Knockout Read Free

rocks I’ve tossed into his yard hitting the blade. There’s a puff ofblue smoke and his mower grinds to a halt. Masoli flips it over, sees a huge gouge in the blade and a rock that matches the rock from my driveway. When he looks up, he sees me coming toward him—drunk and out of breath, raccoon blood smeared down the front of my shirt. April is jumping rope in his driveway. When she sees me, she stops.
    â€œTurn your ass around,” Masoli tells me.
    I keep walking toward him. He tells April to go inside and then he marches toward me, his hands already clenched into fists.
    â€œGet out of my yard now,” Masoli says.
    â€œHold on, hold on,” I say. “I need to tell you something.”
    I hold my palms up to show him I mean no harm, but Masoli doesn’t care. He shoots his right fist through my palms and hits me in the mouth. I feel my teeth dig into my tongue and the bones in my jaw slide upward and I taste blood. I grab my face and topple to the ground in a lump.
    As Masoli is walking away from me, the boy flies out of our front door. He screams as he leaps on Masoli’s back, flails at Masoli’s chest with his spindly arms. The boy gets in a couple of good shots before Masoli tosses him off and stomps back inside his house.
    â€œThat motherfucker is going to get his,” I tell the boy as we lie there in the grass. “Don’t you worry about that.”
    â€œOkay,” the boy says. “Sure.”
    There’s conviction in my voice, but not in the boy’s. I can tell he’s tired of defending me. I want to explain to him how this time was different, how my intentions were pure, how what happened was unprovoked. I want to tell him I was trying to help but things went sideways. I keep my mouth shut because I can tell that no matter what I say, he’s already grouped this together with all the other dumb things I’ve done.
    A fter the boy is in bed, I lie down on the couch in the living room. Around midnight Ms. Brunell comes downstairs. It’s windy outside; it’s getting ready to storm. The room is dark; she doesn’t notice I’m lying there. I could say something, try to intervene, but I don’t. I let whatever’s going to happen, happen.
    After she walks out the door, I twist off the top of a bottle of Beam and pour out a couple of fingers into a lowball. I stand on my front porch as the rain grows harder, the wind stripping the leaves from the trees. At some point I know I’m going to need to go down to the basement and spread out bath towels where the foundation leaks. After that I’ll need to set a bucket in the upstairs bathroom to collect all the water that drips from the ceiling. Ms. Brunell is dressed in all black, black hoodie, black stocking cap. She pries open Masoli’s basement window with a crowbar and slips inside his house. When she slides out the front door a few minutes later, April is asleep in her arms. I watch her drive away and then I take a piece of scrap paper and write the boy a note that says “Steak and Eggs for Breakfast.” I write it in big, dark letters and I leave it on his bedside table so he’ll be sure to see it right away when he wakes up.

KNOCKOUT

    W hen I was in rehab, my roommate Tommy showed me how to knock out animals by pinching a spot on the back of their necks. I mostly practiced on the rehab cat but I also practiced on the overnight counselor, Jeff, who sort of looked like a cat. Sometimes I would sneak up behind Jeff and touch him on the neck and he’d zonk out. The rehab place was near a zoo and after we’d knock out Jeff, Tommy and I would steal the keys to his Corolla and drive over there. One time we found a ladder and knocked out a giraffe. That was probably my favorite time at the zoo. The giraffe was very elegant in the way it fell, slowly dropping to its knees and then gently tipping over on its side with a slight puff of breath.
    A fter I