March 18, 2025: Jim Edwards, "Growing Up Without Inky"
Growing Up Without Inky by: Jim Edwards (From the Undermountain Review , Fall 1991) Tony and me, we were watching the girls, Cathy and Sarah in the playground. They were showing off, running around the boys. They skipped and their hair bounced and they could shout their happiness the way us boys weren’t supposed to. I look back now, and five was a great age to have been. “That’s skipping!” demanded Incledon. We called him Inky. It wasn’t so difficult to say. Inky hopped. Two feet on the floor. Two feet lifted at the same time. Two feet returned to the same spot. He hopped. The war between Inky and the rest of us waged every week from Monday to Friday at school, but sometimes Inky would come to Sunday School and then we could kick him when he had the right answers – he always sat in the front row and we could whack him if we swung our legs. Inky had new boxing gloves, but Tony had beaten him up behind the garages. Tony only had an old left glove, but he beat Inky’s new shiny red pa...