WEBVTT

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Sixth grade.

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The afternoon the neighborhood
boys tied me and Mary Lou Mather

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to Donny Ralph's father's
garage doors, spread eagled,

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it was the summer they
chased us almost every day.

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Careening across the lawns
they mowed for money and bikes

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they threw down, they'd
catch us, lie on top of us,

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and then get up and walk away.

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That afternoon, Donny's
mother wasn't home.

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His nine sisters
and brothers gone.

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Even Gramps, who lived
with them, gone somewhere.

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The backyard, empty.

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The big house, quiet.

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A gang of boys.

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They pulled the two heavy garage
doors down and tied us to them

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with clothesline.

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And Donny got the
deer's leg, severed

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from the buck his dad had
killed the year before,

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dried up and still fur-covered,
and sort of poked it

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at us, dancing around the
blacktop in his sneakers,

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laughing.

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And then somebody took
it from Donny and did it.

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And then somebody else,
and somebody after him.

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And then Donny pulled up Mary
Lou's dress and held it up.

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And she began to cry.

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And I became a boy
again, and shouted stop.

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And they wouldn't.

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And then a girl boy,
calling out to Charlie,

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my best friend's brother,
who wouldn't look.

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Charlie, to my brother's
friend who knew me, stop them.

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And he wouldn't.

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And then more softly.

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And looking directly at
him, I said, Charlie.

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And he said, stop.

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And they said, what?

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And he said, stop it.

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And they did.

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Quickly, untying the
ropes, weirdly quiet,

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Mary Lou still weeping,
and Charlie already gone.

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