Bloody Smile

Bloody Smile

Among the sea of sneakers, I spot Ryan’s torn up running shoes, Ted’s bright Nikes, that nice girl from Econ’s white Converse.  Some of them toss me a hello.  Speaking to people is a pain, but I’ve been working on it.  Today I manage four return greetings.  Sometimes-

“Jeez, man.  How many was that- four?  That’s, like, a record.”

I forgot to mention that I’m walking with George.  He’s the tallest short kid you’ll ever meet- five feet of person and three more feet of annoying.  Friends since first grade, adopted by each other’s mothers- that whole cliché.

Anyways, I’m shyer than his little sister, and he loves giving me a hard time about it.  I don’t really mind, though.  It’s just George.  I tell him to shut up and walk faster; the hallway is emptying out now as kids file into classrooms.  Half running, I ask him if he knows anything about the trig test that’s about to kill us.  Before I can catch his reply, I catch.

Death.

In my rush to get to class, I bump into the worst mistake of my life.  I’m on my butt looking up at the embodiment of mean.  My new friend is a refrigerator with hands the size of textbooks.  Hate oozes from two little pig-eyes, dripping down past a crooked nose into a sneer.  I want to run.

Before I even have time to try to apologize, to realize how stupid I am, I’m being picked up and thrown into a locker.  The impact stamps the breath from my chest.  I want to run.

I already know what George is going to do.  I try to choke out the words to tell him it’s alright, that I really don’t mind, but he glues himself to the bully.  He reaches up to grab the guy’s coarse red shirt with one hand and has the other balled up into a fist.  Red-shirt is slow to react.  His attention is still half on me as he rotates around.  I want to run.

“That’s my friend, asshole,” George’s voice is venom.

A second crawls by, screaming and silent.  The hallway holds its breath, watching this little punk pick a fight with Goliath.  Two seconds.  Nothing moves.  Three.  I want to run, I want to run, I want to run.

A meaty hand swallows George’s punch, and the slap of skin on skin rips through

the silence.  Before the echo fades, Red-shirt slams George onto the floor.  A giant fist

works back and forth like a piston.  Something in George’s face snaps.

All of a sudden, I want to run.

At the jerk hitting my friend.

When Red-shirt is done with us, we lie there.  George, the tallest short kid in the world, is out cold.  I get up and limp to the bathroom.  I see somebody there in the mirror.  A smile is dancing down blackened eyes, past a broken nose, onto his split lips.  He is alive.