"Gym Class" by Dawn Corrigan (reprise from April 2011)

The students sat in crooked rows on the floor of the gymnasium, dressed in their gym uniforms. The boys wore blue shorts and gold T-shirts. The girls wore one-piece suits consisting of solid blue shorts and a short-sleeved top with narrow blue and white stripes.

The striped tops called to mind Handi Wipes, a cleaning cloth product. The gym suits seemed to be made of the same unidentifiable material as the Handi Wipes—lightweight, yet vaguely unpleasant.

There was something demeaning about being dressed like a cleaning product, thought the girl who sat in the second spot of the second row of students. Squads, these rows were called.

The girl in squad two didn’t like gym. She was myopic and clumsy, and didn’t excel at any of the activities. However, her dislike wasn’t fierce or desperate. Perhaps this was because she spent more time in her head, where her daydreams were vivid and entertaining, than in her body. It would be years before she learned to look at people’s bodies to understand their character.

The girl had a vocabulary but didn’t yet know how to use it. Her syntax needed work. In thinking about the gym suit, she didn’t actually construct the sentence, “There was something demeaning about being dressed like a cleaning product.” Instead, her sequence of thoughts was more like this: Gym suit | blue stripes | Handi Wipes | Ugh.

While she waited to find out what activity the gym teachers had planned, an unpleasant sound penetrated her daydream. It came from squad three, where Vicki Gleason was tormenting Laura Broome.

In a low but firm voice, Vicki explained to Laura how she was a big stupid freak and nobody liked her. The girl in squad two shook off her daydream. Vicki told Laura how ugly she was.

Laura’s face was red. “Shut up, Vicki,” she said. It was a plea.

“You shut up,” Vicki said. The girl in squad two found it curious. Vicki was small and squat. Laura was tall, and looked strong. She should have been able to squash Vicki like a bug. Perhaps if they were boys. But for a female bully, size didn’t matter.

Not that the girl in squad two thought of it this way, not yet. Her thoughts were more like Vicki | Ugh.

“Leave her alone, Vicki.” She hadn’t intended to speak. Several heads swiveled toward her.

“Are you going to make me?”

The girl in squad two could feel herself trembling. Quit it. “If necessary.”

“I’m calling you out then. The ballpark after school. I’ll kick your ass.”

“Fine.”

Then it was quiet for a while. It was quiet for so long the girl in squad two slipped back into her daydream.

Then Vicki said, “You know what else, Laura? You smell.”

The girl in squad two looked at Laura. She looked resigned.

“I said, leave her alone.”

And for the duration of gym class, at least, Vicki did.

* * *

Dawn Corrigan writes short fiction, long fiction, nonfiction, poems, short plays, and other miscellany. Her work has appeared in print and online journals including Poetry, The Paris Review, Exquisite Corpse, Dogzplot, Monkeybicycle, Pindeldyboz, Wigleaf and 3711 Atlantic. From 2006 until 2009 she blogged at The Nervous Breakdown. She’s currently on hiatus from Girls with Insurance, where she served as an associate editor. Dawn lives in the Pensacola, FL area.

(Bill's add):  "I first encountered Dawn and her writing when editing a small online journal called 3711Atlantic. She sent me a couple of pieces, and I liked their edge and inventive quality, pieces like "Under the Powerlines." Dawn was generous to share some of her writing here. Her page has had far more hits than anything else on Garage Papers."