It Hurts
A Relatable Story
I am a young child of indeterminate age showing off with a neighborhood girl, Melissa, in the parking lot outside of her apartment. We’re cracking each other up by goofing on Bill Murray’s “Lean, mean, fighting machine” pep talk to John Candy from the movie Stripes. We keep subbing in various words that rhyme with “lean, mean, machine” and assigning them to the other kids we know from the neighborhood. My little brothers, for instance, become “mean, marine, and never-clean.” Nonsensical hilarity ensues.
Melissa says, “Let’s do April,” and without pause, I say, “She’s a mean, green, not-very-lean, machine!” and we giggle. We don’t notice April’s mom walking back from the laundry room, who overhears what we have just said about her daughter. She marches me by the arm upstairs to my own apartment and bangs on the door. As we wait for my own mother to answer the door, I can see April’s mom’s jowls quivering she’s so filled with rage. My own mother doesn’t show rage, nor does she possess wiggly jowls. This is uncharted territory for me.
My stomach surges with queasy, bilious terror.
April’s mom makes me tell my own mother what I have said, which I do in a small voice that I do not recognize, and I am sent to my room. I burrow deep beneath my covers with all of my clothes on and allow the gushing pangs of regret to spill over…
