“ ‘That’s the one!’ he said. Most people smack their foreheads when they say something in that tone. Brett smacked mine. ‘Now, see, I have a problem with that.’ “
“I started to ask why, but he put a finger to my lips. ‘Shoosh shoosh shoosh shoosh shoosh! I’ll explain everything. I know you’re not too smart.”
“His friends snickered at that while my friends looked anxious. He made a big show of thinking what to say next, stroking his chin, drawing out our fear of what was coming.”
“ ‘It’s like this, dweeb,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t like you. I pretty much think you’re a pussy.’ “
“His friends snickered again, and mine tensed up. I learned later that they had no idea what to do. They had no chance of stopping Brett physically, especially not with his buddies there, and we all had that stupid high school code of honor where you don’t ever call in the teachers. Mostly, they were hoping that Brett would decide talking was enough.”
“Brett ignored it all and kept talking: ‘And normally, I wouldn’t care where you go to get your little dinky wet. But whether you like it or not - and I know I don’t - you’re one of us.’ He waved at his buddies. ‘You’re from the Heights. We can’t have some bitch from the Mill Road trailer park thinking she’s as good as we are, which means…’ he leaned in close then, putting his face in my face and his forearm across my throat. ‘…we can’t have one of our own acting like she is. So you just drop your little whore, and you do it today, and nobody has to get hurt. You get me?’ “
“I nodded as best I could with his arm jammed up under my chin.”
“ ‘Good.’ He let me go and turned away, and I could breathe again, and if I’d been smart I would have kept my mouth shut. But…I don’t know…the Stones were singing Street Fighting Man, and my mouth was moving before I could stop it.”
“ ‘She’s not a whore,’ I said.”
“Brett stopped. Everyone in the locker room, his buddies and mine, looked at me like I was nuts. Then they looked scared - my buddies, yeah, but some of his, too, at least the ones who weren’t all excited that they were about to see a beating. They knew this one was gonna be bad.”
“For his part, Brett didn’t get excited. He didn’t snarl or threaten or ask what I’d said to him. He just sighed and shook his head and said: ‘And I was going to let you live.’ “
“He turned and started for me, and I was just raising my hands to shield my face when someone grabbed him from behind. One arm, slimmer and smoother than you expect to see in the boys’ locker room, wrapped around him while the other slipped under his towel. He stopped dead in his tracks, but it was too late: the arm under his towel tensed, his eyes just bugged right out of his head, and he started to make these rusty, breathless noises that probably wanted to be screams.”
I winced. It was forty years later and the bastard deserved it, but I still winced.
“He sank down to his knees, but Jenny followed him down, not letting go until he hit the floor. Then she straightened up and calmly brushed off her hands as ol’ Brett curled up on the floor like a shrimp and sobbed.”
“Of course it was Jenny. Who else would have the balls?”
“ ‘He’s right, you know,’ she said to him, calm as if we’d been discussing song titles. ‘I’m not a whore. Whores fuck for money. If that was me, then you’d actually have a chance.’ Then she stepped over Brett, hooked her fingers into my towel, pulled me close and kissed me. ‘What I do with you, baby, I do because you do it so fine.’ “
*
“…of course,” he finished, “That’s when Coach Moore came running in shouting ‘Break it up’.”
“Of course it was,” I smirked. Wasn’t it always? Then he made it stop being funny.
“To this day, I fully believe that he was there the whole time, and only interfered when Brett started to lose. Jenny got a week’s suspension, and I might have too if there hadn’t been a dozen witnesses that I didn’t ‘get in a fight’ so much as ‘get tossed around’. Brett didn’t miss a single game. And that’s how things worked in my hometown.”
I was outraged, and started to say so, but he was already past that, moving on to the real point of the story: “I asked her later how she knew I was in trouble, and at first she tried to say ‘How’d Wayne Cochran know his baby’s in Heaven? Some things you just know, baby.’ But I pressed her a little bit, and she finally said ‘Someone was playing a radio in our locker room, too, and the song told me.’ That was all she would say, and I didn’t understand until much later.”
Stop by on May 1st for a [Meet & Greet Facebook Party] featuring Author Matthew Keville! We will be giving away GREAT PRIZES, including:
*eBook copies of The Second Breath Chronicles, by Adri Sinclair + SPOTLIGHT post on Adri's website! (Information for the post must be provided by the winner)
Link:
http://amzn.to/1Gvkx6S
About the Author
Matthew Keville wrote his first short stories in first grade, when the books on the shelves didn’t have the stories he wanted. The stories have been his constant friends since then, and they’ve carried him through some hard times. He grew up in a small town where you either leave at eighteen or live there forever. He elected to leave at eighteen. Now he lives in New York City where everyone is only working as a waiter or bus driver or stockbroker until they make it on Broadway. This makes him different and special, because he’s only working as a paralegal until he makes it as a writer.
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