Rage
Waudby Road CST signal this morning. The shiny scrubbed children in school uniform flow past, all bright hopeful faces, heavy bags and laughing eyes. I’ve just sent my seventeen year old off to school with a reasonably clean face and in a reasonably good mood. His biggest concern today is finishing his chemistry lab work and taking a nap when he gets home – exam stress. The kids on the pavement move on and there he is. He sits leaning against the corner building. The cool old stone walls and he share the same colour palette. Against the black and white stone, he is glistening brown and faded black and grey all over. This too is a sixteen or seventeen year old. With eyes blank and strung out. There is no trace of life in his face. It is immobile, absent, except for his tightlipped mouth sucking hungrily on a beedi. His clothing is a pair of black shorts. His upper body is bare and taut. Every line of muscle is tense. These are not gym bought, just hard work. The shoulders are broad, the arms are finely etched, the fingers holding the beedi long and graceful. A touch and he might explode, there is an angry energy that causes ripples to flow from him, around him. Do the passing children feel the heat? They swirl away, as if repelled by some primitive force. If I were an artist, I would use charcoal to draw him on thick cream hand made paper. He has a handsome face, like a young Medici. The nose is prominent, the unruly hair falls in loose curls. His skin is a dark chocolate, it gleams in the sun. I reluctantly remember another 17 year old with skin just the same, the anger too, in another time, another place.
I stare at this boy. He stares back with an indifference, a disdain so strong I look away. His face remains a blank. The old stones behind him have more life and warmth, I imagine. His crutch is white and propped up against the wall. His left leg is bent at an awkward angle. I realise it is lopped off near the knee just as the light changes and I pull away.