Hold Fast (12 page)

Aunt Ellen knew about what happened already. Sellers had phoned the house from school and she'd gotten another call from Mrs. Kentson. I told her I wanted to wait till he came home. I'd only have to repeat it all over again. She said no, she wanted to hear it now. So I told her. Curtis was there in the kitchen too, trying to say what he could to back me up. I shouldn't a needed any help from him. I told her the truth plain and simple. And if the truth didn't show that what happened to Kentson was an accident, then it was just too bad. She couldn't be blind as a bat like Sellers.

When I finished, what she said was, “That's your side of the story, is it, Michael?”

“No, it's not my side of the story! It's what happened!” I lost my temper. I didn't mean to. I shouted at her. It was just that I got so bloody mad at the way she said it. Like I'd have to pass a dozen lousy lie-detector tests before she'd believe either word I said.

“Mrs. Kentson's version of the story is a bit different. She said to me on the phone that you've been bothering Lewis since the first day of school.”

Bothering Lewis! What the hell was that supposed to mean? Me bothering him! What about the other way around? Now I knew what I done was the right thing. I should a smashed his lying face in a bit more.

“That's a lie,” I told her. “Idn't it Curtis? Curtis knows. Curtis knows what he's like.”

“Mom, you can't believe that. Kentson is a liar. He's the one who is always causing trouble.”

“All I know is what Mrs. Kentson told me. And I was talking to Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Simmons as well.”

“You sure picked the right ones!” I was yelling again. I couldn't control myself. “And what did Sellers tell you? I spose he said it was all my fault. I spose you're ready to believe every lousy word they says. What do you think I'm telling you if it's not the truth? Why should I have to lie!”

“Michael, stop yelling. Please! I didn't say you were lying.”

“Well, you said the next thing to it.”

“Michael, all I'm saying is, according to everybody else I've been talking to, this would not have happened if it wasn't for you. They said Lewis would not have been hurt at all except for you starting it.”

“Me starting it! He was the one who had his lousy big mouth goin!” I shouted at her. I got so bloody mad. Some people wouldn't believe you, not if they seen you swear on the Bible.

“Michael, that's not much of a reason to put someone in the hospital.”

Shit! It was just as well to be talking to the side of the wall. Just as well. The hell with it. I wasn't about to waste my breath any longer. I stamped off outa the kitchen, went into the bedroom and slammed the door.

Not one lousy person believed what I said except Curtis. And that was only because he was in the school and he knew the rights of everything. That's what bugs me! Every friggin time the ones that thinks they knows it all are the ones who are never there when it happened. And Sellers, he didn't have two clues anyway about what went on outside his office. Just because they're older, they thinks they're the ones who knows better.

And the bloody worst was yet to come. Wait till it got around to the time for the old man to have his say. That was going to be something. I could see it coming now.

After a while Curtis came in and sat down on the other bed across from me. He was the only sensible one I'd seen all day. He told me he had a long talk with his mother about what Kentson was really like. I doubt if it done much good.

“Curtis,” I said, “what would you do if you was me?” Me asking him for advice. Now that was something.

“Keep telling them the way it really happened. That's all you can do. Eventually they'll have to see that you're right.”

“The friggin truth don't work around here. They wants to see me lyin right through my teeth.”

“Mike, be careful with the old man. Don't say too much to him for your own good. He's going to be breathin fire when he hears about this.”

“Screw the old man.”

Right away I apologized. I shouldn't a said it. It was just that I was in such a rotten mood. I thought, shit, I would a nailed anyone who said anything like that to me about my father. I would a flattened him right on.

Curtis never got mad. He just looked at me. “Forget it, Mike.”

The big showdown started at six.

No sense trying to describe how he reacted to the news about me when Aunt Ellen spilled it out to him. If you had an atomic bomb and exploded it next to the kitchen sink you might a had something to compare it to.

After about five minutes of the smoke and fire, me and Curtis went out into the hallway. We stopped before we came to the kitchen.

“What's that kid trying to prove now! What's he got for sense!” I heard him say. “Kentson — he sure picked a fine one. Father a superintendent at the plant. Uncle the mayor. That's sure going to do one hell of a lot for my business. Both of them have bought new cars from me every year for the past ten years. Business is bad enough as it is. Jesus, that young bugger is going to apologize to them if it's the last thing he does. Where is he?”

“Now, Ted, get a hold of yourself,” Aunt Ellen said. Useless words, if there ever was any.

Curtis grabbed my arm, trying not to let me go in there, but I pushed him away and burst in on them in the kitchen.

“I'm right here. And before anyone goes one step farther, I'm going to have my say about the whole thing.”

It startled him the way I came in so fast. He was still dressed in the overcoat and suit he wore to work. I knew I had to come on strong right off the bat. Otherwise I'd never get a chance to say anything. I started off talking so quick that he had no choice but to listen to me.

“What happened today at school between me and Kentson was Kentson's fault. It would never a happened if he hadn't started it. I hit him first, but that was only because I had to. He would a kept it up all day if I hadn't shut him up. And he hurt himself only because he was stun enough to fall over a stupid desk and bang his head. If he tells you any different, or his mother, or Sellers, I don't care who it is, then they're lyin, and either you believes them or you believes me and Curtis. Curtis says the same thing.”

He came back at me like a sledgehammer.

“I don't give a good goddamn whose fault it is! You shouldn't have been at it in the first place. Can you get that through your thick skull? Don't you know any other way to settle an argument than by bashing someone's head in?”

“Hell, the stupid jerk was mockin me, calling me all kinds of names. What was I sposed to do, shake hands with en?”

“Whata you mean — calling you names? Was that all it was? Was that what it was! Jesus, you're not a youngster anymore!”

“How would you like it if someone called you a stupid baywop? How'd you like that? I spose you'd let en get away with it, would ya?”

“Well, he must have had some reason for saying it.”

Cripes! I could hardly believe my friggin ears. Some
reason for it! What the dyins was he trying to do, pick up for him!

“Whata ya mean, he must a had some reason for it! His bloody reason was to get me mad. That's what his bloody reason was. His stupid arsed-up way of getting back at me.”

“Michael, you cool off. You hear me? You cool off and listen to me! And if you're not careful I'll smack you down in that chair and make you listen. You should be smart enough by now to know that you had to expect some of that when you came to live in St. Albert. In a place the size of Marten people don't all speak the same as they do here. You know that. They talk different, they act different, and they don't know as much. You got to expect some people to laugh at you. It's only natural. But any sensible person would get over it. They'd change after a while. Just like you got to change and cut out your stubbornness.”

“Cripes,” I yelled, “you're worse than they are!”

He drew back. His stupid little pep talk was turning my guts. It made him all the madder when he seen that he couldn't pump any of that bullshit into me.

“What the hell difference do it make,” I yelled, “where I comes from or what words I uses? I spose you figures that St. Albert is the only place people got any sense. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. People here haven't got two clues compared to most people home, not two friggin clues.”

I had him ripping mad, fierce altogether. He wasn't giving any heed atall to what I was saying. Not a bit, I could see it in his eyes. All that was getting through to him was the way I was saying it. Shouting. Yelling at him
like it was someone my own age I was talking to. I didn't give a darn who he was or how old he was. I wasn't going to put up with him saying stuff like that. No, by cripes, I wasn't.

He reached out and grabbed me by the arm.

“Listen you! Don't you go screaming at me like you own this goddamn house. I took you in here. And it wasn't because I had to either.”

“Now Ted …” Aunt Ellen said.

“You shut up.” He pointed his finger at her. “I've had to listen to too much from this punk already.”

He turned back to me. “I took you in, not because I had to, but because you had no other place to live. You've been living here in my house and eating my food for two months. And what do you turn around and do? Kick up a fuss and start acting like you own the place. Now you listen, and you listen good. I came here to live from a place not half the size of where you came from. I came here and sweated my ass off to build up a business. I started off with seven lousy dollars twenty years ago and I built it up till I had one of the best goddamn businesses in St. Albert and one of the best homes to go with it. And if you think you can come here and do like you please, then kid you're going to have to learn to change your tune pretty fast. Nobody runs things in this house except me. You got that? Nobody! I thought a lot about your father and mother. Only for that I'd kick you out on your ass tomorrow.”

All the time I was trying to haul away from the hold he had on my arm. I couldn't get away. Not until he stopped talking and then let go.

“You didn't care anything about my father and mother,” I told him.

“Now, Michael, that's not true,” Aunt Ellen said.

“And what's more, they didn't care anything about you. And if you don't like me here I can bloody well get out.”

He tried to latch his paws around my arm again. I moved away before he had a chance.

“By god, you're not going to leave then! And that's what you're not! You're going to stay here and you're going to learn to like it, you got that! You're going to learn a few goddamn manners too, and you're going to get that stubbornness outa you, even if I have to beat it out. If your old man hadn't always given you so much of your own way, you wouldn't be in the mess you're in now.”

I would a come back at him for that, but he didn't give me a chance. He took one step more and shouted down at me, all the time pointing that friggin finger of his.

“And what's more, you're going to go over to Mr. Kentson's the first thing tomorrow morning and apologize for what you did.”

“Like hell I am!”

That done it. That broke everything loose. He made one lunge for me. Grabbed me by the shoulders and rammed me up against the kitchen wall! It banged the back of my head in.

“Ted!”

“You stay outa this, Ellen!”

He looked down at me. All the time I was twisting and turning to get myself free. But it didn't do no good.

His voice turned off low. He spoke at me almost under his breath. Only loud enough for the two of us to hear. It
came out through his teeth. “Michael, my boy. If you ever say that to me again, if you ever so much as think about it, so help me I'll turn you over and pound your bare ass until the blood runs out.”

I was pinned solid up against the wall, my feet barely touching the floor. I had to listen to it. I had no choice. The only thing I could a done was kick him in the shins or give him the knee between the legs. But I wouldn't be the one to fight that dirty. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing I even thought of that.

He let me drop. I was so stunned where he struck my head and spitey all the one time that I hardly knew where I was going. I was halfway down the hall when I turned back and screamed. “Don't you offer to lay another finger on me! Don't you offer or I'll have the cops on you so fast it'll make your friggin head spin!”

I ran the rest of the way to the room. Slammed the door shut and locked it.

I could hear him shout, “I'm not through with you yet, kid! Not by a long shot.”

That friggin blood-of-a-bitch! That bastard!

Iwas that spitey I crumpled up on the bed, drove and pounded my fist into the mattress. How much of that maniac did I have to put up with? Thought a lot of my father and mother. Like hell. Cripes, if only I could a got a good crack at him! I'd a showed him. By god, I'd a showed him.

Eat his friggin food. I wouldn't eat another lick of his friggin food, not if I was starved to death. I wasn't going to be in that house much longer. Mark my words.

I never moved from the bed. I just lay there. I must a used every curse word I knew a hundred times over. I shouldn't a been doing that. It proved he was getting to me. I thought about it. I must a cursed more in the last few weeks than I ever done in the whole rest of my life. And it was all on account of him and that Kentson. Every lousy bit of it.

I still wasn't calmed down when Curtis tapped on the door and asked to be let in.

“Whata ya want!” I barked at him.

“Open the door,” he said whispering. “It's only me.”

I got up off the bed and flicked the button on the
door knob and rolled back on the bed again, face into the wall.

“Lock it,” I told him.