Robert Bell, a year my junior, had insulted my girlfriend Carolyn, publicly in the hall, stating that she was just a bitch. People had heard him.
“What are you going to do?” asked Molly Gill.
Well, simple. Honor dictated that I would have to go beat him up. However, that was kind of a problem, seeing as how he was tough, known to be scrappy, larger than me, stronger than me, and was certainly able to beat me silly. There was no doubt: I would lose such a fight. And, I was afraid, deeply afraid, it would be painful.
“What are you going to do?” asked Molly Gill.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Somehow, I had to brace him for it. Saying nothing was unthinkable. My memory still stung from a comment from Eddy Frank, two years previous.
One day, while loafing around, he’d asked me to spread my fingers wide. I did. They didn’t spread very wide, compared to his. He looked surprised.
“Why that’s a weakling sign!” he said.
Sourly, I said nothing. I already thought I weak, a sissy, a coward. I was afraid of lots of things. I was afraid of fights, having lost most of them. I was afraid of girls. I was afraid of what others thought, being sure that others thought poorly of me. It was only years later that I realized that others didn’t spend much thinking about me one way or another.
And now, if I didn’t attack Robert Bell, my girlfriend Carolyn, along with everybody in the entire world, would think poorly of me. A horrible thing. I asked her if Robert Bell had said that. She nodded.
“Yes,” she said, then put her hand on my arm. “Let it be. Leave him alone. He’s crazy.”
She was a wiser person than myself. And she knew he’d kill me in a fight. She didn’t want me hurt. I dithered.
“I don’t know,” I said.
But somehow an idea was coming to me.
Robert’s father was Leon Bell, the plumber. A large, wise, slow-talking man of kindness who’d somehow spawned a hellion. Robert’s mother was a woman remarkable for frazzled red hair, always looking somehow electrified.
Their family were creatures of habit, and somehow I knew, or possibly heard, that they always sat down to dinner at six o’clock. So at six, I was parked just up the block from their old, two-story house.
At 6:05, I knocked on their back door, which somehow I knew would open onto the kitchen, where sure enough they were all sitting around the table, the father, the mother, Robert the dangerous, and his little brother. I stood beside the table, and they all looked at me with curiousity. I nodded to the parents, looked my hardest look at Robert.
“You called Carolyn a name,” I said. “Don’t do that ever again.” Robert made as to get up.
“Let’s talk about this outside,” he said. His father gave him a withering glance.
“Robert!” he said. “Sit down.” I pressed my advantage.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said to the father, again turned to Robert. “Don’t do it again.” The look in his eyes was growing worse.
“Let’s talk about this outside,” he said.
I nodded to the father, to the mother. They said so long. I left.
That night, I slept poorly. Because it was likely that, the next day, I’d be beaten up.
All during the next day, I tried to avoid Robert Bell. I fetched one black look from him in a hallway, and in the early afternoon, getting my books from my locker, I couldn’t avoid him as he walked up to me.
“Don’t ever come to my house,” he said.
“Don’t call my girlfriend names,” I said. He thought for a moment.
“OK,” he said.
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