“Okay, Reimer, let’s see your stuff,” the shadow figure called.
It was Barnwell all right.
All heads turned toward Blondie.
“Do what I told you, Blondie, and good luck,” said Feller, holding out his hand.
“Y-yeah, g-good luck,” Shakes added, offering his hand as well. Dispatch and Brick followed suit.
“Come on, you guys, quit being so fucking grim. I have a chance.”
“Sure,” Brick agreed half-heartedly. “You have a chance.”
The car door seemed to weigh a ton. Like the door of a vault, he thought, a funeral vault. Blondie stumbled on the gravel as he stepped from the P-mobile. Barnwell remained a silhouette against the glaring headlights.
“You wanted me, Reimer,” Barnwell taunted. “Well, here I am. Come and get me.”
Blondie didn’t move. He didn’t want to move. He couldn’t move. He told himself the worst that would happen was that he’d get beat up. That didn’t help.
“Not so brave when there’s no one beside you, are you, Mr. Giraffe? What would it take to get you mad? Calling you yellow? Well, I think you’re yellow.”
Blondie felt long roots growing out of his sneakers, planting him in place.
“I saw you lying by that scaggy Phyllis Scarff at the picnic,” Barnwell continued. “Are you sweet on her? Do you ever get in her snatch? I wonder if it’s as ugly as her face.”
Was Barnwell crazy? Did he think insulting Phyllis would make him mad?
“Or is it that cute little Tammy Hollander you’re sweet on? She’s just so sweet …. ” Buford’s voice was mocking, probing.
Blondie knew what Barnwell was doing. But he still didn’t like the jerk talking about Tammy.
“You know what? I heard Tammy sucks dicks.”
“LIAR!” Blondie screamed out.
“Oh, did we hit a little nerve there. It’s true, though. I know a guy can prove it.”
“You don’t know shit, Barnwell,” Blondie snarled, surprised and relieved to feel genuine anger awakening his leaden legs.
“What’s that you said?”
“You heard me.”
“No, I didn’t. Come a little closer and tell me.”
Blondie took six or seven steps toward Barnwell, until he was an arm’s length away. Recalling Feller’s counsel, Blondie leapt into the air, shot one fist out and yelled “Moo Goo Gai Pan.” He landed with one foot raised in menace. He gave a low growl, then added “Foo Yung!”
Barnwell seemed confused, somewhat wary. Feller’s ploy was working.
“Take back what you said about Tammy,” he barked at Barnwell.
“It’s true.”
“She wouldn’t even go out with you, let alone do something like you said.”
“I didn’t say it was me.”
“Well, whoever told you that is a fucking liar.”
“What did you say?” Barnwell asked him, not in a challenging way, but as if he hadn’t heard.
Christ, Blondie wondered, was he deaf?
“I said whoever said Tammy does what you said is a fucking liar.”
“Is that right?” Buford asked in a merry tone.
“You bet your ass that’s right,” Blondie retorted.
Why was Barnwell acting so happy?
“As a matter of fact, it was Merwin Fester.”
Merwin Fester? What was he saying? Tammy would never go out with a scumbag like him. Her father wouldn’t let her, anyway.
“Tammy’d never go out with a shit-shoveler like him and you know it.”
“What’d you call him?”
“A shit-shoveler. Isn’t that what he does? Clean horse’s stables?”
When Blondie heard a door open from behind Purdy’s truck, his instincts told him he’d made a big mistake. Slow steps crunched on the gravel behind Barnwell and then a large shadow coalesced in front of the car.
“Shit-shoveler, huh?”
It was Fester. Oh god. He was going to die. They were all going to die. From what he’d heard about Fester, he could take all of them.
“You know, I’ve heard just about all I want to hear from you and your pussy friends,” Fester said. “You live up in them fancy houses in them new developments and you think you’re hot shit. People like me and Buford grew up around here. We never asked for none of your kind to come here. But seeing as how you have, I guess we should give you the kind of welcome you deserve.”
Blondie’s heart was a runaway colt. It was tripping so fast he expected a geyser of blood to spurt from the top of his head. Maybe he’d have a heart attack, he thought. That would spare him having all his bones broken and becoming a quadriplegic cauliflower with tubes of plant food in his abdomen. Blondie staggered back a few feet. Fester took two slow steps toward him.
“There’s more of us here,” Feller called from behind him.
Blondie was surprised — and impressed. His buddies were risking their necks calling out to Fester like that.
“Am I supposed to be afraid?” Fester scoffed. “You’re just a bunch of little high school weenies. Anyway, we’re not so alone, either.”
Blondie heard a couple more doors open behind Barnwell, although no one came forward. Maybe it would be a Mexican standoff, Blondie hoped.
“I want this one,” Fester called to the phantoms behind him. Blondie knew he meant him. The sand had run out of the hourglass. All the dodging and darting he’d done for seventeen years had merely postponed the inevitable, perhaps made it worse. Instead of facing and conquering any number of lesser tormentors, perhaps building some confidence and fighting skill, he’d avoided them all only to face the biggest gorilla of them all with nary a split decision behind him.
Fester sauntered toward him. Blondie couldn’t see his face, but he could see the wide expanse of his shoulders, the square cut of his jaw, the massive size of his fists. There was nowhere left to hide, no place to retreat. The choice that remained was whether to die an ignominious coward or a courageous fool. It was an easy decision.
Blondie jumped at Fester, kicking out his leg and yelling “Long Duk Dong” as loud as he could.
Fester snickered.
“Where the fuck do you get off? You don’t know karate from your ass.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been studying it.”
Was Blondie hearing right? This guy, who looked like he ate automobile grills for breakfast, knew karate? Blondie’s prospects were worse than he’d thought. It was no longer a case of getting beat up. It was a matter of keeping his corpse in one piece. Time to run.
Blondie turned and smacked into Dispatch.
“What’re you doing out here?”
Dispatch ignored him.
“You know what I heard, Fester?” Dispatch said to him. “I heard your mother swims after troop ships.”
Blondie gasped. What was Dispatch doing? He was waving a red flag in the beast’s face.
“I also heard your older sister gangbanged the whole football team a few years ago.”
Fester roared.
“I’m going to kill you first, you little weasel.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” Dispatch said in a calm voice. “I just said I heard it. I didn’t say I said it.”
What was he doing? Imitating Barnwell?
“Yeah? Well, I’d sure like to meet the guy who did.”
A deep voice boomed from behind Blondie.
“It was me. I said it.”
“Pulaski,” Fester said, startled.
“Yeah, it’s me, you bona fide turd-for-a-brain.”
The P-mobile’s lights came on, turning the space between the two cars into a blazing arena. Dispatch grabbed Blondie’s arm and pulled him to one side.
“Where’d he come from?” Blondie asked Dispatch.
“Feller said Barnwell would pull a double cross. He asked me to get Mountain to come.”
So Feller had had a pl
an … a real plan.
“Why’s he helping us?”
“Because he hates Fester’s guts. Fester knocked up his sister.”
The two gladiators jockeyed for position in the circle of light. Blondie was spellbound. He’d never been around a big fight, not one between two guys with reputations. The air crackled with tension.
“Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later,” Fester said to Pulaski.
“It’s been too long coming for me, Fester.”
Blondie heard other people arriving. Lovers from all over the quarry had interrupted their probing and parrying to watch Merwin Fester and Mountain Pulaski square off.
“You don’t know fuck about karate,” Pulaski said to Fester. “You couldn’t even spell it.”
“Your sister wasn’t any brain trust neither,” Fester replied. “If she had any smarts, she wouldn’t have got herself knocked up.”
“Shut up about my sister,” Pulaski yelled. He rushed Fester.
There was a resounding crack as Fester hit Pulaski flush on the cheek. Blondie’s stomach clenched. Fester hit Pulaski again, in the stomach. The blow sounded like a butcher’s axe striking raw meat.
Pulaski doubled over for an instant, then stood back up. Fester hit him a glancing blow to the face as Mountain dodged. Then Mountain reached out and grabbed Fester in a crushing bear hug. He squeezed Fester tighter and tighter. Fester gasped for air. Just when Blondie thought Fester would pass out, Pulaski dropped him to the ground and jumped on his chest with both feet. Fester groaned. Pulaski squatted over Fester and began pummeling his face. Blondie watched a trickle of blood flow from Fester’s nose and turn into a river.
A motor started. The headlights on the far side of the arena began to recede. Purdy and Barnwell were deserting their pal.
Blondie ran to Mountain and grabbed his arm.
“You better stop,” he said, “or you’re going to have a homicide on your hands.”
Mountain shook his head as if waking from a dream. He rolled off Fester and pulled himself upright.
“Stay away from these guys,” he said, sweeping his arm to include the whole group. “They’re my friends.”
“Suits me,” Fester wheezed. “I don’t want anything to do with them.”
Fester looked around.
“Where’re Barnwell and Purdy?” he mumbled, his mouth full of marbles.
“They ran out on you, buddy,” Pulaski said.
“How’ll I get home?”
“I’m sure you can walk five miles. You seem to be in good shape.”
“I’ll kill that Barnwell,” Fester muttered.
On the way home, Blondie asked Feller why he hadn’t told him Pulaski was in the Edsel .
“You might not have stood up to Barnwell by yourself.”
“Hey, I did, didn’t I?”
Blondie felt brighter than he had for a long time.
* * * * * * * * *
Blondie knew something was wrong the minute he entered school. There was an eerie silence in the halls. Boys congregated in open doorways, frightened looks in their eyes. Girls wandered aimlessly with tears on their cheeks. It was Hiroshima. A bomb had dropped.
Feller rushed up to him.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Bobby Clements ran head-on into a bridge abutment Saturday night.”
Blondie was stunned. A buzzing sound filled his ears.
“He’s dead?”
“He was going about 70 miles an hour.”
The buzzing grew louder, filling up Blondie’s head so that Feller’s words had no place to go. They made no sense, anyway. What he’d said was as incomprehensible as someone saying, “President Kennedy’s been shot.” People like Bobby didn’t die. They were immortals. If someone like him could die, then they were all in peril.
He wandered down the hall with Feller toward first-period trig in a trance. He scarcely noticed his fellow students, who appeared as zombie-like as he felt. Except for Tammy. She was in a circle of girls sobbing her heart out. Well, why not? She’d cheered for Bobby all year long at almost every sports event.
Blondie wanted desperately to talk to Grouper. He’d be able to add some perspective to this tragedy. Blondie caught up with him in Mrs. Buckley’s English class and asked if he’d heard about Bobby’s accident.
“Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” he whispered.
Bobby killed himself? It was unimaginable. Blondie was sure, for once, Grouper was mistaken. The Bobby Clementses of the world didn’t kill themselves. They had no reason. People like Bobby owned the world.
But throughout the day — a day marked by hushed classes and fumbling explanations by teachers — bits of information settled like fallout. And each one chipped at Bobby’s smooth hard image.
Bobby’s scholarship had fallen through because of his knee. Ethel was going to New York to be a fashion model. She’d told Bobby she’d be dating other guys. Someone even said Bobby’d been smoking marijuana with some college guys earlier in the evening.
“It m-must’ve b-been the drugs,” Shakes opined at lunch.
“If Ethel Philbin cut my water off, I’d want to end it, too,” Dispatch said.
“Maybe it was being a high school hero with no vision of glory ahead,” Feller chipped in.
Blondie didn’t know what to think. He asked Grouper for his take on the matter.
“I don’t know why he did it, but I’m sure he felt he had good reason,” Grouper said.
“That’s it?” Blondie was irked. “You don’t even sound like you care.”
“I liked Bobby. I’m sorry he won’t be around. But I also feel I have to honor his decision. A person must have some shred of free will.”
What the hell was Grouper talking about? For once, Blondie found the big fellow’s explanation unsatisfactory.
“Since you’re so smart,” he said acidly, “you should be able to apply some law to Bobby’s death.”
Grouper nodded, then hunched over in his seat for a long time.
“People die.” he finally said.
“That’s it? That’s not very profound.”
“Perhaps not, but it’s the most absolute law in life.”
Blondie was just as disappointed by Grouper’s assessment of the big fight. He said he doubted it marked the end of any of their troubles with billies. As far as Blondie was concerned, Grouper’d missed the whole point, which was that Blondie had avoided getting killed and it looked like Barnwell and Purdy were off his back for good. Indeed, the next time he ran into them in the hallway, they just gave him dirty looks and kept on walking. Furthermore, because there’d been so many witnesses to the showdown, the B and F Club had achieved a touch of notoriety. Blondie had even heard himself spoken of as “ready to do battle with Merwin Fester,” a rumor he did nothing to dispel. He enjoyed seeing kids move aside when he walked down the hall.
“You’re a genius, Feller,” Blondie told him at lunch the next day. Feller didn’t demur. But Blondie had scant time to dwell on the fight. The school year was coming to a close. Graduation was less than two weeks away. Before that came finals — and the prom was next weekend.
Feller told Blondie he’d invited Delores.
“Don’t you care what people are going to think?” Blondie asked him.
“You know, I really don’t.”
Blondie admired Feller for that. Anyway, he had no grounds for questioning Feller’s choice for a date when he was taking Phyllis.
His mom didn’t care whom he took. She was ecstatic that he was going at all.
“This shows that you’re one of them at last,” she said.
One of whom? She didn’t get it. He didn’t want to be part of Fenton High, just the B & F Club.
His dad showed his support by offering to let him drive the Pontiac.
The school rocked with anticipation. “What should I wear?” “Who’s taking whom?” “Where’re you
going afterward?” Almost everyone was involved in some project in support of the “Spring Fling,” as Mrs. Buckley had named it, displaying, Blondie believed, the limits of her creativity. Boys’ Shop was building sets for the dance. Art Class was making decorations. The Electronics Club was wiring the gym for sound. Others were assigned to set up chairs or serve punch the night of the prom.
Midway through the week, Mrs. Buckley announced the King and Queen of Spring, the lucky couple who would preside over the Prom. To no one’s surprise, Ethel Philbin was named Queen. The surprise was whom was named King. It was Bobby Clements. Most everyone thought that was a classy move. He would’ve earned the title if he’d stuck around. Of course, it meant Ethel had to sit on a dais beside an empty throne. Blondie wondered how she’d feel about that.
“The pr-prom. Big f-fucking deal,” Shakes said at lunch midway through the week.
“You’re not going then?” Feller said to him.
“I’d r-rather w-watch two fleas f-fuck.”
Blondie could understand his feelings. He hadn’t had a date since Janine Raznosky threw him over months before.
“How about you, Brick?” Feller asked.
“Count me out. There’s a triple boxing card in Baltimore Saturday night.”
“How about you, Grouper?”
“I’ll be there,” was all he’d say.
Of course, Dispatch was taking Meryl, who had outraged almost everyone in the Club by proclaiming her “engagement” to Dispatch all over school, even though Dispatch couldn’t afford an engagement ring. That didn’t bother Blondie, thought. They were getting married in a little over two weeks. That was good enough for him.
Blondie was glad no one had asked whom he was taking. Of course, everyone knew it was Phyllis. He just couldn’t stand to say it aloud.
But the night wasn’t going to be a total loss. He and Feller had come up with a plan. About eleven, Delores was going to “get sick” and Blondie was going to have to drive her and Feller home. He’d offer to take Phyllis home, too, if she wanted. But he was prepared to be gallant and let her stay at the dance alone if she wanted. Heck, he’d even offer her taxi fare.
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