The Pothole on Kentucky Avenue

During an after-school race, a little boy finds someone who needs his help.

Photo by Matt Hoffman on Unsplash

Mama says they should fix the pothole on Kentucky Avenue. She says one of these days somebody’s gonna blow a tire driving over it. But I hope they leave it.

When it rains, that pothole fills right up like a magic portal reflecting the sky. And when I jump in to travel through the portal to where the dragons live, the water splashes up above my rainboots.

One time, when I was playing in the pothole after school, I found a worm so long that it reached from my hand almost up to my elbow.

And, most important of all, the pothole on Kentucky Avenue is where I found Tuck.

It happened this one day in September. That’s my birthday month, which is how I know for sure it was September.

My friend Alex ran and caught up to me after school dismissal.

“Hey, ReeJon –” He calls me ReeJon on account of my name being Henry John Woods. When I was a baby, mama says she tried real hard to get everyone to call me Henry John, but that didn’t last long in a little town like ours. Henry just kinda smooshed into John until even my mama gave up and started calling me ReeJon.

Alex shoved my shoulder and grinned. “Race you to the fence.”

I was nice and let him get a teeny bit of a head start, but I still won. I might be short, but I’m fast.

Most of the kids disappeared pretty quick after the bell rang, so we had Kentucky Avenue to ourselves. Well, almost to ourselves.

Malachy Richards clomped up behind us with his nasty, sour face. He always looked mad. He was a fourth grader, and big, and he yelled at everybody, even teachers. I started to walk away, but Alex turned around.

“Hey Malachy, wanna race?”

Malachy scowled at us. “I don’t wanna play with you babies.”

“ReeJon can run real fast. Betcha you can’t beat him.”

I kicked Alex in the leg. Not real hard, just enough to let him know I thought he had terrible, very bad ideas sometimes.

Malachy didn’t smile, but his frown got smaller. “I can beat anybody. Especially a baby like you.”

Up close, I could see a splotchy spot, kinda green, under Malachy’s eye. I pointed at it, even though I know it’s not nice to point. “What happened to your eye?”

“Nothing.” Malachy’s voice got loud real fast. Everything Malachy said, even the little sentences, sounded angry.

Alex set the finish line. First one to the gate between school property and the neighborhood was the winner. The route ran right over the Kentucky Avenue pothole.

Alex yelled out in his loudest, most official voice, “On your marks –”

I got down low, with one hand on the ground, so I’d be ready to run. Malachy didn’t. He glared at me and just stood there, like he didn’t want to look too interested.

“Get set –”

Malachy pulled his hands out of his pockets, but he didn’t get in a ready pose like me..

“Go!”

I was off and running before Malachy even took his first step. Patches of green and orange flashed by me as the trees turned into a September blur. My feet pounded the street, and I could feel the wind on my big toe where it poked out of my left shoe.

I came up on the Kentucky Avenue pothole. As I jumped – one foot forward, like those runners in the Olympics – a little white face peeked out at me from inside the pothole.

A kitten?

My feet hit the asphalt on the other side. I kept running. Behind me, Malachy’s furious breaths chugged like a train.

I touched the cold metal of the gate.

“Made it!” I turned around to see how far Malachy was behind me.

Malachy’s fist came flying from nowhere, and he punched the noisy chain link fence just beside my face.

I ducked away out of his reach.

He didn’t say words, just angry grunting noises. He hit, kicked, spat on the fence. I turned to Alex. His eyes were wide open, and his eyebrows reached almost up to his hair.

Malachy spun around, looking for something else to hit. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t hit me ‘cause there were two of us and only one of him, but I stayed back anyway.

A tiny little meow came from the pothole. The kitten’s white ears poked up from inside the hole, and his nose twitched as he stuck it out in the air.

Malachy’s eyes snapped onto the kitten, and my stomach went cold.

He stomped toward it, his face hard as a rock.

“Don’t hurt it!” I did sound like a baby then, like a scared, crying baby.

Malachy kicked one big foot, and the kitten flew out of the pothole with a high, pathetic screech. It landed on its side and scurried into the grass.

Malachy charged at the tiny cat.

“I’m gonna tell my mom on you!” Alex turned tail and ran toward the gate.

Malachy lifted his foot to stomp down hard on the baby cat.

I didn’t run for my house. I ran at Malachy.

I put my head down and caught him right in the gut with my shoulder.

We both fell, and he screamed. Not a scared scream. A mad one, an embarrassed one. A scream that was raw and deep like the gash I got on my leg when I skidded on gravel last summer and got little pieces of rock stuck into my bloody skin. His scream sounded how my body felt that day, like he was screaming about a whole lot more than the race and the kitten.

I was pretty sure Malachy would hit me for real this time, and not the fence, if he could catch me. He jumped up and started toward me, his face red and his eyebrows one tight black line.

I scooped up the kitten into my arms and ran. I ran past the pothole, past the gate, past Alex’s house, with its screen door still swinging.

Malachy screamed the words that get him sent to the principal’s office, and I thought, for a second, that maybe he was crying.

I ran down the street to the corner, hugging the kitten’s warm little body to my chest.

When I got to the big tree on Nevada Street, I stopped and looked around me. I didn’t see Malachy anywhere.

I held the kitten out and inspected it.

He tucked one of his paws in close to his body, but he didn’t whine or cry like he was hurt. He stared at me with big black eyes, like he was inspecting me too.

That’s when I had my idea. It was a perfect idea, really, ‘cause it was almost my birthday. Mama couldn’t say no if it was for my birthday.

“I’ll call you Kentucky, after Kentucky Street,” I told him. “Tuck for short.”