49

 

       ERIC

   

    They climb over it like spiders.  They come and put up their web of pipe and wood and crawl over it, laughing and calling out numbers to each other.  They stand, hands on their hips, looking down at me, their mouths grinning nails.

    They look down at me thinking, that kid is worthless.  He's old enough.  He should be with us, working.  A kid that age should have a job.  Summer's almost over, and that kid don't have a job.  Just rides up and down the hill on that bicycle.  And they say things to each other.  I know a few of them.  I've seen them down at the firehouse with Doug.  They look down at me and yell out more measurements to the guy at the saw.  And while he cuts the siding, they watch me glide down the hill, no brakes, my hair flying.

    And I think about him, sitting there in the new room about the living room, where we dragged his mattress and his springs and his little dresser.  I think of him sitting there in that brand new little room still smelling like fresh wood and watching them walk by his window as if they were on the ground.  And listening to them laugh and yell and sing along with the radio.  And as my bike flies by the IGA at the bottom of the hill, I wonder if Doug got him his batteries.