4th or 5th

The musty, green scent of algae on concrete, damp and slick, mingling with the tar up on the roof and down in the teacher’s parking lot.   Slamming double doors expelling turkey gravy and rice filled pre-teens, laughing and shouting their way around two lefts and then right into either echoing locker rooms or bathroom.  Passing both, double doors again, then take care ‘cause the tiles are slick when your rubber soles are wet, lockers slamming, big-kid combos I keep forgetting, and dad’s class on the right by the steps down, only not his class anymore.  Out the front, down the wide steps and through the parted green seas of blue-green to the silent bell still calling children to class, pausing at the sanctuary to shoot a few, minding the puddles but not the rain.  Keeping to the crunch of gravel, not the field – quicker but slicker – dodging ditches and watching for Dangerous Robert Vanzant, scratch that with rocks from the side by the briars and the Jehovah’s Witness’ house, smelling like sewage, to be thrown like little king-to-be David’s.  Sidewalk jumps up from the mud and it’s the home stretch, pool table and filberts on the right, Jesus’ best friend behind, best lawn in the hood to the left.  Jump the fence or run round, either way watch the thorns, and crab grass down the gravel drive (a double bump in the back seat of a cheap car when you’re almost asleep) across the lawn, up the step, left hand the doorknob and hip bump the sticky hinges…home.