Brian Wallace Baker

Sharper On Flesh Than Wood

It happened at church, on a weeknight, on the basketball court. We boys had just finished a Boy Scout meeting and were shooting hoops. Whatever the girls’ activity was that night, it had involved balloons. They filed into the gym with their balloons and crashed our game with their good looks. We were just beginning to notice their swelling chests, their first attempts at make-up. We liked them but didn’t understand why. We only knew we wanted their attention, wanted to be their friends. 

Jared thought he’d be cool and flirty and try to pop Gabby’s big yellow balloon. He galloped around the gym after her, Gabby squeal-laughing, Jared taunt-laughing. Sometimes he grazed the squeaky surface of the balloon with his fingertips, and once with a ballpoint pen, but the balloon didn’t pop. 

“If only I had a needle,” Jared said.

“Here! I’ve got a needle,” I blurted, pulling my lock-blade pocket knife from my pocket. It was one of the few times I was able to crack a joke on the spot instead of coming up with it hours after everyone had gone home. It was invigorating, even if it was a dumb joke. And Jared laughed—an actual, genuine laugh. 

I wasn’t a popular kid at church. As a homeschooler, I couldn’t commiserate with the other boys about their schools losing football games or their teachers sending them to the principal’s office. I didn’t listen to their music or watch their movies. I didn’t wear Nike, or Adidas, or Vans. I didn’t hunt deer or ride dirt bikes. No matter how much I practiced layups at home, the other boys rarely passed me the ball. When I spoke, I often wondered why they couldn’t hear me, if I needed to speak louder. But that night Jared heard me, and he reached for my knife.

*

The lock-blade was a gift from my parents for my tenth birthday, along with other camping equipment: a waterproof container for matches, a small red tent, and a compass. The knife was by far the most useful gift. With its broad three-inch blade, it seemed more adult than my generic Swiss Army knives, which never impressed anyone, and it more closely resembled what the other boys sometimes carried clipped to their pockets. For three years, I used my lock-blade to carve stick swords, bows and arrows, hiking sticks, and lopsided little figurines. I also cut rope and leather to make slings; the David vs. Goliath kind that even my scrawny arm could use to send stones humming a hundred yards. 

But it was a cheap knife—from Walmart—and it never felt sharp enough. My uncle showed me how to spit on a whetstone and rub the blade against it in a circular motion. My dad preferred water and straight strokes. I used both. In Boy Scouts, I learned that a dull knife was more dangerous than a sharp one. A dull knife could resist, then slip, as my lock-blade sometimes did. It was always sharper on flesh than on wood. I still have scars.

*

Jared took my knife. Now he was in on the joke. We shared something, and finally had something in common. He opened the knife. Gutsy. I wished I was that gutsy. I also wished he would stop. Something about the click of the blade was all wrong. Jared approached Gabby, then jabbed at her balloon. 

This was not what we learned in Boy Scouts. We learned that anyone within the radius of arm-plus-blade was too close. I knew this. I thought Jared knew it. But I also thought Jared was cool for pushing boundaries, for doing something dangerous. This is how you flirt; this is how you fit in.

I still remember the pop of that big yellow balloon, how it pressurized the air, reverberated off the walls. Gabby squealed, as girls often did when startled. Making a girl feign fear was the ultimate form of flirting. But the game ended there. There was no retaliation, no quippy comeback. Just an awful silence that filled the seconds as Gabby looked down at her hand.

“You cut me,” she said. Clutching her hand, she ran out of the gym, leaving a withered husk of latex on the floor. Jared stood there, a blank smile frozen on his face. Then it melted. Quietly, he closed the knife, dropped it into my hand like a rotting banana peel, and ran out of the gym.

Gabby cried in the bathroom with the arm of an adult leader around her shoulder, her hand wrapped in blood-soaked paper towels. Jared, also crying, curled up on the foyer couch and refused to speak to anyone. I wandered the empty halls, not knowing why I felt so ashamed for something I hadn’t done. 

When I got home, I avoided my parents and slunk into my bedroom. Maybe I read a book on my bed. Maybe I listened to The Return of the King soundtrack. Maybe I played with my LEGO collection that I was beginning to sense was no longer cool. I don’t remember what I did. I only remember the phone ringing, Mom answering, saying no, she hadn’t heard what happened, oh, really? She was sorry, she could pay for Gabby’s stitches, no, she knew that’s not why she called, yes, she would talk to him, yes, she understood, she was truly sorry.

I heard the phone beep off, then Mom thumping up the stairs to my bedroom, knocking on my door.

I don’t remember her raising her voice at me or punishing me or telling me not to take my knife to church anymore. I just remember the cold edge of her gaze, her furrowed brow, her jaw protruding sharply as she searched for words to house her disappointment. I felt so small, so condemned, so unsure of why.