Can I Sit with You?

by Laura Eleanor Holloway
Age at the time: somewhere between 6 and 9

Everyone just called her Bullet.

Blond hair cut like a boys –- rumor was she had no mother,
Which seemed to explain the fact that her favorite toy was a hammer.
And not some hollow yellow plastic PlaySkool job that squeaked as you hit plastic pegs. No,
Bullet’s hammer was the real deal,
Straight from Heckinger’s –- “the world’s most unusual lumberyard.”

That day, the six swings were full of hostages:
Twelve legs brown with dirt and sun,
Twelve tender palms freckled with stinging rusty equal signs,
Twelve open-toed shoes dragging despondent trails in the soft dry dust as
Bullet made the rounds:

“Do you like me?”
Her hammer poised menacingly above timid knees,
There was only one way to answer the question.

Occasionally, as she moved down the line,
Someone would make a break for it and
Bullet, hammer-wielding Thor-ling,
Would chase them back to the swing set
And ask again:

“Do you like me?”
“Yes, Bullet.”

I had a lot of time to think
While the other five children were lying to Bullet.
Didn’t her father see from the window what his daughter was doing?
Why didn’t he stop her?
Take away that hammer?

“Do you like me?”
“Yes, Bullet.”

As she got a few children away, I whispered to Kathy:
“The only way we’re gonna get to leave is if someone tells her no.”
Kathy’s eyes grew wide in horror:
“But… she’ll hit you!”
“I know. Shhh.”

“Do you like me?”