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My Friend
go into these frightening rages and they nearly always ended with all
parties involved getting hurt. One day we were swimming alone in
his pool and for some reason he was mad at me. I was cornered in
the deep end against the wall and he was pushing down on me. His
teeth were gritted and he wouldn’t let go. I was struggling to stay
above water and I was trying to grab the edge of the pool to pull
myself up. I’ve never felt so scared in my life; after all, what kind of
friend tries to drown you? He still swears that it never happened. It’s
like the person that tried to drown me was some stranger that I only
see in fleeting flashes and glimpses, like a tiger in the trees.
There was a time when he was talking to me and he said: ‘When I
get angry everything goes blank.’ It’s funny that the colour white is
meant to be associated with peace and calm, but really I think that it
represents anger.
A couple of months ago we tried to build another cubby house
but it wasn’t really the same. Maybe it was that I was too big to crawl
around under coffee tables. It could have been that we kept fighting
and arguing. Or maybe it was that I’d grown up. Either way, the
blankets still smelled like pee.
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