Growing Like a Tree

CH-9

Two weeks went by before I saw Chase again. My parents told me he had spent the night at the police station, and they loudly announced that his parents didn’t come pick him up right away to punish him. They were afraid for me because he had gotten hold of a gun. They told me over and over that he could have hurt me if the officers hadn’t decided to search him, that he was dangerous, that I should stay away from him from now on. I wasn’t sure what to think. He had told me he was my brother, that we would be together for life.  I was an only child and I had always wanted a brother.

He ended up missing all our end of year exams and had to get special permission from the school to do them after the holidays. He had come back the last day of school and spent the day in an empty classroom doing tests. He didn’t come outside to meet me for lunch, and I was too scared to go to him. It felt like a coward’s approach, and I could imagine him talking down to me for not approaching him like a man, but I decided to wait for him after school. The school yard was empty because the last exams were done by midday. Most of the students were already gone. He had to stay later because he was doing exams he missed. The teacher that had to stay behind with him to invigilate, left the classroom angrily as soon as he finished the test. She didn’t notice me.

 I was the only one around to see him get up and limp towards the door after she had gone. The moment he got to the classroom door he stopped limping. He stood up straight and walked forward, slowly, but in a way that his limp wouldn’t be obvious if you weren’t looking closely. I couldn’t say anything. I just followed him up the corridor, not sure what to say.

At the end of the corridor, he stopped suddenly.

“Stay away from me,” he said, his voice cracked and hoarse. “We’re not friends anymore.”

I wanted to ask why he was limping, what happened at the police station after I left, why would he say that we’re not friends anymore, but the words wouldn’t come, so I kept following him. When he saw that I didn’t stop he took his backpack and swung it at my head. I staggered from the unexpected blow and fell on my butt. He almost fell over himself. His eyes were red.

“I said leave me alone! If you come near me again, I’ll kill you!” he threatened fiercely.

With his chest heaving he swung the bag unto his back, and wobbled forward, then paused, straightened up and kept walking. I watched him go from my position on the floor. I wasn’t sure whether to take him seriously or not, but then I thought about the gun that he showed me two weeks ago, and the plans we had made to kill his father. I didn’t approach him after that.

We had entered high school together. He was different from how he used to be after that incident with the police. He kept to himself and fought less. He wouldn’t have fought at all if he hadn’t been unfortunate enough to enter the same high school as Bradley, who gathered his usual group of imbeciles and went out of his way to goad him. Bradley was two grades ahead but came to the eighth-grade classroom just to pick on Chase. They would surround him and heckle him as he left the classroom after school. Some days they would corral him into an empty classroom or deserted corridor and beat him up. The bruising always seemed worse the next day. I watched from afar. I was still being haunted by that long ago image of Chase with his head between his knees behind bars somewhere.