MuniPsychos

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Christmas Chase

Christmas lights have been flashing all over town. Every corner. Every house. Every light pole and every fire hydrant. That's how things are in a small town like this. It's not one of those villages where everyone knows one another. Though it sometimes seems as though that's true. But it's small enough to have only one post office, two postmen, and an all volunteer fire department. It feels like a village, but it's not. And everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, puts up Christmas lights.

Some families put lots of colored nets across their shrubs. Others stick to the white icicles hanging from the gutters. And there are those with the wire animals, lighted all in white. The deer that bobs his head. The deer that turns. There are lots of figures, too. The glowing snowman. The waving Santa. I think it's making my head hurt.

I'm walking down Fifth Street. Seems like I've been walking here forever, but I haven't. Just for about two times every day for the past week. And I can tell you about all the lights on Fifth Street, except one house. There are only 11 houses on the five blocks that make up Fifth Street. Fifth runs east-west, more or less, from 20th Street, until it dead ends into the field behind the Methodist Church. There are seven houses on the north side, and four on the south. I know who lives in nine of them. And I've seen the other two during these walks, so I know something about them too.

I'm getting paid $20 by a girl at school to beat up Mark Williams. He lives on Fifth Street. 1385 Fifth Street. Odd numbers are on the north side of the street. I can remember the Christmas lights at every house except 1385 Fifth Street; somehow I can't remember to look at the lights when I go by that house. It's a white wood-sided house but I don't know if they have Christmas lights. I can't concentrate on that for some stupid reason.

This girl is pretty cute. He must have really pissed her off, but I don't really know what he did. I should ask her. Her name is Paula. She's tall and very cute, and thinks that everyone wants to ask her out. Her family has a lot of money. And she's really stuck up. A lot of people would pay to see her get beat up. I can tell you that. Sometimes I think I might beat her up myself, but I never do.

I have beat up a lot of kids, though. I beat the shit out of Chris Moseley last week because that stupid shit popped off on the bus. I don't know why people think they have to do that, stand up to a tough guy and all. Hey, I don't try to act smart. I don't go around acting all cool. Smart and cool people should not try to act tough either. It just ain't smart. I guess there must be more than one definition of smart. That stupid shit looks less cool with fewer teeth. And that black eye of his is going to last at least another week.

Before Chris Moseley, I hadn't been in a fight for almost two months. I beat the crap out of Bruce Schneider back on Halloween. What a dumb shit. Saying stupid shit to my little sister. Don't ever, EVER pick on a bully's family. That's just stupid. I mean, my sister and I aren't that close. We're six years apart. Where does this jack butt get off talking to my 10 year old sister, anyway? He drives a car already. He was stopped at a stop light where she was waiting to cross. His car window was down, and he said something about "why don't you get your big bad big brother to take you where you want to go, Carrot Top." Any moron knows that red headed people unanimously hate being called "carrot top." It's not even clever. It took me about three weeks to catch him far enough from his car so that he couldn't escape in it. After I pummeled him, he called my sister to apologize. She's pretty nice, so she accepted.

I usually don't beat people up for money. I may not take it, especially from Paula. Although I sometimes want to beat her up, she's still about my best friend. No one knows, though. We sit together in a couple of classes almost every semester. We talk on the phone almost every day. But no one else knows we're such good friends except maybe Sam. Samantha is Paula's sister, one year older, and they're best friends, too. Samantha and I have talked a few times, but we never really see each other. She's pretty ok to talk to on the phone. Maybe I could call her and find out what this Mark Williams kid did.

It's hard to believe that Mark Williams could actually insult anybody. He's a quiet little dweeb who jogs. He seems to read a lot and write in his stupid journal. He doesn't even run for the school team, he just runs, like for himself or something. That alone is almost enough to deserve getting beat up. But I don't think that's it. I'll bet he wrote some stupid poem, and emailed it to Paula. That's my guess. I am going to ask Paula if that's it.

Anyway, I think he might have figured out that I'm trying to beat him up. He's stopped following his regular schedule of staying for dweebate practice after school with his stupid dweebate team. And he's had his older sister drop him off at school early for a week now, instead of riding the bus like he usually does. It's almost painful to think of beating up such a dweeb.

His house is two houses from the deadend on the north side of Fifth Street. It's on the right side just before you get to the Church field. I'm across the street from his house right now. Unbelievably, he's backing out of the door right now, and locking it with his key. I cross the street diagonally as I pass his house. He hasn't turned around yet. I don't think he has seen me. I want to get past his house. I think he'll walk through the church field...

"Hey Petard," he yells suddenly. I guess he's seen me. I stop to look at him. He's standing on the porch, facing me. The porch has a waist high railing, and he's standing behind it at the corner nearest me. I'm about 30 feet away on the sidewalk. He's carrying a back pack on one arm. He's wearing one of those deep blue dweeb coats, polyester outside, goretex or fur inside, with a fur lined hood. He's wearing the hood right now. He looks like an idiot. Someone who deserves to get beat up on principle.

"Hey, Petard," he yells again, as if I wasn't staring at him from 30 feet away. "I know you're trying to beat me up." I don't know why he said that. I wasn't really trying to make a big secret of it or anything. Sometimes it is easier to find people if they don't know you're trying to beat them up. But I never make too big a secret of it myself. Mostly I will have to beat up fewer people if more people clearly understand the consequences of their own stupidity. "I know Paula told you to," he adds.

"Do you think you can outrun me?" I ask. "Because I'm pretty fast Mr. Big Runner," I taunt.

"I know you are," he said. "I figure I have to stay out of your reach for about three hundred yards. If you can't catch me in the first three hundred yards, I'll probably get away. That time anyway."

He just looked at me with that stupid hood on for a minute. I didn't say anything. Beating up dweebs is a funny business. I would much rather beat up a tough acting dude type of dude. At least they fight back most of the time. Little pip squeak types try to run. It's not much fun hitting someone who is running away.

I suspect he's right about me needing to catch him inside three hundred yards. I tried to run all the way around the track once and I almost puked. The track coach wanted me to run with the track creeps after that. I screamed at him, "Idiot!! Didn't you just see me almost puke?" He said don't call him an idiot, and that everybody pukes after running a whole lap flat out. And that I could certainly make the traveling team. I told him I was already on a traveling team of one and called him an idiot again. He said he'd warned me about calling him an idiot, and gave me detention. He came to see me in detention, though. He tried again to get me to run track. Said he could maybe get me a transfer from the detention room to come to track practice. I said, "No thanks! Track practice is one of the few places worse than detention." He hasn't bothered me any more.

"So where you going now, Williams?" I asked. "Are you gonna try to outrun me now?" I think he will probably go back inside the house, because I'm too close to the porch for him to get away if he runs. I wanted to taunt him a little, though. "You know what happens if I have to run you down and it hurts me, don't you? I'll make you feel all the pain you create."

"I even don't know why Pip is doing this," he said, half to himself. "I don't even know what her problem is."

I'm stunned. I'm dumbfounded. He called her 'Pip'. I'm sure that's what he said. No one knows I call her 'Pip'. That's my private nickname for her, when she and I talk. And he just called her 'Pip'. I can hardly speak. "What did you say?"

"I don't know why she got you to beat me up," he repeated.

"No," I said. "What did you call her? You said 'Pip'."

"I asked why Pip wants you to beat me up", he said yet again.

I can barely think straight. How does this punk know I call her 'Pip'. I'm gonna squash him if he's listening to us somehow. "How come you called her 'Pip'," I ask. "Where'd you get that name? Have you been listing when you shouldn't? I'm going to beat you twice, now."

"What?" he asked in confusion. "I don't know what I'm not supposed to listen to, but I call her 'Pip'. It's her nickname. And she hasn't even told me why she's mad."

My anger is turning into confusion, so I have to focus. "I don't care why. You probably know what you did to her. You probably sent her some dweeby poem, didn't you, or said something stupid in the hall," I said.

"Why should she want me beat up about that?" he said. "I do those things to her every day. She likes my poems, you know. No, I guess you don't. How would you know? And I guess I say stupid stuff to her everyday on our way to Calc. I don't really think she'd want me beat up for that. But I don't know what that's got to do with you anyway. She's perfectly capable of telling me what she likes - chocolate sundaes, quadrunner riding in the country, Cher, without you beating me up."

It starts slowly now to steep in that he knows her. I didn't know he knew her. But he knows her pretty well. Those are her three favorite things: chocolate sundaes, quadrunner riding and Cher. I don't really carry around a mirror when I'm planning to beat the crap out of someone, and it's dark anyway, but I'm pretty sure my face was turning a confused shade of red.

"What happened a week ago," I ask. "That's when she decided you were toast. Maybe she just needed your help for an exam, then BLAM, you're mine. What did you do a week ago to piss her off?" I ask again. "Maybe it was just your time."

But he didn't budge. He just stood there. Looking at me. "If there's nobody at home, I can come up there and kick your ass right now," I invited. He didn't bite. We both know his parents are in the house. I'm not stupid enough to try to body slam him on his own porch. I'm getting mad and he's just standing there, looking at me from within that furry black hole. I can't see if he's smirking, but I want him to. I get more pleasure out of pummeling someone who smirks.

"She likes you, you know," he said. I'm suddenly not so much angry as trying to figure you what he's talking about.