Chapter 28

Jennifer made good on her threat to tell her mom. She left lunch a few minutes early and went to the office. She convinced Mrs. Davis that it was urgent. I found out later from Janie. She told me after last period that I was getting on the bus with them as I was going to the Bridges’ place for dinner. On the bus, Jen explained that Natalie had hit the roof and that we were all going to pick up the younger kids from elementary school. I was glad that I was coming along. I didn’t believe that Vinnie or Joe would be dumb enough to mess with Nick Bridges’ wife, but since one of the kid’s nicknames was ‘Meatball,’ I couldn’t be sure.

When we got off the bus and walked to the house, we saw Natalie waiting next to the family station wagon. She ran up and hugged me. “Thanks for coming, Tommy. I have no idea what Maggie was thinking of when she went along with Emily’s asinine plot.”

“I’m so sorry, Natalie,” said Janie, as a tear ran down her cheek.

Natalie broke the clinch with me and hugged Janie to her tightly. “Hush, honey. It’s not your fault. Like you, Emily has had a lot happen to her. Unlike you, she’s not making good decisions right now. You also have to remember that she’s only eleven. We need to get her to understand that no matter what happens that she’ll be alright, whether it is with us, your dad or even your mom, if Lisa ever gets better.”

Well, better or not, there is no way I would trust either girl with Lisa Parker.

After we dropped off our book bags, we piled into the station wagon and drove to Meadow Elementary School. I went to Meadow starting the second half of fifth grade, as our family moved East Chilton from suburban Pittsburgh in January of 1977, so I was pretty familiar with the school. Meadow was one of three elementary schools in town that fed the junior high.

When we got to the school, Natalie parked and got out of the car. “You three stay here. I’m going to the office to let them know the girls are coming home with us instead of on the bus.”

I watched to make sure that Natalie got into the building and breathed a sigh of relief when she did.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jen.

“I’m kind of worried that those fools will come to the school to harass Emily and Maggie. If that happens, then they might bother your mom.”

“Then you’ll just have to unpack your Superman cape,” grinned Janie.

“I’m not going to let them hurt Natalie or the girls, but I want to avoid a fight if I can.”

“Why?” asked Jen. “After what Vinnie did to you at school and what Joe Caputo said about my sister, they deserve to have their butts whipped.”

I sighed. “That’s true, but your sisters bear some of the responsibility here, especially Emily. It’s her grudge against me that is responsible for dragging these clowns into our lives.”

Janie frowned and it seemed that she was about to say something, but Jen immediately agreed with me. “I told Maggie that she was being a fool for going along with Emily and she told me that Emily had lied to her about what she promised Joe Caputo.

“She wouldn’t!” cried Janie.

As I was sitting in between my girls, I looked at Janie and pulled her into my arms and she melted. I felt her tears on my chest. “Janie, Emily thinks I ruined her life. She still believes that Edgar Blanton didn’t do anything wrong and now her family has broken up because of me.”

“But it’s not true!”

“In a way, it is,” I started

“No!”

“Please listen, Honey. Like it or not, you and Emily are not with your parents because I intervened. I strongly believe I did the right thing, but since Emily is just a little girl, all she knows is that she’s no longer with her mom, dad and a man who she considers a dear uncle. I believe that Blanton and maybe also Lisa facilitated a crush on ‘Uncle Edgar’ so that when she became your age, she would be more amenable to his attentions than you were.”

Janie just sobbed. She must have known that I was right, but we were talking about her sister. With her fairly fragile state lately, I was worried that my sweet Janie was becoming unglued. I felt I had to say something. “Janie, Baby. I love you. We all love you. No matter what, you’ll always have us.”

I felt her sobs abate, but she made no effort to let me go. That changed when we heard Jen’s voice. “Well, what do we have here?”

I looked to where Jen pointed and I saw two figures moving into a bush not far from the entrance to the school parking lot, near to where the buses were waiting to load the kids.

I thought about my options. I could go over there and encourage the idiots to take off, or I could wait for them to make their move. I decided on the latter because I felt that there was a chance that when they saw the girls with Natalie that they would back off. If they didn’t, it would still give me the element of surprise. As I was outnumbered two to one, I would need every advantage. I told Jen and Janie and they agreed. So we waited.

About ten minutes later, the kids got out of school. The “walkers” left out of the front door while the bus kids left out the side. I could see Joe Caputo get out from behind the bush and then walked over towards the bus kids. He yelled something at a girl, who waved to him. She was a short kid about Emily and Maggie’s age. We saw him look around feverishly. He then yelled something back towards the bushes and I saw a second figure step out from behind them. Surprise! It was Vinnie Cappelli.

At that time, I looked towards the front of the building and saw Natalie leading Emily and Maggie towards the station wagon. When Vinnie saw the girls, he started walking towards them, but stopped dead when he saw Natalie with them. After a few moments, he seemed to have made up his mind. He started walking towards them. I saw Joe was running to catch up to Vinnie. I decided now was the time to make myself known, so I got out of the wagon.

“What are you guys doing here? Get sent back to the sixth grade?” I said, intercepting their approach. I now stood about twenty feet is front of them, blocking their access to the ladies.

“Fuck you!” spat Cappelli, as the kids stopped momentarily.

I looked at Joe. “I told you what would happen to you if you got close to Maggie.”

“Vinnie will kick the crap out of you,” he smirked.

“Maybe. But I’m coming for you first. I’m faster than him and bigger and faster than you. Before I go down, I’ll make a point of messing you up first!”

“Fuck!” he moaned.

I heard Natalie’s voice. “Are these the boys, Tommy?”

“Yes. Get the girls in the car and I’ll handle it.”

“No!” she yelled and turned to the approaching punks. “You kids better leave Tommy and my daughters alone.” She said as I saw her close the distance between us. I saw Jen and Janie get out of the station wagon and walk towards me.

“Vinnie!” moaned Joe.

I could see the wheels turning in the punk’s head. If he had half a brain, he would have retreated. His buddy was already backing up, but he walked towards me with rage in his eyes.

I yelled towards his friend, “You better run Caputo! I’m gonna get you!”

Joe did the smart thing and was a speck in the distance, before his friend even got to me.

“Where’s your buddy, punk?” I grinned.

Vinnie turned around and saw his friend running away. I could see the rage boil away and be replaced with an uneasy look. I decided to encourage his uneasiness and began to slowly advance on him. “Not so tough now, huh?”

“Fuck you, Matthews,” he said, but he was already moving back.

“You watch you language, young man! I’m going to talk to your mother!” snapped Natalie.

I laughed. Not swearing had its advantages under these kind of circumstances.

“Uh...” started Vinnie.

I continued to follow him, matching his speed as he backed away. “Someone is going to get in trouble with his mommy,” I taunted.

I saw hatred in the kid’s eyes. I probably should not have said it, but I tend to notice that embarrassing bullies is a good way to show others what kind of cowards they usually are.

“I’ll get you, Matthews!” he spat.

“I’m right here, unless you’d prefer to be a coward and push me from behind like you tried to do this morning.” I glared at him, giving him my father’s best evil eye. This kid just withered under my gaze and continued to back away. I let him go. I made my point to him and hopefully to Emily.

When I saw that Vinnie wouldn’t be any trouble, I quickly walked over to Emily and gave her the evil eye. Her initial look of contempt, turned to fear. “You better do a better job of picking a champion next time, Princess or you can act like a normal person and talk about your issues with me.

“I hate you!” she spat.

“Emily!” yelled Natalie.

I decided to scare Emily. I didn’t know if it was true, but believed that it was in the adult world and I think I heard it once on Rockford or some cop show.

“No, Natalie. If Emily wants to hate me, that’s her right, but what she did with little Vinnie and Joe is illegal. It’s called ‘conspiracy to commit assault’ and I’m thinking of having my father report her to the police.”

“Tommy!” I heard four voices yell in unison and saw Emily begin to cry.

“Janie, I could have been seriously hurt because your little sister decided that she hated me and wanted to trade sex for someone to hurt me. That’s against the law on so many levels,” I said winking at my love.

“I didn’t!” complained Emily.

Janie caught on to my game. “Don’t lie, sis,” said Janie. “I forced you to tell me. I love Tommy. He saved me when Edgar was molesting me and don’t bother denying he did. I told you he was doing it and you told me that Mommy said it was okay. Well it’s not! Nobody should do that against somebody’s will!” she spat.

I pulled Natalie aside and whispered to her while Janie laid into her sister while Jen and Maggie looked on in shock.

“I won’t really go to the police, but I had to scare her. What Emily did was dangerous for both of us. I may never be her favorite person, but I need us to be civil to each other, for Janie and Maggie’s sake.”