A Saturday afternoon in July. It was hot in La Mesa, hotter still because there was nothing to do. Larry was home, but he had police paperwork to do all day. It was the sort of day where nothing interests you. I didn’t want to read or watch TV, and I was tired of the toys I had. Then Joey Castiglione called me on the phone. “Man, there’s nothing to do,” he said. “It’s so hot!” We were quiet for a minute. “Hey, I know!” he said. “Let’s have a water balloon fight!”
Ten minutes later, Joey and his little brother Nicky came down from their house (Nicky sort of invited himself, as he had nothing better to do just then), and the three of us went to the drugstore at the bottom of the hill and bought three packages of 100 balloons each for a total of about two and a half bucks.
We hustled back up to my house and started filling up balloons from the faucet in the front yard.
Then we started the fight. The rules were simple. You had to stay on the property, and no hitting in the face. We all agreed, and started bashing each other with balloons, running around the house, back and forth. Butchie had a water balloon, too, which I had given him, and he ran with me as best he could, but he never threw his balloon because he didn’t want to waste it.
The fight kept rotating between the back yard and the front yard. Then Nicky got hit in the ear (by Joey, naturally), and it hurt, and he started to scream. He held his hand to his ear and ran up to his house, crying. Jesus, you’d have thought he’d been shot or something. Joey said it wouldn’t be long before his Mama is going to be calling for him, though it might not be for a few minutes.
We started bashing each other again, and we were laughing so hard it sounded more like we were screaming.
A couple of kids rode their bicycles up the street where we lived. One of them, the smaller of the two, was a gruff-looking kid with a seemingly permanent frown on his face and his blond hair sticking up all over. The other kid was kind of quiet looking, easy going. They were just passing when I threw a water balloon at Joey. It missed him and flew into the street, falling to the asphalt right by the gruff-looking kid’s front tire. It evidently startled him, because he swerved, and almost drove into the path of an oncoming car. The driver honked his horn, and everybody was looking real mean at one another: the driver looking at the kid, and the kid looking at the driver—and then at me. And even before he turned his bike around, I knew he thought I’d tried to hit him. I watched as he turned and started pedaling hard back in our direction. I could see steam gathering in this kid’s frowning face, and I felt a rush of ice water in my stomach. The kid got off his bike a few feet away from us, while it was still moving, and simply dropped the bike to the ground, all the time looking at me with rage-filled eyes. Joey and I stood there like mannequins in the yard. The only thing moving was this kid. He kept on running, coming at me full bore with his hands out, until he shoved me in the chest and I fell backward, almost falling to the ground. Then he shoved me again, and spit out, “You fucking asshole! You trying to hit me with that water balloon? You trying to fucking get me killed? I almost got ran over because of you. You! You mother fucker! I think for that I ought to just kick the shit out of you, right here! What do you think of that?”
Butchie was scared; he whined and ran toward the front door and started yelling, Daddy! Daddy! and went inside, the screen door slamming shut behind him.
The other kid got halfway up the hill on his bicycle before he figured out his friend was no longer with him; he turned around and rode back down the hill and stopped at the curb a few feet away and just watched.
I was stunned. I couldn’t say anything. I can only look at this kid and feel a numbing fear wash over me like an icy waterfall, though, oddly, I can feel my face glowing red-hot. Please, I try to say to him, please don’t hit me. I didn’t mean it. But I can’t get my mouth to move.
I feel everyone’s eyes on me. Joey’s. This kid who I don’t know, Clark’s. The kid on the bike, watching us silently. And this maniac standing mere inches away, his fists balled, and any second I can see him bashing one of them into my face, then the other. I see my bones, my teeth breaking. I see blood pouring from my nose.
“Well?!” he says to me. “What do you think of that??”
The kid on the bike looks a little confused. “What’s going on, Mike?” he says.
“This mother fucker threw a water balloon at me and almost got me run over!” He says this while keeping his eyes glued to my hot face. Saying the words just seems to infuriate him even more. He takes another step toward me and shoves me hard again, and I know it’s just a matter of time before he starts pummeling me.
“Well?” the kid on the bike says to me, almost matter-of-factly. “Why’d you do that?” And for a brief second I relax, hearing what I think is a voice of reason.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” I manage to say to weakly, as much to this kid named Mike as to the kid in the street. “It was an accident.”
“Bullshit!” Mike spits at me, taking another step and shoving me again. He’s pushing me all over the yard. “You did it on purpose, I saw you, you lying mother fucker!”
“No, I didn’t,” I say.
Another shove. “Did, too,” he says. “Fucking liar.” Another shove. “You hear that? I’m calling you a fucking liar.” Another shove. He’s almost got me backed into the hedge that separates our yard from next door’s. “Now what are you going to do about it?”
We stare at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Wh—whaddya mean?” I say, my voice little more than a squeak, though I know perfectly well what he means.
“Mike,” the kid on the bike says tiredly. “C’mon, man, my dad’s already pissed off. I don’t want to be late again.”
Mike snaps his head around and shoots the kid a look. “Hey, this punk almost killed me! And now I’m going to kick his ass!” And when he looks back at me, I feel another shot of something cold jetting into my chest. His words keep reverberating in my head: kick his ass, kick his ass.
The kid on the bike just sighs and folds his arms across his chest.
Mike raises his balled fists and glares at me. “So go ahead,” he says. “Take a swing, so I can kick your ass fair.”
I look at him. Already I can feel myself shutting down, going somewhere else, the way I remember doing whenever Daddy came at me with the belt. Even Mike’s voice right in front of me is sounding smaller, farther away. I don’t move.
“C’mon!” Mike says, poking at my chest with his balled fist, not really a punch, just something to get things going. “Hit me, so I can knock the shit out of you.”
I look at him some more. I stand there. Then a small voice I vaguely recognize as my own says to him, “I don’t want to fight.”
Mike turns his head slightly, as if he didn’t quite hear what I said. “What?” he says. “What’d you say? You don’t want to fight?”
“That’s right,” my voice says again. “I don’t—want to fight.”
Mike gets an even sourer look on his face than before, shoves me again. “Well, what if I want to fight?” he says, and I’m certain he’s going to swing any second, and I’m already planning on how to fall to the ground so I don’t hit my head.
“Mike, c’mon!” says the kid on the bike again. “He doesn’t want to fight. Can we go? Kid, will you just tell him you’re sorry, so we can go?”
I look down at the ground. I don’t want to apologize. But I don’t want to get beat up either. And I know that’s exactly what would happen. “I’m sorry,” I say then.
“What?” Mike says, loudly, so everyone can hear.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
Mike glares at me for several seconds, and we’re all there just looking at each other. Finally he drops his fists. “Chicken shit!” he says then, thrusting his head toward mine, making me flinch. “Pussy!” He looks then at his friend on the bike. “Aw, fuck it,” he says, “let’s go.” He walks back to his own bicycle then and stands it upright. “He’s too big a pussy to fight.” He says the word pussy with plenty of extra emphasis. “It wouldn’t be any fun beating the shit out of a pussy, anyway.” He gets on his bike and the two of them start pedaling up the hill. Every couple of seconds, Mike turns and looks back and yells pussy! or chicken shit!, all the way until they get to the top of the hill and turn the corner, and I’m thinking the entire neighborhood can hear him, and I’m growing smaller and smaller by the second.
Mrs. Castiglione sticks her head out of her front door, then, and yells at Joey to come home, he’s in big trouble, and so he and Clark take their wheelbarrow and trudge up the hill. Not that it matters much, I’m not feeling like playing anymore.
I go into the house, and find Larry sitting on the couch, and he’s got a funny look on his face. “What was that all about?” he says to me.
I shrug. I tell him I accidentally threw a water balloon in this kid’s way, and he got mad, thought I’d done it on purpose, and wanted to beat me up for it. But as I’m telling him these things, I’m getting the impression he knows all of it already.
Larry stares down at the rope rug for a few seconds. “So the kid asked you to fight?” he says finally.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“So,” he says then, looking up at me with eyes that are both sad and accusing, “why didn’t you fight him?”
I feel the weight of his question, the meaning behind it. I feel my face growing hot again. I shrug, unable to offer an explanation. He gets up then and walks from the room without saying another word into the back of the house and out into the back yard, where Charlotte is busy pulling weeds out of the small garden. And I can see him through the back window, talking to her. And I imagine I can see his mouth, and he’s saying, over and over again: pussy.