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

and peaceful, and I wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep right there on the street. Maybe because the blood rushed in my ears:
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh
—likea womb. Maybe I had a concussion. Either way, I liked the way I felt. I felt the serenity that comes when things can’t get any worse.
    Zwena walked up from where she had been standing a few yards away. She looked over me and said five words that made it worse: “That’s a lot of blood.”
    I touched my nose. Sure enough—a lotta blood. Which meant Dad was gonna know I got my ass kicked.
     
    When I got home, the blood had dried under my nose and my cheek was starting to bruise. I walked into the house and Dad looked excited. “Looks like you got into a disagreement.”
    I nodded.
    “Did you let her know?” he asked.
    I shook my head no and his smile faded. I corrected him, “It was a boy, and he won.”
    I watched Dad’s face light up again. “My girl!” he said, picking me up in his arms. He was glad to see I was taking on boys and said that it would prepare me for dating. And for the next twenty minutes, he insisted on having me hit his fists and giving me fighting pointers like, “Move!”
    Or, “Just keep moving and never stop.”
    Or, “You be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.” And when he was done showing me his stance, we watched
Enter the Dragon
together—like grown-ups who get into fights.
    As Bruce Lee coached a young student in the philosophy of fighting I asked, “Dad . . . when do you think the house will be done?”
    “When I have the time and the money to finish it,” Dad said.
    “Oh,” I said. “But it’ll get done, right?”
    “Of course it will,” Dad said. “You just can’t do it all at once.I had to pay the lights this month . . . Watch and see what Bruce does to these six brothers with that stick!”
    “Dad . . . ,” I said, wanting to talk about the house more, but there was a knock at the door. And I went to get it.
    When I opened the door, Tre was standing in the doorway. It was getting dark and I was worried that it was an ambush, but I figured, if he tried a sucker punch now, Dad would introduce him to the Vulcan neck grab.
    “Hi, Tre,” I said.
    “Hey, Misushna,” he said.
    I didn’t correct him.
    “It took me a long time to figure out how you get up in your house.”
    “Yeah,” I said, holding my cheek in an attempt to look lame and defenseless. “What are you here for?”
    “Well, I just wanted to tell you I don’t hate you.” He continued, “I like playing with you. You are really fun and good at running, and clowning and junk.”
    “So why did you fight me?” I asked. But Tre was really upset and he started breathing hard like he was gonna cry.
    “Janella. She said that if I didn’t beat you up, she would beat me up.”
    “What?”
    “I know. It’s messed up,” Tre said, actually crying now.
    “It’s okay,” I said, feeling so sorry for him even though I could still smell my own blood in my nose. “Friends?”
    “Okay . . . But not around my sister.”
    I returned my embarrassed hand to my side and said, trying to sound cool, “Yeah, okay . . . Well, I have to go watch Bruce Lee.”
    “Okay. But you should fix your front door,” Tre said,
    “Okay. Thank you,” I said, and shut the door. And as Ireturned to Dad and the movie, I kept thinking,
Why did I say thank you? I should have said fuck you.
    “Who was that?” Dad asked, still shadowboxing along with Bruce.
    “The boy that fought me today, Tre.”
    “Did you let him know?” he asked.
    “I didn’t have to,” I said. “He just left on his own.”
    “My girl!” my dad said. Then he looked at me for a moment. “Hey, you might want to grab some peas for your face.”

 
     
     
     
Three

A LESSON-LEARNING MACHINE
     
     
     
     
    A LL OF THE CAPPING I had done at the Government Subsidized Charity Club over the summer continued to pay off that fall at Kimball Elementary, my neighborhood school. It