The following is the “Punkin’ Donuts” section of my novel 85A. The novel is a stream-of-consciousness, day-in-the-life piece that explores the thoughts, memories and fantasies of Seamus O’Grady, a Johnny Rotten-obsessed youth in a racially stratified, Late Eighties Chicago. By the end of the novel, this foul-mouthed, tough-talking protagonist will make a decision that alters the course of his life.

 

I didn’t meet Tressa again until a little later, the night the skinheads jumped me on Belmont. Man, I don’t care what people say. They cut skinheads all this fuckin’ slack. Say most of them on Belmont ain’t Nazis, they’re anti-Nazi. Some are even black, some are Jews and some of the whites even walk around with t-shirts on under their bomber jackets that have ban signs over swastikas. That don’t mean dick. Nazi, anti-Nazi: one’s just as bad as the other. Some of the Anti-Nazi skins wear pink laces in their ox-blood Docs, meaning they killed a queer—maybe one of the queens walking around Halsted Street, just about a block over from Punkin’ Donuts. They kick the shit out of people who don’t fucking deserve it just to show off to their friends. Skinheads are fuckin’ scumbags—Nazi or not—and, if I didn’t believe in anarchy, I’d petition for a law to lock them all up for life.

One night, fall quarter 1987, I went to Medusa’s wearing the 1940s-style black-lid hat I bought at Wax Trax. The one I saw Colby wearing. Man, I’ll never fucking forget seeing him in it. I saved up for months to buy one for myself. I stood alone on a box on Medusa’s main floor and lost myself trance-boeying to House music, which the video-room snobs say only trendies and poseurs do, but who gives a shit? Go upstairs to that video room, the cool crowd just sits around smoking cloves, cliquing up, sneering at you, slamming to kill-kill music. I went to Medusa’s that night thinking that I was going to do my usual thing of shuttling my ass, all alone, up and down the stairs between the main room and video room, wishing I had someone to talk to, wishing I knew people, but then I said no. That night, I just wanted to trance out on the main floor.

Once I’d sweated all the water out of my body, I straightened my hat, buttoned my black overcoat, and walked down the stairs, out to Sheffield Street. As usual, I came to Medusa’s alone and left Medusa’s alone. It was about 10 o’clock and I had to be all the way back home for my 11:30 curfew. None of the punks in the video room have fuckin’ curfews. Their parents don’t make them go to Mass on Sunday mornings either. If I believed in God, I’d swear he’s hell-bent on keeping me uncool. But I still had about half an hour to kill. I lit my second to last Marlboro and walked over to Punkin’ Donuts at Belmont and Clark.
That’s all I did on Saturday nights before Tressa. I’d end a lonely night at Medusa’s with a cigarette, a raspberry jelly donut, and a medium coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. They always got punks in there or in the parking lot. They don’t call it Punkin’ Donuts for nothin’. I’d sit at the counter and watch crowds of punks swarming inside and outside the store, never minding the Pakistani donut pushers, chewing them out every five seconds for acting up and being assholes.
That night, this one chick with knotted, Raggedy Ann hair—dyed red, blue, green and black—came in and stood at the far side of the counter, holding a long-tailed rat on her shoulder. The rat pivoted over her shoulder blade and twitched its nose and tail as it peered at all the donuts on display about eight feet away on the other side of the counter. The donut guy screamed, “Out! Out with that thing, now!” She petted the scraggly mange on the rat’s back. “What, you don’t like my pet?,” she smiled a toothy grin through lips smeared in black licorice lipstick. Two of her friends clutched on to the arms of her leather jacket, craned their necks around her shoulders and flashed Cheshire Cat grins at the Pakistani, who was about to charge them but drew back as soon as he came within pouncing distance of the twitching rat.
“Out of here with that rodent!,” he shouted again in his funny-talk voice. One of the Cheshire chicks, the one with fucsia hair, took a step forward, her legs wrapped in the red-ringed white stockings that the Wicked Witch of the East sported at the beginning of the movie. “What’re you gonna do about it?” she taunted. The donut guy backed into a tray of glazed donuts and long johns, knocking them all out of their rows. The chicks roared with laughter, the one in the Oz stockings jumped up and down and stomped her combats on the cracked tan tiles. Friends of theirs at all ends of Punkin’ Donuts clapped, roared and howled. The rat skittered in fright over the back of its owner’s head, but it didn’t freak her out; she just put one hand up, grabbed the spooked rat and clamped it down on her other shoulder, where it stood quivering.

Finally, donut guy did rush the counter within about five feet of the rat, screaming, “If that rat jumps off your shoulder, he’s going into the deep fryer.” A trucker in a red checkered flannel shirt-coat and Winston’s baseball cap jumped off his chair, spit the plain-donut moosh in his mouth into a paper napkin and wiped off his tongue on another napkin that he grabbed out of the steel dispenser. He walked right out the door, behind the rat chick, picking paper-napkin pieces off his tongue and hollering, “I’m calling the Board of Health.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” donut guy screamed after him, eyes flashing fear, “I’m sorry.” Rat chick lunged two steps forward and tilted the rat in his face. At first, he didn’t see it, but once he did, he jumped back, tripped into a cubby hole and knocked a bunch of coffee lids on to the floor. Lots of punks hooted, howled, and clapped. The donut guy gathered himself back together and shouted, “I’m calling police now!”
A kid in a Skinny Puppy t-shirt yelled, “Don’t bother. At least three pigs’ll be here for donuts any second now.”

“Fuck you!,” the Pakistani shouted, grabbing the phone and dialing 9-1-1 while his wife put the donuts back in place and picked the lids up off the floor, cursing kids all around the store the whole time.

Rat chick smiled, let out a laugh of pure evil, and walked out the door with the fuscia-haired chick and a white-haired, silver-lipsticked death-rock chick in a black widow’s dress—both them giving donut guy the finger through black fingerless gloves. Donut guy hung up the phone once he saw the three of them walk out. Guess he hung up on the cops. He walked back through the service door with his face in his hands. All the punks went back to whatever they were doing before the whole rat scene erupted. “How Deep Is Your Love?” was playing on the Lite station from the speakers above. Little skirmishes like this between the Dunkin’ Donuts employees and the Punkin’ Donuts punks go down all the time, but the store manger still never bans anybody from the store.
After rat girl left, I sat at the counter, watching all this anarchy and thinking, maybe I’ll have friends here someday. Or maybe I’ll know punks in England. They don’t even have to be punks. Just people. Regular people. In England. And I smoked and stared out the window or at the smoke curling off my cigarette and I thought about things I might be able to do for a living in England—maybe I could be a shrink like Dr. Strykeroth (that crossed my mind a lot) or an actor on the BBC like I always wanted to be or maybe I’d write books—and I tried cooking up ways I might be able to immigrate legally. I drifted away, dreaming up these possible futures as Barbara Streisand, belting out “Send in the Clowns,” came on the Lite Station.
In my daze, I felt someone come up behind me and take the 1940s hat off my head. I swung around on my stool and saw it was a fuckin’ skinhead. He had these scary motherfucker red and steel-blue eyes and a face that some mad sculptor must’ve chiseled out on a bender—all these sharp-ass, severe-ass angles. He cocked an eyebrow, opened his bog slowly like a carp and blew a mouthful of cigarette smoke he’d been holding, straight into my face. His band of nick-headed Neanderthals all hooted and howled and flipped me off. I didn’t say a word. (Shit, who would with eight skinheads staring them down?) They all turned around and walked straight into a forest of other punks and skins, some of them grabbing on to some chicks who looked they were itching for a grabbing. They decamped to make their rounds round the block. The fucker still had my hat on when he walked out with his arms hanging on his two buddies’ shoulders. Never fuckin’ knew how to walk alone, I guess.

But there’s this shit I do every time someone dis’s me like that. Even used to do it with fuckin’ Payne. For about five minutes, I try convincing myself they didn’t mean what they just fuckin’ said or did. They meant something else. Maybe this guy thought I was someone else. And that’s what I dumb-ass did after the skinheads left. Said to myself, Oh, it’s crowded in here. He was talking to a lot of people. Maybe he just forgot to give my hat back before he left. If I see him again and ask him real nice, he’ll give it back. Maybe we’ll even hang out next time I see him. Maybe he’ll introduce me to his friends. Maybe I’ll end up shaving my head and hanging with them too. But I can’t tonight. I got curfew. That’s what I fuckin’ said to myself.
And I went on thinking about England. And I went on thinking about Dr. Stryeroth, how tight and tan his skin is, how lucky I am to get together with him every week. And I thought about Colby. Wondered what he was doing, if I’d ever see him again. I remembered how Colby had steel-blue eyes too, but they weren’t fuckin’ schizoid and mixed up with capillary-red like that skinhead’s. And I recalled how Colby’s features weren’t craggy like that skinhead motherfucker’s either. They were soft, delicate. His cheekbones were high and they sloped down in such a gentle curve. His lips were like plump little cherries and just as red. I lost myself, thinking about England and Dr. Strykeroth and Colby.

After a while, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone hovering over me. I was so caught up daydreaming, I didn’t even notice anyone sitting next to me. I turned my head. No, no one was sitting there. No, dude wasn’t sitting at all. He was standing, hovering, some scruffed-up, fucked-up, scrawny-ass drunk, maybe 40 years old. I got a better look at him. He was wearing a tight mellow-yellow undershirt under a blue ski coat with a fur-lined hood. He made this crazy-ass belt out of a bunch of different colored bandanas—red, dark blue, black, yellow, baby blue—that he’d tied together; let it hang from a loose knot at the crotch of his faded Levis. He put his left hand on his left hip and jutted his right hip right out to me. He smiled, looking down at me, tapping the toe of his tan construction boot and taking a long drag off a Virginia Slim. (Saw the pack in front of him, under his pink Bic lighter. It was fuckin’ Virginia Slims.) He exhaled a long, lingering stream of smoke. His breath reeked of menthol cigarettes and bottles and bottles of hard liquor, I don’t know what kind, as he leaned up close and heaved a long, heavy “Hah-iii” into my face. He puckered up, looked deep into my eyes and, losing and finding his balance again, blew me a kiss. I flinched and leaned way the fuck away from his mouth.

All the punks around me were falling all over themselves, laughing up a fuckin’ storm.

Some skinbird with a bleached fringe cut, holding a cigarette in a hand tattooed with the cheapest needles and India ink, smacked a smooch my way and said: “First time, princess? Feelin’ a little tight back there?” Her friends clustered around her, laughing at me and the molester like we were made for each other and they were gonna kill us any second now for it.
The drunk kept mooning over me. How’d this perv even get through the doors with all the skins and scary motherfuckers skulking around? He’s lucky he didn’t get killed just for walking within a block of Punkin’ Donuts. How’d he escape getting his gumpy ass beat? I didn’t finish my coffee. Didn’t want that flit feeling me up or vomiting on me. I just hit the streets. As I left the parking lot, I kept looking back, hoping he wasn’t stumbling after me. For a second, I could even see why skins would be proud to wear pink laces.
I walked back to Sheffield on Belmont. Passed a bunch of Jesus freaks, holding candles and singing “Amazing Grace”; one of them handed me a leaflet. I was still in shock from the drunken fairy, so I took it. The front page looked like some of those Xeroxed booklets they got in Wax Trax’s boutique, except there were no sex-and-violence graphics and the punks on the front cover were wearing Crosses on their leather jackets and slogans like “Jesus Rules” and ban signs over the numbers 666. I crumpled the leaflet and pitched it in the gutter. I lit my last Marlboro, crumpled the pack and tossed that in the gutter too. Not fifteen minutes earlier, Belmont was crawling with people. I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden it was almost empty. When I got to walking under the L tracks, I saw a group of burly guys heading my way in the night shadows. As I walked closer, I got a better look at them: skinheads, the ones from Punkin’ Donuts, the ones who flipped me off and laughed at me.
I saw the one wearing my hat. I walked up to him and said, “Can I have my hat back?”
He got up in my face, “What? What?”

I said, “Just, my hat. Just…can I—?”

He pushed me over into the alley off to the side of the tracks with his chest, “What? What?” He backed me into the brick wall on the side of the pawn shop. His gang surrounded me. “What?” he bellowed, “You sayin’ I stole it? You sayin’ I stole your hat? Is that what you’re fuckin’ sayin’?” I looked at their faces. The skinhead next to the thief was a black guy, about an inch shorter than me and built like a fuckin’ iceberg; the guy next to him looked Mexican but his knuckles were white and his breath and eyes were set for attack. Five or six others, black and white, stood in back of them. All I could do was freeze.

“Huh?” the skin shoved me back into the bricks, “Answer me, you little faggot.”
I gulped and murmured, “Well, in Dunkin’—” He punched me hard in the fuckin’ gut. One of the black skins hollered, “Got any proof you lil’ carrot-top faggot?” and clocked me in the face. They whipped me to the ground. My forehead scraped against a spread of rocks, pebbles, and some glass when they turned me over. They plunged kick after kick in my stomach and few in my back. I could feel every hit, but it was like part of me, the part that couldn’t feel any pain, had left my body and was watching all this shit happen from some kind of aerial view. I thought, oh shit, I heard of shit like this. This is it. This is fuckin’ it. The white light’s coming and some Imperial Wizard Skinhead’s gonna award these animals some pink laces for what they’re about to do to me.

I heard a voice scream, “Sonny!” It was a chick’s voice, “Sonny!” I saw her, this black chick in fishnets, jungle boots and a black biker jacket with band buttons and handcuffs hanging off the back of the jacket’s buckle belt. She just walked right in and broke it all up. It was unbe-fuckin’-lievable. She weighed all of 100 pounds and she walked right in and all them just fuckin’ backed up. All of ’em! The minute the black guy who took the first swing at my face saw her, he stepped back about four steps. The guy who stole my hat, she pushed him in the chest and he backed up far, like a bear was coming at him; so did the rest of them. As I lay there, hurting and bleeding, she spun around, screaming at them, “What! What’d he fuckin’ do?”
Thief said, “He’s accusing me of shit.”

She walked right up to his face, “What? What’s he accusing you of, A.J.?”
He put my hat back on and said, “Stealin’ his hat.” He cracked up and the other skins joined in the snickering. She grabbed my hat off his head and slapped him—hard. One of the black skins came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, swayed his crotch into her ass, kissed her neck, and said, “Come on, Tressa baby. Don’t get loud.”
“I ain’t your baby, Sonny,” she elbowed him in the stomach, pushed all 200 and some odd pounds of him off her. “Don’t you ever put your hands on me again! Don’t you ever! Want me tellin’ parole you in on this? D’you?”

Sonny looked at her and smiled slow and wide; he kept that slow, wide smile on her, I guess thinking he could make her melt and give a smile back. Her face did not move. Sonny stood like that about ten, fifteen seconds. Soon as he got it that her face wasn’t about to flinch any time this century, he motioned for the rest of his crew to follow him back on to Belmont and they all walked right back to wherever they were walking before they all stopped to pound me.

Other people started showing up. I could see their bodies but not their faces and I didn’t feel like looking anybody in the eye. The girl who saved my ass bent down, “You okay, baby? Can you breathe all right? Here, try breathing deep from here.” She patted the spot right below her belly, a little ways above her privates. It took a few tries, I still hyperventilated, but, after a little while, my breath came back to normal. “Oh, shit,” she said, “Look at your forehead.”

I shook, “What? What’s wrong with it?”

She brushed my hand away from it, “There’s a gash. Did you land on your head, honey? Think it’s a concussion?”

I shook my head, “No, I don’t feel it.”

“Good,” she said, brushing back my hair. I counted about four or five other people around her. I don’t know how soon they came after the skinheads left. One guy helped me to my feet and put his hand on my back. “You alright, little buddy? Need me to call an ambulance?” I shook my head no and tried smiling, but I just didn’t have a smile in me.

I turned to the girl who saved me and said, “Thanks.” She put her arm around my back. Said, “Come on, baby. I’ll help you to a phone.” She thanked the other strangers, told them she had it under control and they walked back into the night. I left my hat where she set it down in the alley when she came to look after me and I ain’t seen it since.

I tried going to the phone on the corner inside Muskie’s, but she said, no, we should try walking about a block and a half west, get away from everybody and everything, if I could manage. My back started throbbing and I was doubling over my stomach too. But her arm on my back somehow gave me the strength to keep going. She took me to the payphone outside Violet’s Flowers on Seminary. I dug a quarter out of my pocket.
“You don’t need a quarter to call 911,” she said.

I put it in the phone, “I’m not calling 911.”

“Why not?” she asked, “I’ll give you names.”

“I’m in enough trouble with them.”

“I’ll be a witness. I’ll tell them I helped you report ’em.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“They won’t do shit to me, baby. Nuh-uh, Sonny’s in LOVE with me. But, shit, if he was the last mine alive, I’d still go fuck every monkey in the jungle. I’m telling you, though, even if I got his ass dragged to the electric chair, last words’d come out of his mouth would be my first and last name. And, don’t worry, honey, they’ll all back off you too, if I tell them. Just like I just did. Just like they just did.”

“No,” I said, “Thanks, though.”

“Who you calling then?”
“My Dad.” She stood and watched me ring him up. Dad answered. I said, “Dad, I just got…” The tears called up, started flooding out of my eyes. I kept hyena-gasping.

“What the hell’s a matter with you?” he shouted. “Why are you simpering like a little ninny this time of night?”

“Fuck you, asshole!,” I screamed, “I just got jumped! I’m fucking bleeding from my skull!”

“Don you ever talk that way to me, mister.”

“Oh, fuck. Look, I got more important shit to do than argue with you. I’m bleeding!”
“I mean it, you little punk—”
“I’m bleeding!,” I screamed and started bashing the phone against the metal payphone dome, “I’m fucking bleeeeding, motherfucker!” I let the phone drop, it swung from its cord as I spun around on the sidewalk. “FUCK YOU!!!,” I kept screaming over and over on the pavement, spit bubbling out both sides of my mouth, humiliation tears waterfalling out of my eyes.

Tressa walked up, took my hand, told me to cool down and tried calming me down while I cried. She got on the phone. Dad was still on it. I only heard her end of the conversation: “Hello, my name is Tressa. You son was assaulted. He needs a ride…He was beat up…Yes, beat up by some skinheads…Yes, that’s right. Skinheads…Yes, they did beat him up, sir…Well, how could he fight back, sir? But what’s important is he’s okay. He’s just got some blood on his forehead. And I’m sure by morning he’ll have bruises on his face and his back and his stomach…No, I think he can get by without a hospital, but he needs a ride…Sir, I’m not interested in your epithets. He’s your son. He needs a ride…We’re at Belmont and Seminary…My name’s Tressa. What’s your son’s name?...Seamus. Okay.” She got off the phone. “Alright, now, Seamus. He’s on his way.”

I said, “I’ll take the bus.”

Tressa smiled and kissed my cheek. “Good idea. Dad seems like a real asshole. Hope you don’t mind me saying so. Hmmm, doesn’t look like you do.”

“No.”
“Is he in the army? Was he?”

“Marines,” I said, wiping my nose off on my sleeve, “Even made it to Captain.”
“Even better,” she replied. She rubbed my shoulder, “Sure you don’t want to call, tell him you’re taking the bus?” I shook my head no. “What’s your number?” she asked, “Want me to call him?” I shook my head no. She wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to me, “Well, this is my number. My name’s Tressa. I want you to call me tomorrow, Seamus, tell me you’re okay, okay?”
I sobbed. Tressa held me. Was this the only way I could make a friend? She waited for the 77 Belmont with me until it came. “Use some Iodine solution on that gash!,” she called out as I got on and paid my fare. “And call me,” she said, making her hand look like a phone cradle as the doors closed. I waved and mouthed, “Thank you.” As the bus pulled away, I saw her walking back toward Punkin’ Donuts.
I must’ve been a bloody sight. Everybody on the bus looked fuckin’ horrified as I walked down the aisle toward the back, where I grabbed a seat. The 77 seemed to hit every fucking red light on the way to the O’Hare Line at Belmont & Kimball. It was already midnight, half an hour after I was supposed to be home. My head fuckin’ hurt, my legs fuckin’ hurt, my back fuckin’ hurt—my stomach, my pride, it all fuckin’ hurt. But at least I got to meet that black Parisian model chick who got off at Logan Square many Saturdays before. She even gave me her number. That was one better than Colby did after I saw him on the L.

Right when the bus pulled up by the expressway, I saw Dad’s Corsica coming down the southbound ramp, on to Belmont. Part of me wanted to get off the bus and wave him down so he wouldn’t waste a trip picking me up. But I didn’t. I sat still and stayed on the 77 for two more blocks to take the L to Jefferson Park. Saw his Corsica turn left. He didn’t see me.

The L came right when I got down the stairs to the tunnel. I knew I’d already missed the last 85A. I had to walk about three miles home with my whole body aching like one big fuckin’ sore. Those were three loooong motherfucking miles. What the fuck was I thinking, calling Dad for a ride? Well, I was gonna be late and I was in a jam but…if I needed some love, why didn’t I just turn to Tressa?

By the time I finished walking all the way home through the Forest Preserve from Jefferson Park, it was about 1:30. The whole way there, I kept remembering shit like Salem’s Lot and Children of the Corn and all those bedtime stories from the Black Forest, where goblins could be lurking behind any fir tree, ready to gobble up any passing traveler. Not a bone in my body bristled, though. In fact, I would’ve given that goblin my last dollar if he’d just do the job and finish me off so I wouldn’t have to do it myself. Couldn’t count on the kids at the Black Masses deep in the woods to do it. I mean, y’know, if they were even were there in the first place. Rumor had it that those Taft High School twerps would slice open screaming cats by a bonfire in front of an altar where a high priest would say the “Our Father” backwards next to a humungous upside-down Cross that they’d all help pitch into the ground. Rumor also had it they were always on the lookout for a human sacrifice. Really, the worst those pussies ever did was wear Slayer t-shirts, smoke grass at the picnic tables and shake up spray-paint cans in the underpass.
When I finally reached the house and opened our front door, Mom was waiting up at the kitchen table in her green flannel night gown, clutching her golden rosary in her right hand. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” she gasped, “What happened to you, Seamus? What happened?” She took my face in her hands, but I shook out of them. I fuckin’ hate it when she touches me, even it’s just by accident, like if we brush against each other going to different parts of the kitchen. Eeeewww! Fuckin’…creeps me out. She reeked of Oil of Olay and night moisturizer. She wanted to treat me with iodine and grabbed at my clothes, trying to see the rest of me. I jumped back like she was the plague incarnate. I ain’t fuckin’ strippin’ for her, ever!

Dad’s Corsica pulled into the driveway. The car door banged shut and he barged into the house, “There you are, you little punk!” He charged at me, but I had my fists up and ready for him, so he just fuckin’ stopped, stood on a dime, seething, his fat gut sagging. He knew what happened last time he tried puttin’ ’em up with me. He pounded me all the time since I was little, but, when he came at me a couple months before, I laid him out cold with a right hook. Jumped on him, went fucking savage with my fists. Would’ve killed him too, remembering how many beatings he gave me when I was weaker than him, but I decided just to spit on his fat ass and move on. He ain’t worth going to fuckin’ juvey for. Since then, he just fuckin’ mouths off and makes it look like he’s coming for me. But if he ever, ever lays a finger on me again, I swear I’ll put him in his motherfucking grave. “You little puke!,” he bellowed, “I was driving around the whole north side looking for you!”
Mom squealed, “Phil, he’s hurt.”

“I’m not surprised,” Dad said, “It’s about time someone put him in his place. If he talks to anyone else the way he talks to me…”
I stomped past Mom, “Both of you, just mind your business. I’m gonna wash up and go to bed.”

“The hell you are!” Dad gnashed his teeth. “And you’re grounded until further notice, mister. Much further notice. You’ll be in dentures and Depends before we’re letting you out of here.”
I rolled my eyes, like his groundings ever meant shit to me. Mom held one hand up to Dad, “One thing at a time, Phil. Seamus, tell us what happened.”
I sighed, “I was in Dunkin’ Donuts. A skinhead took my hat—”

Dad put his cute-lil-motherfucker mock smile on, “Oh, you mean that goofy hat you walk around in?” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and began mock-nodding his head, fast, like he always does when he’s asking to get killed.
Mom’s eyes were tearing up, though, so I ignored him, but, man, he’s so fuckin’ lucky I didn’t tear the meat off his bones. Mom held her rosary beads to the heart like she was starting right into the face of Satan himself. I blocked Dad out and stared straight at Mom as I gave a pat, Hill Street Blues type blow-by-blow: “A skinhead took my hat. He left Dunkin’ Donuts with his friends. I walked out to take the 77 back from Belmont. I was trying to get home on time. I saw him on my way to the bus stop. I asked if I could have my hat back. Next thing I know, him and his friends were having a free-for-all on me.” After all that matter-of-factness, something in my heart suddenly broke apart, some valve opened and I started crying again—something you never want to fuckin’ do in front of Dad. Mom tried putting her arms around me, but I didn’t want it. I wriggled away, turned my back and cried.

“A black kid takes your hat and you ask for it back.” Dad tapped the side of his head, mock-nodding some more, “Now that’s what I call using your noggin.”
“It wasn’t a black kid! It was a white—” and I almost said ‘fuckin’,’ but I didn’t want that fat fuck telling me to watch my language, so I just stuck to my point, “skinhead. The guy was white and, by the way, a black girl came up and got ’em all off me.”

Dad smirked, his head going up and down again like a kewpie doll, “Oh, that’s swell. So now, you got girls fighting your fights for you.” He nodded vigorously, jowls jiggling, smirking the whole while.

Mom was a shuddering mess, so I didn’t go smack the shit out of him like I should’ve. Mom said, “Well, you’re never going there again.”

I didn’t respond. I knew damn well I’d be back on Belmont the next week, if only to do Tea Time with Tressa. I was grounded for foul language, “insubordination” and violating curfew, but Mom’s 58 and Dad’s 59 and they had me too late in life for either of them to enforce house rules.
When I went to Dr. Strykeroth’s office on Michigan Avenue the next Monday, he also took my face in his hands. His eyes, they were pooling up with tears like Mom’s. None dropped, though. I didn’t mind him holding my face. I got cozy in his hands. “Seamus,” he said, “Who did this to you?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, “Some white guy named A.J. and some black guy named Sonny. There were some other guys there too. Skinheads. Never met ’em before. Got good news, though. I finally made a fuckin’ friend on Belmont.”

He brushed back my hair, ran his fingertips down the side of my neck and kissed my bruises and the scar on my forehead.