The Chase

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In this chapter from her autobiography, An American Childhood, Dillard leads us running desperately through snow filled backyards. !ike all of Dillard"s writing, this romp shows an unparalleled enthusiasm for life and skill at e#pressing it.
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Some boys taught me to play football. This was fine sport. You thought up a new strategy for every play and whispered it to the others. You went out for a pass, fooling everyone. Best, you got to throw yourself mightily at someones running legs. ither you brought him down or you hit the ground flat on your !hin, with your arms empty before you. "t was all or nothing. "f you hesitated in fear, you would miss and get hurt# you would ta$e a hard fall while the $id got away, or you would get $i!$ed in the fa!e while the $id got away. But if you flung yourself wholeheartedly at the ba!$ of his $nees%if you gathered and &oined a body and soul and pointed them diving fearlessly%then you li$ely wouldnt get hurt, and you stop the ball. Your fate, and your teams s!ore, depended on your !on!entration and !ourage. 'othing girls did !ould !ompare with it.
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Boys wel!omed me at baseball, too, for " had, through enthusiasti! pra!ti!e, what was weirdly $nown as a boys arm. "n winter, in the snow, there was neither baseball nor football, so the boys and " threw snowballs at passing !ars. " got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happier sin!e.
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*n one wee$day morning after +hristmas, si, in!hes of new snow had &ust fallen. -e were standing up to our boot tops in snow on a front yard on traffi!$ed .eynolds Street, waiting for !ars. The !ars traveled .eynolds Street slowly and evenly/ they were targets all but wrapped in red ribbons, !ream puffs. -e !ouldnt miss.
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" was seven/ the boys were eight, nine, and ten. The oldest two 1ahey boys were there%2i$ey and 3eter%polite blond boys who lived near me on 4loyd Street, and who already had four brothers and sisters. 2y parents approved 2i$ey and 3eter 1ahey. +hi!$ie 2!Bride was there, a tough $id, and Billy 3aul and 2a!$ie 5ean too, from a!ross .eynolds, where the boys grew up dar$ and furious, grew up s$inny, $nowing, and s$illed. -e had all drifted from our houses that morning loo$ing for a!tion, and had found it here on .eynolds Street.
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"t was !loudy but !old. The !ars tires laid behind them on the snowy street a !omple, trail of beige !hun$s li$e !renellated !astle walls. " had stepped on some earlier/ they s7uea$ed. -e !ould have wished for more traffi!. -hen a !ar !ame, we all popped it one. "n the intervals between !ars we reverted to the natural solitude of !hildren.
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" started ma$ing an i!eball%a perfe!t i!eball, from perfe!tly white snow, perfe!tly spheri!al, and s7uee9ed perfe!tly translu!ent so no snow remained all the way through. :The 1ahey boys and " !onsidered it unfair a!tually to throw an i!eball at somebody, but it had been $nown to happen.;
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" had &ust embar$ed on the i!eball pro&e!t when we heard tire !hains !ome !lan$ing from afar. A bla!$ Bui!$ was moving toward us down the street. -e all spread out, banged together some regular snowballs, too$ aim, and, when the Bui!$ drew nigh, fired.
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A soft snowball hit the drivers windshield right before the drivers fa!e. "t made a smashed star with a hump in the middle.
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*ften, of !ourse, we hit our target, but this time, the only time in all of life, the !ar pulled over and stopped. "ts wide bla!$ door opened/ a man got out of it, running. ?e didnt even !lose the !ar door.
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?e ran after us, and we ran away from him, up the snowy .eynolds sidewal$. At the !orner, " loo$ed ba!$/ in!redibly, he was still after us. ?e was in !ity !lothes# a suit and tie, street shoes. Any normal adult would have 7uit, having spring us into flight and made his point. This man was gaining on us. ?e was a thin man, all a!tion. All of a sudden, we were running for our lives.
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-ordless, we split up. -e were on our turf/ we !ould lose ourselves in the neighborhood ba!$yards, everyone for himself. " paused and !onsidered. veryone had vanished e,!ept 2i$ey 1ahey, who was &ust rounding the !orner of a

yellow bri!$ house. 3oor 2i$ey, " trailed him. The driver of the Bui!$ sensibly pi!$ed the two of us to follow. The man apparently had all day.
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?e !hased 2i$ey and me around the yellow house and up a ba!$yard path we $new by heart# under a low tree, up a ban$, through a hedge, down some snowy steps, and a!ross the gro!ery stores delivery driveway. -e smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a s!ruffy ba!$yard and ran around its ba!$ por!h and tight between houses to dgerton Avenue/ we ran a!ross dgerton to an alley and up our own sliding woodpile to the ?alls front yard/ he $ept !oming. -e ran up 4loyd Street and wound through ma9y ba!$yards toward the steep hilltop at -illard and 4ang.
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?e !hased us silently, blo!$ after blo!$. ?e !hased us silently over pi!$et fen!es through thorny hedges, between houses, around garbage !ans, and a!ross streets. very time " glan!e ba!$, !ho$ing for breath, " e,pe!ted he would have 7uit. ?e must have been as breathless as we were. ?is &a!$et strained over his body. "t was an immense dis!overy, pounding into my hot head with every sliding, &oyous step, that this ordinary adult evidently $new what " thought only !hildren who trained at football $now# that you have to fling yourself at what youre doing, you have to point yourself, forget yourself, aim, dive.
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2i$ey and " had nowhere to go in our own neighborhood or out of it, but away from this man who was !hasing us. ?e impelled us forward/ we !ompelled him to follow our route. The air was !old/ every breath tore my throat. -e $ept running, blo!$ after blo!$/ we $ept improvising, ba!$yard after ba!$yard, running a franti! !ourse and !hoosing it simultaneously, failing always to find small pla!es or hard pla!es to slow him down, and dis!overing always, e,hilarated, dismayed, that only bare speed !ould save us%for he would never give up, this man%and we were losing speed.
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?e !hased us through the ba!$yard labyrinths of ten blo!$s before he !aught us by our &a!$ets. ?e !aught us and we all stopped.
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-e three stood staggering, half blinded, !oughing, in an obs!ure hilltop ba!$yard# a man in his twenties, a boy, a girl. ?e had released our &a!$ets, our pursuer, our !aptor, our hero# ?e $new we werent going anywhere. -e all played by the rules. 2i$ey and " un9ipped our &a!$ets. " pulled off my sopping mittens. *ur tra!$s multiplied in the ba!$yards new snow. -e had been brea$ing new snow all morning. -e didnt loo$ at ea!h other. " was !herishing my e,!itement. The mans lower pants legs were wet/ his !uffs were full of snow, and there was a prow of snow beneath them on his shoes and so!$s. Some trees bordered the little flat ba!$yard, some messy winter trees. There was no one around# a !learing in a grove, and we the only players.
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"t was a long time before he !ould spea$. " had some diffi!ulty at first re!alling why we were there. 2y lips felt swollen " !ouldnt see out of the sides of my eyes/ " $ept !oughing.
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AYou stupid $ids,B he began perfun!torily.

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-e listened perfun!torily indeed, if we listened at all, for the !hewing out was redundant, a mere formality, and beside the point. The point was that he had !hased us passionately without giving up, and so he had !aught us. 'ow he !ame down to earth. " wanted the glory to last forever.
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But how !ould the glory have lasted foreverC -e !ould have run through every ba!$yard in 'orth Ameri!a until we got to 3anama. But when he trapped us at the lip of the 3anama +anal, what pre!isely !ould he have done to prolong the drama of the !hase and !ap its gloryC " brooded about this for the ne,t few years. ?e !ould only have fried 2i$ey 1ahey and me in boiling oil, say, or dismembered us pie!emeal, or sta$ed us to anthills. 'one of whi!h " really wanted, and none of whi!h any adult was li$ely to do, even in the sprit of fun. ?e !ould only !hew us out there in the 3anamanian &ungle, after months or years of e,alting pursuit. ?e !ould only begin, AYou stupid $ids,B and !ontinue in his ordinary 3ittsburgh a!!ent with his normal righteous anger and the usual !ommon sense.
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"f in that snowy ba!$yard the driver of the bla!$ Bui!$ had !ut off our heads, 2i$eys and mine, " would have died happy, for nothing has re7uired so mu!h of me sin!e as being !hased all over 3ittsburgh in the middle of winter%running terrified, e,hausted%by this sainted s$inny, furious redheaded man who wished to have a word with us. " dont $now how he found his way ba!$ to his !ar.

Annie Dillard on Writing Dillard states that she is rarely satisfied with an essay until it has gone through many drafts, she sometimes goes on correcting and impro$ing it e$en after it has been published. %I always ha$e to condense or toss openings,& she affirms' %I suspect most writers do. (hen you begin something, you"re so grateful to ha$e begun you"ll write down anything, )ust to prolong the sensation. !ater, when you"$e learned what the writing is really about, you go back and throw away the beginning and start o$er.& *ften she replaces a phrase or sentence with a shorter one. In one essay, to tell how a drop of pond water began to e$aporate on a microscope slide, she first wrote, %Its contours pulled together.& +ut that sentence seemed to suffer from tortured abstraction.& ,he made the sentence read instead, %Its edges shrank.& Dillard obser$es, %I like short sentences. They"re forceful, and they can get you out of big trouble.& Take a moment to think about -hat is Dillards 3D.3*S C *bviously, she wants to entertain readers, but does she have another purpose as wellC -hy does Dillard begin her essay with a dis!ussion of footballC "n what way does football serve as a metaphor in the storyC :?int# 4oo$ at par. 1), as well as the senten!e A"t was all or nothingB in par. 1.; -hy does Dillard interrupt the story of the !hase with an Aimmense dis!overyB :par. 1);C -hat is Dillards 3*"'T *1 E" -C "s her perspe!tive that of a sevenFyearFold girl, or that of an adult writer refle!ting on her !hildhood e,perien!eC 4oo$ up the meaning of words you are unfamiliar, su!h as !renellated, and perfun!torily. -hat is the 11 +T of the last senten!e of the essayC 3ay attention to the strong verb use and synta,. They bring the essay to life. Now, its your turn Assignment for a TEST G ADE! -rite a narrative :similar in style with The Chase; with one of the following as your sub&e!t. "t may be either a 1".STF3 .S*' memoir or a story written in the third person, observing the e,perien!e of someone else. De!ide before you begin what your 3D.3*S is and whether you are writing :1; an ane!dote/ :(; an essay !onsisting mainly of a single narrative/ or :); an essay that in!ludes more than one story. You may sele!t from the following# A memorable e,perien!e from your early life A lesson you learned the hard way A trip into unfamiliar territory An embarrassing moment that taught you something A monumental misunderstanding A memorable moment at s!hool An a!!ident An une,pe!ted en!ounter A story about a famous person or someone !lose to you A !onfli!t or !ontest A destru!tive storm A histori!al event of signifi!an!e e"uirements! 6@@F<6@ word ma,imum, typed double spa!e, 24A format. Due date for rough draft #eer edit! Wednesday, Se#tember $% &inal draft due &riday, Se#tember $' (()efore &riday, you will need to set u# your a**ount with T+ N,T,N-*om- , will show you how to do this- .ou must submit /u#load0 your #a#er to T+ N,T,N-*om as well as turn in a ty#ed *o#y to me on &riday Se#t- $'-(( +) ,1 T2 &2332W /T)A0