something.
A few of the white boys stood in open approval of the spectacle, while others stayed silent, toeing the dirt of the field. And no one, including myself, dared to fetch the teacher, knowing what Tiny’s ire would bring on us later. I don’t know what made me do it. I was not tall in those days; my growth spurt didn’t hit until I was in high school. I didn’t care too much if the white kids and the black kids got along. Michael Addy wasn’t a friend of mine. I only remember thinking that if my daddy found out I stood by while another child was beaten, how disappointed and mad he’d be. I knew that from experience.
“Say it,” Tiny huffed to the prisoner of his arms. “Say it slow, like I told you to.” To this day, I can hear the crack of Michael Addy’s voice, his throat trapped in Tiny’s heavy arms, a voice that begged for release: “I’m-I’m a dumb nigger.” “Good. Now say it loud so ever-body knows what you are.” I put my hand on Tiny’s shoulder. “Stop it.” The shock in the crowd was not nearly as great as the shock on Tiny’s pug face. He wore his hair in a crew cut then, and his hair was so white he nearly looked bald. He glanced at my hand on his stout shoulder. “What the hell you doing, Bo Peep?” Tiny had altered my surname to Bo Peep and got no end of amusement from this ingenious pun. “You made him do what you wanted. Leave him alone.” I tried reason. “You better let him go before the teacher gets out here.” Tiny looked at me as though I’d just announced that he himself was a dumb nigger. He dropped Michael Addy, who promptly and wisely took the opportunity to put some distance between himself and Tiny, scrabbling across the softball field grass to relative safety. “You takin’ up for that nigger, Bo Peep?” Tiny squared his shoulders and looked down at me. I suddenly felt very fragile, but all of a sudden I was madder’n hell. Tiny had never bullied me physically, but I’d grown tired of that nickname and the way he pushed people around like checkers on a board. “Just leave him alone. He didn’t do nothing to you.” “I don’t like losin’ to an uppity nigger.” “You don’t like losin’, period.
Well, ever-body has to lose sometimes. You can’t always win.” I wanted to turn and walk away, my speech complete, but I knew that I could not turn my back on Tiny Parmalee. He wiped a bit of spit off his lip, his hand forming into a fist as he dragged it across his mouth. “You just love them niggers, don’t you, Bo Peep.” “I just don’t like you pushing people-” and that was as far as I got before he belted me. I fell to the ground, my lip cut and bleeding instantly. I’d never been walloped in the mouth before, and damn if it doesn’t hurt like the dickens.
Instead of sitting there and crying about the agony in my lip like any sensible boy would have done, I instead meted out more punishment for myself by tackling Tiny, low near the ankles. He didn’t have good balance because of his size and he fell, fortunately not landing on me. There was an ooh from the crowd and several boys, from the safety of distance, began yelling encouragement to me. Tiny only knew power, not strategy, and I didn’t know much about either. I had been in only one other fight in my life-and I’d lost. And my struggle with Tiny quickly degenerated into rolling around in the gritty dirt of the batting area, surrounded by screaming and cheering schoolmates who surged back and forth in rhythm with the fight like a fickle tide. I was losing, though. We’d tussled past the fence that marked the boundaries of the old baseball lot, rolling onto unmowed grass. Tiny huffed and puffed like a dragon trying to rouse up a steamy breath of fire. I could tell his anger was boiling over; he should have dispatched me easily, but I was quicker and stronger than he had figured. If he didn’t win soon, his standing would fall in the playground, and that he could not tolerate. Cussing, he pinioned me on my back and his hands closed around my throat. “I’m a-gonna squeeze real hard, Bo Peep, unless you tell everyone what a nigger-lovin’ faggot you are.” His eyes softened, not in any mercy but in that he sensed victory. A drop of his sweat fell into my eyes, like Chinese water torture. His raggedy fingernails pressed crescents into my throat. I thought about all of Tiny Parmalee’s weight crushing on my windpipe and tried not to be scared. “No,” I gasped. “No.” Tiny leaned down harder on my throat and dark circles began to form over his face.
The screaming of my classmates was far closer, but seemed to be growing distant I felt his fingers digging into my neck, seeking out the air in it like it was an intruder. And, shockingly, I saw the glint of murder in Tiny Parmalee’s eyes. His rage was so intense that, had we been alone, I’m certain he would have killed me. He was the sort of boy who would set a worm on fire and laugh at its wriggly dance of death. I stared back into his eyes and he saw that I saw what he was, the gaze between us as intimate as lovers. His grip tightened.
My hands lashed out and my right one caught metal. I had a vague memory of a stake thrust in the ground, tied with a yellow ribbon at the top, marking a corner of the softball field. Only an adrenal surge gave me the strength to pull the stake out and bring it down in Tiny Parmalee’s back. Honestly, I didn’t do much damage. My aim was horrendous and I didn’t hit his back so much as pierce his side. It didn’t even crack a rib, though it cut through some flesh and bled profusely. I’ve no doubt that it hurt like hell. What undid Tiny was his scream. He howled as that stake scored him, and his scream was like a girl’s-high-pitched and full of powerlessness and fear.
Breaking his throttlehold on me, he reeled away, holding his side and screeching at the blood that spilled from him. He was the only one screaming on the playground now; the other children were stunned into silence. I didn’t do a victory jig. I opted to roll over, gasp repeatedly, and finally throw up in the mashed grass of the field. I lay there, unmoving, until a teacher cradled my head in her lap and told me I was okay. In the simple mathematics of recess and playground and combat, that scream defeated Tiny Parmalee. He’d been the bully and the aggressor, but he’d been the one to capitulate-and worse: to scream like a girl. I’d done the unimaginable in taking him on. A few thought I’d cheated in using the stake, but the bluish bruises on my throat spoke for themselves about the equality of the struggle. We both were suspended for a week, much to my father’s delight (in that I had done the right thing in taking up for Michael Addy), to my mother’s horror (in that I’d stooped to fighting), and to my sister’s embarrassment (in that she had a crush on Tiny Parmalee’s cousin and I’d set back her campaign to win the boy). Our first day back, the principal met us in the office and forced us to shake hands. I coughed and did so, averting my eyes from the bruises on Tiny’s face. Had I really given him those? Or had his parents reacted differently to the fight than mine did? Tiny shook my hand and stared blankly into my eyes. “I don’t want to hear anything about you boys fighting,” the principal chirped. “I don’t want to hear about it happening here or away from school. And rest assured, if it happens, I will hear about it.” It didn’t. Tiny and I avoided each other like the plague. If we passed in the halls, we didn’t speak or even acknowledge one another.
Our friends tried to goad us into fighting again, but we ignored them.
Michael Addy slipped a note to me in my math book one day that simply said THANK YOU. I ate the slip of paper before my teacher could see it. Michael and I ended up going through the rest of school together without mentioning the fight again. Michael went to Texas Tech on a baseball scholarship and now coaches for a high- school team in Richardson, a big suburb of Dallas. Tiny barely finished high school, did a stint in the army, and now worked with his daddy, a long-haul trucker. So that’s why I don’t care much for Tiny Parmalee. We’d had no further run-ins and I’d only seen him once since I returned to Mirabeau. We’d passed each other on Mayne Street as I went into a store and he was coming out. He’d given me the briefest of stares, which I ignored. Now he was favoring Nina Hernandez with long, goofy looks. She didn’t look too delighted with his attentions; in fact she seemed downright apprehensive. “Tiny. Ms. Hernandez.” I nodded as I unlocked the library doors. Nina smiled thinly and moved inside. Tiny lumbered near me and regarded my arm, still in its sling. “Heard you nearly got blowed up,” he said, sneering. There wasn’t direct malice in his tone, just a sort of general bullying that lay underneath like filth under a rug. “What a damn shame that’d be.” “Thanks for your concern,” I answered, not wanting to waste much air on a response to him. Miss Twyla prevented any further pleasantries by coming up to us both, thanking me again for the use of the library. The last folks to occupy the community room on the library’s top floor was a Lamaze class, so there were no chairs set up. Apelike, Tiny just popped the metal chairs open and set them wherever he happened to be. I used my good arm to help Nina drag the chairs into the proper positions. “I think your new assistant likes you,” I murmured to Nina. She stiffened as if I’d stepped on her toe. “Mr. Poteet, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot this afternoon. It’s just that I feel strongly about stopping Intraglobal. And you should be as concerned about saving the river as Mr. Parmalee is.” “Oh, I am. I’m just not so certain that our Tiny friend is motivated by ecological desires.” I could be friends with her if she could take a little teasing. “Tiny’s a fine man,” she muttered, watching her new charge as he scratched his forehead while blankly surveying a map of the world that hung on the wall. “Yes, he is. And don’t worry about all his eccentricities. He’s a victim of society.” I meant it nicely, but Nina misinterpreted. She snorted at me, pushed her glasses back up on her forehead, and went to confer with Miss Twyla. So much for teasing. By eight everyone had arrived.
Aside from Miss Twyla, Nina, Tiny, and myself, there was a scattering of forty or so people who didn’t own land by the river but had gotten riled up by Miss Twyla. Also present was our esteemed Mayor (and my boss), Parker Loudermilk and his wife, Dee. I remembered that Dee owned some of the land that Lorna and Greg Callahan wanted to buy.
Parker, I’ve no doubt, was looking for whatever favorable impressions he could get out of the situation.
