Resale shop, Roscoe Village

[05/04/2008, Saturday afternoon, in dishes & sundry]

MOM: Don’t touch NOTHING, okay?
GIRL: (silent, wanders)
MOM: Sweetie? So what are you gonna touch?
GIRL: (dreamily, reaching towards shelf) Anything…
MOM: NOTHING! Don’t touch NOTHING!
GIRL: (silent)
MOM: So what are you gonna touch?

fight

I was pulling weeds in my garden plot in Senn Park on Thorndale, when I noticed about a dozen kids surging toward two boys who were apparently fighting across the street. The one doing most of the hitting was a taller white boy who fought like an 11-year-old maniac, windmill style. I ran over and got him away, as he got in one more punch on a smaller, possibly Filipino boy.

Oh, my God. He looked just like little Ben, with a vicious bloody lip and tears standing in his eyes.

I hugged the attacker’s arms to his sides. Amazingly, after that he stopped, and didn’t really resist. His smallness took my breath away, how I could hold him around his bird chest with one arm. I was almost completely ignored, except for one black boy who told me quietly, “Let him go.” At one point I just had my hand on his shoulder, like I was either giving him an encouraging shoulder-squeeze, or about to deliver a severe talking-to. The black boy inspected the damage, and by way of props to his friend, told him, “You got your ass kicked,” striking me as someone who determines friendships by the results of the latest brawl.

Someone said that a resident was calling 5-0. A small kid on a bike looked at me, saying wide-eyed, “That’s cops!” “I know,” I replied, almost annoyed. Why did I want him to know I knew that? The crowd dispersed, leaving me with the hurt kid, his friend, and the kid on a bike. Hurt kid had his hands on his knees, breathing hard and bleeding into his teeth. The tears crested his lower lashes. “I’m gonna get him back,” he said. I tried talking to them a little, but wasn’t sure what I should do. More accurately, I felt like maybe I was an animal of some kind, or a giant too big to be acknowledged. Only bike kid looked directly at me. Hurt kid told me he was twelve. His friend kept saying, “He just came out of nowhere, he came out of nowhere.” “He’s a dick,” I spat. I was so fucking mad, I can’t even tell you. I was tremored with memories of my own life at this age, shoves and spiteful little slaps, spit in my hair. No bona-fide fights, no bloody lips that I remember, just fear and insults and torment, and occasional theft. I wanted to tell him that it was all right for him to cry now, that they were gone and it was all right. I wanted to walk him home. I wanted to be his mother, or maybe his big brother. I don’t know. I wanted to be someone who mattered. Someone made of either concrete or prairie grass, just not manicured lawn.

On my way home, I passed the whole group again, recongregated on the next street. I parked and walked over, feeling like an idiot, but not wanting to go home without making sure. I swear to God, they were talking it out. Doing an okay job, too, and the spectators were watching just as intently as before. A couple parents came over from the park and broke up the group before they finished. A woman with tatooed arms got in the attacker’s smirking face, asking if he thought it might be funny if she called the cops and had him locked up for putting his hands on this kid. She and I chatted a little as we walked away. She lamented “these kids” and their cussing and the hard-heartedness, saying that this kid had been pointed out to her as a troublemaker. I said that I had to stop, that I hate to see a kid getting picked on because I remember what that’s like. “Oh, I never got picked on,” she responded, as if there’d been some misunderstanding. Like, I’m not like you. Or hurt kid. Huh.

There was a girl watching who, in my memory, seemed to be about three feet tall. She had her hands on her tiny hips, her pale hair in a ponytail, and spit off to the side. It occurs to me that this girl is my mother, watching a fight in Detroit, circa 1965.