“Alvin?” a voice from the shadows called out.
I’m ashamed to say that I screamed like a little girl. Really I did, but come on, wouldn’t you? However, I didn’t run; I wanted to, but my legs wouldn’t work. I looked through the falling snow in the general direction the voice had come from. I was so pleased to see Larry walking toward me.
“Damn-it Larry!” I said, not caring if I cussed in front of him, “You scared the shit out of me!”
“What the heck are you doing out here at this time of the morning?” I asked him.
He laughed a bit, “I was going to ask you the same thi…”, but he suddenly stopped in mid-sentence. He pointed down at my pants and chuckled self pleasingly, “My Alvin, didn’t you wear your diapers to school again today?”
“What?” I squawked in disbelief for what he had just said and it only got worse when I looked down and saw the blatant wet streak that ran down the inside of both pant legs.
I was frantically trying to think of what to do when, without any warning, Larry jumped on me and began punching and clawing me.
“What the…!” I shouted as the two of us collapsed to the snow covered ground with him on top of me.
He had the element of surprise on his side, but somehow, in the first few seconds of our scuffle, I had flipped us both over so that I was sitting lopsided on his stomach. He’d got in several good punches to my face and my bottom lip was bleeding like a faucet, but I got my fair share of blows in too.
“Fucker! Get off me!” He shouted while trying to protect his face with his arms and hands.
He tried to roll me off, but as he rolled left, his nose became unprotected and I landed a left handed punch right on target. Larry screamed and became even more violent, swinging and kicking wildly. Somehow, his knee made contact with my ear and I was sent tumbling off him. I landed face down in the snow and when I lifted my head I could see my own crimson blood staining the white virgin snow.
Sounding like some kind of crazed wild animal, Larry screamed again and I flipped myself over just in time to see him hanging in midair, seconds away from pouncing on me. There was barely enough time for me to lift both of my knees and catch him right in the stomach. His momentum forced him to continue to flip over and land on his back directly above my head. Despite how much I was hurting and bleeding, I still was able to jump right back to my feet with both fists raised, ready for him to attack again. However, Larry didn’t attack again.
He was lying on the ground looking directly up into the now heavily falling snow. Both arms were wrapped around his middle and he was gasping for air like a fish out of water. When he had collided with my knees, every bit of air had been knocked out of him.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I shouted as blood sprayed from my bleeding mouth.
I wanted to jump on him while he was incapacitated and just beat on him some more, but I didn’t.
My backpack was hanging from one shoulder strap. The other had been ripped off near the top and was dangling by my left leg.
Bleeding all over my coat, I turned toward the entrance of the park, preparing to leave Larry behind. I knew I would get to school way too early for anyone else to be there, but I also knew that I couldn’t go back to my grandparent’s home, not after what had happened there the night before. At any rate, I needed help and the school nurse was the only one that came to mind. As I was turning to go, Larry groaned and then he began to cry loudly. I guess he got his breath back. There was something in the way he was screaming that made me think, that something was really wrong and then I saw his right leg. It was partially buried in the snow, which is why I hadn’t noticed it before. His leg was wedged between two small tree trunks and was bent in a way legs are not supposed to bend. That’s when I saw the blood. Man there was so much blood soaking the leg of his pants.