Orion, the Hunter

Why is Jimmy running around naked outside, Anne asked herself. It was the middle of the night, another night of insomnia, of half-remembered snatches of dream. She was sitting in the dark on the porch in the warm summer dark. There were still hours before sunrise. Whenever she couldn't sleep, which was more and more these nights, she would come out here and sit on the porch swing that Calvin had hung up the day they had moved in, over thirty years ago. Her son oiled the chain every time he came to visit so it did not creak as she swung back and forth like a pendulum.

The street was quiet, houses full of sleeping families, the children off for the summer; some houses were empty, their owners at the shore or Florida. She had been rocking herself calmly, gazing up into the night, trying to remember all the constellations Calvin had taught her in those first days, lying out in the grass behind the barn, breathless. And then something drew her eye down to earth again.

It was James. Jimmy. The boy from three houses down. He was running, or more accurately, stumbling along the sidewalk, every other step clumping onto the street, then back up onto the curb. He was stark naked. She barely knew his family, but, like all the neighborhood, had heard the stories and rumors about him. For a fourteen year old, Jimmy had a reputation for being, frankly, nearly feral.

He slogged past the walk that led up to her porch. She peered out at him, pale and exposed in the dark. She held her breath, listening; he was muttering to himself as he went by, and as she stared, she saw he was limping, favoring his left leg. She planted her feet on the porch and stopped the swing. Anne stood, the tartan blanket falling to the floor.

In two strides, she was at the top of the porch stairs. James, she called in a loud whisper, a soft shout. He stopped as though he had hit an invisible wall and peered around for the sound of the voice, even looking up for some few seconds, as though heaven had spoken.

She said again, slightly louder, James. Over here. He looked and she waved, beckoning.

He stood frozen for a moment, then came up the walk, imperious like a conqueror. He did not cover himself, and so she saw all of him, his boyish parts and fuzz. He climbed the stairs with head down, and she stepped back as he reached the top.

What is wrong, James, she asked. Jimmy, what's happened?

He looked up at her, and she saw the black eye, the split lip. Mrs. Harper, he asked, as though recognizing her in a strange place. She nodded. James, what's happened, tell me.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and winced.

He came at me again, ma'am, he said, his voice a knife's blade. My dad.