THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE

Tommy Hatfield 1 - 1951

55 1951 Tommy Hatfield 1 The first time I see Tommy Hatfield, he is walking through the door into the stuffy classroom, his chest puffed up like a toad. He swaggers down the aisle, his hands bouncing at his sides as though wearing imaginary boxing gloves. The sides of his head are nearly bare, his black hair cut evenly all around, as though someone has put a bowl on his head and trimmed away whatever hung out beneath the rim. In spite of this, he’s almost handsome. He takes a seat at the front of the class and then turns, slowly and deliberately, and looks directly at me. His fingers brush across the front of his wrinkled denim shirt as though flicking away something that is insignificant. There is not a sound in the classroom. I try not to look back, but I can’t help it. I’ve heard all about Tommy Hatfield, how tough he is, how he likes to bully up against the new guys. And that is me. I’m a new guy in this fucking, nowhere high school buried in the mountains of West Virginia. When the bell rings at the end of class, I’m up and out of my seat and into the hallway as quickly as I can, melding into other kids who are milling around. I think I’m unseen, but when I turn around Tommy is there. Lee Maynard 56 He doesn’t look at me. But as he walks past, he bumps my shoulder, hard, hard enough to make my upper body twist. He goes on down the hallway, his engineer boots clumping on the floor, not bothering to look back or say anything. Other kids look at me and then look down, knowing that Tommy has picked out another mark. And knowing, for a while, they are relatively safe. In the weeks that follow, Tommy Hatfield turns my life to shit. Which, all in all, I thought had already happened. Tommy bumps me in the hallways, steps on my foot as he struts down the aisle. If I am talking to a girl out in front of the school, Tommy walks up, puts his arm around the girl and pulls her away. The girl says nothing. I am afraid to go to school. I am afraid of Tommy Hatfield. I am a big kid but he is bigger, stronger, older, a kid who’s been held back a couple of grades. But that isn’t it; that’s not why I’m afraid. He has an anger, pure and true, the type of anger that I haven’t seen before , an anger that boils out of a damaged soul and steams out of his fingertips, an anger that doesn’t care and Tommy Hatfield doesn’t care, and if I am going to survive in this school, I will have to learn not to care. And to be angry. I will see such anger again in my life. Sometimes, after school, I sit on the riverbank and watch the brown, stinking water and think about Tommy Hatfield. I long to be able to walk down the hallway without worrying about Tommy. To sit in my seat without worrying about Tommy. To talk to a girl without Tommy making a fool of me. Tommy Hatfield dominates my life. My shit life. I am walking down the stairs. Beside me is a girl I like a lot, a redheaded girl, a girl I am trying to impress, talking about the books I’ve read—books she has not even heard of—smiling a lot, trying to say The Pale Light of Sunset 57 clever things. Mostly, I’m just mumbling like an idiot. And then I feel the hard slam in the middle of my back and suddenly I am flying down the stairs, my arms flung out in front of me. I hit the tile floor of the landing face first and my arms don’t protect me and my nose splatters like an egg. I roll over and sit up, my arms covering my face, blood running down onto my shirt. I peek between my arms. There are kids on the upper floor, kids on the stairway, kids down below me, none of them moving. There is absolute silence. Tommy stands in the center of the stairs, his arms hanging loosely, a slight smirk on...