Friday, December 17, 2010

Brooklyn Half - 4

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‘Is this like in Grade 4 when you wanted revenge on Hammy the Hamster for pissing on your bag?’

‘No! It’s not like that. Can you to listen to me?’

‘Alrigh, alrigh, I’m listening.’

Brook felt like she was losing it. Her heart was thumping and she couldn’t keep her feet still.

‘I cut the tops of my ears off and I don’t regret it. These bandages are coming off and I’m going to be normal.’

‘I hate to be the one to tell you this sister but you aint acting very normal.’

‘It’s not my ears, there’s someone after me,’ she blurted out.

‘Those bitches in your class again? Coz you know…’

‘No, not them,’ Brook cut him off. ‘It’s something different. I was attacked in the hospital.’

Shaun was looking at her weirdly. She knew what she was saying sounded crazy but couldn’t stop it.

‘It was a boy, he jumped me. It’s hard to explain. He disappeared right after.’

‘Where were the nurses? Wasn’t anyone around?’

Shaun had dropped his try hard South Bronx slang and was speaking like the son of the mid Manhattan African American judge that he was.

‘No. And they don’t believe it happened. The doctors say I dreamt the whole thing.’

‘But you don’t think you dreamt it?”

‘It was real. I swear it Shaun. And look at this.’ Brook pulled open her jacket and sweater to reveal red welts across her right shoulder. ‘They didn’t come up straight away. Not until I got home.’

Shaun was looking at her shoulder with concern but didn’t say anything.

‘And now there’s someone stalking me. Every time I leave the building I feel like I’m being watched. And followed.’
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He didn’t speak straight away. Had that serious look on his face, the look he got when he had something on his mind but didn’t know how to say it.

‘Look, I don’t know what happened in the hospital. But this stuff about you being watched, have you thought maybe it’s your Mum,’ he said eventually.

‘My Mum?’ Brook was lost for words. She couldn’t believe he’d said it. That topic had always been taboo. Shaun knew that and up until this moment he had always respected it.

‘Maybe she heard about your ears and was worried and doesn’t…’

‘My mother walked out on me thirteen years ago. She couldn’t give a stuff about my ears,’ Brook cut him off. She was fighting to keep the tears back.

‘Don’t hate me for this but I need to tell you something.’

‘Tell then,’ Brook said, focusing her gaze on her shoe.

‘There was this time years ago when we were playing in the Wild West. I saw this lady watching us. She had ears just like yours.’

‘And?’ the tears had swollen up in her eyes and were spilling down her cheeks.

‘And I never mentioned it because I knew you would go all mental but it was weird. What if it was her? Maybe she’s been keeping tabs on you all along but is afraid to contact you. Maybe it’s her following you now.’

The floodgates were open. This conversation had taken a turn she hadn’t expected and definitely wasn’t ready for. And it was all her fault. She started it. It was her fault that she was probably losing her best friend. Maybe it was her fault that her mother left and her father was a crazy drunk.

She was going back to the dark place. The alone place where the only relief from the pain came from physical hurt. Physical hurt from self inflicted cuts.
They would say she caused the cuts to her shoulder. It was probably what Shaun thought already.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ she said getting up.

She used every inch of her self control to stop herself from running. When she got to the gate Shaun was still sitting on the bench, staring miserably at the dogs going berserk in their run.

Neither of them noticed the shadow that crept from behind a huge Elm and followed her out of the park.
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