Publishing since 1970
2008
| Juice Online Poetry & Art
Publishing since 1970 | 2008 |
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Jim Cassady Jim Cassady was the coolest kid in 7th grade the boys feared him, the girls loved him even the grade niners thought he was cool I thought they were all a bunch of morons and I pretty much kept to myself Jim walked the halls like he owned them and I just walked in my hiking boots, jeans and white t-shirt with the red maple leaf in the center wearing my worn jean jacket with the sleeves rolled up books held reluctantly under one arm Maybe I didn't acknowledge Jim the way he expected me to maybe he thought I was a threat but the little jabs and shots started coming more and more often "Hey greaseball", "Hey douchebag" and other assorted wit so I shot back just as hard and articulate as any 7th grader circa 1977: "Fuck you, asshole" The whole school turned out for the big fight that day everyone cheering for Jim I gave my jean jacket to someone to hold as Jim stretched and bounced around like he was about to get all kung fu on my ass and the crowd yelled and screamed for blood my blood, as though it was their due and then it was on... I beat the living shit out of that poor kid landing shot after shot as he stood there dazed and bleeding and the crowd didn't yell quite so loud anymore and the girls didn't look quite so thrilled anymore and some held their hands to their faces and cried and as I held Jim's head in a headlock with one arm and smashed my fist down on top of his head with other I could feel it start to swell and turn mushy they way a pumpkin turns after Halloween's all dead and gone and then from under my arm I heard Jim begin to whimper and cry like a baby, his bloody face nuzzling into the soft meat of my chest his warm tears and blood sopping into my shirt and on through the red maple leaf in the center and I looked up at the crowd and I could see the vile animal stupidity in their faces the brute ugliness buried in us all pulled out and stuck there on the ends of skulls hanging out like something shameful and obscene and the girls looked hateful and murderous and the boys grinned like idiots, though some seemed to look at me how they looked at Jim before and some of the girls looked at me in a whole new way as well and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach and I knew then that the crowd was a monstrous thing to be shunned and avoided at all costs and that popularity was no prize to fight for and I looked down at Jim and felt pity I had taken from him the thing he had fought so hard for before he ever squared off against me and so I let him go grabbed my jacket and started to walk home I could hear the jeers called out after me as the crowd closed around Jim and decided he had won by forfeit giving him back something of what I had taken and as I walked down the long alleyway towards home I looked down at all the blood on my shirt covering the red maple leaf in the center and wondered what it was all for Thamyris Jones |