My brief encounter with Peggy caused me a serious problem when I got to school. Mr. Happy wasn’t exactly, well, happy. He’d had about three minutes of heaven before he’d been put away. First thing I did when I got to school was hit a bathroom and dispose of the condom. When I made my way to first-period PE, I found he was still hard. You try to stuff him into a jockstrap like that. I was more than a little self-conscious when I went to lift.
“What happened to you?” Wolf asked.
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about my battered face.
“Fight,” I said.
“Did you win?”
“I guess.”
Usually, for guys, that would have been enough, but this was a fight. If it had been an argument with my girlfriend, I would have skated.
“Do I need to go get Gina?” Wolf threatened.
“I got into a fight. No big deal,” I said.
Wolf looked around the weight room and got everyone’s attention.
“David got into a fight, and it looks like he lost. Gather ’round; he’s going to tell us what happened.”
I was about to get into another fight. Wolf just gave me a smirk.
“It’s on YouTube,” I said.
“Of course it is,” Wolf said, exasperated. “Go get your tablet.”
Boy, was he bossy. When I got back, Coach Rector was there waiting with the rest of the boys from our PE class. I gave him a curious look.
“They said it had to be either an epic fight or you got beat up by a girl. I’m not missing that,” he said.
There were three videos to choose from. I selected the one taken from the back of first class that included the confrontation between Mr. O’Connell and the copilot. I gave them the setup before I played the video.
“A guy tried to strong-arm money out of me on my flight back from New York. After my last fight, my mom made certain things clear, so I was in no mood to deal with this guy. Turns out he’s a professional boxer, and after the way he hit me, I wish I’d never met him.”
I’d not had a clear view of the actual punch that took down the copilot. It was one of those deals where a guy doesn’t expect it, and the next thing he knows he’s face-first on the ground. It was a brutal shot, and the poor copilot stiffened up for a second and then just collapsed. I stopped the video.
“At this point, I was officially worried,” I admitted.
“I would have run,” Tim said.
“I had nowhere to go, or I would have let him try to catch me,” I said and restarted the video.
The actual fight didn’t take more than ninety seconds. When it was going on, it seemed to last much longer. How I survived the hook to the ribs was all down to Fritz and my training with him. It was a shot that made everyone cringe, me included. I was also lucky I deflected the combination to my face that did all the damage. If I hadn’t at least diverted the shots, I would have been down for the count.
I watched the crowd’s reaction, and to a man, they were all wincing each time I was hit. Then it was like watching TV wrestling when the good guy weathers the storm and comes back. When Kevin threw the overhand right, and I hip-tossed him, they actually cheered. Then they got quiet when they saw me pounce on him and begin to punch his lights out.
“Jesus, man,” Wolf muttered.
“Is that what Cassidy’s teaching you?” Tim asked.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Well, it’s settled then. I used to joke around that you were our designated fighter. Now it’s official,” Wolf said, which lightened the mood.
“Everybody back to work!” Coach Rector called out.
I’d forgotten all about Mr. Happy. Watching the fight again reminded me I was lucky I surprised Kevin, or that fight would have been much, much worse. It was evident he could punch through my defenses and inflict damage. My face was proof of that. A couple more combinations and it would have been lights out.
◊◊◊
At lunchtime, we all met to talk about the class project. Alan had come up with a solution for his app for people without phones: Wolf had helped him create a pedestal for a tablet. It had a lock on it so no one could pinch it. I pointed out I would just take the whole thing, which had my two friends scratching their heads. Alan had carried it into the meeting, after all.
We got approval for the picnic tables and the homeless fundraiser. The shop classes would work with Wolf and Jan to build them, while Stacy would organize the painting. She asked Wolf to have them all painted a base color. Once that was done, she would get people like Halle and me to be in charge of developing designs which would be added later.
We had permission to use a school bus for gathering supplies for the homeless. Brit wanted a short bus, but I told them we needed to think bigger. We all decided that it was better to have too much room than not enough. I planned to get the school bus filled. Alan said he would set up the GoFundMe page, and Stacy and Brit volunteered to create the flyer design. I suggested that they send it to Lily to review. What I would do was have her send it to Frank, and he would have his people go over it and provide feedback. I had to pay him anyway; might as well get my money’s worth.
