Touch and Go by Thad Nodine

Author:Thad Nodine [Nodine, Thad]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-09-09T17:42:25+00:00

t o u c h a n d g o 173

“Hello!” I said, twisting my head. “Hello! Is there a store near here?” I must have staggered a bit in the wind.

“Are you drunk?” a man slurred.

Was he blind? “I’m not drunk!” I said.

He came at me, catching me not completely off balance because I heard his quickening steps. He smacked me with his shoulder to my chest, but I stepped back, defl ecting his thrust so I didn’t fall. My glasses clung to my head, but I dropped Charlie, who knew where? I didn’t have time to panic; the man clung, smelling of liquor and gutters and garbage bins, pushing me.

When I was a freshman in high school, I joined the wrestling team to please Dad. I was pretty good when I could get my hands on the other guy. But most of the kids circled around me on the mat and then shot in for my legs to take me down. Once they had their takedown points, they’d let me go before I could reverse them. And then they’d take me down again. I didn’t care at fi rst. What I cared about was Dad kneeling on the living room fl oor with me, even with his bad hand, just like he used to when Larry and I were little. We pushed the furniture away and wrapped each other up until we collapsed, exhausted, sweating.

Out in the wind, I struggled against the man’s clumsy weight. With our arms interlocked, we faced each other. I managed a “Help!” that couldn’t have been loud. Moments earlier I’d been wandering around, unsure where I was. Now I was grounded, dead certain what I needed to do: take him down. I felt the advantage now that we were in contact.

But he was heavier than I.

I tugged at his coat sleeve with my left hand while I pushed with my right, forcing us to circle counterclockwise. As he pulled back in the opposite direction, resisting me, I shifted my weight to go with his and 174 T h a d N o d i n e

tugged hard with my right hand, pulling him down and letting go afterward. But he had me in his grasp and pulled me as well. I fell hard on top of him, my shoulder into his chest, so that he groaned with a loud

“oomph” and let go. I was lucky that as I rolled off him I brushed my hand over Charlie right there on the pavement. I grabbed my stick and was up faster than the man was.

“Hey!” he said.

I caned quickly twenty or thirty paces upwind on a sidewalk, paralleling a street that was on my left. It seemed I was always going upwind— probably moving away from the pool. I listened but couldn’t hear footsteps anywhere. The repeated slap of the garbage can fell behind me. I wasn’t sure where I was but assumed I was on a side street. If I took two or three rights, I hoped, I’d be back on the street I’d started on, where the Jesus lady stood.

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