by Tim Green
“Turn around, you. In the old days, I’d have given the two of you the gloves and let you punch each other’s lights out, like men,” Coach Hudgens grumbled to himself.
“Fine with me.” Nagel seemed undisturbed by the sequence of events and Brock supposed he’d been there before.
Not Brock. This was new ground, so he snarled. “Me too.”
Coach Hudgens gave them both a little shake for good measure and Brock heard the stitches in his collar tear. “Tough guys. You have no idea.”
The coach shoved them directly into to Ms. Snyder’s office. “Fighting.”
The principal looked up from some papers and removed her glasses. “Mr. Nagel? Honestly?”
The principal got a better look and her face showed disgust. “Coach Hudgens, did you not notice the blood?”
Coach cranked both Brock and Nagel his way and he studied their faces back and forth. “They should be fine.”
“Coach, the new boy is bleeding on my rug. Would you please take them to the nurse and I’ll deal with them from there?”
Coach reversed them out of there and shoved them into the nurse’s office not far from the principal’s. A girl wearing all black with thick eye makeup lay on the cot looking pale as a wet worm. The nurse looked up from her papers and also blinked. “Who do we have here, Coach?”
“Nagel.”
“Him I know.”
“New kid. Brock Nickerson. Fighting.”
“I see that.” The nurse stood up and went to her cabinet, snapping on rubber gloves and removing cotton balls and a bottle of some liquid. “And our tempers have cooled?”
Coach cranked them both around again, peering into their faces before he gave a curt nod. “They’re fine. Ms. Snyder asked to get them seen. She’ll be in.”
Coach unleashed them and disappeared.
The nurse put them on the two remaining cots, separating them by a white curtain. She attended to Brock first, wiping his face and filling a plastic bag with bloody cotton balls. She asked him if anything else hurt besides his nose.
“I’m fine.” Brock folded his arms across his chest.
“You don’t look fine. You’ll be lucky if you can see out of that right eye tomorrow.”
“You better check on him,” he said gruffly. Brock liked the way his voice sounded, like something someone would say on a TV show.
The nurse told him to sit there and disappeared around the curtain. The nurse muttered quietly, talking to Nagel while she worked. Brock ached to hear some kind of whimpering from Nagel, but he got nothing. When the nurse returned to her desk, Brock lay back on the plastic cot and closed his eyes. Air whistled through the swollen tissue inside his nose and his steady breathing sounded hollow and wounded.
When someone touched his cheek, Brock’s heart leaped and his eyes flew open. Nagel stood looking down on him with a wicked grin.
6
Nagel pressed a finger to his own lips. “Shhh.”
Brock sat up with fists tight, but Nagel sat down beside him like they were best buddies. “Nice moves.”
“Moves?” Brock wrinkled his brow and tried not to wince because it hurt.
“That wrestling thing you did. You a wrestler? You should be.”
Brock relaxed his fists and shook his head.
“Yeah, that was a good one. She thinks I might have a concussion.”
Alarm filled Brock. “Really?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. I had plenty. My old man gives me one every other frickin’ week.” Nagel let that idea sink in, then he laughed. “I had to see if you were a wimp or not. I’m glad you’re not. There’s too many babies in this school already, and there’s nothing worse than a big wimp.”
Brock stared at him and noticed a light in his yellow-brown eyes that wasn’t quite right. “You fight everybody?”
Nagel shrugged. “Nah, only the guys worth fighting. Most people can’t even look at me.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Brock wondered aloud.
“Sure.” Nagel grinned, and Brock could see that two of his lower teeth were broken. “It’s a jungle.”
“What’s a jungle, Mr. Nagel?” The principal whisked the curtain aside and scowled at the two of them.
They both jumped to their feet.
“The world is, Ms. Snyder. My dad says.” Nagel shrugged at her.
Ms. Snyder squeezed her lips so tight they lost all color. “This is a school, young man. I don’t know what the two of you think you’re up to, but I want to know what this is about.”
“We were fighting over a girl,” Nagel said. “But we’re good now. Just a misunderstanding. We’re friends.”
Brock sucked in a breath, but had no idea what to say to that.
“You’re too young to be fighting over that, boys.” Ms. Snyder shook her head. “I’ve called your parents and they’re on their way here to get you. Mr. Nagel, I’m suspending you for a week. Mr. Nickerson, this is your first time, so it’s a day. But I’m warning you right now, Mr. Nagel is not the kind of person you want to hitch your wagon to if you’re hoping to make a good impression on the staff at this school. You stay here and think about that.”
The principal hooked her finger at Nagel. “Mr. Nagel, you’ll come with me.”
They left, and after a few minutes, Brock lay back down. He hadn’t thought about what might happen next. He was in uncharted waters. He’d never given his father cause to knock him silly, so he had no idea if he was capable of what Nagel’s father apparently was. Alone and worried, the pain began to intensify.
When he heard his father cough in the doorway to the nurse’s office, Brock jumped right up off the cot. His father made some kind of growling noise, asking the nurse where his son was.
Blood pounded behind Brock’s swollen face, squeezing tears from his eyes.
7
“You think this is how we do things?” Brock’s father bled anger all over the front seat of their new car. “Look at your shirt.”
Brock fingered the frayed collar of his shirt and stared at the strangers in the minivan in front of them—a mom and her kid. Brock wondered what kind of a life the kid in the car seat would have; certainly not one like his. He didn’t even have a mom, but that was another issue. He needed to focus.
“I thought you’d be glad I stood up for myself. You wouldn’t let someone just push you around.” Brock took a quick look to see his father’s reaction. Nothing but anger.
“I’ve told you over and over,” his father said. “A real man doesn’t have to fight. It should never get that far.”
“Well, maybe no one’s afraid of me because I don’t carry a gun.” The words escaped Brock before he could stop them.
His father turned a dark look on him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen it.” Brock raised his chin. “You keep it in the back of your pants.”
“That’s not something people see. I avoid confrontation because I stand strong. There’s nothing anyone can say that affects me because I know who I am. If you don’t react, people leave you alone.”
“But I don’t know who I am, do I?” Brock yelled. He remembered jumping off a rock ledge into a quarry lake last summer, and that’s how he felt now, weightless, plummeting.
His father gripped the wheel so tight, the skin bulging from his hands turned white. “We don’t stand out. And when we do, we leave. That’s why we had to leave Oklahoma.”
“Because I was ready to hit a home run to win the championship?” Brock couldn’t believe it.
“No. Not that. I was . . .” His father’s voice dropped even further. “Someone saw me who shouldn’t have.”
Brock stared at him. “Am I ever gonna know? Am I ever gonna understand why we keep doing this?”
His father stopped at a light, waited, then moved on. “You have to trust me.”
“I do.” Brock dug his fingers into the edge of the leather seat. “Why don’t you trust me?”
“It’s got nothing to do
with that, Son.” His father pulled the car up alongside a curb in front of a five-story building in downtown Syracuse and pointed toward the glass doors. “The library is in there. I’ll be back at five and find you. Go to the young adult section, get a book, and stay there.”
“Look what I look like.” Brock pointed to his puffy eye.
“If anyone asks, say you got hit by a baseball,” his father said.
“Why can’t I . . . go home?” Brock pounded his hand on the dashboard, startling them both. “Why can’t I go back to Oklahoma?”
Gently, his father reached out and put a hand on Brock’s neck. Slowly, the grip tightened. It didn’t hurt much, but Brock began to feel dizzy. He imagined his face was turning colors when his father finally spoke.
“You do as I say, and you don’t ask why.”
Brock jiggled his head in an attempt to nod.
His father let go, and Brock did as he was told.
8
When Brock awoke the next morning, he lay there for a few moments trying to remember who he was, where he was, and if yesterday was a dream. The ache in his neck and his nose told him it was real. He got up to use the bathroom, winced at the purple egg staring back at him from the mirror, then slipped quietly downstairs. His father sat at the little kitchen table with the newspaper and a mug of coffee kicking off enough steam for Brock to smell. Cereal, milk, and bananas had been laid out on the table for Brock.
He was halfway through eating when the paper rustled and his father’s face appeared. “You can stay here, today. You won’t leave the house.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a nice shiner. Kid must have a decent jab.”
“He said he wanted to see if I was a wimp or not. He’s half my size.”
“You won’t be suspended from school again.”
“No, sir.”
“Good.” His father rustled the paper and retreated behind it.
Brock tipped the bowl to his lips, draining the milk. Suddenly, his father stood up, folded the paper, and laid it on the table before he reached into the waistband of his pants, removed a dull black pistol, and let it clatter down on the kitchen table. “You asked about this?”
Brock wanted to look away, but he was hypnotized by the ridged hand grip, the smooth curve of the trigger, and the evil dark hole in the end of the rectangular barrel. He’d never really seen the gun like this before, only a glimpse of the handle or a slight bulge in the back of his father’s pants. It was like a polished hunk of death. He was too scared to speak.
“You think it’d be smart to bring a knife to a gunfight?”
Brock shook his head.
“That’s right. You fight fire with fire.” His father took the gun and it was gone. “I love you. I’d hate to ever use this, but I’ll do whatever I have to, to protect you. That’s why we can’t always stay in one place as long as we’d like.”
Brock wanted so badly to ask if that’s what happened to his mom, if his mom had been killed with a gun, but nothing scared him more than that question. He didn’t know which would be worse, his father’s reaction or the answer to the question, so he stayed quiet.
His father took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I hit a game–winning home run in a championship game once, in college.”
“You played in college?” Brock searched his father’s face. It was like a door had opened into a room he never knew existed, but just as quickly, it closed.
“I wanted you to hit that home run. Trust me. But I never want you to have a gun in your face. Nothing is worth that. Behave yourself today. I want that garage cleaned out so I can eat off the floor. Put the junk in trash bags and pile them in the corner. I don’t want you going outside.”
Like a shadow, his father slipped from the room. The only noise he made was the sound of the garage door opener and the rumble of the car’s engine as he pulled out and away. Brock sighed, cleaned up the dishes, and got to work.
The job wasn’t as bad as it looked. Most of it was just dumping old rags and aerosol cans of paint, bug spray, and cleaning compounds into trash bags and tying them shut, purging their space of the junk the previous renters had left behind. There were several jobs like this around the house. Brock could spot them by now, jobs his father left for him to do as a punishment. His father saved them up the way some parents saved up lollipops as a treat.
When the doorbell rang, Brock heard it, even in the garage. He froze and waited. It rang again. Ding dong. When it rang a third time, Brock felt sweat break out on his palms. Who rang the bell three times in the middle of the day? Still, he didn’t move.
Dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong!
That was too crazy. Brock eased back into the house and crept through the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room where he could pull the curtain aside and peek out at the front step. When he did, no one was there and that let him breathe a sigh of relief. He returned, through the different rooms to the garage where he bent over the workbench and began scooping up stray nails and screws.
His heart had just began to slow when someone suddenly grabbed the back of his neck.
Brock spun and screamed.
9
“Are you out of your mind?” Brock shrieked.
Ryan Nagel laughed so hard his freckles seemed to jump off his face. His small upturned nose wrinkled and quivered and his lips laid bare his broken bottom teeth. Nagel howled and hooted. “You should see your face! You better check your pants too.”
Nagel sniffed the air. “Oh, yeah. I think you did. I think you pooped your pants.”
That sent him into another fit of laughter that put a crimp in his side, doubling him over.
“What are you doing?” Brock stamped his foot on the concrete floor. “How did you get in here?”
“Oh.” Nagel reached in his pants pocket and produced a small plastic card. “My older brother’s expired driver’s license. You just slip this sucker between the door frame and the door. No one ever bothers putting a bolt lock on their side garage door. Heh-heh. So, you up for some fun?”
Brock waved his arm around the garage. “Does this look like fun? My dad wants to eat off this floor.”
“Disgusting.” Nagel laughed some more.
“You shove me and bust my nose and now you show up at my house?”
“Yeah, look at that eye.” Nagel peered up at him. “Pretty awesome. All I got are these bruises. Bruises like this a girl could get falling down the stairs. What you got has ‘fight’ written all over it. Cool.”
Brock gingerly touched the swollen eye. “Not cool looking out of a slit for the next week.”
Nagel got serious and shrugged. “Like I said, you’re no wimp. Now you and me can be friends.”
“Friends? That’s how you make friends?”
“We’re here, aren’t we? Now we gotta get some payback on that sloppy old drunk, Hudgens—we call him Huggy. He tore my shirt. If my old man had two cents, he’d sue that guy. You’re not supposed to be able to manhandle kids like that in school.”
“Coach Hudgens? Why’d you call him a drunk?”
“Hah! You didn’t smell his breath?”
“I smelled mouthwash.”
“Yeah, what’s mouthwash made of? Alcohol, you dummy. He uses it to cover up the hard stuff he keeps in his car. I’ve seen him. He’s got a little thermos, but I’m not stupid. He hits it first thing in the morning, then at lunch, and you’ll see him practically sprinting for a nip when the last bell rings.”
Nagel chuckled at the thought.
“He lives right down the street, you know?” Nagel wagged his head toward Brock’s front lawn. “Keeps his yard sealed off like Fort Knox. Stockade fence you can’t get over, and whenever we get a few boards loose, it’s only a day or so before he’s got lag bolts holding them tight.”
“Lag bolts? What fence?”
“New kid. That’s right.” Nagel smiled. “You got no idea about this place. You’re in the houses. I’m in the a
partments. Over there. Every house on that side of the street backs up to the apartments. People got fences all the way up and down the line to keep the riffraff out. That’s me and all the other white trash.”
Brock marveled at the way Nagel said “white trash” as if he was part of some kind of secret society.
“And you go through people’s fences?” Brock asked.
“Through, over, under. One time my brother and this nut job Benny Jenkins dug underneath the Zulaffs’ fence. The Zulaffs thought it was dogs. Then the weather turned bad and the mud made it easier to just go over. The thing is not to get caught. Old man Hannorhan had a couple kids arrested for trespassing one night. Man, did he pay for that. We nailed his house with eggs for a month. A couple stones too when he went away one weekend. That’s what Huggy oughta get, a couple busted windows for messing up my shirt. Did he rip your shirt too?”
“He did.”
“Yeah, see? We got to bust at least two of his windows or the balance in the universe will be off.”
“The universe?” Brock said.
“Yeah, if you meet my mom she’ll go on about how everything always has to be in balance. When it’s not, you’re toast.”
“And that’s why we have to break Coach Hudgens’s windows?” Brock was talking in theory only.
“I’ll help you with this junk, then we’ll go.” Nagel patted Brock on the shoulder, scooped up a fresh garbage bag, and started loading it up with junk.
“I’m not breaking any windows.” Brock started working the broom. “I can’t leave the house, anyway.”
“Yeah.” Nagel was unmoved. “We’ll see.”
10
Nagel was a big help. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty and he dug into the dustiest corners of things without blinking. He was halfway under the workbench when Brock heard him whistle like he’d seen a pretty girl.
