Issue Three

IGNACIO CARRION
my left arm and in the process dropped
the rabbit. The rabbit scampered a few
feet away from me as I realized that my
arm hurt like nothing I had ever felt. I
noticed the rabbit looking at me. I
noticed the blood gathering around the
small pebbles now embedded into the
palm of my left hand and then I noticed
Boy standing in front of me.
He looked down at me and smiled. He
wasn’t wearing a shirt and his jeans
weren’t zipped up. His pubic hair
protruded from his pants as I tried not to
look. It was the first time I had ever seen
that.
“What’s this?” he asked looking down at
the rabbit.
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling
immediately stupid.
“You don’t know? What are you? A
retard? Like Patsy?”
Patsy, by then, had also made her way
out from the house. Her breasts were
exposed, as she also didn’t have a shirt,
but her shorts were on, if slightly offkilter.
She looked over at me. Her face
was bloody. Her eye swelling and her lip
split. She’d been crying. She had not
wiped her nose.
“Don’t worry about her, buddy, we’re
trying something new today and she’s
not quite used to it,” Boy said as he bent
over and picked up the rabbit. “Is this
yours?” he asked and smiled at me
again.
“Yes,” I said, knowing that was not the
right answer.
Boy’s response was to jut out his lower
jaw and nod his head.
The other boys were all gone by then. I
knew this because except for the breeze
and a few distant birds, there was
silence.
Boy held the rabbit close to his chest,
then rocked it a bit as you would a baby.
Then he kissed it. He looked at me, then
looked at Patsy, then kissed the rabbit
again. We were a summer triangle on
the point of collapse.
Boy lowered himself to the gravel and
reached behind him. From his back
pocket he pulled out a switch blade.
Patsy started making a guttural, pathetic
sound that started as a “no” and swelled
to a sob. I sat on the ground, guarding
my arm, which I was sure was broken.