One of them got on his knees to do it. They took turns. They tried to get me to my feet; I let my body go limp. One of them had to hold me up, but I had become slippery and slid greasily through their fingers back onto the ground. I was still taking a beating, and my head was stunned by strong fists pounding at it, but the pummeling was sloppy, confused. Eventually my plan worked: they gave up. They asked what was wrong with me. They asked me why I wouldn’t fight back. Maybe the truth was I was too busy fighting back tears to be fighting back people, but I didn’t say anything. They spat at me and then left me to contemplate the color of my own blood. Against the white of my shirt, it was a luminous red.

When I got home, I found Dad standing by my bed, staring witheringly at the newspaper clippings on the walls.

“Jesus. What happened to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“No, I want to see what happens to blood when you leave it overnight.”

“Sometimes it turns black.”

“I want to see that.”

I was just about to rip down the pictures of Uncle Terry when Dad said, “I wish you’d take these down,” so of course I kept them right where they were. Then Dad said, “This isn’t who he was. They’ve turned him into a hero.”

Suddenly I found myself loving my degenerate uncle again, so I said, “He is a hero.”

“A boy’s father is his hero, Jasper.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Dad turned and snorted at the headlines.

“You can’t know what a hero is, Jasper. You’ve grown up in a time when that word has been debased, stripped of all meaning. We’re fast becoming the first nation whose populace consists solely of heroes who do nothing but celebrate each other. Of course we’ve always made heroes of excellent sportsmen and -women- if you perform well for your country as a long-distance runner, you’re heroic as well as fast- but now all you need to do is be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like that poor bastard covered by an avalanche.