<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div>Bleeder<div><br></div><div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">By now I bet he’s dead which suits me fine,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">but twenty-five years ago when we were both fifteen</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">and he was a camper and I a counselor</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">in a straight-laced Pennsylvania summer camp</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">for crippled and retarded kids, I’d watch</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">him sit all day by himself on a hill. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">No trees, or sharp stones: he wasn’t safe to be around.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">The slightest bruise and all his blood would simply drain away</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">It drove us crazy – first to protect him, then to see it happen</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">I would hang around him, picturing a knife or pointed stick</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">wondering how a small cut you’d have to make, then see the expectant face</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">of another boy watching me, and we each knew, how the other would like to see him bleed.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">He made us want to hurt him so bad so much we hurt ourselves instead:</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">sliced fingers in craft class, busted noses in baseball, then joined at last mass wrestling matches beneath his hill, a tangle of crutches and braces, hammering at </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">each other to keep from harming him. I’d look up from slamming a kid in the gut and see him watching</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">with the empty blue eyes of children in sentimental paintings, and hope to see him frown or grin.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">But there was nothing: as if he had already died.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">Then after a week, they sent him home. Too much responsibility, the director said.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">Hell, I bet the kid had skin like leather.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">Even so, I’d lie in bed at night and think</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">of busting into his room with a sharp stick, lash</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">and break the space around his rose petal flesh,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">while campers in bunks around me tossed and dreamt with this his pleasure: To make us cringe beneath</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">our wish to do damage? But then who cared?</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">We were living children, he the ghost</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">and what he gave us was the pleasure of being bad together.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">He took us from our private spite and offered our bullying a common cause:</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1">which is why we missed him, even though we wished him harm. When he went, we lost ours hared meanness and each of us was left to snarl his way to a separate future, eager to discover some new loser to link us in frailty again.</span></div></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"><br></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Stephen Dobyns</span></div></div></body></html>