Knots too tight. No space, so, no air. No way to breathe. No breath.
Second Formers’ yelling comes with lights out, a regular routine each night for the youngest boys in the dorm. But tonight the yells are screams. Hurt coyotes. Coyotes all over San Diego hills when I grew up. Now a crash. And then they’re on my door, boys banging.
They’re coyotes, eyes too big for their sockets, voices too big for mouths.
“Kyle” and “Come on” are some of the words I make out. They start running back the way they came. Running back, they’re quiet. My sneakers, their bare feet on linoleum. Suction on the floor. We’re a herd. We fall in step, recruits, basic training, brothers. Every door is filled with boys looking. We pass Tommy Underwood lying against the wall. Tommy lies rigid, flat out. A boy kneels by him.
“He’s okay,” the boy says.
I’m ahead of the Second Formers, and they say, “Kyle.” And turning the corner to the common area, I see the curtains, the dirty canvas drapes, the insane treatment of Second Formers, animals in stalls, stalls with bed, and so many of us moving so much air, the curtains move into the hall a little, let a space open behind them, let me see the foot of Kyle’s bed. Before I slow down, I see the tie, the Tim-Tim’s maroon-and-gray stripes around the beam, the other tie knotted to the end. The tie around Kyle’s throat digging in, the chair on its side, the tongue, the blue.
And behind me, heavy steps, Alex Jeffers.
“Jesus,” he says, “I’ll lift him. Get the knot.”