Fiction by Cam Hoang

The neighbors would laughingly comment on Clark's loudness, his aggressive habit of pushing everything in sight, even unmoving objects. How different this blond whirlwind was from me, they'd say, painfully thin and quiet, my black hair cut straight and square. Well, boys will be boys, and girls...just let him be. So I tried.

Our houses lay next to each other, separated only by lawns of St. Augustine, which had been scorched to stubble by the autumn sun. As I watched one afternoon, he tore across his own yard and into mine without hesitation. I had been watering the shaded plants by the side of my house. They were pepper plants, their scarlet fruit glistening among the leaves. Clark stopped short, panting. He scratched a mosquito bite on his leg.

"What's that?" He pointed at the peppers with one finger. His hands and arms were smudged brown, his voice demanding in its loudness. I didn't respond.

"What are those?" He shook my arm. The water hose sprayed an erratic stream across my house's brick wall. He crouched in front of the plants, staring at the fruit. "Can I eat them?" I still didn't respond. He grabbed the largest pepper from the nearest bush and stuffed it into his mouth.

I watched him run howling back to his house, his mouth rounded in a terrified and uncomprehending O. I wanted to run inside, but I was rooted. The side door to Clark's house slid open. His mother Rosemary emerged in her factory uniform, with Clark trailing behind. She saw me, and strode across the lawns. Her shadow fell across me, and I took a step back. She was so tall that when I looked up at her, the sun blinded me. She bent down so that her eyes were level with mine, a breeze blew a wisp of honey-colored hair into her lipstick.

"Do you know what he just ate?" Her voice was benign but stern in its slowness. Clark leaned against her shoulder, sucking his thumb. She enunciated each word through her lips. I pointed at the pepper plants.

"Did you make Clark eat it?" I shook my head. Rosemary straightened herself. She turned to stroke her son's golden hair. "It's alright," she cooed. "It was just a pepper."

"It was hot!" he whimpered.

"Sweetheart, her family eats them all the time. Just remember to stay away from them." Mother and son walked across the garden and disappeared into their house. I turned off the hose.

The next day after school, I looked for my friend Gina, but she was nowhere to be found. So I walked home by myself. After a block, the throngs of kids had thinned to groups of twos and threes. After two blocks, I was alone. The smell of cut grass and humidity rose in the early afternoon heat. As I passed the last house on the corner before my street, the Doberman behind the chain link fence barked ferociously, as usual. I didn't pay any attention, though sometimes it was fun to bait him. I concentrated on the end of the block, and my own thoughts. So I was caught off-guard when a shove nearly sent me sprawling. I turned to see Clark laughing, his mouth still gooey from some half-eaten lollipop, now discarded. He fell into step. Remembering the previous day, I tried to be nice.

"Hi, Clark." There was a long silence. I couldn't think of anything else to say. He tugged at my bulging backpack.

"Whatcha got in here?"

"Books." He started chewing a fingernail and kicked a stray rock in front of him. Then kicked it again as we walked forward.

"Ms. Foster didn't give us any."

"I know. My dad took me to the library." He was trying to spit at a lamppost as we passed it. A terrible smell made us both wrinkle our noses. A few feet from the lamppost was a big pile of dog mess. I stepped away, but Clark seemed fascinated. He crouched down by it, and taking the rock, smeared the mess across its hard whiteness. Now I was staring, too. Still crouching by the mess, Clark looked at me, and a smile crept across his face. I turned to run, but it was too late. Clark leapt up, and taking the rock, smeared it against the back of my denim jumper. My fear turned to rage. I grabbed at his retreating back, but he was too fast. His laughter echoed up and down the block.

I walked quickly the rest of the way home, my face red from the sun and the shame. I passed the emptiness of Clark's driveway, and then my own. Taking out my key to open the door into the garage, an older fear swept away my anger at Clark. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to three, my lucky number, before swinging the door open. Then a sigh of relief. The garage was empty. My parents were still working, and in two hours, they would be home.

My mom worked at the nearby Jack-in-the-Box until she went back to school to become a drafter. Dad made parts for oil rigs. Every year, the company he worked for had its open house, and he would take me to eat cotton candy and hot dogs. He'd show me the rumbling steel press he used to cut and polish machine parts. The machine cut him too, sometimes, and his fingers would be covered in bandages when he came home. Every evening, we ate dinner with the TV turned on to news reports of falling oil prices and lay-offs. Every evening, I tried to swallow fast enough so I wouldn't have to sit and listen to those reports.

After hiding my soiled jumper under a pile of laundry, I watched Bugs Bunny cartoons and waited for my parents to come home. The rage roared back into my mind. I wanted to do things to Clark that were so awful, I couldn't even describe them. I tried imagining him as the Coyote, crushed beneath his own boulders, blown-up with his own dynamite, while I meep-meeped and sped into the sunset. But it wasn't enough. As I prepared for bed that night, I closed my closet door like always, to keep the ghosts from coming out. I hoped Clark would forget to close his. I looked under my bed for good measure. I hoped Clark would forget to look under his. Maybe he would just disappear.

But the next day he was in school, and the next and the next. But towards the end of the month, he stopped laughing and pushing. I would follow him at a safe distance as he walked home all alone. At the corner of our street, I would see him turn into his driveway. His mother's rusty El Camino was parked where before, the driveway was always empty in the early afternoon. It sat there throughout the day now, unused.

Then one weekend came when I heard rumblings from next door. As I looked out my front window, safely sheltered by the lace curtains, moving men came in and out of Clark's house. They carried bureaus, desks, chairs, countless crates, so many things for such a small house. Clark and his mother were nowhere to be seen. Then even the moving men
left. The following week, a paunchy real-estate agent climbed out of his car in front of Clark's house. After hammering
a For Sale sign into the barren yard, he wiped his brow
with a yellowed handkerchief and drove away. Running
out my front door, I saw the beginnings of dusk settle on Clark's house. Its empty windows stared back at me. A dry wind rattled the sign in the barren yard, and I trembled at my own rage.