Chapter 17

“I CAN’T BELIEVE that little fart broke my nose!” Jerry said with his head tilted back as they drove away from the school. “I’m gonna kill him!”

“Put that cheerleader wannabe on your list!” Lee moaned from in back. “A broken nose is nothing compared to broken balls.”

“Probably improve both of you,” Harry snarked. “We agreed to lay low and not get any attention until we were ready to do Denny’s daddy. You had to get your prick wet in your baby sister and now everyone’s heard the declaration we were going to pound her and sell her. If anything happens to her now, even Tom won’t be able to help us.”

“All he needs to do is keep his old man on the take and off our backs,” Jerry said. “Fuck! Get me to a hospital. This is killing me.” Harry sighed and headed toward Des Moines. They had urgent care clinics there and wouldn’t go through the hassle of a hospital visit.

“Why haven’t we heard anything about Denny’s daddy?” Harry asked. “He dry out?”

“My pa says this happens whenever he gets a job. He’s driving snowplow for the county. As soon as the snow stops falling, he’ll be back on the bottle,” Lee said. His father still kept the money and ran the still, but as soon as Lee was old enough, the boy was given the job of protecting the handoffs.

“We shouldn’t have too long to wait then. Snow season is almost over,” Jerry said.

“Don’t you have a calendar?” Harry asked. “It’s fucking January. We could be having snowstorms into March. Remember last year? We got snowed on the day they threw us out of school.”

“Fuck!” the other boys said.

“Who’s the man?” Phil Hagen asked light-heartedly when he approached the table where Dennis sat with Leanne, Diane, and Natalie at lunch the next day. Dennis tensed up. Phil was generally a decent guy. He was like Paul Klinefelter in 12th grade but was only a sophomore. He was smart, tall, good looking, sang in the school choir, and played French horn in the band. The only sport he played was baseball in the summer. Still, he’d never approached Dennis before. Dennis was invisible.

“What do you want, Phil?” Natalie asked. “Don’t you start messing with Dennis now.”

Phil held up his hands in surrender. “No, ma’am. In fact, I’m here on a mission from the class. I get to be here as class president to tell Dennis we’re sorry.”

“For what?” Dennis asked. As far as he knew his class hadn’t done anything specific to him.

“None of us know for sure what went down last year, but we all know Lee, Harry, and Jerry were expelled for bullying. About time, since they’d been hassling people for ten years. It wasn’t too hard to find out you were at the heart of getting them suspended and getting the basketball season cut short.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dennis said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. We know that there were six freshmen on the JV team. Three of them didn’t make the cut this year. One moved away. We figure they were all in on whatever it was,” Phil said. “But that’s not what we’re sorry about. We’re sorry we’ve been classmates for ten years and no one ever bothered to become your friend. Then, all of a sudden you’ve got three of the hottest girls in our class hanging on you.” He looked at Natalie, Leanne, and Diane. “And we hear you decked Jerry when he tried to rape his sister. We treated you like shit and that’s why I’m apologizing.”

“Nobody really treated me badly,” Dennis laughed. “It was more like not at all. And I didn’t really deck Jerry. I just got lucky and landed one on his nose.”

“Hey, man. I talked to our class advisor and she warned me about apologizing. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to accept it. An apology scarcely makes up for ten years of just not being included in anything. Just, we’ll try to do better.” Phil looked at the girls and smiled. “And congratulations on your girlfriends, too. Every guy and some of the girls are a little envious.” He got up and left their table. Dennis took a deep breath and dropped his chin against his chest.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Natalie said. “I doubt anything will change. Everybody will have a moment of realization and will acknowledge your presence, but nobody’s really going to change the way they act. Ten years of habit is pretty ingrained.”

“You have,” Dennis whispered. All three nodded.

“We were kind of thrown into your presence,” Leanne said. “And you just came onto the gym floor and took charge. No one even considered that you weren’t the boss.”

“Except Carol,” Diane said. “She’s a basic bitch and everyone knows it.”

“The thing is, though, that when we allowed ourselves to get to know you, we discovered we really liked you,” Natalie said. “And yeah, we tease a lot, but all the girls on the team think you’re great. We wouldn’t be doing any of the stuff we’ve done if we didn’t really like you.” Natalie’s face looked a little flushed. Dennis was pretty sure his face was heating up, too.

“So, I guess that means I’m girlfriend number five,” Diane said. “Do you mind having so many girlfriends?”

“Um ... Mind? I haven’t even figured out what a girlfriend really is, you know? I like all of you. If you’re okay with being Number Five, I guess I am. But you all need to know, Natalie’s Number One.” He reached over under the table and squeezed Natalie’s hand. She squeezed back and grinned.

“Well, there’s two more just waiting their turn. Judith and Rosie are just trying to figure out what circumstance they can contrive to be next to you,” Diane said.

“And my sisters,” Natalie added. “I keep having to beat them down with a stick, but that won’t last forever. I can’t believe Daniella is hot for you. She might just be acting that way to tease me, but I think she’s serious.”

Saturday evening, Dennis’s mom dropped him off at the school for the basketball game. He assured her that he could get a ride home with his friends after the dance, but would call if he needed a lift. The whole team sat together at the game and were their own cheer block for the Wolverines. The girls and Dennis all wore their warmup jackets.

They were quite popular. So far this season, the boys’ varsity had won only one game. The girls were four and one. It seemed that everyone wanted to stop and congratulate them for their winning season. One particularly geeky freshman boy sat down next to Dennis.

“Hey, dude,” he said. He sounded a little fake. “Could you use like an assistant team manager? I’d love to stay around all these gorgeous girls. Like, do you have fun on the team bus to and from games? Damn! It sounds exciting.” Dennis was about to respond when Diane pushed between the two.

“You want to know what Dennis has that you don’t?” she demanded of the boy. “He has respect and good manners. He respects us and we respect him. He doesn’t come around because he wants to be with hot girls. He knows what he’s doing. He proved himself on the court when he met a challenge by sinking nineteen out of twenty free throws. Yeah. With his eyesight. You know how many free throws the varsity has hit in this game? Zero. He proved himself off the court when he protected one of your classmates in the parking lot. What are you going to do to earn the respect of a team you want to manage? You don’t have to be big or strong or handsome. But you need to get your team to trust you. Otherwise, you’d just be a pain in the butt.”

“God! Are they all such bitches?” the kid asked. “Never mind. I don’t need some fat girl telling me off to get the message. You’re just as stuck up as they are.” He got up and left.

“I hope he’s not getting picked on,” Dennis said as he watched the boy disappear into the stands.

“He’s not,” Judith said. Somehow, she’d managed to wiggle in opposite her sister. Both girls were sitting very close to him and he put an arm around Diane to comfort her. “That kid was really mean. He’s a smartass and is always making rude suggestions to the girls in class. Really, Dennis, there’s a huge difference between you and him.”

Dennis nodded, still glancing over toward where the boy went. Maybe he deserved the treatment he got, but it still made Dennis uncomfortable.

The varsity did not disappoint. They had another spectacular loss to one of the smallest schools in the area. Dennis had to wonder if anyone was training them at all.

The whole team went to the dance after the game. It was the big end-of-semester celebration. Dennis had thought he’d get to go on his third pretend date with Natalie and maybe kiss her, but it had been strongly suggested that he pretend to date Diane at the dance. Diane shocked everyone when she took off her warmup jacket and was wearing a scoop-neck blouse that went just barely down to her cleavage. School rules said girls couldn’t actually show their cleavage, which was a real challenge to a couple of girls. Nonetheless, the blouse was loose enough that it continually gapped so that Dennis got a clear view down between her boobs. Diane never went without a bra except when she was headed for the shower but the view was still pretty spectacular.