Author: Servo Blue
AUTHOR'S NOTE: ============= This is where it starts to get MORE violent. Nothing too bloody, but warrents a warning. Just so you know.
--Servo Blue
DISCLAIMER: ==========
Oh, screw the disclaimer. My story. Ask to use it anywhere else. Read it if you want to, or if you're supposed to. Good? Good.
The Out-Crowd ===========
Part 7: Out of the Alley, Into the Gutter
By twelve thirty, I had both come to terms with Shelby on how it could not possibly be his fault in any way, shape or form, and beaten both him and Steiny at their own game. I still don't understand how his uncle could've convinced him it WAS his fault--he was five!!
But, after whipping--uh, defeating both of them, with a golden 238 to 140 to 131, and complaining about the fact that I know only two people whose names do not end in an 'ee' sound, it was time for Shelby and I to go.
We said our goodbyes, and I promised Steiny a rematch. We walked outside, but before we got off the walk in front of the building, we saw Rudy sitting on the hood of the car. What a killjoy that is.
"What the hell do you want?" I asked.
"Afternoon, boys," he said, in a mock-cheery tone. "nice day for skippin', huh?"
"What do you want, Rudy?" I asked through clenched teeth.
"Oh, now is that anyway to talk to a guy like me?" he asked, standing up. He was a good five inches taller than me. I hadn't noticed this before.
"Don't ever touch my car again," said Shelby.
"Oh, the carney speaks," said Rudy, in a surprised voice. I was shocked when I heard that come out of his mouth. My eyes must've bugged out. I know my mouth fell open. I looked over at Shelby, and he was baring his teeth. I looked back at Rudy, who was casually pacing back and forth in front of the car.
"You know, I knew right away that I wasn't gonna like you," said Rudy. "But I didn't think you'd give us an opportunity to kick your ass so soon,"
Before I could ask what he meant by 'us', somebody just as big as him, nailed me in the side with his shoulder and we hit the walk. He must've been running for some time before he hit me. My head bounced off the pavement. It hurt. Bad.
I didn't see it, but I heard Shelby get slammed against the wall and kneed in the stomache, with that muffled 'hoo-uhh' that can only be made when you're hit in the stomache. The guy that ran me down stood up and kicked me in the back, and when I rolled onto my back, he kicked me in the side, just below my ribs. I rolled again, just to see Rudy and a pal throw Shelby head-on into his driverside door. I didn't see him hit it, but I heard him fall, and I definitely heard the crumple of door metal before that. Rudy picked me up and held me by the collar. This is where I prove that I'm an idiot.
"I'm not a dog-person," he said, trying to be witty or dramatic, or something.
"Just a filthy son of a bitch?"
See, what I just said was that I'm an idiot. And what I just said to Rudy just proves it. I'm not very good at judging dangerous situations. Heck, I'm proud of myself when I hit the water and not the bowl, if you know what I'm sayin'. But getting back to the story, this is also where Rudy kicks the shit outta me.
Punch on the cheekbone.
"What'd you just say?!"
Punch in the stomache.
"You faggot!"
Punch in the eye.
"What did you JUST--", punch in the stomache, "--FUCKING--", punch in the mouth, "--SAY?!?"
Kick in the groin, uppercut, fall on the walkway in front of the bowling alley.
Darkness.
"Nobody talks to me like that. Your life is hell now, Casey."
Footsteps. They're leaving. Good. God, my balls hurt. And the rest of me. ...Mostly my balls.
"Uuuughhh..."
O.K., Shelby's alive. Now to open my eyes....I'm shaking. Why am I shaking?
"Case--You O.K., boss?"
Yeah, I'm fine, Shelby. Quit shaking me.
"Case?"
What? I said I'm fine.
"Oh, shit, Steiny!"
"It's my fault,"
What's your fault? Me gettin' my ass kicked? You did, too, Shelby.
"No, it's not. It's mine. I made him leave,"
Wait, THAT'S Shelby. Who's the other one?
"If I hadn't fallen asleep this morning, I'd have been there to go with you guys. Three on three is better odds, wether they jump you or not,"
Jeremy! Fell asleep, huh? That's O.K., you were up all Sunday and Monday nights, man.
"Maybe...but if I hadn't broken down like that nobody would've gone anyway."
Light. Light?! Yes! My eyes are open! Now, speak!
"Nnnnn," was all I said. Oh, O.K., one of those slow transitions. It's cool.
"Hey, he's waking up," said Jeremy.
"Go get his mom. I would, but, you know...concussion and all." said Shelby.
"No problem," said Jeremy, as he got up and ran out the door. I now had all of my vision back, as well as control over most of my brain.
"How ya doin', Little Big Mouth?" asked Shelby, smiling down at me from beside my bed. He had a long bandage taped to the left side of his forehead. I tried to move, but it hurt too much.
"Uuhhhh, wow."
"Whoa, hold still, boss. You walked into a pretty rough beating. Jeremy just ran down to get your mom."
"Yeah, I heard."
Just then, we heard the thundering of feet up the stairs and down the hall. Jeremy slid back into my room. My mom walked in a moment later.
"There you go, Mrs. Blazer," he said, "Your very own Casey, good as a little less than new!" Shelby smiled, and my mom had a little grin on her face. She came over and sat on a chair by my head.
"How's your head?" she asked, running her hand through my hair.
"Fine, I guess. For slamming into the sidewalk, anyway."
"Well, the doctors said you'll be O.K., hon," she said.
"Doctors?"
"Of course," she said, sounding surprised that I would need to ask. "Shelby tried to wake you, but you were out cold. He hobbled into the bowling alley and got Mr. Feigelstein to take both of you to the hospital. You've both got your own personal concussions, but beyond that nothing more than a few cuts and bruises." She stood up. "Which means, of course, that there will be school tomorrow for the both of you."
"Both of us?" asked Shelby and I in unison. Then my mom turned to Shelby.
"Shelby, when you told me what happened, you didn't say anything about any one of those boys having a belt or kicking you."
Shelby looked down at the floor.
"I think you'll be staying with us for a while." she finished. He looked up at her with tears in his eyes, jumped up and hugged her. He cried again, for the third time that day, and kept muttering 'thank you's between sobs.
Jeremy and I looked at each other, both of us feeling sorry for Shelby, but nobody had told Jeremy what this part was about yet. After a minute, I said that I had to go use the bathroom, and seeing as how mom and Shelby were busy, I asked Jeremy to help me up and across the hall. He readily agreed.
I sat up, as well as I could, wincing when my stomache muscles contracted so stiffly. He came over and grabbed my wrist, pulling me to my feet. I put an arm around him, and he helped me out of the room. We shut the door behind us and I had him come into he bathroom with me. Once the door was shut, I leaned against the sink and he against the door.
"Nobody told you about him yet, did they?" I asked.
"You mean why he's staying here?"
I nodded.
"Nope," he said.
I told him the whole story, of exactly what happened today; him showing me the welts on his back, me taking him out of there, the discussion at the bowling alley, and the fight. By the end of the lesson, his jaw was dropped in astonishment and his eyes had an intent stare in them.
"Pretty messed up, huh?" I asked.
"Yeah, you could say that," he answered. After a minute, he added, "You know, this may seem kinda weird on their side of the door," and a crooked smile came over his face. I couldn't help but smile back at him.
"Yeah," I said, straightening up, "Go on out. But stay there, I'll need you to get back across the hall."
I did my business, and Jeremy helped me back. There was another room along the hallway, between my room and the staircase, but it was empty at the present time, due to our lack of another bed. It did, however, have a few peices of furniture in it that we hadn't had a place for. One of them was a small couch--bigger than a love seat. My mother assigned Jeremy the task of helping her to push it over from the other room with her. Oh, it would've been so much easier if I could've helped, because the only thing my mom knows about moving furniture is NOTHING, and Jeremy looked like he was the projectile in a pinball machine, the way he kept bouncing around, going here, taking that corner, come to this side and slide it around; whatever orders my mom gave.
I stepped back in to my room and saw Shelby sitting on the side of my bed, with his head down, staring at the floor. My heart broke right away, and I went over and sat beside him, putting an arm over his shoulders. He looked up at me, lifting his head about ten degrees, just enough so that his eyes could meet mine. For a minute, we just looked at each other, not knowing what to say....Or if anything needed said. I saw his eyes well up again, and mine did as well, half because of response to seeing my friend in this terrible situation, and half the fact that I was glad it wasn't me.
As noisily and clumsily as possible, mom and Jeremy got the sofa into my room. Now, right away, I staked my claim on the couch, and my mom agreed, but Shelby said no. Everyone looked at him.
"What?" he said, shocked. "Hey, when YOU take a car door to YOUR cranium, then YOU get to make the sleeping arangements, O.K., boss?" he asked me, smiling. At first, I was stunned, and thought he might go all misty-eyed again, but it was a genuine joke, and I heard Jeremy stifle a giggle. I looked at my mom, and she said she didn't care, but somebody better use it since she and Jeremy nearly destroyed the upstairs hallway getting it in here. Jeremy laughed again, but said that he had to get home, and that he'd see us in the morning, and promised us no late starts as he walked out.
My mom went downstairs a few minutes later. She said she was working on a plan for when my dad got home, both to break the news and to start up a process to make this deal a bit more permenant. The look on Shelby's face was a mixture of dread and hope. Mom went downstairs, and Shelby and I were alone.
"Oh, schist!" he said, and put both of his hands through his hair.
"What?" I asked, wondering what he just said.
"Oh, yeah. Schist is a layer of rock under the earth's crust. I learned about it in geology class last year. It was funny, 'cause Mr. Janeco kept sayin' it, over and over, and the class had to keep from crackin' up. I just picked it up. Keeps me from sayin' 'shit' around adults, but it's spelled different and everything, so they can't yell at me." He looked proud for a minute, but then went back to his all-too-recent look of frustration.
"What's wrong, man?" I asked.
"None of my stuff is here, boss," he said. "How do I get it? Any of it?"
"I don't know. Dave's got a job, right?" I asked.
"Sometimes," said Shelby. Oh, this is going well.
"Well, I don't know. Maybe that's one of the things my parents are gonna talk about tonight," I said, and left it at that. He seemed satisfyed with the idea.
We decided that 10:30, especially after the antics of the day, was well past late enough to go to bed. I offered him a sheet or two, but he declined. I did manage to hit him in the face with a pillow before he asked for it. It was funny, too, because I tossed it at him, and he was turning around to ask for one, and it hit him. I laughed, anyway. He just gave me an evil grin.
We stripped down to our boxers--or in his case, boxerbreifs, which I will never understand the appeal of--and I jumped in bed and he laid out on the sofa. I don't know what it was. Well, maybe I do. I guess it was the fact that they didn't just attack me today. They attacked Shelby, too. They must've seen him as a threat, and looking at his 90% naked body right now, I could see he would've been had they not jumped us like that. He was no bodybuilder, but he was bigger built than I was, and more defined. The punk look that he maintains, with all the sweat shirts and boggy clothes kind of hides his physique. He laid there, motionless, save for his chest's rise and fall for air. It could've been the fact that he'd be living with me soon. Or that of all the people he knew, it was me that he chose to talk to this morning, after knowing me for only a day, and trusting me fully. I don't know what it was, really. Maybe a combination of everything. But I felt really close to him now. As I lay there, watching this boy--who I just happen to realise was one of the cutest guys at school--sleeping, in my room, on my sofa....I felt....
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....To Be Continued....
Yes, it got violent again, I know. There's more ass-kickin' action to come, too, but it may be a chapter or two off, so don't worry. Ah, keep 'em wantin' more, that's what I always say. Heheheheh. Oh, yeah, and, uh.... CLIFFHANGER!!!! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!!! :D Any Comments or Criticism go to me at servo_blue@usa.com