Only Child(4)
I couldn’t see much because Ryder was right behind me, he’s really tall, and more kids were walking behind Ryder. But in between the kids and the police walking I saw some things: people lying on the floor in the hallway with ambulance people and police around them and bending over them. And blood. At least I thought it was blood. It was very dark red or black puddles, like paint that spilled, all around on the floor of the hallway and some on the walls. And I saw the older kids from fourth and fifth grade walking behind Ryder, with very white faces like ghosts and some of them were crying and had blood on them. On their faces and clothes.
“Turn around!” a policeman said behind me, and this time it was not friendly. I turned around fast and my heart was beating hard because of all the blood. I saw real blood before, but just a little bit like when I fall down and my knee bleeds or something, never a lot like now.
More kids were turning around, and the police started shouting, “Look ahead! No turning around!” But the more they said it, the more everyone turned around, because other kids were doing it. People started screaming and walking faster and bumping into each other and shoving. When we got to the back door, someone bumped into me from the side and I bumped my shoulder into the door, which is metal, and it hurt a lot.
It was still raining outside, pretty hard now, and we didn’t have our jackets. Everything was still in the school—our jackets and backpacks and book baggies and stuff—but we kept walking without anything over to the playground and through the back gate that’s always closed when we have recess, so no one can run outside and strangers can’t come in.
I was starting to feel better when I walked outside. My heart didn’t beat so hard anymore, and the rain felt good on my face. It was cold, but I liked it. Everyone slowed down, and there wasn’t so much screaming and crying and shoving anymore. It was like the rain calmed everyone down, like me.
We walked across the intersection that was full of ambulances and fire trucks and police cars. All their lights were flashing. I tried to step on the flashing lights in the puddles, making blue and red and white circles in the water, and some of the water went into my sneakers in the part that has little holes on the top and my socks got wet. Mommy was going to be mad that my sneakers were wet, but I kept splashing and making more circles anyway. The blue, red, and white lights together in the puddles looked like the American flag colors.
The roads were blocked by trucks and cars. Other cars were driving up behind them and I saw parents jumping out. I looked for Mommy, but I didn’t see her. The police made a line on both sides of the intersection so that we could keep walking, and the parents had to stay behind the lines. They were calling out names like questions: “Eva? Jonas? Jimmy?” Some kids yelled back: “Mom! Mommy? Dad!”
I pretended like I was in a movie with all the lights and the police with their big guns and helmets. It gave me an excited feeling. I pretended like I was a soldier who was coming back from a battle and I was a hero now and people were here to see me. My shoulder hurt, but that’s what happens when you fight in a battle. Battle scars. That’s what Daddy always says when I get hurt at lacrosse or soccer or playing outside: “Battle scars. Every man has to have some. Shows you’re not a wimp.”
[ 3 ]
Jesus and Real-Life Dead People
OUR POLICE LINE LEADERS walked us into the little church on the road behind the school. When we went inside, I started to not feel like a tough hero anymore. All the exciting feelings stayed outside with the fire trucks and police cars. Inside the church it was dark and quiet and cold, especially because we were really wet now from the rain.
We don’t go to churches a lot, only to a wedding one time, and last year we went to one for Uncle Chip’s funeral. It wasn’t this church, but a bigger one in New Jersey where Uncle Chip lived. That was really sad when Uncle Chip died because he wasn’t even that old. He was Daddy’s brother, and only a little bit older than him, but he still died because he had cancer. That’s a sickness a lot of people get, and you can have it in different parts of your body. Sometimes it gets everywhere in your body, and that’s what happened to Uncle Chip and the doctor couldn’t make him feel better anymore, so he went to a special hospital where people go who don’t get better anymore, and then they die there.
We went to visit him there. I thought he must be so scared because he probably knew he was going to die and he wouldn’t be together with his family anymore. But when we saw him he didn’t look scared, he was just sleeping the whole time. He didn’t wake up anymore after we saw him. He went straight from sleeping to dead, so I didn’t think he even noticed that he died. Sometimes at bedtime I think about that and I get scared to go to sleep, because what if I die when I’m sleeping and don’t even notice?
I cried a lot at Uncle Chip’s funeral, mostly because Uncle Chip was going to be gone forever and I wouldn’t see him anymore. Also all the other people cried, especially Mommy and Grandma and Aunt Mary, Uncle Chip’s wife. Well, not really his wife because they weren’t married, but we still call her Aunt Mary because they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a really long time, since before I was born. And I cried because Uncle Chip was in the box called a casket in the front of the church. It must have been really tight in there and I never wanted to be in a box like that, ever. Only Daddy didn’t cry.