dark: hide-and-seek, Red Rover Red Rover, statue, jump rope,
hopscotch, giant steps, witch. One summer we took turns
holding our breath to thirty and then someone squeezed in our
stomachs and we passed out or got real dizzy. This was the
thing to do and we did it a million times. There were alleys
near one or two of the houses suddenly breaking into the brick
row and linking the back ways with the front street and we
ran through them: we ran all over, hiding, seeking, making up
new games. We divided into teams. We played giant steps. We
played Simon Says. Then the boys would play sports without
us, and everything would change. We would taunt them into
playing with us again, going back to the idyllic, all together,
running, screaming, laughing. The girls had dolls for when the
boys wouldn’t let us play and we washed their hair and set it
outside together on the steps. We played poker and canasta
and fish and old maid and gin rummy and strip poker. When
babies, we played in a sandbox, until it got too small and we
got too big. When bigger, we roller-skated. One girl got so big
she went out on a date: and we all sat on the steps across the
street and watched her come out in a funny white dress with a
red flower pinned on it and a funny-looking boy was with her.
We were listless that night, not knowing whether to play hide-
and-seek or statue. We told nasty stories about the girl in the
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white dress with the date and wouldn’t play with her sister
who was like us, not a teenager. Something was wrong. Statue
wasn’t fun and hide-and-seek got boring too. I watched my
house right across the street while the others watched the girl
on the date. Intermittently we played statue, bored. Someone
had to swing someone else around and then suddenly let them
go and however they landed was how they had to stay, like a
statue, and everyone had to guess what they were— like a
ballet dancer or the Statue of Liberty. Whoever guessed what
the statue was got to be turned around and be the new statue.
Sometimes just two people played and everybody else would
sit around and watch for any little movement and heckle and
guess what the person was being a statue of. We were mostly
girls by now, playing statue late at night. I watched my house
across the street because the doctor had come, the man in the
dark suit with the black bag and the dour expression and the
unpleasant voice who never spoke except to say something bad
and I had been sent outside, I had not wanted to leave the
house, I had been ordered to, all the lights were out in the
house, it was so dark, and it was late for them to let me out
but they had ordered me to go out and play, and have a good
time they said, and my mother was in the bedroom with the
door closed, and lying down I was sure, not able to move,
