Blackberries

They wanted out and I was to take them. They had been in all year. Black or white, it didn’t matter, they were all pale. Some came up above my waist, some had no hair or huge puffs or neat parts or springy curls. They did what they do when gone from the room: they ran down the halls, they let their bodies flail madly, they kicked, jumped, pinched. Okay, okay, okay, I said. They were never satisfied.

The bus was a grumbling, short thing. They grabbed at each other, yelled, one jumped over a seat. I stood up front, about to talk. The bus driver said, You got this? He helped. We set them. A big overweight man wearing overalls and me. We told them what to do. We let our voice boom over theirs. We made them sit, made them settle, made them shut up. They sat quiet for the ride, but you could feel the explosion waiting.

One of them was across from me and he came and sat next to me and said, This is a bad neighborhood. We were passing through an old mill town. In the distance, a chimney rose above the woods and the horizon. He said there was a light on the top of it and it looked like a big candle at night. A little later he said, This neighborhood is worse. There were apartments all the same brick, a gas station with bars on the windows and doors, a gentle thrum of bass humming from somewhere. He said, My brother got shot over there. He works at Spinx now.

They flew out like birds from fists. The driver ambled down. I said, Single file. I said, Line up. I said, Shortest to tallest. I said, You know the drill, just like at school. Then the driver pointed at them and said, You mind. You hear what he tells you to hear. You look at what he tells you to see. They all looked down while nodding. We walked into the woods, following a trail, single file. The one who told me about the bad neighborhood held my hand. I never been here, he said.

They followed. They wanted to swim in the water. They said, Wish I brought my suit and Nobody told me was gonna be water. We hiked. They touched trees and got back in line, wanted to pick flowers and got back in line, swabbed down spider webs and got back in line. I tried to tell them about trees, butterflies, fish, birds. Then I gave up. What could I teach? I didn’t know.

The forest opened onto a clearing and we walked around it, following the tree line. There was a cluster of blackberries. I stopped at the bush and looked. What’s these? the one holding my hand said. Can you eat them? they said. Did animals eat them? Are they poisonous? Are they safe? I took one from the bush, a black black blackberry. I popped it in. They got out of line and surrounded the tree. They tasted them. They began to pick them. Not too many, I said. They picked the low limbs, the high ones, kneeling or standing on toes. I was taking my share too. I got handfuls and watched them get their own. Everyone gets one each, I said. That’s too many, I said. Slow down, I said. It was like talking to the wind. They devoured the berries, black ones, red ones, ripe, underripe, overripe. So did I. Juice was on their mouths, dripping from chins, staining their shirts. They swarmed like children who were starved all their lives.

When the bush was empty, they said, Thanks for the berries, they were so so good. We went on. The same one took my hand. It was sticky, warm. We walked beneath the trees, beside the water spilling through itself, among the wind moving invisibly, going on, aching to be fed again.