It is after school and Patrick is running.
Autumn foliage is blurred like near-sightedness on all sides of him. His elbows
thrust and tug him into a steady sprint, behind him voices drown-a posse of
neatly trimmed basketball lads all in pre-game warm-up uniform stampeding the
dead grass with overly expensive tennis shoes endorsed by pro-basketball
transients. Patrick is all alone. Shit. His fucking maternal progenitor should
have been here by now. Where the fuck is Helen?
“Get-um!”
“Dork!”
“Fucking nerd.”
And Patrick is running, hauling
his Irish Ass, the playground serving as a fortress—a safe haven the silver
tongue of the slide slinking down into a pit of arid sand. Eric Bushmen seems
to be in the lead-the boys behind him forming a sort of Euclidean triangle.
Their blue-n-white dappled and streaked patriotic attire give them the overhead
semblance of a giant three-corner hat, dashing after a menacing, flailed arms
Benedict Arnold. Three minutes earlier Patrick was innocuously kicking it with
Allan and Sarah, in the reservation area Coach M. designated as the McReynolds
stye—where Allan and Sarah and himself are required to wait for a scurried Mrs.
McReynolds who always seems to be running twenty-five minutes late. VonBehren
left fifteen minutes ago, unbuckling his safety patrol and popping his back,
asking Patrick if he is sure he wouldn’t need a lift up the hill, Hale was the
first to vamoose, walking out to his grandparents minivan with a giant Rocket
for his science project. For some reason Mr. Looney excused the basketball
players to an interim recess so he could utilize the gymnasium for personal
free time with the new physical educational intern from Appleton, Wisconsin.
“He’s headed toward the
playground!”
“Get him.”
“I’ll beat the ever living fuck
out of you McReynolds,” Aron sneers and shouts. Patrick does not look around.
Instead Patrick triple jumps from the pillar slab of concrete and lands on the
soles of his split-lip sneakers on the tongue tip bottom of the slide. He
grapples both sides of the slide to heave himself north, only to realize that
Bushman is behind him while Mario and Aron have taken an alternative route to
the top. Aron yelps out the words Get him once again. Patrick realizes that he
is trapped. A fist is pounding into his back. He wishes the mother ship would
show up. He wishes VonB or Hale would be close by. He wishes he should have
tucked his BB pistol and shot for eyelids. Wish he should have blinded them.
Eric Bushman’s near skeletal hand creepers along Patrick’s fair torso. He can
see Mario in a Jesters cap and cigarillo holder asking Patrick if he enjoys
playing with matches. And then there is God damn Bum fuck Bowman who is
uncoiling a gas pump from god knows where-like a serpent, dousing Patrick with
gasoline. The stench and slight burn as the gas first sluices across Patrick
Caucasian skin. Hale? Where the fuck is Hale? If Hale wasn’t so goddamn Big
Friendly Giant all the fucking time, the two of them could have a fighting
chance. If Von Behren wasn’t so hung up on his repressed sexuality. If Allan or
Tim Flanagan were all here-maybe-just maybe he would have a fighting chance.
Aron squirts gasoline out of the
gas nozzle and onto Patrick like a fireman and a hose. All the boys are
laughing the hyena neck loll laugh and Tod, who is wearing a clerical collar
has taken the cigarillo out from between his stashed lips is talking about the
fires of Hell and of damnation, pausing a tenth-of-a-second before offering his
benediction in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, tossing
the butt of the cigarillo on the glossy tongue of the slide before the
basketball posse utter a stale, uninspiring Amen. There is a pause and a flash
and then internal writhing as the match snaps on top of a gasoline saturated
Patrick. From the distance of the school the slide resembles a chrome tongue
that has just swallowed a pitcher of jalapeño peppers and is definitely in need
of some hard core Aqua. Patrick is burning. Everything inside of him is burning
and through the inferno-nimbus he sees Heaven—the Kingdom Come being a giant
gymnasium flanked in golden golf pillars, rooting for the Christ Lutheran
Comets. Von Behren is warming the bench and Hale is a water boy. All of the
basketball players are once again conversing about how bad they are and Patrick
can see his Parents shuffle into the arena and check the stubs of their
tickets-Warren, hinting something into Helen’s shoulder about how he thought
the Kingdom come would be less of a Trophy case and more of a bucolic Irish
meadow with Leprechauns who know your first name and cows whose udders usher
forth the rich froth of Bailey’s Irish. Mr. Looney’s stilted gait is
recognizable even in the after life and Patrick can see him thanking everyone
for coming, here for tonight’s game and for eternity as Patrick burns, his skin
flayed and peeling yet still in tact because he is now in Hell—the place Rev.
Morningwood refers to by gritting his teeth and pointing into the earth and
talking about plural Hockey sticks. Patrick has found himself in hell and he
has found himself all alone. He sees Hyacinth Lyons roving her tongue back and
forth between Bowman’s salivating drool as the arena cheers. Angie and Karen
and Corrine all seem to be cheering on Bowman in the basketball arena. Mr.
Mooney is saying something about man and wife as Von Behren chin-chin’s a
champagne chalice and Hale talks about purchasing another round for everyone.
Just then, through the flicker and gash of the inferno, Patrick witnesses a
close-up of a bemused Warren ruffling his cowlick with his dirty fingernails,
inquiring to his wife that he thought their eldest son was suppose to be here
as well. A fire. A burn. Patrick’s whole
body feels like a Pentecostal flame breaking dancing its fiery tongue across
the balding forehead of an aged usher. His gallbladder feels like it is being
toasted over an open campfire with three-foot long marshmallow pincers. As he
is looking up he can hear a door open-it is almost as if his own mother is
going downstairs to the furnace, informing him that he had better get his shit
together right now young man if he there is any opportunity for advancement
down here, pronto. Patrick can feel loud jeering close-up face of his mother
yelling at him. Screaming at him. Asking him where he thinks he is going and
telling him now to get in here right now young man. Get in the car right this
very minute-asking Patrick if he thinks she is doing this for her own
health?
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