Red Clay Weather

Flying

—31 Flying You think continually of those you truly hate, it keeps you up at night, even with the fan you run to block out the badneighborhood noises, the feet walking by that might pause at your apartment door. There are too many people to list, but you try anyway: the kid sitting on the table behind you who kicked you in the back all through social studies class and when you got up and shoved him the teacher kicked you out into the hall; the kid who threw crayons at you in art class while singing an obscene song about your mother until you put him in a headlock (you were thrown out then too, to think about what you’d done); the kid taking karate who kicked you in the stomach because he thought you’d stolen his seat, though really it was yours. There’s always so much kicking, in and out. The kids in your neighborhood who threw rocks at you or tried to steal your bus pass on the way to school, the kids at school who sat on your stomach during recess and banged your egghead against the playground asphalt, the Italian kids three blocks up Crotona who threw a vegetable crate on your head while calling out “Hey chocolate milk!” one afternoon on your way home from school. There are always so many kids. Sometimes you think you hate too much, but there’s so much to hate, so many people have done you wrong, now that you think about it maybe you don’t hate enough. Your stepfather who attacked your mother with a butcher knife, was that before or after the restraining order, who cut all the wires inside the new tape deck she bought you (“I’m going to make it like a vegetable”) because he thought she spoiled you, and she did. But you weren’t his son and it wasn’t his money. He shut off the electricity to your room one afternoon to make you wash the drawings from the walls. When you become emperor of the universe they’ll all be punished, everyone who was ever cruel to you will pay. It’s not enough to have them tortured, because they’ll die and then their pain will end. You’ll use nerve induction, maybe that’s not the right phrase, whatever they call it when you stimulate the pain centers directly and there’s no physical damage, so they can shepherd text-2.indd 31 11/22/10 2:07 PM —32 suffer over and over. You’ll have every one of them brought before you on your jeweled throne on its raised dais and you’ll smile kindly as you explain to them their crimes and especially their punishment, they’ll be dragged away pleading for mercy you won’t have, and finally you’ll be able to sleep. shepherd text-2.indd 32 11/22/10 2:07 PM ...