Adam Fieled (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania): "Harrisburg"

I’d always noticed the pronounced, large squareness
of her forehead, giving her a thoughtful (philosophical?) look. Then,
the cascade of black waves, thicker than average neck,
medium build. Tall— strapping, even. She paced in
front of me, my cheap luggage, as blistering sunlight singed the Harrisburg
bus terminal, without acknowledging me directly. I
knew for a fact— she was not an undergraduate at PSU.
She could only have been here, in Central Pa, tracking me.
The years of my childhood and adolescence in Cheltenham,
she’d been an indifferent presence. I had, as I well knew,
been a reprobate to her and her kith and kin, but for
abstruse reasons. As of this summer day, I continued
not to care. Except to say, that the School District
and its minions should have known better, belabored zero into sub-zero—

“as if, Adam; as if I had any idea how to handle
you, or us, or what Cheltenham had turned into
by then. You: always special, always different,
always such a fierce disruption against our lives.
Remember— I never liked you much anyway.
There’s no room for special people where I
come from. What’s special is the order of
who gets placed where when, and why. So, as I
followed you out that stupid door, it’s with
no special anything. Philosophy? Where I
come from, it’s this: where you come from is
who you are, whether you like it or not. You
were lower than us, lower, and still are, you little shit—
and that luggage you had was pretty cheap, wasn’t it?”

© Adam Fieled 2017-2026