Brian Turner – The Unwritten Code

Brian Turner

The Unwritten Code

At the end of the corridor, where concrete gives way
to the grassy expanse of playground, the afternoon 

pours in harsh and flat, and I’m eleven again, I’m always 
eleven when I return to this moment, rendered speechless

once more as I discover the school bully, a 6^th grader, 
whose fists I once witnessed as they rose and fell

into my best friend’s face, which swelled and bled
as he stared wide-eyed into the horror of it, unmoving,

just as bewildered as the rest of us, the same way
I stand with a hall pass in hand now, while Yolanda spins

that bully in circles, her egg-shaped body easy to recognize 
in silhouette, already adult-sized and growing, her hands  

deep in the dome of his hair, locked in, pulling so hard 
he runs as if chasing his own head, the only sound

the soles of his shoes slapping at the concrete until Yolanda
drives his head into the porcelain faucet bolted to the wall.

 *

It’s something like this when we’re sitting in the bleachers. 
Drinking from wax paper cups. Telling each other stories

from way back when. And then that sound. That quick intake
of breath, as 30,000 or more in attendance stop mid-sentence, 

heads on a swivel, eyes locked in as the batter spins, falls, and yes,
there will be fines, of course, suspensions maybe, ejections

from the game, sure, that’s a given, as relief pitchers sprint in
from the outfield grass—because the rules of the game have fallen away,

and the unwritten code demands a response—someone must be drilled
with the ball, and that will bring Rodriguez or Ventura or Arenado

out of the box, helmet off and swinging wildly in the air, the announcer
saying, “Oh, a takedown by Farnsworth, and a couple of haymakers landed,”

and this is how the game is played, this is how we’re taught to play it, 
though it’s never made sense to me, even when I stood at 3^rd, the relay

cut off, no play at the bag, my glove on my thigh as the runner
slid cleats up into me to knock me off my feet, the benches clearing,

all of us in the adult league playing on a hardpan infield in Fresno,
at Roosevelt H.S., off Huntington, my leg bleeding through the uniform.

And I’ve often wondered over the years—what was it
that made him so outright mean, sliding over the bag to send me

airborne, the world upended, the bottom of the inning split open in anger?
I think it must have been boredom. That’s something I can understand. 

That emptiness that just weighs the air down heavy sometimes, 
the ice chests filled with cans of beer just not enough, their bored 

girlfriends fanning themselves in the shade, their bored pit bulls  
panting in the dirt. Same as it ever was. That boredom. That need

to somehow feel alive, to somehow make the moment mean something.
Or maybe it’s shame. Some deep embarrassment that leads us

to inflict pain, pointless and cruel, from way back. That kind of shame.
Maybe that’s what makes it happen. Maybe that’s why.