My Life as a Rat. Joyce Carol Oates

disgusted, missing easy pitches, striking the ball not hard enough so it popped up like a little kid might pop it, fell straight down, rolled at the first baseman’s feet … Wanting to murder any asshole who laughed at him.

      But now, no. Fucking bat wasn’t missing its target now.

      Black kid sprawled on the ground pleading with them to let him go, please let him go, bleeding from his nose and mouth not so hot-shit now. Flat on his back and begging. And the guys jeering, laughing. Swatting at him, kicking.

      Like he’d provoked them to run into him. Dented the fender of the fucking car, because of him.

      Natural in Jerr’s hands for the bat to rouse itself to life, and get away from him. Furious, fast. Like chopping wood.

      The crack! of the bat. Or was it the crack! of the skull.

      But without the bat, maybe not. No.

      Wouldn’t have cracked the skull. And all the blood.

      Without the fucking bat would’ve kicked the black kid a few more times then let him go. Seeing he wasn’t fighting back, had gone limp. Probably not able to identify them, his eyes are swollen shut. Blood all over his face. What the fuck. Nobody wanted to kill anybody, that was a fact.

      That was a fact. They’d swear on the Bible.

      Came to him they’d (maybe) mixed this kid up with another black kid, a bigger kid, heavier, older by a year or two. Football player—“tight end.” With the bleached-blond white girlfriend. Hanging out across the street from school. That motherfucker, they’d have meant to stomp, wipe the smirk off his fat face.

      Except for the bat. Fucking bat. None of it would have happened. Or in the way it happened. You could argue it was mitigating circumstances. How the bat came to be in Jerr’s hands at just that minute.

      Because it hadn’t been premeditated, bringing the bat. Just in the back of the car where it had been rolling around for months. And so, like an accident. Christ sake it was an accident.

      And maybe also, could they argue they’d been drinking, and their judgment was off. Buying six-packs and nobody asking them who it was for, how old. None of it would’ve happened except for that. Which wasn’t their fault—there were adults to blame. And the car, his father had given him. Christ! He hadn’t even asked for it, he’d known better than to ask his father would’ve made him crawl, if he had. Surprising the hell out of him, just giving him the car which would have been worth something at least, a few hundred at least, on a trade-in. But he’d given Jerr the car, which put Jerr in his debt big-time. And made Jerr anxious, taking care of it. Every time he came to the house the old man would go out into the driveway and inspect the car and if he didn’t say anything that could be worse than if he did for at least, if he did, you’d know what he was thinking. And Jerome Kerrigan was always fucking thinking.

      Which led to Jerr swerving the damned car off the road. Like wanting to get rid of it. A few beers, you started thinking that way. Hitting the black kid was just collateral damage. You could argue that was an accident, nobody’d known the kid was even there until they saw him. He’d been meaning just to scare the kid, make the guys laugh, impress his brother who thought he was a cool dude but the front wheels hit gravel and swerved, right front fender struck the kid and lifted him, and the God-damned bicycle leaving a dent in the fender him and Lionel would have to try to even out with their bare hands, panting and struggling to unbend it but still the dent is there. Fucking rust on their fingers.

      And blood from the bat, they’d have to scrub like hell.

      Chain of circumstances, accidents. Could happen to anyone.

      None of it premeditated. That’s the crucial point.

      Realizing then, his father had given him the fucking baseball bat. Sure. That’s who it was, had to be, making a big deal of it, bringing him to the store downtown to pick it out for his birthday: Louisville Slugger. The best.

      Now you got to live up to it, kid.

       The Little Sister

      WAKENED BY—SOMETHING …

      Not a flash of headlights on the wall of the darkened room. Not the expansion of headlights on two walls of our room, if a vehicle turned into our driveway.

      So that I would think, but only later—They cut the headlights. Not wanting to wake anyone.

      Still less would I think, at the age of twelve—This part of it would be premeditated. Leaving nothing to chance.

      And so I saw the time: 12:25 A.M. Someone had entered the kitchen downstairs, from the rear of the house, through the garage. I did not yet know that it was Jerr and Lionel.

      Though Jerr had his own place to live now often he turned up at our house. He’d brought Lionel home, but wasn’t leaving immediately. He’d dropped the others, our cousin Walt, and Don Brinkhaus, at their houses.

      At this time they had not known, they would claim they’d had no idea, that Hadrian Johnson had been beaten so badly he would never regain consciousness.

      Though bleeding badly from head wounds, from the blows of Jerr’s baseball bat, they would claim that, when they’d left him, Hadrian Johnson had looked as if he was all right.

      This I would learn later. In time I would memorize much. Like lifting small stones, pebbles. Lifting, contemplating. Setting down again taking care to put its pebble in its precise and rightful place.

      In the small room at the top of the stairs shared with my sister I lay very still hearing voices that seemed to me lowered and urgent. At first I thought one of the voices was my father’s—but the other voice was not Mom’s.

      I went to the door and opened it, just slightly. Eagerly I listened. It was thrilling to me, that Katie remained asleep. That everyone else was asleep—our parents, our older sister, our brothers Les and Rick.

      When Daddy was out, or my brothers, I would remain awake waiting for them, if I could keep my eyes from closing. They had no idea how I waited for them. Patiently watching for headlights to flash onto the bedroom wall. That night waiting for Jerr to bring Lionel home and hoping that they’d hang around a while in the kitchen having a beer or two as they often did.

      Quietly I left my room and descended the stairs, barefoot. In my pajamas. But no one was in the kitchen.

      They’d entered the kitchen, I had thought. There was a draft of cold in the air, a smell of cold, wet leaves. But then they’d gone back out into the garage, leaving the door ajar.

      This door was rarely locked. Most doors of our house were rarely locked.

      A few inches from the doorway I hesitated, listening. Until now I was not altogether certain that it was Jerr and Lionel who’d come into the house but now I heard their voices which were lowered, urgent. Often I overheard my brothers talking together, their speech was fascinating to me. Yet more, my father’s speech was fascinating to me. The language of men and boys— rarely was it directed toward me, I could be only an eavesdropper. While there was never any ambiguity about whether my mother was addressing me.

      My brothers were aroused, excited. I could hear only isolated words. Fuck, shit. Keep it down!

      My brothers never caught me eavesdropping, so little notice did they take of me.

      Then, I heard the outdoor faucet being turned on. Were my brothers doing something with the hose?—washing the car?

      Through the crack in the doorway I saw them squatting close together just outside the garage where the water from the hose would soak into the soil, not accumulate on the garage floor. There was a light—an overhead light in the garage—a bare bulb, harsh and coated in grime—so that I could see, just barely, that they were washing something: