Suddenly I was confronted by a fist of guys:
\nthe leader was maybe fourteen: five years
\nolder than I was. He told me I had punched his
\nlittle brother. I told him I never did: didn’t even
\nknow his brother. He punched me in the gut.
\nFor months, he and his gang trained me in the
\nart of quick starts and sudden foxy escapes
\nthrough the bush around the path on the way
\nto school. They were like flies around my life:
\nI was their honey on toast. As I learned
\nto run faster when I couldn’t avoid them,
\nI began to figure out who had hit his damn
\nbrother. I realized it was a kid my mother
\nmade me play with: the banker’s son, a
\nperfect little snot who had the same color hair
\nand skin, and pretty well dressed the same
\nas I did, and always was ready to smile
\nif he saw me with a fat lip. My Saturday job
\nwas to play with him while my mother and
\nher friends, including his mother, played bridge.
\nWhen I confronted him about hitting the kid,
\nhe said oh yeah he had forgotten about that.
\nEventually, we moved away. I never saw him,
\nbut I read in the paper recently that somebody
\nwith his unusual name had been convicted
\nof bank fraud and sentenced to five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My first experience with miscarriage of justice happened to me when I was nine. Only recently did things even out. (#1009) Continue reading