This is the writer's voice, new fiction from the New Yorker. I'm Deborah

Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice we'll hear David Rabe read his story

Things We W worried About when I was 10 from the February 3rd 2020 issue of the magazine.

Rabe, a fiction writer, playwright, and screenwriter is the author of more than a dozen plays

including the Tony Award-winning Sticks and Bones, in the Boom Boom Room and Hurley Burley.

His novels include recital of The Dog and Girl by the Road at Night.

Now here's David Rabe.

Things We W worried About when I was 10.

High on the list was trying not to have the older boys decide to de-pants you

and then run your pants up the flagpole, leaving you in your underwear and

may be bloodied if you struggled. Not that it helped because they were bigger and

stronger and your pants flapping way up against the sky over the school yard.

They mostly did this to Freddie Bird.

Nobody knew why, but it happened a lot.

It was best to get away from him when they started to get into that mood.

There, let's de-pant somebody mood.

Oh, there's Freddie Bird.

You can see them thinking it.

You had to slip sideways, not in an obvious way, but as if you were drifting

for no real reason. Or maybe the wind was shoving you and you weren't really paying attention. most important you did not want to meet

eyes with them not one of them because they could change their mind in a flash

if they noticed you as they would if you met their eyes.

...