Written during Marianne Gingher's Introduction to Fiction Writing Honors class, 2015.
The Runaway
I stole the entire bag of mint Life Savers the day I ran away from home. I’d earned three ringing slaps to the rump for opening the candy package without my mother’s permission that morning, and by noon, I’d decided that I was through. My seventh birthday had been the day before and I was feeling old and wise. I felt the disrespectful thwack! of the belt on my backside keenly.
I had confidence in my ability to survive on my own and thought myself quite clever when I decided to move across the street to the pit in Annie Lee’s backyard. The grassy lawn sloped backwards in a rather abrupt twenty something feet; the drop was barred with a sagging wire fence, but I’d already scaled the wall twenty times at least and wasn’t afraid. It had been decades since the rickety railroad tracks that lined the pit’s bottom were functional, but I liked to go down to court imaginary danger. Besides, there were stray cats to chase around.
I picked my way down the splintery cliff with my candy tucked under an arm. Once my Sketchers touched the muddy soil, I started off for the abandoned shed a few yards into the mess of trees. The structure was tall and narrow, held together with thick nails and peeling wooden slabs, and was the remnant of an ancient civilization, I was sure. It housed a random variety of dusty clay pots and rusting gardening tools that were still scattered in the same orientation that I’d left them the last time Annie and I had come to play. A cobwebbed lawn gnome presided over the small space atop a shelf like an idol. I imagined that its benevolent face reflected my delight at being so daring.
For the first time, I was alone with a room full of pretty things and a bag of Life Savers all to myself. I hugged the candy to my chest as I peered out of the square cutout window into the trees. I was so far below the other houses that I could convince myself that I was deep in a wild forest where bears and the like roamed free. I’d have to defend myself with the shovel, I decided, snatching it up before stepping outside to explore.
It wasn’t long before I came upon a small space overlooking a cliff that I’d never seen before. I discovered that I could see all the neighbors’ yards on the next street over from my perch. A sly laugh bubbled up in my throat as I slid closer, taking care to step only where the edge was solid. I loved snooping.
The sky was painted over with the pink and orange watercolor of the sinking sun. Colors gushed over the horizon as I watched a Spongebob cartoon with a little boy sitting on his couch through a back window, turning two or three Life Savers around and around on my tongue. I embraced the full, meditative fishbowl feeling of watching the world glide by my sphere of serenity.
A distant crash startled the stillness. Reflexively, I shifted my gaze toward the sound just as a blonde blur stumbled into a neighboring yard. An erect, clean-shaven figure stepped out onto the tiled patio.
“Who said I had a drinking problem, huh, Charlene?”
His shout was harsh and foreign in my ears. The woman shrank into the lawn below, mumbling something that was inaudible from my vantage point. She looked like my classmate’s mother, the one that went to 10:15 Sunday mass every morning with lipstick on. But where blush usually graced her cheekbones, there was blood.
I glanced at the Spongebob window, bewildered; the curtains were drawn. It was fascinating to see how still the lovely rich burgundy cloth was, wreathing the silent house that could have been mistaken to be unoccupied if I hadn’t known better. I was positive that Spongebob had just been illicitly playing with mysterious fishhooks dangling from above just a second before. It was as if the entire world had closed its eyes.
“You want to cry for all the neighbors to hear, you crazy bitch?” The handsome man suddenly thrust a foot into the woman’s side. She was bent over at a weird angle and I felt something rise in my throat. He raised his foot as if to kick her again and I don’t know if it was the rain soaked into the ground that caused my foot to slide or if he was so big that he exerted gravity on everything that made nature bend, but all of a sudden I was skidding forward, but I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to--
“What—what—the fuck are you looking at? What the fuc—“
I was desperately grabbing handfuls of mud, stones, anything to keep me from falling and then I was scrambling backwards, kicking dirt and debris loose in my haste. My bag of Life Savers skittered off the edge, but I didn’t look back as I sprinted past the shed back to the wall, dropping the shovel, my shoelaces untangling and catching on fallen branches. There was a branding iron behind my eyeballs, melting everything, making the world blurry and unreal. By the time I heaved my torso over onto Annie’s backyard, I could see the red and blue police lights across the street, darkening the hunched forms of my parents, lighting up the night. I ran towards them, feeling the burn in my lungs, welcoming the smell of worry.
I stole the entire bag of mint Life Savers the day I ran away from home. I’d earned three ringing slaps to the rump for opening the candy package without my mother’s permission that morning, and by noon, I’d decided that I was through. My seventh birthday had been the day before and I was feeling old and wise. I felt the disrespectful thwack! of the belt on my backside keenly.
I had confidence in my ability to survive on my own and thought myself quite clever when I decided to move across the street to the pit in Annie Lee’s backyard. The grassy lawn sloped backwards in a rather abrupt twenty something feet; the drop was barred with a sagging wire fence, but I’d already scaled the wall twenty times at least and wasn’t afraid. It had been decades since the rickety railroad tracks that lined the pit’s bottom were functional, but I liked to go down to court imaginary danger. Besides, there were stray cats to chase around.
I picked my way down the splintery cliff with my candy tucked under an arm. Once my Sketchers touched the muddy soil, I started off for the abandoned shed a few yards into the mess of trees. The structure was tall and narrow, held together with thick nails and peeling wooden slabs, and was the remnant of an ancient civilization, I was sure. It housed a random variety of dusty clay pots and rusting gardening tools that were still scattered in the same orientation that I’d left them the last time Annie and I had come to play. A cobwebbed lawn gnome presided over the small space atop a shelf like an idol. I imagined that its benevolent face reflected my delight at being so daring.
For the first time, I was alone with a room full of pretty things and a bag of Life Savers all to myself. I hugged the candy to my chest as I peered out of the square cutout window into the trees. I was so far below the other houses that I could convince myself that I was deep in a wild forest where bears and the like roamed free. I’d have to defend myself with the shovel, I decided, snatching it up before stepping outside to explore.
It wasn’t long before I came upon a small space overlooking a cliff that I’d never seen before. I discovered that I could see all the neighbors’ yards on the next street over from my perch. A sly laugh bubbled up in my throat as I slid closer, taking care to step only where the edge was solid. I loved snooping.
The sky was painted over with the pink and orange watercolor of the sinking sun. Colors gushed over the horizon as I watched a Spongebob cartoon with a little boy sitting on his couch through a back window, turning two or three Life Savers around and around on my tongue. I embraced the full, meditative fishbowl feeling of watching the world glide by my sphere of serenity.
A distant crash startled the stillness. Reflexively, I shifted my gaze toward the sound just as a blonde blur stumbled into a neighboring yard. An erect, clean-shaven figure stepped out onto the tiled patio.
“Who said I had a drinking problem, huh, Charlene?”
His shout was harsh and foreign in my ears. The woman shrank into the lawn below, mumbling something that was inaudible from my vantage point. She looked like my classmate’s mother, the one that went to 10:15 Sunday mass every morning with lipstick on. But where blush usually graced her cheekbones, there was blood.
I glanced at the Spongebob window, bewildered; the curtains were drawn. It was fascinating to see how still the lovely rich burgundy cloth was, wreathing the silent house that could have been mistaken to be unoccupied if I hadn’t known better. I was positive that Spongebob had just been illicitly playing with mysterious fishhooks dangling from above just a second before. It was as if the entire world had closed its eyes.
“You want to cry for all the neighbors to hear, you crazy bitch?” The handsome man suddenly thrust a foot into the woman’s side. She was bent over at a weird angle and I felt something rise in my throat. He raised his foot as if to kick her again and I don’t know if it was the rain soaked into the ground that caused my foot to slide or if he was so big that he exerted gravity on everything that made nature bend, but all of a sudden I was skidding forward, but I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to--
“What—what—the fuck are you looking at? What the fuc—“
I was desperately grabbing handfuls of mud, stones, anything to keep me from falling and then I was scrambling backwards, kicking dirt and debris loose in my haste. My bag of Life Savers skittered off the edge, but I didn’t look back as I sprinted past the shed back to the wall, dropping the shovel, my shoelaces untangling and catching on fallen branches. There was a branding iron behind my eyeballs, melting everything, making the world blurry and unreal. By the time I heaved my torso over onto Annie’s backyard, I could see the red and blue police lights across the street, darkening the hunched forms of my parents, lighting up the night. I ran towards them, feeling the burn in my lungs, welcoming the smell of worry.