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We could either walk to school along the road that curved around the woods or take a shortcut through the blackberry brambles that grew alongside the highway. People had tunneled through the thickets and made hideouts under the vines. You could always find empty beer cans and cigarette butts on the dirt patches where the grass and weeds had been worn away.
In the summertime we walked home through the brambles, checking to see if the berries were ripe for picking. Bradley and I took our berries home and had them over ice cream or with cornflakes.
We ate them as fast as we could before they spoiled, then ran around the house trying to put our red lips on each other. Our first year in Seattle, Bradley got into half a dozen fights with boys at school who made fun of the way he talked. Then he got all frustrated and pricked his thumb with the needle. Sometimes when boys got in fights at school, the vice-principal, Mr. Anderson, who also coached the track team, would give them the choice of sitting in detention or settling up on the track.
If they chose the track, the boys would put on their PE clothes and Mr. Anderson would flip a coin. The winner of the toss would be handed the Green Bat, a plastic baseball bat with the top cut off, and the loser would get a ten-yard head start on the track. If the boy with the Green Bat could catch the other boy, he would swat him on the rear end as many times as he could before they made one lap around the track.
Only the fastest boys were willing to take their punishment on the track. Bradley was awfully fast and always figured he could outrun the other boys. In the spring of his ninth-grade year, Bradley got into a fight with Meryl Atcheson, who ran track and had even gone to the state championships one year.
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They were caught flinging books at each other in the library and wrestling on the floor. Norma caught me before I started to walk home, and we both ran to the track to watch. Meryl was two years ahead of me, but it was hard not to know about him. He had gotten suspended once for setting the science room on fire.
It had been drizzling all day, and the clay track was wet and shiny. Just about the whole school had turned out to watch. Norma and I clutched the wire fence like a couple of convicts. Bradley and Meryl were dressed identically in blue shorts and gold tops — school colors. Bradley stood about two inches taller than Meryl. His legs seemed so long and skinny I thought they might break. Meryl was almost bowlegged and had the hairiest legs and arms in school; he supposedly also had hair on his back — which some girls were dying to see, but not me or Norma.
He kept lifting his feet to knock the clay out of his spikes. Bradley was wearing his gym shoes. Bradley walked to his chalk line ten yards up the track. By the time they got around to the backstretch, Meryl had gained about five yards and was closing. Meryl was gaining, but Bradley never looked back. Meryl closed to about three yards as they came around the final turn, and he started pumping the bat with each stride, measuring the distance between him and Bradley. With fifty yards to go he took a swing and missed. He swung again and it seemed to throw him off balance; he fell back a yard and then another.
As Bradley crossed the finish line, Meryl threw the bat at him and missed again. I ran onto the track where Bradley was walking bent over double and breathing hard. I grabbed him from behind and pressed my face into his back. I could hear the air streaming into his lungs. When he finally straightened up, I jumped and kissed him on the cheek. He was a sight. His face was sweaty and his legs were splattered with red clay. He pushed the hair back from his eyes and smiled. Uncle Oscar taught him how to drive, and Bradley and his friends would go down to the lake shore, where they would throw rocks, try to catch rides on speedboats, and smoke.
Sometimes Norma and I would hide behind the bushes and listen to their chatter, giggling over what boys thought was fun. They would cut each other down with names like spaz and dork and gluehead. They would get into wrestling matches that would end as soon as one of them fell to the ground.
Bradley graduated in the summer of I believe he was surprised at first, but once the idea had sunk in he strutted around like even this was a victory. Toward the end of that summer, while Bradley was in basic, the blackberries came ripe, and I took an old Hills Brothers can and walked into the berry brambles. It was hot and quiet — everybody else was down at the lake swimming — and the bees were fat on nectar, barely hanging in the air. Most of the full branches were up high, so I climbed on a wooden milk crate someone had tossed away. I had picked about half a can when I heard something crashing through the bushes, the way a big, stupid dog lumbers along when it gets on a scent.
It was Meryl Atcheson. He was stocky as ever and growing a mustache now that he had graduated.
Unfortunately, this chapter precedes the final excruciating one, in which Korneliussen ends each section with a hashtagged word. Anderson would flip a coin. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. I could hear the air streaming into his lungs. Refresh and try again. Huge life changes happen in the course of a paragraph. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.
No hunting commies in rice paddies for me. So, you got a boyfriend? Come on, Southern belle, you can tell me. I had my back to him now, but I could feel him coming closer. And then I could smell him.
Maybe I could have run. He grabbed me around the waist and the coffee can went flying. With his free hand he tried to get hold of my wrist, but he stumbled backward and we both fell to the ground. I landed on my back next to the coffee can. The berries had spilled out and were oozing on the ground. Meryl rolled over and got to his knees. You need to know how to kiss if you want to get a boyfriend. It caught him above the left eye. The rim of the can had made a clean gash in the shape of a perfect crescent moon.
On his hand was an identical crescent of blood. When he saw it, he yelped again and tore off into the brush. I lit out of there in the other direction and ran toward home, following the path by instinct, crashing through the brambles. After a bit I stopped to catch my breath, then sat down in the path and began to cry. Then he looked at the floor. The rest of the book is similar in its clumsiness.
Huge life changes happen in the course of a paragraph. Fucking Queers Are Subhuman! Fucking Queers Must Die! Of course you are trans! Of course you are gay! There is a personal deus ex machina in each chapter, or a revelation that is dealt with in a single sentence and never mentioned again — even when that revelation is child sexual abuse. There are nice turns of phrase.
Unfortunately, this chapter precedes the final excruciating one, in which Korneliussen ends each section with a hashtagged word. These make no sense.
Anger is simmering on that island!