|
The Mouse |
|
by Bob Liddil |
|
Picking on the mouse was a universal pastime at our school. If he was in a hallway, the sound of falling books or a body slamming into a locker was inevitable. In the cafeteria, it was more common to see him sprawled on the floor from being tripped, than at a table eating lunch. No girl would be caught dead talking to the mouse. They shunned him as though he bore some mortifying contagion about his person. They giggled and pointed and whispered and joined with their boyfriends in calling him "faggot," or worse, to his face and behind his back. Teachers had not much more patience with him. A substitute, or a new teacher would try to draw him into their subject, seldom to any avail. After a while they gave up and just ignored him. Everything changed though, the day the gun came to school. We all knew where the drugs were to be found, and we all knew where the guns were being sold and who sold them. Guns and drugs and gangs were as natural a part of the neighborhood as breathing or walking, but the metal detectors at school did a pretty good job of keeping things safe there - at least we thought so at the time. In retrospect, they just kept the good guys good and never did much to deter anybody else. The day the gun came to school started off as a particularly bad morning for Frankie. Brian Sharkey and Jack Ripley, two football jocks, body blocked him in front of the science lab, knocking him flat. He went down hard and stayed down for more than a minute, not moving a single muscle. I saw it and I thought they'd hurt him really bad. When he finally got up, it was slowly and deliberately. He had a strange look on his face, one I'd never seen on him before, but definitely recognized. It was a look of pure rage and hatred. I also saw that he had something in his hand. Sharkey never saw it coming. The mouse moved nearly faster than the eye could follow. He caught Sharkey across the face with the sharp edge of a metal ruler that had fallen out of one of his books as they'd been scattered across the hallway floor. He opened a cut in the jock's cheek from his ear to his chin and brought the ruler away bloody. Next, he aimed a kick squarely into Jack Ripley's crotch that doubled him almost to the floor. Then he brought the ruler down across the back of his neck with a slicing chop that made a sickening sound as it connected, because by that time everyone had stopped in their tracks and were staring in shocked, utter silence. The mouse had grown himself some teeth. He'd been a loser all the years I'd known him. For the longest time, Frankie had endured punishment and humiliation from everyone in our school. I am ashamed to say that even I pushed him around a little. It was that easy. But standing there that day, in that frozen frame of time, bloody ruler held high, a look of triumph spreading across his face like sunshine across a rainy day football field, he was a winner. Tormenters had been vanquished in a single moment. Frankie was a winner. But it only lasted a moment. Brian Sharkey broke the silence with a string of screaming obscenities. His left hand covered his right cheek as blood dripped onto his letter jacket, staining its bright yellow with deep crimson. His right hand went into the jacket pocket and when it came out again, it gripped a snub nosed .38 revolver, bringing it up and pointing it straight at Frankie's head. The distance between them was no more than 3 feet. Kids dropped to the floor the second they saw the gun, or, if they were far enough away, they took off running toward the nearest exit. Me, I was too close to do anything but drop and pray. I don't know why though, because the gun was pointed squarely and irreconcilably at the mouse. Frankie said, and I will remember his words forever, "Do you think you can kill me any deader than I already am?" His face had gone slack. His eyes had completely lost the elation of an instant before. The sentence was spoken in a monotone. He was the mouse again, but yet, was not, because he never flinched. "Drop that weapon!" an adult voice barked. "Drop it now!" Sharkey didn't move for a second or two and then he did. He pulled back the hammer of the revolver and brought his bloody left hand down to support his right. The sound of the gunshot was deafening. Afterward, all sound was muffled, but I could still hear screaming. I saw Brian Sharkey's body jerk sideways and he fell in slow motion, just like in every movie I've ever seen. His gun went off as he fell, missing Frankie by no more than a foot, the bullet ricocheting off a locker door. Someone said later that he was dead before he hit the floor. Strangely, still, the mouse never even flinched. I saw it. It was eerie. Our school made the 6:00 news that night. Channel 10 interviewed me and I told them exactly what I saw. Mr. Teague, the boys' Vice Principal saved the mouse's life, but the cops arrested him anyway. Took him out of the school in handcuffs. I didn't think that was fair at all, but a counselor told me later that he wasn't supposed to have a gun in school any more than Sharkey. The mouse came back to school about five weeks after it happened. He'd been suspended under zero tolerance for attacking another student, but his mother appealed to the School Board to get him reinstated. If it had been me, I'd have picked another school, very far away. It's funny how things can change in a split second. There still aren't too many kids that will have anything to do with Frankie. Some blame him for Brian's death. Some are scared of him and avoid him completely, although he doesn't push it. It's the same thing, only different. But other kids talk to him, even sit with him at lunch time. An eighth grader even asked for an autograph once. As for me, I can see changes in him. He walks the hallways with more confidence and even participates in class once in a while. I saw him shooting hoops in gym class a month or so ago. He seems happier. One thing has changed with pretty much all of us though. Nobody calls Frankie "mouse" anymore. And nobody pushes him around. Nobody. |
|
Comment On This Story on the Digitropolis Message Board You reader # © 2004 By Bob Liddil. All Rights
Reserved. |