by Jeff Vrolyks
* * *
With the lights now on, the girls gazed down at the dusty floorboard, where Max was unconscious and Timothy was sitting on his ass catching his breath, rubbing the side of his rosy face. Jennifer descended the ladder with her friend shortly behind.
Timothy stood up, dazed from the excitement of it all. Through the open door entered Eddie. He flipped the main light switch; overhead fixtures buzzed to life.
“What happened?” Eddie said bewildered.
“I’m s-sorry, Eddie. I d-don’t know how this happened.”
“Are you okay?” Nichole said sympathetically to Timothy and turned his face toward her for inspection. What looked like a shadow on his left cheek was a bruise.
“I th-think so.”
“Dude,” Eddie said impressively, “you kicked that ogre’s ass?” He gestured to Max. “He’s one big son of a bitch!”
“I couldn’t have,” Timothy replied. “I don’t think I did. It all h-happened so fast.”
“But you did.”
“Wh-what should we do?” Timothy asked him.
“Let’s take out the trash. Help me carry him off the property.”
They carried him by the wrists and ankles in the rain, set him down as Timothy entered the password on the inside key-pad. The gate hummed open; they re-clutched Max’s extremities and lugged him off the property to the shoulder of Road 171 and dropped him. The rain was washing the blood away from the deep gash on his expressionless face; fresh blood pushed through.
“Let’s leave him,” Eddie advised. “He’ll come-to soon enough, then leave.”
“Shit, Eddie,” Timothy said in a panic. “What have I g-gotten myself into?”
“Nothing. It’s over.”
Timothy looked to the hulking two-story shadow that was the barn, where the two girls were shoulder to shoulder watching from the doorway. When the guys returned to the barn, Nichole pulled Timothy inside hastily by his wrist and enveloped him in her arms, hugged him tightly.
“Let’s go,” Jennifer said to her friend. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, probably not a bad idea,” Eddie said. “I’m so sorry, girls.”
Nichole released Timothy and stared into his eyes, ran a hand through his hair and kissed him briefly on the lips. “That was very sweet of you to stand up for us. Eddie has my phone number; call me sometime. Will you?”
He nodded, said just a minute and went up to the loft to get their jackets. The girls donned them, stepped into the rain and hurried to the Honda. As Jennifer drove up to the gate, Nichole rolled down her window and blew Timothy a kiss, which landed squarely on his heart. The gate sensor detected them, rolled open. As they idled across the track, a brown hand thrust out the window and flipped the bird to the wet lump on the side of the road.
The boys went inside the barn and closed and locked the door. Up in the loft they sat in the chairs.
“What the heck happened?” Timothy said dreamily.
“What happened is you beat that dude’s ass. Did you see how Nichole looked at you? Bro… that chick will love you forever, believe me.”
“It was hardly a f-fight. He hit me,” Timothy recalled, hissed when he touched at his sore cheek-bone. “I hit him first, but… I don’t know.”
“Give yourself some credit, man.”
“What do you th-think he’ll do once he awakens? Come back to fight?”
“After the beating he just got? I doubt it. He’ll go home and put some ice on that fat lip.”
“I suppose so.” He looked blankly at the floor. “I’m s-scared, Eddie. He’s going to come back eventually, I’m sure of it.” He looked over at Eddie, who was stooped forward in his chair, elbows on his knees and massaging the knuckles of his right hand.
“Then you’ll just kick his ass again,” Eddie remarked.
“No, that was a fluke thing. I couldn’t kick his ass. Hey, Eddie?” They met eyes. “You’re rubbing your hand. You didn’t… you didn’t come in to help, did you?”
“Nah, it’s just the rain. Makes my joints stiff. Don’t worry about that punk, I’ll take care of him. Okay?”
“I need to tell Grandpa.”
“No, Timothy, don’t. Do you want to worry them? There’s nothing they can do about it anyway. I’ll tell you what: would you like me to have a talk with the guy? Settle things?”
Timothy looked undecidedly at Eddie. “You’d do that? For me? That would be great, yes.”
Eddie gave it some thought before saying, “I’m taking the Camry. I’m going to drive the dude home and have a talk along the way.”
Timothy stood from his chair and thrust his open hand to Eddie, who tentatively accepted and shook it. “Thanks, brother, from the b-bottom of my heart. I don’t like fighting and having enemies isn’t in my n-nature.”
“Think nothing of it. You might want to devise a lie about where you got that bruise on your face. I’ll be back later. I might stop by Starbucks and get a coffee.”
“Okay. Eddie, do you think I could have Nichole’s phone number?”
“Hell yeah, of course. Will you really call her?”
“Someday, m-maybe. I d-don’t know. I’d like to have it, just in case.”
“I’ll text it to you, unless you have something to write on and with.”
“Text is fine,” he said with a sweet smile that Eddie was growing fond of.
Timothy went inside the house and entered the hallway through the dining room instead of the living room—he didn’t want his grandparents to see him. Though he’d say he ran into the bucket on the front-loader (accounting for the bruise), he thought they’d perceive trouble somehow, pick up on a vibe.
Inside his bedroom he closed the door and plopped down on the bed face first, erupted into tears from the immense emotion of the evening.