Life Drawing Snippet (8/?)
They live on the same street for two years, but it isn’t until sixth grade that Jensen and Garret have a class together. Not until then that Garret even knows he exists and then only as that weird kid who sits in the back row, wears too many clothes and doesn’t talk much. He’s older than everybody in the class. Slow or maybe retarded.
Garret sees his mom once. On a parent-teacher night at the very beginning of the school year. She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen-tall and blond and wearing a nicer dress than any of the other moms. Jensen has his head down the entire time she talks to Mrs. McGarrigle and they leave as soon as they’ve had their turn.
Garret’s mom works in the front office of school, which is pretty cool only because he rides home with her and doesn’t walk or bike like the rest of the kids in their neighborhood. One afternoon, six weeks after the end of summer, she has a faculty meeting after school and he decides to walk instead of waiting. And really. He’s not a little kid anymore and it’s not all that far.
He’s almost home. Close enough to see two guys in his front yard hitting a baseball but not close enough to tell if it’s both of his brothers or one brother and a friend. He hears the barking and his stomach falls before he even looks. But he does anyway and that creepy house on the corner where the dogs always bark behind the chain link at everybody. The gate is slanted open and the dogs are pouring around the last fencepost and toward him. Fast so fast and he drops his backpack and he yells once and he starts to run because there’s nothing else to do but run.
The first dog hits him so hard he flips over in the air and doesn’t even know which way home is anymore when he crunches down into the gravel by the side of the road. He curls up into a ball and covers his head and the dog is nipping at him and clawing. Trying to dig him out like he’s an armadillo.
And then he hears a shout. Voice cracking and calling “Hey you stupid dogs!” Garret looks between his arms and sees Jensen on his bike riding down on them. He steps off just before he runs over Garret and the bike falls over on him. The dogs scatter but come back fast. Garret’s covered by the bike and they come at Jensen instead. He swings his school bag in one glorious arc. Hits one of the dogs and it yips startled and hurt. For one second he’s like the hero of some myth Mrs. McGarrigle read to them. The sun in his air and his eyes so wide and fierce.
But no kid could fight all those dogs and at the end of his swing they crush in against them and one jumps up and grabs his arm and shakes and shakes and Jensen screams like nothing Garret’s ever heard before.
He thinks they’re gonna kill Jensen but then his brothers are there and Danny has the baseball bat still in his hand. Some man in a truck screeches up and blows on his horn and the dogs scatter and run.
It’s crazy then. His brothers pulling Jensen’s bike off of him and the man saying “Everybody okay?” over and over again like Garret might have an answer to that. Scraped and scratched in so many places he can’t even tell if any are really bad.
Jensen just starts to walk. Leaves his bike and backpack on the ground and cradles his arm. Garret’s other brother sees him and stops him. Hand on his shoulder and “You don’t look so good, kid.”
That’s when Jensen’s eyes roll up in his head and his knees just fold up and he passes out. The man is calling 911 on his cell phone and Garret can only look at Jensen lying there and think that those dogs could have killed him if Jensen hadn’t gotten in the way. That Jensen didn’t have to, but he did. He figures right then that he’ll do whatever he can to help Jensen from then on and what Jensen seems to need most is a friend.