Читать книгу My Life as a Rat - Joyce Carol Oates - Страница 16

IF THE FUCKING BAT HADN’T BEEN THERE.

Because none of it had been premeditated. Because it had just happened—the way fire just happens.

Because it had been rattling in the back of the car, for months. Why’d he carry the bat loose in the car he’d liked to say For protection.

Sort of, he meant it. But it was a kind of joke too.

Because most things, fucking things in his fucking life, were jokes. Which included the bat.

Just his old baseball bat. The label worn off, he’d had for years. Couldn’t remember when he’d played baseball last. But the bat was his—his brothers had to have their own damn bats if they had a bat at all.

Never thought about it. Not much.

Rattling in the back of the car along with some empty beer cans and other shit, he’d stopped hearing.

Except that night, one of the (drunk) guys in the back snatched it up. And outside, in the confusion, he grabbed it away from whoever it was, maybe Don Brinkhaus, excited and aroused and swinging the bat because the bat was his and the bat was fucking wonderful, the solid grip, the weight of it, soiled old black tape he’d wound around the handle how many years ago. He’d never been a great batter, but he was OK. Easily embarrassed and discouraged and fucking disgusted, missing easy pitches, striking the ball not hard enough so it popped up like a little kid might pop it, fell straight down, rolled at the first baseman’s feet … Wanting to murder any asshole who laughed at him.

But now, no. Fucking bat wasn’t missing its target now.

Black kid sprawled on the ground pleading with them to let him go, please let him go, bleeding from his nose and mouth not so hot-shit now. Flat on his back and begging. And the guys jeering, laughing. Swatting at him, kicking.

Like he’d provoked them to run into him. Dented the fender of the fucking car, because of him.

Natural in Jerr’s hands for the bat to rouse itself to life, and get away from him. Furious, fast. Like chopping wood.

The crack! of the bat. Or was it the crack! of the skull.

But without the bat, maybe not. No.

Wouldn’t have cracked the skull. And all the blood.

Without the fucking bat would’ve kicked the black kid a few more times then let him go. Seeing he wasn’t fighting back, had gone limp. Probably not able to identify them, his eyes are swollen shut. Blood all over his face. What the fuck. Nobody wanted to kill anybody, that was a fact.

That was a fact. They’d swear on the Bible.

Came to him they’d (maybe) mixed this kid up with another black kid, a bigger kid, heavier, older by a year or two. Football player—“tight end.” With the bleached-blond white girlfriend. Hanging out across the street from school. That motherfucker, they’d have meant to stomp, wipe the smirk off his fat face.

Except for the bat. Fucking bat. None of it would have happened. Or in the way it happened. You could argue it was mitigating circumstances. How the bat came to be in Jerr’s hands at just that minute.

Because it hadn’t been premeditated, bringing the bat. Just in the back of the car where it had been rolling around for months. And so, like an accident. Christ sake it was an accident.

And maybe also, could they argue they’d been drinking, and their judgment was off. Buying six-packs and nobody asking them who it was for, how old. None of it would’ve happened except for that. Which wasn’t their fault—there were adults to blame. And the car, his father had given him. Christ! He hadn’t even asked for it, he’d known better than to ask his father would’ve made him crawl, if he had. Surprising the hell out of him, just giving him the car which would have been worth something at least, a few hundred at least, on a trade-in. But he’d given Jerr the car, which put Jerr in his debt big-time. And made Jerr anxious, taking care of it. Every time he came to the house the old man would go out into the driveway and inspect the car and if he didn’t say anything that could be worse than if he did for at least, if he did, you’d know what he was thinking. And Jerome Kerrigan was always fucking thinking.

Which led to Jerr swerving the damned car off the road. Like wanting to get rid of it. A few beers, you started thinking that way. Hitting the black kid was just collateral damage. You could argue that was an accident, nobody’d known the kid was even there until they saw him. He’d been meaning just to scare the kid, make the guys laugh, impress his brother who thought he was a cool dude but the front wheels hit gravel and swerved, right front fender struck the kid and lifted him, and the God-damned bicycle leaving a dent in the fender him and Lionel would have to try to even out with their bare hands, panting and struggling to unbend it but still the dent is there. Fucking rust on their fingers.

And blood from the bat, they’d have to scrub like hell.

Chain of circumstances, accidents. Could happen to anyone.

None of it premeditated. That’s the crucial point.

Realizing then, his father had given him the fucking baseball bat. Sure. That’s who it was, had to be, making a big deal of it, bringing him to the store downtown to pick it out for his birthday: Louisville Slugger. The best.

Now you got to live up to it, kid.