Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos Page A

blows.”
    I stood still, and felt instantly trapped inside a stage play of rehearsed hostility. I looked from side to side as much as I dared. The anger was so sudden I was afraid to make eye contact with anyone for fear they might make something personal of it. And I couldn’t tell if my courage had evaporated or if it
was common sense that told me to get out of there, so I just asked, “Well, do you have a book I can read, or some material that will explain what your goals are? And then I can understand it all a bit more, and we can talk about it later?”
    â€œWhat’s to understand?” a man sitting to one side asked. “He already told you: the island belongs to the black man, so the black man is going to take what is his and be done with it. We don’t need to make it more clear than that.”
    â€œThank you,” I said, and like some cub reporter I began to scribble a few words down on a small pad of paper. My hand was shaking badly.
    â€œBesides,” the first cut in, “how can we trust you?”
    I didn’t answer.
    But another man did. “Give him a gun,” he suggested. “Give him a gun and let him go out there and shoot a white man dead. Then we’ll trust him.”
    I started to back away.
    â€œYeah. Give him a gun. If he’s on our side, let him show it.”
    â€œI can’t do that,” I said.
    â€œThen here’s some advice,” the same man continued, pointing a finger as black as the barrel of a gun at me. “Don’t be coming in here as if you can play with the big boys. Revolution is serious business. You just turn your white ass around and go back to the white bar you come from and drink a cold
white man’s beer while you can because as the song say, ‘When the revolution comes, Hertz is not going to put you in the driver’s seat.’”
    I knew it, too. “Okay,” I said, turned around and fixed my eyes on the door, and as I walked toward it, I hoped I would make it. And when I did make it, I walked quickly to my car and took off with both hands on the wheel to keep them steady. I drove directly to the all-white bar and ordered a drink. I didn’t know what to do next so I went out back and smoked a joint, then returned and ordered another drink. And another. I should have taken out my journal and written about what had happened. But I was so afraid of the incident I ran from it rather than write it down. Somehow, I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust that my own words would make a difference to anyone, black or white—even if the ink was blood red.
    Â 
    A few nights later Rik stopped by the warehouse. My dad was gone and I guess that was the moment he knew he could talk to me about his big plans. He wanted to pack the crate and have me screw it together, as he didn’t have a screw gun. Before we got busy he pulled out a hash pipe and a piece of hash the size of a candy bar.
    â€œYou mind?” he asked.
    â€œFire it up,” I said.
    He cut off a gram and lit the pipe. He took a big hit and
passed it to me. We went on like this, loudly inhaling and exhaling, until the pipe was finished.
    He went to his car and returned with a stack of square plastic containers about the size of cigar boxes. The edges were sealed with silver duct tape. We both knew they were filled with hash. What else could it be? But I didn’t say anything. He slipped them into the false bottom, wedged them tightly together with wadded-up newspaper, then I screwed down the next layer of plywood. That was it. He didn’t have anything else to send in the rest of the three-foot-square crate.
    â€œSeems odd to ship an empty box,” I ventured, before screwing down the top.
    â€œYeah,” he said.
    I looked around the warehouse for some heavy items. We threw in a bag of concrete, some broken pieces of cast-iron garden statuary, and a twenty-pound ingot of hard tar, then carried it to his