The Meadow 159 “Don’t get smart!” Suddenly my knees collapse. Paul Blocker reaches out and grabs me with his right hand before I hit the frozen dirt. Then he turns me around, grasps me by my brown belt and propels me toward the Green Wasp which sits idling behind us, the driver’s door open. He opens the passenger door and shoves me inside. After uttering something I can’t understand, he starts the engine and takes the Green Wasp along the dirt road lining the shed rows. He stops in front of barn 12 B, gets out, opens the door and yanks me from the seat. I get lifted up each step until we get to the top. I can feel his fist in my back as his forearm pushes me along the balcony where I can still hear the voices of the families who had left their rooms to hear me sing. One older woman has stuck her head out the door to stare. When she sees Paul Blocker, she quickly slams the door. Paul Blocker uses his master key to open the door of my room. He switches the light on as we enter. “It’s freezing in here!” he says. Balancing me with his fist wrapped around my belt, he punches the heat button with his left hand. “Sometimes the heater stops and I can’t get it going again,” I say to him. “I wrote the repair request last week and put it on your desk.” “That would be pure Paul Blocker luck. Save you from freezing to death just to find you dead from hypothermia in your own room. Then it’s my fault.” Paul looks around. “You can’t sleep here,” he says. He pauses about as long as I hold a note at the end of the National Anthem. “Get going, Villalobos,” he finally commands. We leave my room, descend the stairs and climb into the Wasp.
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