Читать книгу Man Alive - Thomas Page McBee - Страница 18

10

Pittsburgh

1990 ♦ 10 years old

I ran past Dad on his riding lawnmower, wearing his dumb blue mesh hat. In the woods, behind the patch of maples, was my oak tree with its elephant-skin bark. I lay out on the huge, fallen trunk, watching the sun twinkle through a canopy of dead leaves.

I listened for the tight smack of the police chief’s car door, but all I heard were birds, calling to each other, I’m alive I’m alive. I missed Ellie and Scott, who had taken to playing together alone, sensing something toxic about me in the way that children do.

I pictured the house from above: Mom on her way back to her bedroom with a vodka and orange juice; Dad watching the police chief leave from high up on his mower; Scott and Ellie in their shared bathroom mixing baby powder and Mom’s perfumes into poisonous lotions, their little faces scrunched in concentration.

Slap the cover closed, story’s over: the babysitter drove on, the police chief gave Dad the stink eye and sighed, Dad put some fuel in his lawnmower and opened the throttle. Mom looked at herself in the mirror, but I don’t know, will never know, what anyone else sees there.

Much later she called my name and I didn’t answer, didn’t flinch when I heard footsteps crashing through the leaves, not caring who came for me.

♦

Because I told myself this story: I know how to be invisible, untouchable. I could put my body to sleep, limb by limb. I could wait a lifetime, if I had to, to wake up.