Payback Time
Page 19
They appeared out of the darkness. There were two guys, both dressed in black, both bigger than I was. "You Mitch True," one of them hissed.
"What?" I said.
"You heard me."
"Yeah, I'm Mitch True."
He buried his fist into my stomach.
"Where's he live?" His voice was low but threatening.
"Wh-who?" I stammered, feeling the taste of vomit in my mouth.
"Don't mess with us. Angel Delarosa or Marichal or whatever he calls himself. Where's he live?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do, you piece of crap." And then there was another fist, and another one. "We'll beat it out of you if we have to. Where's he live?"
"I don't know." I said, gasping.
I was bent three quarters of the way over, hunched in on myself. Mucus was coming out of my nose and my ears were roaring. I coughed, and phlegm mixed with vomit came up.
The guy stepped back. "You puked on me," he hissed, and then he hit me on the back of the head. I fell to the ground.
"Where's he live?"
"I don't know."
And then they were kicking me, both of them, kicking me and kicking me, saying I'd better tell them. I couldn't have answered even if I'd wanted to, because a blackness was coming at me, a deep inky blackness was coming to swallow me, and then it did swallow me, and I was glad to be swallowed.
I don't know how long I was out, but the next thing I remember is Big Red, Mrs. Marilley's dog, standing over me, his long wet tongue making repeated visits to my mouth, my cheek, my eyes. I moaned, and that made Big Red whimper. "Good boy," I said, and I managed to sit up. He backed up, doing a little tap dance on the sidewalk, and then he started barking at me. "It's okay," I said. "Shhh."
I struggled to my knees and then to my feet and took a few wobbly steps toward my front door. Big Red made a crazy leap, barked once, and then ran off—no doubt to poop on somebody's lawn.
I managed to open the front door, climb upstairs to my room, stagger into the bathroom, and turn on the shower. The hot water hurt and felt great at the same time. I let it cascade over me for a long time. When I'd washed away all the snot and puke, I dried myself, put on my robe, and fell onto my bed. I lay there, the world spinning, for a long, long time.
And then, in a flash, I realized what had happened, and exactly what it meant. My head was roaring from pain and my guts felt like somebody had put them in a blender, but I've never felt better than I did at that moment. And I don't think I ever will.
Epilogue
WHEN MY DAD SAW ME the next morning, he knew immediately I'd been in a fight. I told him that some Ferris guys had followed me home after the game and had beaten me up. "Why you?" he asked.
"I guess maybe they figured out I was a reporter."
"That makes no sense at all," my mother said, her eyes welling up with tears. "No sense at all."
My parents drove me to the emergency room. "Concussion," the doctor said, "and severely bruised ribs. Don't be surprised if you have headaches. A week home, minimum." It was Thanksgiving week—not a bad week to miss. I wouldn't have to make up too much homework.
When we left the hospital, my dad wanted to take me to the police station to file a report, but I talked him out of it. "I didn't get a good look at them. I'd never be able to recognize them."
That part was true. Even the time at school when they'd jumped out of the Civic, I'd been so scared I hadn't really seen them.
Kimi called Monday when I didn't show up at school. I'd thought about keeping what had happened secret, the way Clint Eastwood might. Clint would know what he'd done, and that would be all that mattered to him.
But I'm not Clint Eastwood. After I finished telling Kimi everything, she insisted on coming to my house to see me. She arrived around four. As soon as she stepped inside, she hugged me tight, told me how brave I'd been, and kissed me on the cheek. It was the way a sister kisses her brother—again—but that was okay. We drank a cup of tea in the kitchen, and I told her everything for a second and then a third time. Around five the doorbell rang. "That's Marianne," she said. "We're going over to Erica's to watch a movie." I walked her to the door and she hugged me for what I was sure was the last time.
Only it wasn't. The day I returned to school, she asked me to go to the Winter Ball with her. "Not with me alone," she added quickly. "There will be about twenty of us. We'll rent a stretch limousine. It'll be fun."
When the night finally arrived I was nervous, but the limousine and the twenty other people made it better. I danced with Kimi once and we had our picture taken together, but she spent ninety-nine percent of the time with Rachel and Marianne. I wandered around talking to this person and that. Around midnight I found myself standing next to a girl who went to Roosevelt High. We talked awhile, and it turned out she was the starting softball pitcher there. I told her I was the sports reporter for the Lincoln Light and that I'd see her pitch in the spring.
"Make sure you wave to me," she said.
I liked talking to her, and she seemed to like talking to me, because she didn't look around for her date, whoever he was. I would have kept talking to Amy, but Kimi came over and said that we were all leaving. If I'd been thinking, I'd have gotten Amy's phone number.
College letters came in the spring. The thick manila envelopes were good news, the thin white ones bad; but good or bad they arrived addressed to Daniel True. I liked seeing that name. It's too late to try to change things at Lincoln, but I'm through with being Mitch.
Columbia was a thin envelope, which was actually a relief. I've lost all desire to go to any place with mean streets. I did get into a little college in Kentucky that's supposed to be great. I don't know why I applied there, but now I'm thinking I might actually go. I still plan on making a name for myself as a reporter, but I'm not in a hurry anymore. Being out in the middle of nowhere, reading books, and learning things—that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend four years.
Kimi got into Cornell, which isn't Princeton, but which is an Ivy League school, so she's happy. She says she wants to keep in touch and that maybe we could even visit each other over spring break.
I gained some weight back over Christmas, but since then I've been losing steadily, though slowly. I do my same run, across the footbridge to Magnolia. Every once in a while I veer off to Elmore Street. Whenever I run by Angel's house, I try to picture just where he disappeared to after the game, and what he's doing now. When my mind really gets going, I try to imagine what his entire future will be like. I've thought about it so much that I've actually worked it all out.
So here's Angel's life, according to me:
After the championship game, he and his cousin drive up to Canada. McNulty knows a coach up there, and Angel ends up with a football scholarship at the University of British Columbia. He has to take another new name, and he grows a goatee and shaves his head, but he's still the same phenomenal player on the field. He plays four years at middle linebacker at UBC, leading his team in tackles every year. After college, he's drafted in the second round by the Toronto Argonauts. He makes a bundle of money in the CFL, meets a French-speaking girl on the road, marries her, has two boys, and ends up living on a quiet, tree-lined street in Montreal.
Nobody from Philadelphia ever bothers him again.