'Nah. Last I heard she wasn't with nobody.'
'No kidding.'
'Man, will you look at that gorgeous eye! You put a steak or something on that, or you'll go blind, sure as shit. Jesus, Brian can be ... never mind. Hey, you interested in Trace?'
'I don't know. Hey, Fleet, c'mon, that's my soap! Don't pass it around.'
'Y'know, you'd do better with somebody like Chrissy Snowden, man. Don't you dare tell Amanda I said this, she'll cut my ass off, but that's one hell of a woman, if you catch my drift.'
'I guess.'
'You guess? Jesus, Don, you mean you ain't once whacked off just thinking about that fox?'
'Donny, you are truly hopeless. You are an excellent human being, but you are truly hopeless.'
'I suppose.'
'A good thing you didn't meet up with that dude that stomped that kid.
You probably would've asked him home for dinner. You're a good man, Don, but you need a little spunk, you know what I mean? A little of the old intestinal fortitude when it comes to dealing with the real world.'
'I do all right, and gimme back my soap, damnit.'
'What I think you'd best do is tell everyone you got that eye in a fight. You get a little respect and you get all the women you need, if you know what I mean.'
'It's a little late for that.'
'It's never too late to lie through your teeth, if you know what I mean.'
'Yeah, I know.'
'Besides, from what I hear, under all them sweaters Tracey's a carpenter's dream-flat as a board.'
Don wasn't sure if it was a nightmare or a dream. He walked through the rest of the week with a slight smile on his face, a good word for everyone including Brian Pratt, and he didn't even blush when Chris came up to him in the hall and touched a finger to his cheek, wincing at the purpled blotch around his eye and hoping in a soft and high voice that he wasn't hurting too badly; when he sputtered nonsense for an answer, she didn't laugh, she only smiled and winked as she left. On the other hand, he didn't hear a thing any of his teachers said, and twice he was reprimanded for daydreaming in class. Falcone's announcement that the test papers wouldn't be ready until the following week didn't faze him; Hedley's glare in the hall didn't register until an hour later; when his detention supervisors snapped at him for staring, he didn't know what they were talking about, and they told him he was rude and would let the front office know; and when Tar Boston jammed his locker with a pen on Thursday, he only shrugged and walked away without his books.
It wasn't right. He was acting like a fool, knew it, and couldn't do anything about it. He was beginning to regret his rash invitation; yet between classes he loitered near the doors as long as he dared, trying to get a glimpse of Tracey, just nod to her casually, give her a knowing smile, and remind her with a look of their date this week.
He didn't see her.
By Friday noon he hadn't seen her once close enough to give the signal and he became convinced she was avoiding him, ashamed because she couldn't think of a decent excuse to get out of their date. He knew, beyond question, there would be a message for him when he got home-she had a headache, she had to do her hair, she had to go back to her grandmother's on Long Island and they were leaving again right after school. By the end of his last class he was ready to believe that Brian had put her up to accepting, another classic gag on the stupid Duck, and since he was who he was, it didn't make any difference if his feelings were hurt.
As he stowed his books in his locker, he almost cried; as he started for the side exit and a run around the track, he almost screamed Tracey's name. But he didn't. That was a rule too-it was all right for his mother to shout, to cry, but it wasn't all right for him. Or his father. Hold it in and work it out, his father had told him; hold it in and work it out. That's what a man does.
Hold it in.
Work it out.
And it wasn't until he was halfway down the steps to the gym that he remembered today was the last day of his detention.
The hell with it; he wasn't going to go. There was no way he was going to sit one more day in a stuffy room staring at the ceiling while his whole life was slipping away between his fingers. He gripped the railing and continued down, slower now, listening to his heels crack on the iron tips of the steps. No; he had to run. He had to think. And to think, he had to run.
'Don?'
His father was on the bottom landing with Gabby D'Amato, the head custodian. He glanced at his watch, then raised an eyebrow over a faintly amused look.
'You forget something?'
His face grew hot, and he almost told his father to shove it, to take the detention and cram it because it wasn't deserved and he didn't do it and who the hell was he to play God with his life?
Why the hell, he wanted to shout, didn't the old man get the hell off his back and put the pressure on someone else for a change.
He wanted to.
He almost did.
Until he thought about what it would be like when he got home, what his mother would say, how his father would treat him.
Hold it in; work it out.
Shit, he thought; oh, shit.
So he gave his father a sheepish smile and headed back to his locker to get something to read. Below, he heard the two men talking, laughing quietly, Norman's slap of the hunkered old man's shoulder. If the black horse were here, he thought as he pushed into the hall, he'd smash them into the wall without a second thought.
Dinner was almost like the good old days. His father was in a great mood, his mother chatted excitedly about the committee meeting at the high school that night, and he managed not to tell them about what had happened after detention.
First it had been Tar and Brian.
They were on their way to practice and had wedged him into a corner, slapping his shoulder and punching him lightly on the arm.
'Hey, fucker,' Tar said, his mood as black as his hair, 'you trying to get us in trouble?'
'What?'
Brian, who thought that his rugged playing-field-bashed face and close-cropped blond hair made him look like a marine, took hold of his belt and yanked him closer. 'Your daddy had a talk with us, sonny. He said we shouldn't do things like stink up Hedley's room anymore.'
Oh, Christ, Don thought; oh, Christ.
'Now, he didn't do nothing,' Tar said, grinning to show Don a mouth filled with nicotined teeth, 'but he did say he'd keep an eye on us, didn't he, Brian?'
'Damn right.'
'Now look, guys,' Don said, and gasped when a stiff finger jabbed into his stomach.
'No,' Brian said. 'You look, Duck. You look good, because Tar baby and me, we don't forget. And we sure as shit don't forgive.'
They grinned and stepped away, and as they moved toward the door, Brian looked over his shoulder. 'Watch your back, Duck. I'm gonna bust it, and I ain't telling you when.'
After they left, Falcone came up to him, frowning. 'You having trouble with the boys, Donald?'
'No, sir.'
'Oh, good.' And he handed him his test paper and said with a smile, 'For you, Boyd, just for you.' A look at his grade and he groaned-passing, but just barely.
The red had come then.
The familiar red that took him when he started to lose his temper (hold it in), the red cloud that whirled around him and threatened to suck the ground from under his feet and left only when he forced himself to remember the rule (work it out). But this time it was hard. Hedley and Mrs. Klass had been lecturing him all week
