Chapter 21

By the time that Friday had come around, the voice had gotten me acquainted with Randy Bilson, the boy who was hosting the party. Randy was a motorcycle enthusiast, although he didn't own one, and hadn't even been on one, until I offered to let him ride behind me on mine. The voice had directed me to where Randy was shooting baskets with a couple of his friends, at an elementary school near his house. I stopped for a while and watched them shoot around for ten minutes or so, before they invited me to play with them. We chose up sides, and Randy and I wound up as teammates. The voice gave me enough basketball skill so that I was about equal with Randy, but, the other two boys were better, and beat us handily. After our game, we were all taking a breather when Randy started talking about my motorcycle, asking me questions, and looking over at where I had parked it.

"Would you want to go for a ride?"

"I can't ride a motorcycle."

"You can ride behind me, just to get the feel for it."

"Sure, I'd like that. Can we go down to the market and get some Cokes or something? I'm really thirsty."

"Sure, see what they want. I'm buying." Randy went over and asked his friends for their drink preferences, and then he and I got on my bike and drove over to the little mom and pop market about three blocks away. We got the drinks, and a big bag of popcorn, and rode back over to the school again.

"That was fun, thanks. I'd like to get one of those myself, if my mom would ever let me."

"Yeah, my mom nearly had a stroke when I brought this home. I can't wait to show it to my girlfriend tonight. I hope she likes it enough to ride on it with me. Do you know Connie Warring? That's the girl I'm talking about."

"Of course, Connie and I go way back, I think we were in the same classes all through elementary school. So you're dating Connie, huh?"

"Yes, we've only gone out a couple of times, but I really like her. I'm taking her out tonight, although I'm not sure yet where we're going."

"I'm throwing a party at my house tonight, you guys should drop by for awhile. My parents are out until after midnight, so we'll probably just listen to records and sit around talking. You both are welcome to come by if you want to."

"Thanks Randy, we just might take you up on it. Where do you live?" He took me over by the school fence and pointed his house out to me.

"Connie knows where I live. She came to some of my birthday parties when we were just kids. Just tell her Randy Bilson's house, if you get lost or something. People should start coming over at around seven or so. I hope that you guys can make it."

We chose up sides for another game, and this time I was on the winning side with a boy named Jerry. I remembered Jerry from that movie that the voice had shown me of Connie at the party. Jerry had been one of the other four boys that had raped her. I had 'accidentally' thrown a ball into his face in the first contest, and he hadn't liked it. In the second game, he did much better than I did. I would throw him the ball, and he would take it in to the hoop. He was the best player of the four of us.

I left shortly after, telling Randy that I'd probably stop by at his party, at least for a little while. I called Connie at home later that afternoon, to check with her about whether it was all right if I came over earlier so we could go out to eat, and then go to a new friend's party. She asked me about the party, but, when I told her that it was at Randy Bilson's, she laughed and told me that it would be fine.

I picked her up at a little before six, and we went out to a Chinese restaurant on Harbor Blvd. The food was plentiful, and we each tried a little bit of the other's order. I had gotten a beef and rice dish with some veggies, and she had egg rolls and some kind of shrimp and rice dish that was spicy. I had told her that I had bought a motorcycle and had offered to bring it for our date, but she told me that she preferred the car this time. We got over to the party at around seven thirty or so. There were about twelve to fifteen kids there when we got there, and one or two of them were drinking beers, but the rest had either soft drinks or the punch that Randy's mom had made.

Jimmy, that boy in the blue shirt, the one with the greasy hair. He's about to go out to his car and bring in a quart bottle of vodka to put into the punch bowl. If you go stand by the front door after he leaves, I'll tell you when to open the door and bump into him. Just let your hands be relaxed, and leave the rest of it to me.

<Why don't you just make him drop it by himself, somewhere where it will break?>

I don't have control over his hands or legs. I could make him unconscious, but that wouldn't make sure that the bottle breaks. Let's try it the easy way first.

I did what the voice said, waiting by the door, trying to relax my hands and arms. It seemed to take a long time, but, finally, I heard the voice.

Open the door now, Jimmy! I opened the door and as I was walking out, my foot stepped right on the boys forward foot which caused me to fall forward. Instinctively, I tried to reach for something to halt my sudden forward fall, and my hand pulled the vodka bottle out of his fingers where it splattered, on the concrete stairs. I continued forward, but, somehow righted myself without falling on those stairs.

"Damn it! Watch where the fuck you're going, asshole!" The guy had turned around to face me, and was yelling at me for breaking his bottle.

"I'm sorry. I tripped over your foot I guess. I didn't see you coming. What broke?"

"What broke? Take a look, only a whole bottle of vodka that I paid my brother ten dollars to buy for me. You have any notion of what I had to do in order to convince him to buy it for tonight? Now you've gone and ruined everything! You better have a bottle of your own booze to trade me for the one you broke, or else you and I are going to have a big problem."

"I don't have any booze, but I'll give you back the ten dollars that you paid for it."

"I don't think that will cover it, asshole. I went to a lot of trouble to get that bottle, in addition to the money that it cost me."

"I'm starting to think that you just want to pick a fight. You keep this up and you won't get anything from me but your ass kicked."

"You and who's army, jerk?"

"Me and the four years of boxing lessons that I've taken." I stepped off to the grass, away from the porch. I raised my hands in what I hoped looked like a boxing pose. "The choice is yours, big mouth, do you want my ten bucks, or do you want to try to take it out of my hide?"

He looked at me, hesitating, not wanting to make a hasty decision about an unknown quantity standing before him. I had heard that most people, when confronted with an opponent that had already announced his willingness to fight, would back down themselves. It seemed to me that this was my only hope, to try a bluff on him. I was also hoping that the voice would give me the knowledge of those boxing lessons that I'd lied about taking.

"You're not worth my getting all dirty over. Hurry up and give me the ten bucks before I change my mind."

"You clean up all that broken glass first, then I'll give you the money. I don't want you leaving a mess for Randy's parents to find when they come home."

"I'm not cleaning any glass. You broke it, you can clean it. Give me my money, and then I'm leaving. This party isn't even worth my time anyway."I started approaching him, slowly, my fists still balled up. I hoped that he would decide to bend over and pick up that broken glass, but he just stood straighter and looked like he wasn't going to back down any further.

"Go get the hose then, and I'll pick up the glass. When all of the stink of the booze is washed away, you can have your money and leave." The hose was right behind him, less than ten feet away from him. I hoped that he'd accept this offer as a fair compromise. He turned and went to get the hose, and I bent over to start picking up the glass.

Watch out, Jimmy! I looked up just in time to see the kid getting ready to plant his foot in my face. I jumped backward, out of his range, and got up on my feet again. Just then, the front door opened up, and Randy and another kid looked out at us.

"What's going on, Jimmy?" His eyes fell on the broken glass from the bottle, and the wet stain all over his walk way. "Is that your bottle of vodka, Greg? I already told you not to bring that into my house. My parents said no drinking. I don't want any fighting here either. If that was yours, Greg, you can just get the hell away from my house. Now!"

"I'm leaving as soon as this guy gives me the money for breaking my bottle. This party isn't any good anyway."

I took out a ten dollar bill, and dropped it on the ground in front of me. I didn't step back away from it. Rather than doing that, I stood there, almost daring him to come over and try to pick it up. He didn't move forward either. After a few seconds watching Greg and I staring each other down, Randy came over and picked up my money and handed to Greg.

"Leave now, Greg, you've got your money."

Greg took the offered money and turned and left. He looked like he might want to say something to me, but he didn't. I watched him get into an old jalopy and drive away. I then bent back down and cleaned up as much of the glass as I could find. Randy had the hose, and he watered the walkway to get rid of the vodka, or at least, dilute it some. I had been outside and away from Connie for fifteen minutes by then, and, after dropping the broken glass in a trashcan by Randy's house, I went back inside to make sure that she was all right.