Flagged Victor by Keith Hollihan

streets of ourneighbourhood that night looking for us, catching no one. We were proud of that escape, and I tried not to allow the extreme heroic lengths Chris and I went to in order to avoid capture be diminished by the fact that everyone got away no matter what route they took.
    Here’s the truth: I didn’t run into Chris down by the lock. He clung to the edge by himself and stayed hidden and dry until he decided to swim across the lake on his own. I did not know he was there. In my panic, I fled by myself through the swamp. At one point, I lost my footing and fell hard, splitting my chin on a tree root or rock. I stumbled up, dizzy and teary-eyed, and tried to slow down, but I was afraid—I felt like something dark and evil was trying to stop me from getting away. Believing that I needed to get out of the woods immediately, I fought my way through tree branches to the street that cupped Oathill Lake.
    I was covered in mud, I’d been flayed by branches, and I was holding my bleeding chin. The whole thing had been a game of hide-and-seek gone terribly wrong. Despite the seriousness of the trouble we’d summoned, in my mind, I was dismissing all consequence by simply giving up, the way you do when you decide you no longer want to play something. That’s a decision fraught with weight when you’re a child. When you play with other kids, there’s a tacit assumption that rules are not to be trifled with, that they’re sacred. When you give up—because the game has gotten too rough or you’re not being treated fairly or you’re insufficiently in command—you’re doing violence tothe shared fantasy world, destroying it in a way, and betraying everyone else who wants it to continue. But I didn’t give a shit anymore. I was going home.
    I didn’t see the police car parked in the shadows until I was halfway up the street. It bleeped its siren and burst its blue and reds. I stood there, paralyzed, sick with the sudden understanding that some acts do indeed have consequences, that the real world will intrude on the world of delusion. I also realized in that moment that there was something wrong with me, some mental defect that had allowed my brain to ignore reality, to consider real life just another version that could be dismissed or embraced at my choosing. I raised my trembling hands into the air as you are supposed to, at least according to all the movies I’d ever seen, and a policeman in the front seat shined a flashlight on me. He saw the mess I was in and told me to get into the back. I think he was going to cuff me until he decided I needed a free hand to hold a pile of tissues.
    That was Officer Drury. He spoke quietly into his radio and told whoever was listening that he had picked one up. Meaning one of us. Meaning me. A voice mumbled something back. Officer Drury didn’t say much for a long time after that. We sat in the car, him in the driver’s seat, me in the cage, and waited for another lost idiot to wander out of the woods. But no one did. I was the only one. I began to shake, as if very cold, and my nose ran and I sniffed and fought to keep my crying sounds quiet. I knew my life was over. Officer Drury knew it too, but he had clearly seen lives end before.
    Then he broke the silence and spoke to me as directly and honestly as anyone had ever done. The conversation has neverleft my brain. Not the words, exactly. But the inquisition. The stark assessment of my worth. It’s still in there, rattling around, working its way through many otherwise unrelated moments of conscience and shame.
    What’s your name?
    I told him.
    Where do you live?
    I told him.
    You realize how stupid it was to operate a chainsaw in the woods in the middle of the night?
    I said yes. Because I did realize it now, acutely.
    How many of you were there?
    I told him.
    What are the names of the other boys?
    I told him.
    You all live around here?
    I said, No. Some of us do.
    I’m going to take you home. Your parents need to drive