Ficlet Friday: Still Fighting
Felix backstory, Felix pov
He’s not faster than them; his dirty worn sneakers with a hole in the left sole slap slap slap on the pavement, his breath burning like stabbing sharp knives and legs like weak wobbly noodles, but running. Still running. He’s not faster, but Felix runs and runs and never stops running.
Sometimes he makes it home in time, words shouted from five stories down that hurt more than fists even though his teacher says they shouldn’t. Words can’t hurt you. But if that were true then why does it ache like a thumb pressed to a tender bruise, but inside where no one can see?
Some of the words aren’t true and some are and some- Maybe. And what if? And if so? But his Mama says to always be proud of who he is, and hold his head high and no one can ever really hurt him. But if that were true then why does Felix hear her praying at night for him?
They catch up to him sometimes, pull at his clothes and push at his back but they’re out of breath and wheezing and weakened so Felix runs and runs and keeps running. They shout names at him and they call him nothing, you’re nothing. But if that were true then why would they keep coming after him? Why bother? Surely nothing wouldn’t be worth chasing and shouting at and teasing.
Every once in a while they catch him and keep him, surround and tease him. Felix’s heart slams in his chest like an angry wild thing and he looks for an escape within the circle of three large sneering boys, wonders if he can climb the high chain-link fence faster than they can or will they grab him by his ankles and yank him down? They push and shove and he stumbles and falls and curls his body. He can’t run now, so he waits until they lose interest.
Don’t bother them and they won’t bother you, the principal says. But how can his simple desire to exist in the world that they occupy be such a burden? Is he not allowed to take up space? No, it can’t be true.
Felix sits up and spits out dirt and shame and anger.
“Why don’t you fight them?”
They had caught him in the lot behind the bodega around the corner that’s next to the video store that’s next to the laundromat that has a bubble gum machine with gumballs in all the colors of the rainbow. Felix swears he only ever gets yellow. His favorite is red.
He stands and brushes dust and dirt and something sticky from his jeans that are too big and have to be folded over at the waist and bunch uncomfortably at his feet and knees. Mama says he’ll grow into them and he’s sure she’s right, but some days he wonders if that’s wrong too.
“I run,” Felix tells the man in a white apron hauling a bulging black trash bag to the dumpster.
“Hmph,” the man says, and heaves the bag up and over the top. “And where has running gotten you?”
Away, Felix thinks but doesn’t say as he guesses that it’s the wrong answer. Because he doesn’t know what else to do probably isn’t right either. So he says nothing and the man stares at him with a scowl and his hands on his hips, and Felix kicks at the dirt and scratches a mosquito bite on his elbow. He thinks he might be in trouble again, though he doesn’t know why. He usually doesn’t.
The man brushes his hands off and says, “Come here on Saturday, in the morning. I’ll show you how to fight.”
So Felix runs away on Thursday and runs away on Friday and on Saturday eats two bowls of cereal and skips Saturday morning cartoons and tells his Mama he’s going to the bodega, which is true. She gives him a quarter for a gumball. He gets a blue one. Mr. Salazar from the bodega takes him deep into the laundromat, past the shaking rattling spinning washers and the hot humming dryers, past the change machine and the folding tables in the back, past the office where the lady who looks mean but likes to give them spicy hot cinnamon candy sits and watches.
Up a creaky flight of stairs and Felix is introduced to the ropes stretched in a square, ducks under to get acquainted with the hollow give of plywood set on wooden planks and padded with worn and battered gray carpet. A red punching bag hangs from thick chains in the corner across, in the other a set of weights, and in the last corner an equipment locker.
There are huge strong men and boys not much bigger than him with muscles on their arms and fire in their eyes and they look at Felix then at Mr. Salazar and nod their acceptance.
It smells like the sharp tang of sweat and dryer sheets and this is the place where he first learns to box and everything changes.
He isn’t the biggest or strongest or fastest, but Felix fights and fights and never stops fighting.
