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CL Bledsoe
John was the only kid with worse
cursive writing than me. We had
to sit in the corner and practice
in our workbooks while everyone
else played. I got through it by tracing
my letters. He’d just grin and make noise.
We never called him slow. There’d
been several like him, still in regular
classes, but the teachers weeded them out
when they could. One kid made it
to junior high and ran down the hall
yelling, “Accident!” when he soiled himself.
Once, John lost a whole tooth—root
and everything—in the back of class.
It was the coolest thing, but I was
the only one who wanted to see it.
We came back from lunch, another day,
and he’d eaten the whole class’s supply
of glue and had to go to the nurse.
When it rained, we’d play inside, and I
was the only one who’d play with John,
or maybe he was the only one who’d play
with me. The big table was home base.
We couldn’t run, but we could walk
fast. I sat on the edge, and the thing flipped.
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