Chapter 39

I woke up in bed with a groggy recollection of how I got there. Turning over the clock read 10am. Getting out of bed and dressing, I was still a bit drowsy even with getting up so late.

Walking in the kitchen, mom and Erin were sitting at the table.

“Barnim, I thought you were going to get me a present?”

“Well, seeing as you have no patience whatsoever, let me go get it for you.”

Mom took a long hard look at me, then said “I’m going to make you some pancakes, then we’re going to have a conversation.” Well, it wasn’t going to take long to see how much trouble I was going to be in.

I went up to my room and got the velvet bag out of my backpack. When I got back there was a plate on the table waiting for me. As I sat, Mom was waiting, as was Erin, who was trying to see what I had in my hand.

I handed the bag to Erin. Mom leaned over to see what was in the bag as Erin opened it and began squealing as she pulled the necklace out. There was an “ooh” from Mom.

“Is it real?”

“Yes, Mother.”

They were both looking at it. Mom was explaining it wasn’t a toy and was for special occasions. She told Erin to go put it in her jewelry box then looked at me.

“Don’t think that gesture is going to save you. So, I’d appreciate it if you pulled up your left sleeve and then let’s see the leg please.”

I understood that was an order not a request, and that we were going right into it. As I pulled up my sleeve, her face was blank; she should play poker.

“Your grandmother is right; it does look better than I thought. Now let’s see your leg.” I pulled the leg of my shorts up.

“Remove the bandages.”

Pulling the bandages back, her eyes got really big. Then there was some poking and prodding. Luckily the tenderness was bearable.

“So, let’s hear about the injury first.”

I explained everything went down, her and Grandmother evidently thought alike; I was an idiot. She let that be known multiple times, then a bomb dropped.

“So please explain to me why you’re showing your sister your “wee willy winky” before I relieve you of it and mount it on my mantle.”

Well, that was ominous. As I began to explain, I gave the lead in about Keise.

“Let’s move it forward to the incident in question.”

“Well, Keise decided to “pants” me. I had no clue it was going to happen, and I honestly believe she didn’t think Erin would follow her. I got my shorts up as quick as I could and had a conversation with Erin how things should work. That’s when I was informed that your youngest male child likes to walk around naked not caring who sees.”

There was a silence.

“Hold that thought.”

She got up abruptly and headed towards the bedrooms. A couple of minutes later I could hear her yelling at Randall. There was stomping as Mom came back into the kitchen.

“You’re clear on this one. So, what’s this about my chubby little boy becoming a teenage Lothario?”

“Well, there were 3 new members of the Barnim Appreciation fan club, although Aline turned in her membership, as did Mariana after I gave her my opinion on her “holier than thou” attitude. So, it’s just Keise left.”

-”Well, don’t let it go to your head. Now, let’s get back to your arm. You realize that you’re a minor and I could cause a big stink about this whole thing.”_

” Now I believe it would be better if it was done on loving terms. Or you could rule with an iron fist but that would alienate your oldest male child living at home and drive him away.”

There was a glint of expression on her face I couldn’t identify but it was gone in an instant. She sat there looking at me; I had no clue what was running through her mind. It was a quiet and tense 10 minutes with not a word was said before Mom shifted in her chair, leaned forward and looked at me.

“OK, so you’re an adult now. There’s going to be a new set of adult responsibilities that are now yours, starting with the truck going in to your name, as well as the insurance. So, you need to get your act together and find an insurance company. Just be aware, what you pay will probably double.”

“Is that it?”

“Yep, for now. Better get on it.”

With that the conversation was over and done with, and I was left sitting at the table pondering. That didn’t go anywhere near as bad as I thought it would. Maybe the body snatchers had replaced mom with a body double while I was on vacation.

I spent the next couple of hours with a phone book calling and getting quotes for car insurance. It was a lot more, though not quite double as Mom had thought. I ended up paying just shy of $600 every 6 months. I still had enough socked away, though it would pretty much drain me until I got my allowance and went back to work.

The rest of the day went by, just relaxing, no chores which was great. After dinner, I got all my stuff ready for school and crashed out early after supper.

I tried getting back to my usual routine when I got up. The run that morning was horrible since my leg wasn’t fully healed and wwas hurting as I ran which slowed me down. I figured I’d probably be sore for a while.

Since it was a longer drive to summer school, I needed to leave extra early in case something happened on the way.

I figured leaving at 7AM gave me what should be more than enough time and would get me into the parking lot 20 minutes before class. This allowed me to find where the class was going to happen.

This was going to be an interesting class, and from the introduction of what was going to be covered and expected, this was going to be a strict no nonsense class.

Tuesday would be covering the grammar portion of the class while Thursday would cover the literature and would be taught in the same class by another teacher. As it turned out, the teacher of the Tuesday class was a nun, Sister Vermote.

The class was three hours long with a half hour break in the middle. I’d forgotten how demanding teachers were in Catholic schools and that I was actually going to have to do homework for a summer school class. There were two projects that would have to be done as well. A five-minute public speaking project and a 5-page research paper, both on a topic of our choice. There would probably be some sort of projects in the Thursday class as well. We were issued textbooks and began on the first four chapters.

Most of the other students were of what I would call the extremely smart variety and were taking the class trying to free up scheduling space for when school started and allow them to take specific classes.

Me, I just needed to grind through. Paying attention in these classes would be a must as there’d be no slacking tolerated at all.

As class let out, Sister Vermote stopped me.

“So, you’re the student from the public school?”

“Yes, ma’am. Though I went to a Catholic school in Illinois until the 8th grade.”

“OH?”

“I won’t be a distraction, and the work will be done and turned in on time.”

“Make sure that’s the case.”

Heading home after, I stopped for lunch at Arby’s. Once home, I called over to Ellie’s house and we chatted for about an hour before I told her a nap was needed before heading to kick boxing. She was bummed that we wouldn’t see each other till tomorrow.

I would be working my normal days at the Feed & Seed this week, then starting next week it would be 4 days a week adding Monday and Friday. I’d need the extra hours now that I was financially responsible for the truck.

After the call, I got my bag ready, set the alarm and I took my nap.

Getting up from my nap, I had a shower and went to get a sandwich before leaving. Randy was giving me looks as I walked through the kitchen.

I was happy getting back to the routine; the drive was soothing and walking into the gym, the smells and sounds were relaxing. I was broken out of my reveling in the sensations by Master Boripat.

“It’s about time. We have work to do. Go get changed.”

“UH ... I’m not going to be able to train as normal. There was an accident while I was on vacation.”

“Really? I think you just want to keep slacking off.”

“I’ll change, then let you see what I’m talking about.”

“Make it quick.”

Going into the locker room, I took a look at the stitches. They’d need to come out pretty soon and I’d do it myself, no need to go to a doctor. The bandages wouldn’t really be necessary anymore. I headed out to where they were standing outside the locker room.

“SO, please explain to us why you can’t train like you’re supposed to.”

I went on to explain everything relevant that happened during the trip. They pointed to the leg of my shorts.

“Let’s see.”

Pulling the leg up, Mr. Singh looked up at me.

“So, how drunk was the doctor that did these stitches?” I explained that part over again, then attention was turned to the large tattoo on my arm. There was a whole other conversation with Mr. Singh asking me which Island nation was the tattooist from. Then I was taken over to the training area and we began our somewhat “normal” session.

We spent time discussing and dissecting what happened that day, especially how my training had help me react. After the all the talking Mr. Singh said he was proud of me and what I did. There was some time spent teaching me some additional breathing techniques. We spent about 2 1/2 hours talking and just working on the things to keep me on an even keel.

I went to find Master Boripat after the session; he was doing the one thing he was an expert on, yelling at students. I was told to go change and meet him back in the office in ten minutes. I got cleaned up and sat in the office waiting for a few minutes.

“So, I’ve set your next fight. I’ve got the contract for you to take home with you.”

The fight was in about 2 months on August 13th and was supposed to be my hardest fight. My next opponent was Rodney Laguerre, he was almost twice my age at 31, and from his record, he seemed about the middle of the road with 27 wins and 35 losses. Though Master Boripat said that this was deceiving as he’d won the last 8 fights, he’d had.

We watched tapes of the last two fights that he’d had. Laguerre seemed to get stronger as the fight went on. He was shorter than any other opponent I’d had to date.

There was an oddity as we watched both fights; both of the opponents sprouted and inordinate number of cuts late in the fight. To my eye, it wasn’t like there was a huge amount of punches thrown that that would cause them. There was something about it that was nagging at me, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Obsessing over it wasn’t going to show any progress, so I just let it go.

After watching the fights, I went home. The rest of the evening was quiet until I sat down to eat something. Mom slipped a piece of paper in front of me.

“Here’s the title to the truck, go down tomorrow and get it switched over.”

After getting up and following my normal routine, I had breakfast then got the work done that needed to be done for summer school and went over the next couple of chapters; it was going to be my new normal for half of summer vacation.

The visit to the County Clerk added another $175 to the almost $1200 I spent on a years’ worth of car insurance. That’s what happens when you get your own insurance at 17 yrs of age. Guess I relearned the first lesson of being an adult; it’s expensive as hell.

I put all the papers in my desk when I got home and changed into some decent clothes before heading over to Ellie’s house. Getting out of the truck, I was attacked halfway to the front door. She caught me off guard and I barely caught her by the ass before she slid down. Kisses were raining all over my face then Ellie hopped down and tried to pull me into the house. I stayed put and she turned around, glaring at me.

“Go lock up, we’re going to see a movie.”

“No, I want to fuck.”

“Look, I do too, but we’re going to go see a movie. We need to spend more time together outside of the bedroom. So, let’s go.”