Pool_1

So there he stood, big eyed, outside the neighbor's back screen door, poised, looking in, little though he was, armed only with platitudes and his only security the double knots in his sneaker laces, not even trying to hide his presence as the neighborhood's shame went through his awful ritual of abuse. Both Julie and her mom were ever puffy and purple in one place or another. With little Julie arched protectively over her fallen mother, Karl's pounding fists made no distinction seeking targets on his wife's face right through the youngster's body. "Where's my fucking supper?!! Bitch! Where?" "You gambled... no money... only have canned... " But he just flailed and beat on them despite anything said or heard. That is, until he heard the unapprenticed uninvited voice through the screen, at the doorway. "STOP IT YOU POOP. MY FATHER HAS A GUN AND I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU IN THE HINE!" Some threat. That hollered challenge was barely completed as Karl went right through the screening after the youngster, catching his pant leg in the wire, bringing him twisting down face up on the stairs. Karl's motionlessness and the blood issuing from his head invited the youngster to bound up the fallen giant's supine body as if it were a ramp, ducking right through the large vertical tear in the door screen and on to Julie and her mom. "Hurry up. Come-on. Front door. Let's go." Frankie Sumner was small. Yet, he was commanding, in command by being commanding. He was a child. He was out of his class. What is class anyway? He was clueless. But he was a hero. Heroes are those who reweave the fabric of chaos. This kid was knitting and pearling a rent in cosmic fairness. When you see a hero, you know it. You don't measure heroes in pounds. You fall in behind them, as did the ladies.