Romantic Fever, Pt. 2

There she was, towering above me like a stone gargoyle, a blond ponytail frosted in the subzero temperature of the late afternoon.  Her friend, walking with her, was huge.  But I was young, and fast, and knew where the small holes into our tunnel were hidden in the ice-packed mountains of snow that lined the streets.  I was dead certain that I could rush them from behind, leap up to grab the coveted beanie, and dive into a tunnel-hole that was much too small for either of them to get through before I could navigate my way home and hide myself in the safety of my room while my mother brought me fresh baked cookies, a cup of hot chocolate and playfully scolded me as she removed my snow-caked coat, galoshes, and mittens.


Seconds after snatching the beanie from her head, the gargoyle and her friend were upon me.  I felt pain as they threw me into a frozen snow bank and while one sat on my back, the other crashed down on my head, driving my face into the snow.  Cursing and calling me names that I had only heard when I secretly listened to my father and his brothers talking about Uncle Jimmy, the two behemoths stuffed snow down my shirt, down my pants, into my boots, and up my pant legs.  Then they rolled me over.  Looking up, I saw the great cross that stood above the entrance to the Presbyterian Church.  “Where are you now, Jesus?” I sobbed, as they rubbed icy snow into my face and mouth and ears.   And then, beanie in hand, they walked off---laughing.


I don’t remember arriving home, but I was crying, and cold, and humiliated.  Somewhere in-between my sobs, I heard my mother ask me “what’s wrong?”  She was feeling my forehead, hot from running all the way home carrying at least 200 extra pounds of snow and ice in my underwear.  “You have a fever,” she cried, alarmed.  “Your face is beet red and you’re clothes are soaking wet.”


Now, right then, I realized that if I explained that two high school girls had tackled me, thrown me into the snow and beaten the living shit out of me because I had stolen their beanie, I would find myself in even more trouble than when my mother caught me playing doctor with Rita, a third grade Catholic girl from across town who had come to visit her father who rented a room in our house and was drunk most of the time and thought that it was cute how we two children got along so well.  (Rita is another story for another time.)  So, I lied.

(TO BE CONTINUED)