The Mare

Velvet

It wasn’t all of them right away. It was Alicia that called me a pig at recess and told me to “go hang around with the rich people.” I hit her and knocked her head to the side; I was strong because of working in the barn and she did not dare hit me back or even talk, she just held on to her face and stared at me.

It was later that her friends came up on me when I was walking to the train with Dante. Dante laughed while they hit me, but what else could he do? He was only seven. If he didn’t laugh, he’d have to put his head down and feel like shit. So he laughed, and when they were done, he picked up my backpack and carried it for me. And when I got home, my mother looked at the places somebody’d cut my face with heavy rings and she put medicine on it. It made me remember when I was little and she would wash me and comb my hair more softly than she does it now. Sometimes she would hum a song and her touch and her voice would wrap us up in a place where there was nothing but her and me. I would be very still and I would want her to keep doing it forever. It was like that now, except it was even better because she was angry too, and not bitch-angry like at Mr. Nelson at the grocery. She was deep angry, but not at me; she was angry for me. This angry was big and warm like a horse, and it felt better than her nice. It was better than anything Ginger had, and what Ginger had was good. My mother said, “If this ever happens again, if they do this to you again, swear to God, I will hurt them like they have never been hurt before.” She said what she said before: “I will come after them with my body.”

Except that she didn’t. It was Shawn that helped me the next time. They were following me down the street, and not even Dante was there. They were saying they were gonna beat me down, put me in the hospital this time. I looked at the buildings and cars going by and it was like everything was normal, like me getting beat down was normal. I thought of Ginger and my mare; that didn’t make me feel stronger. It made me feel weaker. The girls got closer. And then like in a movie, Shawn came up beside me. “Hey, girl,” he said. “What’s good?” I said, “Nothing good now. You see those girls?” He looked, I looked. “They gettin’ ready to jump me like before.” All he had to do was look their way with a hard face. They stopped; him and me started. He asked if I wanted to smoke some weed with him. And I said yes.