Chapter 2

Oh! My! God! The next day was the worst pain I had ever felt since I came to in the hospital. I refused to use the very good meds they prescribed for home. I wanted to be clear-headed when I went with Dad. I needed help to just get dressed.

We met with the Assistant DA in a conference room. She detailed the charges we'd made against the three invaders, as we called them. One of them was a Senior at our high school. I never paid much attention to the sports programs, but he was a defensive tackle. Once again, I was thinking about how the school would react to someone who took down one of their football heroes.

The other two were former teammates who'd been dropped from the team a years before, and had dropped out of school and gone to work. Evidently Ricky was still tight with them. Ricky was the defensive tackle.

The ADA also detailed their defense, as relayed by their lawyer. It was that same BS as Dad had said. Dad said he wanted to show the ADA something that might be evidence. "Stop," she said. "I may as well get their lawyer down here. He and they have the right to see any evidence that we have. Sorry, it's the law."

My dad said fine. "Can you wait to see if I can set up a meeting?" she asked. Dad said "Sure. We'll go have lunch."

So we were eating lunch at 10:45 that day.

Dad said, "I know you're dying to know what evidence I have, so I'll let you in on a little secret. When you were just a baby, even before we knew your mother was pregnant again; we wanted to go out once in a while. We'd always used Grandma Campbell as a sitter, but then she got arthritis really bad and couldn't sit, so we started having teenage babysitters. We'd heard a lot of horror stories about babysitters fooling around and having boys over and drinking and all that, so we invested in a surveillance system, a babysittercam in modern terms.

"We could set it up on a timer, or to come on when there was noise in the living room. There was only one time when we were displeased at what we saw, but it was relatively minor, and we just had a quiet word with her parents and never used her again.

"So, when we got this cruise thing, we thought it would be a good thing to use the old system to check up on the situation while we were away. It wasn't so much you, but rather some concern that the twins would go to some lengths to kick up their heels and maybe try to get you in trouble.

"We set it to come on and noise-activate after 10 on the first night we were away, figuring Friday night was a big date night.

I said, "So, did it record the whole thing in the living room?"

"Yep," he said!

I thought that over. "Dad, the girls were kinda exposed when those bastards tore their clothes. I don't want those bastards and their slimeball lawyer to see my sisters partially undressed."

He said, "I'm way ahead of you, Jack. I used a video editor program to block out anything even slightly exposed," he said. "It's that blurry thing you see on reality shows to mask nudity and faces. They could always insist on seeing the untouched tape, if it actually goes to trial but I don't think it'll do them any good in either version." They'll look for a plea bargain. That video would put them away for a while. Any plea bargain will be better than what a jury would give them."

We killed time until Dad got a cell call to show up at 2:30.

We showed up a half-hour early. Dad pulled out a VHS tape. The ADA was startled. "I don't know if we have a VHS player any more; everything we get is on DVD now," she said.

So she had her staffers scurrying around. They finally found a VHS player in the training department.

The three thugs came in with their lawyer, in their jail jumpsuits. They glared at me. I didn't trust them one bit. Their two guards sat down way at the back of the long room, so I looked around for a weapon, just in case, and settled on a heavy cigarette butt stand just behind our side of the table. On the good side, they didn't look that much better than I did, particularly where Jan and I did our batwork. Their lawyer started to object to the tape as evidence, but the ADA shut him up.

"As long as you get a copy, the laws of evidence are satisfied. You are free to challenge its authenticity in the trial. But I'm telling you, it's going to be accepted.

"Now, let's see it."

You know, neither their lawyer nor the three dimbulbs seemed to get the import of what they were about to see. I don't know what they expected.

The tape started both audio and video, as Jan and Clare ran into the living room crying, babbling about how they had no idea those creeps had followed them. Jan said she was calling 911, and picked up the phone. Then she screamed, "There's no dial tone. My God, they're out there and they cut the phone line." They were scrabbling in their purses for their cell phones when you could hear the sound of the door being broken down. Then two of the defendants rushed in. and attacked the girls. The girls tried to get away from them and it took the thugs some time to grab them. They struggled with the girls, smacking at their hands and blocking their kicks to fight them off, and pushed them down on the couch. You could hear actually them telling the girls what they were going to do to them: rape them, beat them silly, and then ransack the house for money.

As the screen showed them starting to tear at the twins' dresses, their lawyer stood up and demanded the tape be stopped. He turned to his three clients, and started to yell at them for lying to him. One of them, Ricky, must have decided to take advantage of the confusion to get revenge on me. He jumped up and started to come over the table at me. The other two started to go after my Dad.

The guards were caught flat-footed.

Soon after they'd come in, I'd already hefted the butt stand standing behind our side of the table. I only had my right arm to work with, but managed to swing it up, just like Dad's old baseball bat, and clobbered Ricky right in the face with it. I almost screamed from the pain in my ribs, but it was worth it.

Dad decked the first one of the two who made it across the table, and pushed him back into the other one.

Then things got very exciting, with the guard finally wading in and other policemen crowding in to get their shots at the two who were still conscious.

They were hit with further assault charges and their lawyer quickly resigned their case. Then the assigned Public Defender sat down with them and told them the facts of life. He went over all the charges and the evidence, including the tape, AND the surveillance videotape of the last meeting where Ricky tried to jump me. He told them he would defend them if they wanted, but that he thought they'd be facing 15 to 20 years if the sentences went consecutively. Which they probably would, especially since they had committed violence after bullshitting the court assigned Shrink on how full of remorse they were.

Well, they were full of something, I thought

A few months later, they pled guilty and each got a 7 to 10 year sentence.

But their sentencing happened months after my first day back at school, which was the first Monday after I cold-cocked Ricky with the butt stand.

The twins were way too nice to me for the rest of that week and weekend before the big day. I finally got fed up with them falling all over themselves to fetch and carry and do for me. I called a kids meeting and laid it down for them.

I told them I really truly abso fucking lutely appreciated them trying to be so nice to me, but that it wasn't going to work. They were pampered younger sister-princesses and I was their skinny dorky older brother. That was what the high school world was used to. It was what their high social rank was pegged to.

I wasn't able to express it very well, but what I was saying was that they had to go back to school with that same deal as before, to keep their high status, which I knew was important to them. I wouldn't mind them being a little bit nicer to me and maybe repair some of the damage from their bad-mouthing, but not at the expense of them losing their position at the top of the social scene.

They protested, but very reluctantly finally agreed. However, they would not hear of being that way at home. That was a permanent change. I was their hero, and by golly they loved the hell out of me. So we compromised. They would call me dickwad in public and stuff like that, but with a certain air of fondness. They would not call me needle-dick and they would try to repair certain impressions that they'd given of me along that line.

They would no longer bad mouth me. After all, the whole school would probably eventually know that I'd saved their lives and stuff, so how could they treat me like shit?

Fair enough.

They did say that the whole thing was already all over the school, and there were all these rumors that I had done something heroic, although nobody but them knew how and why. They'd been going to school since the previous Tuesday.

On my back-to-school Monday they offered to drive me, but I said that wasn't their image. They agreed, so I schlepped myself up Blanken street then right down Hampton avenue to the high school. I was still pretty stiff and sore from everything, and I stopped off at Mrs. Hitchens' house to tell her I was OK, and take a little rest. She had been one of many people who had called and said they'd heard I'd been hurt in a home invasion.

She was a grandmotherly kind of woman, and lived alone in a big old house. It was close to the school property line, but still quite a hike from the school building itself. Rumor was that she'd been a teacher there, back maybe when my Dad went to school there. Hey, she might have even seen Dad hit that home run!

I would stop by when going to and coming from school. I would ask her if she needed anything done, like little repairs or errands. In winter, I would walk over and shovel her walk after doing ours. In summer, I'd hike down to her house, lugging along our old Toro, and mow her lawn

I liked her, and was trying to be a good neighbor. I knew she lived alone and didn't have anyone to do that stuff for her. Her house was the only one on the property right by the school. Once, when I was walking home in the rain, she came out and told me that her old dog, Tony had gotten out and run off, so I walked around the neighborhood and tried to think where a scared confused old dog might go... and there he was! I used my belt for a leash and led him home to her.

Then we had that big ice storm last winter, and we saw on the county cable channel that school was cancelled because the power was out at the school. That made me think of Mrs. Hitchens, who was surely on the same power feed. So I got the keys to my Dad's 4- wheel drive Jeep and inched my way over there. She was freezing in that cold old house. I took her and old Tony and wrapped them up in blankets and brought them over to our house to stay until the power was fixed.

So she and I were pretty good friends. And so I stopped by and told her I was starting back. She tried to pump me for details of the invasion, but I was trying to get past that. I told her some guys had broken in and I had called 911 and the police had come and arrested them. She looked at my multicolored face and arm cast and laughed. "Wait until I tell my granddaughter about what you just tried to pull," she said. I played dumb and asked her what she meant.

"And you got hurt cowering up in your room, right Jack?"

"Well, I guess I did try to protect my sisters."

"I'll just bet you did, Jacky. You're a damned nice young man, but a lousy liar. Go on to school."

So I did. It was the weirdest day I'd ever spent. Everyone just kept looking at me when I walked by or sat in the classes. When I passed Jan and Clare with their friends, they stopped talking and watched me. But it wasn't their usual who-is-that-insect-crawling- down-our-hall look. Nothing at all like that. More interest and curiosity.

I thought things would get back to normal when I passed the locker area known as Football Alley. They might cut me some slack for my broken arm and stuff, but there was no way they would let me go by unscathed if I'd fucked up one of their teammates. And it was obvious that Ricky was no longer with them.

But they just ignored me. No glares, no jostling, no nothing. And when Coach Craven came out of his office, he looked at me with some interest.

Weird!

I caught up with a couple of my loser buddies, at least that's what the school social arbiters would call them, but they were just my friends. They had heard all kinds of wild rumors and wanted to know what had happened. I gave them the same blowoff story as Mrs. Hitchens. I really wanted to downplay all this.

The day went by ok in classes and such. I had gotten my assignments while I was out of school and wasn't behind in anything. I usually carried pretty good grades, anyway, and that wasn't going to change. I needed good grades to get into college, my Dad stressed.

In the classrooms and out in the halls and cafeteria I kept getting those odd looks like I had two heads. But nobody hassled me. In fact, a couple of Jan and Clare's friends were surprisingly nice to me in our classes together. One of them, Marcy, a gorgeous redhead, said something about wishing she had a brother like me.

What? This girl had never spoken three words to me before, and now she says that?

She smiled at me, squeezed my good arm, and sauntered off, her perfect ass wiggling at me.

Another one of the golden girls was having a discussion with a football player who was trying to get her to go on a date. I was walking by as she was brushing him off. I heard him say something like, " Geeze, Dody, what does a guy have to do to get to go out with you?"

She looked past him and saw me walking by. I was struggling a little bit trying to get a book out of my bag. That broken arm made things a lot harder than I had thought.

With a perfectly straight face, she said, "I don't know, Ron. Maybe if you were a little bit more like Jack Ryan there, I'd feel safer going out with you. He protects his women; he doesn't attack them."

It was said pretty loud. I stopped and I'm sure my face went beet red as she looked at me and smiled. She knew! Or she knew something. Marcy knew something, too. Damn I was going to have to have a talk with the twins. I thought we'd agreed to keep it all a secret.

That evening, they said that they just couldn't go on as if nothing had happened. That they needed to tell people something to account for their change in attitude toward me. That no matter what I had said about keeping everything the same, they just couldn't go back to being the snotty sisters as before. And if I didn't like it, that was just tough! There were more important things than just being popular.

Go twins, I thought.

A bit later they went into my Dad's den and closed the door.

Oh-oh, I was being excluded and I didn't like it.

The next day there was an announcement that period four was being turned into a special assembly. They were going to have a visit from a police officer to speak about safety for high schoolers. Fourth period was mostly PE classes and school committee meetings and such. It was just before lunch, so no real classes were ever scheduled then.

I met up with some of my friends and we went into the auditorium. As usual we went up to the balcony, where we could get a better look at the stage and stuff that way. We could also get out quicker. There were fewer rows of kids heading for the exits up there.

All of the student body was required to attend the assembly and all the names were registered as we went in. That was unusual.

First there were some school announcements, most of them were old news and we paid little attention. Then the next speaker was Coach Craven. "There's something I want to clear up. Most of you were at the game two Fridays ago. I'm sure you recall the ridiculous foul that Ricky Pender made that lost us the chance to tie the game. And the subsequent brawl when he charged the official who made the call.

"After the game, and after a week of thinking about it, I suspended Ricky from the team permanently. I told him last Friday night. We had no game, and I had given it a week's deliberation.

"It has come to my attention that Ricky and a couple of his lowlife friends decided to do something to make it up to Ricky. Something nasty and twisted. The rest of that story should be a cautionary tale for all of you young women."

Wow, I didn't think Coach even knew the word "cautionary" much less what it meant. "

He turned the floor over to none other than Officer Hardy, the designated Officer Friendly. Damn, I hadn't even recognized him.

Officer Joe Hardy looked around at every face in the hall, as if he was searching for someone. He nodded to Jan and Clare. When his eyes came up to the balcony, and he saw me sitting in the front row, he nodded again. Everyone looked up at me.

I did not like the feeling at the pit of my stomach.

He picked up the story where coach had left it.

"They apparently targeted two young women, students at school here. They encountered them in a public place and tried to force their attentions on the girls. The two girls were smart enough to see they were in some possible danger, and got themselves out of the club. They drove home to what they thought was safety."

There was a big screen TV perched on the front of the stage and several others on the walls of the auditorium. It was the custom to televise stage shows being presented so that viewers far back could see an image of what was going on. The lights were dimmed, and the officer clicked on a remote. I sank down in my seat.

The tape started both audio and video, as Jan and Clare ran into the living room crying, babbling about how they had no idea those creeps had followed them. Jan said she was calling 911, and picked up the phone. Then she screamed, "There's no dial tone. My God, they're out there and they cut the phone line." They were scrabbling in their purses for their cell phones when the sound of the door being broken down was heard, and two large young men rushed in. and attacked the girls. Their faces were clear.

There were gasps from some of the students as they realized what they were seeing.

The two invaders, Ricky one of them, grabbed the girls after they tried to evade them, slapping at them as they pushed them down on the couch. Bragging what they were going to do to them. I heard exclamations of shock from around me.

The rest was selectively blocked, as I had seen before, to spare the twins' modesty, but the audience had seen who the two young women were. Then Officer Hardy froze the frame as I made my appearance.

Too bad nobody thought to do any modesty blocking for me, because when I came on the scene, I was wearing my customary jockey tighty whities. It was what I was wearing when I went to bed. There were a few derogatory whistles at my skinny body frozen at the moment that I appeared wielding my dad's baseball bat. In my skimpy underwear.

Then there was silence as the battle was waged. Somehow, the police technical people had been able to slow the action, so it was like watching a slo-mo replay of a football play. Even I had to wince at the punishment I was giving out and taking.

I watched it with everyone else. I hadn't seen it past this point in the ADA's office, because the creeps' lawyer had jumped up and yelled to turn it off.

It wasn't any different. All the same things happened. Then I thought how stupid it was to think that. Like something would change?

When I got stabbed, I heard people gasp. The back of my jockeys was soaked with blood. When I went to my knees and they were all around me punching and kicking at me, my face and legs and lower back were all bloody.