Last year, she threatened me with a bread knife for accidentally making the souffl� fall. The year before that, she spent so much time cooking that she forgot to bring the dog in and he huddled in the cold outside our door for something like four hours. My point being, it is not a good idea to let yourself be seen by my mother. My father wisely discovers �pick up softball games� and �this roofing job� and manages to escape, but most of the time I wind up home, avoiding a crazed, smelly woman who wants me to chop carrots and check on the boiling chicken carcass. Most of the time, I go out the window and sit up there with my comforter, writing things or finishing homework or calling friends. But it�s freezing this year and all I want to do is go downstairs for a snack. I try to resist this urge, telling myself that there will be plenty of time for food when my mother takes a bathroom break or leaves to get the papers. But my stomach is noisy and I have to measure what would be worse�my mother overhearing the growly beast and storming upstairs to recruit me for celery-chopping or meat-grinding, or going down myself and risking far worse consequences. As of now, she thinks I�m still asleep, and rightly so, but she will probably come for me by eleven, pissed off that I should be able to sleep in and she cannot.
My stomach lets out another growl. Is there a bear in there, clawing at my stomach lining in search of food? It feels like it. And just when I realize that there is no way out, that I am helpless and it is impossible to do anything, I remember that yesterday�s lunch is still in my bag, sitting uneaten because I had left it in my locker lunch period and gotten a school �:lunch� instead. I inventory the bag�s contents in my head: one banana, which should be in fairly good condition; one Tupperware cup of pretzels, which might be a little crunched; one peanut-butter and jelly on a tortilla, which should be delicious if slightly stale; and one half of an almond chocolate bar. Best of all, my bag is right by the front door which is on the exact opposite side of the house as the kitchen and right at the bottom of the stairs. I can just grab my lunch and a coat and walk somewhere to avoid my mom, and be back by eleven, at which point I can pretend to shower and thus avoid her for at least two hours more. I get dressed hurriedly and praise my lovely big brain.
Creeping down the stairs scares me more than anything. I console my stomach and force it not to growl by reminding it every two seconds or so that there is a delicious amount of food waiting for it at the bottom of the stairs. After what appears to be more than six days, I get to the bottom of the stairs, creep quickly to the door and snatch up my bag. I swing open the big wood door and then I stop.
Silhouetted against the bright sunlight streaming in is a familiar bunch of dreads, with dark eyes staring inward at me against the screen. The scarred face splits into a grin.
�Hello.� it says, quietly. I drop my bagged lunch and it splits and the pretzels fall out of their cup and make a racket on the floor. I imagine with terror my mother stomping down the hall to confront me and (more importantly) the man on our doorstep, and I slam the heavy door just before I hear her footsteps. The banana is making an awkward roll into the foyer, �whump�roll---whump---roll� and she nearly squishes it with one skippered foot. My mother�s grin is enormous.
�Were you going to get the papers?�
I nod. It seems the most effective way of not getting stabbed with a bread knife. She says that she�ll pick up my lunch while I get them, and I hesitate to open the door until she has her back to it, picking up with little bird picks the pretzels on the floor.
I swing it open without looking, push through the screen door and only then glance up. There is no one there. I am both relieved and profoundly irritated that this man has been choosing to just show up by me any time he pleases and will vanish any time it�s not convenient for him to be around. So I stomp down the steps to the sidewalk, hang a sharp left and head down the driveway to get the papers, maneuvering my way around my mother�s obnoxious minivan. And there, wearing a dark green turtleneck and leaning against the fender, is Mr. Scarred and Dreadlocked, swinging my newspapers from his pinky finger. I am hideously angry at him, but he looks so laissez-faire that it might be a crime to kick his teeth in.
He says, �Hello,� again and I snap, �How did you find my house?� and he just smiles slow, his teeth white and even. I give up on that question, and then I inquire about his scars. I can�t see the horrible throat-slit, but I can imagine it beneath the turtleneck, flapping open and vacant as a fish�s gills. He says that he got into a fight a few years ago, and I say (boldly) that he must be quite a man to survive having his throat slit. He pauses, distinctly, and says, �What are you talking about?� with a gravity and plain confusion that makes it hard to protest. He pulls down the collar of his shirt and there�s no cut, not even the faint line of one.
I am dumbfounded, and he quirks an eyebrow. �Does it look like I�ve got my throat slit?�
I must have seen something else last night. Maybe a strange shadow or something, but it looked so real. I remember seeing the open flesh, pink and muscle-bound, when he craned his head upwards. It was so vivid that I cannot believe I did not see it, but then again I�ve been saying that about all my dreams lately, and they always wind up false.
He hands me the papers, nonchalantly, and begins walking towards the corner two houses away. �I guess I�ll see you around.�
I take the damn papers in to my mother, who is chopping celery furiously. I don�t particularly want him to see me around.