Unable to resisst the call of the strange boy, he turned his bike around and went back to were the older kids were hangingout on the porch, openly drinking beers.
THe one that had called out came over the railing and walked up to him, straddling his bike. The boy was thin, had long stringy, red hair and his facewas more freckly than not. As he walked up to Mike, he shuddered twice, making snorting sounds as his uppper lip curled two times. "Tell me what you just said
I didn'[t say anything
I heard youdon't you lie to me
I am not.
The red haired boy's face reminded Mike of the cover of the book he had been secretly reading that summer, Jaws, which depicted a giant triangular shaped sharks head with a dark slit mouth full of similarly triangular teeth, swimming up towards an unsuspecting,k nude female swimmer (the one in the first chapter, the shark's first victim).He was reading it secretly because he was sure adults would think the swearing and sex would not be alright for a 6th grader to read.
Years later he thought back to that day, why did he stay there, so calmly, whi9le the shark headed boy had tried to provoke him. Miker had calmly denied yelling anything. Art one point, boy named Chuckie, older brother of one of Mike's classmates came onto the porch.Chuckie did not look like a boy, he was already what people called filled out. Mike realized that meant he had powerful looking arems and flat, hard looking torso under his tight shirt. His arms, extending beyond the sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows were big and powerful looking.
HE was carefully sipping the foam of the top of a recently opened beer can as he came oout onto the porch. Checkie was legendary among the neighbor kids for refusal to kow tow to any form of authority, his mom, the teachers at the hs, and even the local police had already fought battles with him and lost, legend said.
Mike was secretly thrilled when he glanced over and said "Hi Mike" in response to his greeting.
Shark head had apparently reached his limit in trying to provoke the big middle school-er. He shoved him and said, get out of here. I don't want to see you around here any more. Happy to be freed from the bully, Mike got on his bike and road away, a kind of what the heck just happened look on his face.
Years later, as a student teacher in a large, inner city middle school, anopther touggh, black boy would stare him down, insolently refusing to cooperate, disrupting the class. Mike took his arm, come with me\
don't you touch me.
shocked, he took his hand off and wheeled around, walking to the assistance principal's office, insearch of reinforcements.
And again, as he was past yet another group of lazy, bored teenager, with his friends, comeing ouyt of a bar, a skinny black youth stuck his hand up in the air, pointing and yelling to another kid, walking towards them.
Unable to avoid the hand, Mike simply reached up and with a sideways sgesture, pushed the hand to the side, not breaking his stride. The boy exploded inindignation about being touched. Mike stopped, calmly noting that for once, he did not feel the fear that had always kept him out of confrontations. He turned around, facing the kid and say, "What exactly do you hope to gain here?"
The boy flicked his lit cigarette at Mike's face. FLustered, he batted at it with his hands, trying to prevent it from touching skin or hair. Once he had freed himself, he looked up to see the man running away from him.
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