| On the quiet streets of our Brooklyn neighborhood I saw her on my way to school, one of those girls who look like women from far away. I saw the butcher's girl, frightening in her womanliness, advancing slowly upon me along Avenue S. As she drew nearer, her unmistakable shape with its outthrust bosom grew more threatening. She had a face as blank as a coal-chute door and moist, gleaming black eyes; upon her broad red cheek was a small black mole with a hair in it. At this time she was an eighth grader, and I was nine years old. |
| On other days she appeared in her father's shop sitting on an upturned milk box amid the sawdust and the blood smells. I saw her sometimes carrying out her father's commands, trudging along the sidewalk after school with a large brown bag against her breast. At times I was invisible to her; her cow-like gaze passed over me, and I breathed more freely. At other times she paused and moved closer to me, close enough to brush me with the crackling brown paper. "Where you going?" she said. If I had no ready destination, I felt forced to accompany her, blocks away. |
| What did she want of me? Not sparkling conversation, for though I could chatter easily, I was silent in her company. Her weighty, combination of sex and stupidity, rendered me dumb. Also, my own plumpness, an excess of baby fat merely, drew me closer in repulsion to her tremendous flesh. |
| On this day she approached me hurrying more than normally, her breasts slowly shuttling sideways. Her lips were parted with that mystical look of high rapture. "You busy after school?" |
| I had a Brownie meeting on Tuesday and a piano lesson on Wednesday, but today was Thursday, and I had not yet learned to lie to save myself. |
| "I got to take my graduation picture," she said. "I need someone to deliver for me. You get the tips. They're good on Thursday. You ain't got much walking, either." |
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