Carter's Unfocused, One-Track Mind

by Brent Crawford

  “We’ll see,” he replies.

  I grab Abby’s hand and watch the cops tear across the parking lot. She says, “I can’t believe they just let us go…EJ!”

  “Bart says they prefer it when we run because then they don’t have to do paperwork. Speaking of runners…”

  About thirty kids sprint around the back side of the building. Most of them cut across the football field and climb the fence that leads to QuikTrip, but about ten of them hurdle the fence that leads to the student lot.

  I start the car as EJ yells, “COPS!”

  “Carter, you’re our hero!” Doc shouts.

  “Aunt Jenny to the rescue!” Bag says while sliding across the hood like Bo Duke.

  Nutt tries to dive over the roof, but belly flops it and rams his face, hard. Everyone is more or less inside the car when I slam on the gas, and we race toward QuikTrip. Abby is sitting next to me, and everyone is laughing and recounting their “near death” experiences. Abby explains why there’s no beer and why EJ needs to be super careful for a while.

  “Quit using my name!” he yells.

  “It just comes out—I can’t help it!”

  This part of the night is always fun. But tonight the good times come to an end when we pull into QuikTrip and see Scary Terry leaning against his car. He’s talking to Bart and my sister, Benedict Arnold. My instinct is to hit the gas and drive straight to New York, but I pull into the spot right next to them.

  “Is this happening?!” EJ gasps.

  I say, “I don’t know” as I turn the car off and try to fling the door open. Of course it’s stuck, so I have to climb out the friggin’ window. I’d like to keep climbing onto the roof and sing at the top of my lungs, “‘No daaay but toooodaaaay!’” if that wouldn’t seem like the gayest thing you could possibly do before a fight.

  My sister shoots me a look and shakes her head like, Don’t, but I keep marching around the car.

  Terry sees me coming and slowly turns away from Bart to lower his head in an ominous way. He obviously feels threatened and is choosing to watch me through the protection of his eyebrow hairs. I’m not sure if there is an actual advantage to this look, but it’s very intimidating.

  Abby shouts, “Carter, don’t!”

  Bart is unaware that anything has changed, so he keeps talking. “Remember that girl Kathy I used be down with?”

  Terry must not. He’s just staring at me. Bart has never been “down” with anyone that I know of. If I live through this I need to remember to ask Kathy if she even knows Bart.

  “I tried to tell her I’m not the boyfriend type, baby,” Bart continues.

  Most of the party chatter has died down when I stop about three feet in front of Terry. Bart finally shuts up, so the only sound is the Cutlass speakers softly rattling out a beat.

  My sister says, “Terry, please!” just as Abby shouts, “Carter!” again.

  Terry decides the standoff isn’t quite dramatic enough, so he pulls a cigarette from behind his ear and lights it up. “You steppin’ to me, son?”

  I take a deep breath of secondhand smoke before replying, “I don’t think so. I’m just…stepping to-ward you, to see what’s going on.”

  “Oh, are we friends?” he asks. “I don’t remember you comin’ to visit me in juvie or seeing me off to boot camp.”

  “No. The last time I saw you, you were pissed at me, so I just wanted to see—”

  Terry asks Bart, “Why would I have been pissed at this boy? Just because he sucker punched me with a book and I had to get locked up over it?”

  “Terry!” Lynn barks.

  I say, “I’m sorry that happened, but I didn’t want to fight you that day, and I don’t want to fight you now, but I’m not going to run from you again. You hear me?”

  Terry looks over my shoulder and says, “So you got your boys all rounded up to take me on?”

  I glance around and find EJ, Bag, Nutt, Doc, J-Low, Hormone, Levi, Andre, Timberlake, Lt. Dangle, Hangin’ Chad, The Devil, and TrimSpa backing me up.

  I shake my head. “No, Terry. This is about me and you, but they’ll stop you if things get out of hand.”

  “They could try,” he says.

  I give EJ a look that says, Please try!

  EJ gives me a nod of assurance.

  When I look back, Terry’s got that crazy smile on his face. He says, “So the little boy’s all grown up?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  He chuckles. “Look at you, even standin’ like a fighter, all bladed off to the side.”

  “Am I? We’ve been working on that.”

  He nods. “Cool…me too. I’m on the navy boxing team.”

  Dang it.

  He continues, “Ain’t nothin’ else to do on a ship but work out. I train every day.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah, I got third place in a tournament. My unit ships out again next week, so I’m home for a minute…say hi to my moms and tie up some old business.”

  “Am I part of that old business?”

  He nods and says, “Yeah, you are.”

  My hands are just about to draw up to protect my face when Terry reaches into his back pocket and pulls out that switchblade…which turns out to be a kind of thick ballpoint pen. He says, “I wanted to give you my e-mail ’cause your sister wouldn’t give me yours. I basically wanted to tell you that I was sorry…I overreacted last time I saw you, and I know that you didn’t want to fight me in the hall and I was bein’ a dickhead, so I had it comin’. The navy’s got me seeing a therapist, and the boxing is keeping my head right. That’s all I was gonna say. I guess I don’t need to send no e-mail. Tell your boy EJ I’m sorry too, when you see him.”

  “Tell him yourself. He’s right there.”

  EJ’s whole body flexes with betrayal. Terry gasps. “Jeez, you got BIG! I really am sorry, dog!”

  EJ laughs nervously even though he really is way bigger than Terry now. Everyone seems to relax when we shake hands and Terry pulls me in for a hug/back slap. He whispers in my ear, “I’m gonna ask your sister to marry me.”

  I pull back and look him in the eye before I start laughing. “You really are crazy, dude!”

  “Yeah, dog, I’m crazy in love!” he says.

  “That’s exactly what I meant.” Everyone is cracking up because I’m laughing my ass off. All of this has really been about my friggin’ sister! The fight with Nick Brock wasn’t even about me! Lynn likes to help people, but she made a mistake when she took this pit bull home from the pound. She’s not an idiot, however. She’s not going to lose her mind and get married to this Froot Loop.

  I give Lynn an ornery smile as Bag explains, “We started this badass fight club, man. We’re getting pretty good now that we got a second pair of gloves.”

  We all stiffen back up when Terry says, “Cool, I’ll stop by.”

  “Oh darn,” I gasp. “I won’t be there this week. I’ve got a dress rehearsal for a play I’m doing.”

  “That’s right, you do drama,” Terry says. “I always liked that stuff, but I was too pussy to ever try out.”

  Our cheesy after-school special, The Misunderstood Bully, is interrupted when a bottle of beer smashes on the ground and suds splash all over Terry. An old Corsica leads about ten other cars stuffed with Nortest dudes. Trunk bolts are rattling all over the place as this cavalry of cheap used cars screeches to a stop.

  Terry says, “What the hell?”

  “We’ve been beefin’ with these Nortest pricks all year,” I explain.

  Terry lets out an evil laugh and lowers his head again. “Cool…I always hated those Cougar d-bags.”

  I don’t want him to join my family, but I’m sooo glad he’s on my team right now! I almost feel bad for the Nortest kids until this long-haired dude jumps out of the back of an SUV with a golf club in his hand. There is no doubt they have come to fight, and it’s absolutely the worst night they could have picked! Terry jogs toward the kid without any fear. He leaps into the air for one
of his famous jumping roundhouse kicks. It doesn’t even come close to hitting the guy, but I don’t think he meant it to. He just wants everyone to know that he knows karate. I can see the fear in all of the Nortest guys’ eyes. Terry takes the 5-iron out of the kid’s hands and flings it into the grass beside the Econo Lodge.

  The girls are smart enough to go inside QuikTrip, but all of the boys are tornadoing around the parking lot trying to figure out what to do. Bart is actually the first to action. He punches the Corsica owner right in the face when the guy gets out of the car. Bart is so impressed with himself that he doesn’t see the other dude coming at him from the opposite side…until he gets popped in the side of the head. Nutt is all over the guy’s ass like a rabid dog before the guy can hit his brother again.

  A few dudes are coming toward me, but EJ steps in front of me and they slow up. Without a word, he slides to the left and clocks a guy in his stomach with a hard right. OUCH!!! Nobody was expecting him to go for the body, especially the guy who’s now wheezing on the ground.

  EJ tries to yell, “That was for Aunt Jen—” but another guy cuts him off with a punch to the cheek. I want to remember to ask him what he was going to say, because it looked like he had a sweet monologue ready.

  Bag and Doc take out the guy that hit EJ, and then they’re overpowered by some other guys. I’m too busy shuffling around, checking my blind sides, and trying not to poop myself to be of much use. But the fight finally comes to me when two guys come at me straight on. The formation is a lot like Oklahoma Road, so I’m not that scared. The smaller guy has a flop-do. He yells, “Where’s your dress tonight, tranny?”

  “I gave it back to your mom, Floppio.”

  Awesome! The two guys smile in admiration of my comeback. It’s almost like we’re not going to fight…until the flop-do throws a wild punch at me. I can see it coming.…I know right where it’s headed and that I should at least try to get out of the way or block it, but unfortunately, I am frozen.

  EJ yells, “Duck!” but I don’t. Maybe I need more training, or maybe I am, in fact, retarded. Maybe I have the reflexes of a sloth, or maybe I just can’t believe that someone I’ve never met is going to punch me in the face for no reason. But he sure does. WHAAAM!!! I stagger back and touch my throbbing cheek. That was way worse than the ski glove! Doc jumps on the guy’s back before he can hit me again, and EJ tags the taller dude. I ball up my fist and swing at Flop-do’s bangs, but he spins quickly and I punch Doc in the neck, hard. To the casual observer it might look like I switched sides all the sudden.

  Doc cries out, “Damn it, Carter!” as he slides to the ground. Flop-do thinks he’s out of the woods, and tosses the hair out of his eyes…just as my left fist drives into his nose. POP!!! Awesome. His hair snaps back from my knuckles like it’s spring-loaded. That really hurt my hand, but it looked so cool. He doubles over and grabs his beak as I shake out my hand. His buddy must have gotten free of EJ, because he’s lunging toward me. I swing at him way before I should, and totally whiff. The move hurts my shoulder more than the punch would have hurt his face. I fall into him and we snuggle for a second before he starts punching me in the back of the head. I know from fight club that punching someone in their skull only injures the fist doing the hitting. He figures it out pretty quickly and stops doing it, so I drive into his stomach with my shoulder and we fall to the pavement like angry Siamese twins. I “accidentally” knee him in the balls, and he chills out for a second. But some other kid, who is wearing wing tip dress shoes, kicks me in the ribs.

  I groan, “Uugghhhh!!!” but I’m such a badass now that I’m able to absorb the blow, and quick enough to grab his foot before he can pull it back. He slips (because he decided to wear dress shoes to a fight) and plops onto his butt.

  While scampering to my feet, I try to say, “Nice wing tips—” but another d-bag is swinging at my head, so I shut up and back away just in time. I just whiffed in the same way, so I know his momentum is going to bring him toward me and to my right. I slip to the left and cock back to nail him when he stumbles through. But as my elbow draws back, it slams right into another guy’s jaw. WHAAAMMM!!!

  Please don’t let it be Terry Moss!

  It’s the same flop-do from earlier, trying to creep up on me! I’m about to yell something clever about my ninja skills, but my funny bone starts freaking out! Ohhh, that hurts, and I have no idea why. People who say you don’t feel pain during a fight are liars…or way tougher than I am. A thud in the side of my head sends me down to the ground. I turn and find myself looking at those damn wing tips again. Thankfully, some Top-Siders run up and tackle the guy before he can kick me.

  “Thanks, Jeremy!” I say.

  “No problem,” he replies. “You are really doing great!”

  Girls are screaming and glass is shattering as I roll back up to my feet. Terry is beating the crap out of a guy like he’s putting on a boxing clinic. The Nortest guys are doing well, but obviously not as well as they thought they would when they stormed into our QuikTrip. A kid has retrieved that 5-iron and he’s heading toward Aunt Jenny, before he’s descended upon by EJ. I doubt this is the last time Aunt Jenny will come under attack, but she will never have to worry about that particular 5-iron again. EJ breaks the club in two and tosses the pieces into the street.

  The last thing I thought I’d be doing tonight is fighting a bunch of dudes with Scary Terry, but here I am ramming a guy into the side of a Corsica as he attempts to tackle my nemesis. Terry extends a hand to help me up.

  I gasp for air and say, “Thanks, dude. But you should get out of here. You don’t want to get in trouble if you’re about to ship out.”

  “I’m in the navy!” Terry replies. “They’re disappointed if you don’t get in trouble when you’re on leave.”

  “Really?!”

  He never gets to respond, because my sister yells, “Look out!”

  Three guys are marching toward us. Lynn tackles the biggest guy from behind and unleashes a flurry of punches. Terry starts pounding his guy, and I trade punches with mine while Lynn rides her dude around the parking lot, tagging him on one side of the face and then waiting for the other cheek to come around before popping him again. She’s played this slapping game with me many times and she’s really good at it. The big guy finally stumbles and is just about to fall…when Terry swoops in and catches Lynn. They both tumble to the ground, so he didn’t really rescue her from anything, but she looks into his eyes like he just stopped her from falling off a bridge. Their faces are only a few inches apart, and they’re both panting.

  I run over, yelling, “No…No…No!!!” but this damn flop-do steps to me again. I’m able to duck his wild punch this time, and I come up with a vicious uppercut that clacks his teeth together and sends his hair straight up. It finally falls back into his eyes when he lands on his butt.

  Everyone is fighting like mad, but Scary Terry and my sister are just gazing at each other. I yell, “Quit it!” but a guy tackles me and knees me in the nuts. If I didn’t have a terrible romance to stop, and if I hadn’t experienced so much testicular trauma over the years, I would just stop and puke for a while. But there’s no time to rest. I shove the guy off and yell, “That’s dirty, dude!”

  I look up just as Terry secures my sister’s face with his dirty hands. I yell, “Nooo!!!” But the Nortest guy hits me again and I have to get medieval on his ass for a minute. I’m mad at Terry and disappointed in my sister, and this guy is getting the worst of it.

  The guy rolls away and runs from me. In the midst of this crazy rumble, one shot makes me happier than any other. I glance over just as my sister cocks back to her hip and slaps Terry’s face…WHAAACCCKKK!!!

  Terry stumbles to his feet and looks down at her in confusion. At that same moment, the guy with the wing tips makes the mistake of his life and punches Terry in the back of his head. Terry slowly turns, and dress shoes start peeling out in reverse. Thankfully, he’s knocked out by the first of Terry’s punches, and some Nortest guys c
ome over to drag him away. Terry strides toward his own car. When he fires up the old Cutlass, everyone seems to realize that we can leave this parking lot if we want to. The fight appears to be over. I nod to EJ, and we watch the Nortest guys running back to their cars. No one cheers. Terry’s car burns rubber to the left, and the Nortest guys all go to the right.

  All of the Merrian guys share my expression: Did that just happen?

  Two Merrian police cars come flying down Merrian Lane. They pass the Nortest cars and drive right over the broken 5-iron before ripping into the QuikTrip parking lot. You can still feel the energy from the brawl, but the scene doesn’t look much different than a typical gas-station get-together. Kids scatter and most of us get away. Lynn jumps in with her friends, and I see Abby getting into Jeremy’s car before they slip into the Econo Lodge parking lot. But we’re still slowly piling into Aunt Jenny when the cruisers box us in.

  The two cops who just busted Abby and me climb out. Cop #2 barks, “EJ?!”

  EJ and I say, “Yeah?!” at the same time.

  Everyone laughs, so I whisper, “Not you.”

  He replies, “My bad…you son of a—”

  “Get out of that car!” the other two cops yells. “All of you!”

  Eleven of us are sitting on the curb in front of QuikTrip. Old people glare at us as they walk past because the police lights are swirling all around. The clerks keep pointing at me when they’re giving their statements. Cop #2 has the zip ties in his hand when all four of them finally walk over to us. It doesn’t look good until Cop #1 says, “Hell of a night, EJ. Fires, trespassing, sex, and violence.”

  My boys all rock around trying to look at me, but I don’t make eye contact with anyone. I try to say, “It wasn’t like that. We weren’t really fighting—”

  EJ interrupts me. “You’ve got blood all over your face, dude. Just stick to the truth…EJ!”

  “What the hell happened?” Cop #1 asks.

  I lay it all out…without directly incriminating anyone (except the Nortest guys). I tell them about that first football game and the Lou-Owe party, and the Cougar costumes and basketball brawl. They nod as if they were there for all of these events. They know about the graffiti on our school and the snakes that are still cruising around Nortest High. I tell them we were not looking for trouble—tonight or any other. “These guys pulled up with golf clubs, man. This is obviously our QuikTrip!”