Cures for Hunger by Deni Béchard Page B

“This kid’s crazy!”
    They raced off while I held myself, waiting for my lungs to work.
    Back in class, Jamil approached me. He was a swift, dark East Indian boy I’d seen that morning near the entrance to the school. He’d pushed down another boy and farted in his face, then sped off. He glanced at the dirt on my knees.
    â€œI don’t believe in Christmas either,” he told me. “It’s a bunch of crap. Do you want to be friends? We can beat up Tom after school.”
    â€œYeah,” I agreed. “Let’s beat him up.”
    Until now swearing had been as good a defense as my fists. Prayers and mantras might reach the invisible world, but profanity was the power of words brought into this world to lay low my enemies. And yet I’d been kicked in the nuts. My father was right. I needed to get tough.
    As Jamil passed the information through class that I was challenging Tom to a fight in the alley between two brick buildings, I could hear myself describing the victory to my father. But an hour later, walking into the alley, I began to tremble.
    Tom was waiting with his friends, their shirts rumpled, dark with the interminable winter drizzle. Every detail appeared mapped out against the brick wall, their nervous faces drawn on graph paper. Rain beaded along Jamil’s hair as he stood at my side, saying, “Go! You take him!”
    Tom shoved me in the chest. I got him in a headlock. We stumbled against the wall, the bricks rasping our clothes like sandpaper.
    His friends tried to jump in, but Jamil blocked them. He kept slapping them in the face, dancing from side to side as if guarding a volleyball net.

    â€œWhat’s wrong, pussy?” he shouted. “Tom can’t fight for himself?”
    Tom popped out of the headlock. From behind me, he tried to dig his fingers into my eyes. I rammed him backward into the bricks. I threw my body against him again and again until his head struck the wall with a wooden sound.
    I spun and punched him three times. He just stared, his nostrils too large and dark. Blood began to drip from one of them. His eyes teared up. He ducked and grabbed his backpack and ran. He disappeared along the alley, his jacket flapping.
    I had blood on my lip where one of his fingernails had dug in.
    I hurried to the pickup zone. My brother was waiting on the sidewalk. His eyes went to my face and then, like a switch, dropped to my mouth.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œI got in a fight.”
    Kids gathered around, pushing between us. They told him about it, speaking quickly, pointing here and there.
    My mother’s brown van appeared from the traffic and pulled to the curb. I got in, and she reached across the space between the front seats and took hold of my chin.
    â€œAre you fighting?”
    Her blue eyes glared at my cut as if seeing the one thing she most hated.
    â€œI had to.”
    â€œFighting is wrong. You don’t fight. You talk to people. And if you can’t resolve the problem through talking, you tell your teacher. You tell the principal. You tell me. Do you understand?”
    I just sat. It was pointless to argue. What she was saying would ruin me at school. I’d have to fight constantly.
    My brother spoke from the seat behind us.
    â€œEveryone said that Jamil helped you.”
    â€œWhat?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s not true,” I shouted. “He just made sure no one else hit me.”
    I tried to meet her gaze but felt blinded, as if looking at sunlight flashing on seawater.

    â€œListen,” she said. “I don’t want you to fight again, but André is going to ask what happened. When he does, don’t tell him that you got help. He’s not going to like that.”
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    My father was so busy that we hadn’t seen much of him, but that night he was taking my brother, my sister, and me to dinner. By the time he picked us up, my mother had already left for one of her meetings.