortunately I was already on the ground just trying to block as his fists rained down on my face. I squirmed out of his way and managed to wiggle back onto my feet. Then I took a swing at his face that actually connected. It hurt my hand and I was so stunned by the pain in my wrist that Tre got a square shot at my nose, sending me onto the ground. The fight was over.
     

     
    The small crowd dispersed, leaving me alone and crying on the sidewalk. I watched Tre wipe his nose and march past his older sister and up into their house. My cheek was stinging and Anora was saying something to me, but all I could think was,
The sidewalk feels so nice and cool on my face
.
    I rolled over onto my back and could feel the aching in my ribs. The white, white sky was quiet