Chapter 12

Sunday morning I didn't want to move. Maybe if I stayed there long enough, with the pillow over my head, Gail and my brother would leave and I wouldn't have to face them.

Eventually, I gave up and crawled out, visited the bathroom and wandered into the kitchen where I ran into a bubbly Gail.

"Could you believe last night?! I mean, Beth and Kevin handling those thugs. Those three creeps wouldn't leave us alone and I was really scared until I saw you and Kev coming back. I knew you guys would take care of them."

Yeah, sure "we" would.

Beth walked into the room and came over to give me a morning kiss. "You feeling better this morning?" she asked.

"I'm all right," I snarled. In return I got a look that said this would be discussed after our guests left.

"Okay, Tommy, how long is this going to go on?" Kev and Gail had just left when Beth turned on me. "So you weren't the hero of the evening? So what?"

"Beth, I just stood there. That creep could have hurt you!"

"So? He could have hurt you, too. You're not going to go caveman on me are you? 'Ug, me man. Protect woman.' It was fun at that first Halloween party, but this is real life."

"I'm not trying to go all macho on you. I just ... I don't know ... I guess I just don't feel very good about myself right now."

"If it's that important that you feel you can protect me, why not sign up for a self-defense class?"

"Maybe I should. Is that how you knew what to do last night, because you'd studied some martial arts?"

"Tommy, I don't know why I did what I did, it just sort of happened. I didn't plan it or anything. You remember that day with Jason? When he interrupted our yard party? Even though I'd said the next time I saw him I was going to kick his balls into the next time zone, my reaction that day wasn't planned, it just sort of happened. I don't think my self-defense training had anything to do with it. Well, last night was kind of the same thing. I saw that slime-ball's hand on my shoulder and just reacted. I WILL admit that when I saw him trying to fish out his knife I knew I had to stop him and used one of the techniques I'd been taught, but that first move was pure instinct.

"So does it really hurt that much to get kicked there?"

I felt all the blood drain from my face at the thought of being the recipient of one of my lady's all-too-accurate knees.

"Oh, Tommy, I promise I'll never do that to you!" she said, pulling me into a hug.

Tuesday was a light day at school and Beth had an improv rehearsal that afternoon, so I had time to check out one of the local Karate schools. I didn't want to say anything to Beth until I made up my mind if I really wanted to get some training. I'd recovered a little of my self-respect and I wondered if defense training was really something I wanted to do.

I talked to Kurt, the instructor, excuse me, sensei, who explained how the school worked and when classes were available. I could fit one of the beginner's classes into my school schedule. The first session was the following week, so I signed up.

While I was talking to Kurt he asked why I was interested in self-defense training. I hemmed and hawed around and finally told him about Saturday night.

"So you were one of the people involved at the Upstairs Club fracas, huh? I heard some guys ran into trouble when they hassled a couple of girls. Were you the guy with the chair?"

Oh, shit, here we go again.

"Um, no, that was my brother, Kevin."

"How about the girl who broke the one guy's finger and left him as a soprano?"

"That was my fiancé. The whole thing was over so fast I didn't even have a chance to react."

"Well, we can teach you some of the techniques that would work in a situation like that and probably be able to get your reaction time down. A lot of it is just what the military calls situational awareness. If you can anticipate what might happen, you'll be able to react faster if it does. You realize this training is mainly designed to give you alternatives to violence for handling things like what happened, don't you?"

"Perfect, I've never been one for fighting. If there's a way out of a jam without violence that's great with me."

"Good enough. You want to buy the stuff you'll need now, or wait until the first class?"

I opted to buy my gi and the beginners book Kurt used for the class.

Now, let's see if what I learned would do any good, not that I really wanted to find out.

I got home just in time to start a pot of spaghetti for dinner. I was getting some garlic bread ready for the oven when Beth got home from rehearsal.

As soon as she came in the kitchen and slammed her back-pack down, I could tell something wasn't right.

"Beth, what's up? You look like somebody just told you they were closing the Engineering school."

"Tommy, I just learned Oily Cart is disbanding! Steve, Jenny, Phil, and Horace are all graduating so I'd be the only one left."

"Disbanding? Isn't there anything you can do? I mean, is there any reason the group can't continue?'

"Oh, sure. You expect me to do a one-woman show?"

"Can't you audition some replacements?"

"I don't have time! Do you have any idea how much work that would be?"

I thought back to the shows we did in high school and remembered how much time everybody put in. I felt a little foolish for even mentioning the idea.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking. So what are you going to do to satisfy the theatre bug next time it bites you?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe find another comedy group or audition for a show at one of the local community theatres?"

"Oh, I suppose. I just wish the gang wasn't breaking up!"

After dinner I went back to work. I was in the middle of trying to photoshop a difficult image when a knock on the front door came as a welcome break. I opened the door and saw a familiar candy salesgirl and catnapper, Judy Kowalski, and her mother, Fran, standing there. Judy was holding a cardboard box that I assumed was candy for another school fundraiser.

"Hi, Tommy. Um, is Beth home?"

Just then, the lady in question walked around the corner. "Well, if it isn't the Kowalskis. What brings you to the neighborhood?" I realized I was holding my breath. After their last visit I wasn't sure how Beth would react seeing them again.

Judy put the box on the floor. "After we went home with Blackie, I was feeling really bad about you," she said as she knelt down and opened the box.

Five furry faces poked up.

"Blackie got out a while ago and our neighbor's cat had kittens and she said since Blackie was the father, we'd have to find new homes for them and I thought maybe you'd want one of them to sort of make up for..." she wound down, looking embarrassed and unsure of what to say next.

I looked in the box and saw four kittens in various combinations of black and white, about the same age as Pyewacket/Blackie when we found him. The fifth one was all gray and the first of his/her siblings to put his little paws on the edge of the box and look around the room. Beth got down on her hands and knees to inspect our guests and the gray kitten immediately started to scrabble his way out of the box and into my lady's arms.

"We called that one Shadow, because he's all gray," Judy explained. Whatever his name, he and Beth seemed to have taken an instant liking to each other. She picked him up and he immediately started to snuggle into her arms.

"I'm sorry we just stopped over like this," Mrs. Kowalski apologized, "but Judy wanted to surprise you."

"Well, it's a pleasant surprise," I said as I watched the pair on the floor.

"So do you like him?" the young girl asked.

"I think that's a fair statement," I answered for my lady, since she seemed in her own little world as she cuddled what was obviously our new family member. I could see there was no question as far as she was concerned, and I had to admit it would be fun having a kitten again. "What are you going to do with the other four?"

"Do you want another one?" Judy asked.

"No, I think Shadow will do us just fine. I was just curious."

"We think we've got homes for two of them and the other two we're going to take to the Humane Society so they can find new homes," Fran responded. "They've got a no-kill policy so we're sure they'll have a good future."

"I'm sorry, I guess I got a little distracted," Beth said as she got to her feet. "Would you like something to drink? We've got coffee and Coke."

"No, thank you," Fran answered. "We should be on our way. I'm glad Judy convinced me to come over here. I wasn't sure if you'd even want to see us again."

"I'm so glad you did!" my lady responded. "I admit, losing Pye, er, Blackie took a little getting used to."

Not to mention the couple of layers of skin off my face the morning after, I thought to myself.

After the Kowalskis left I went to the basement and retrieved all the paraphernalia from our first cat experience.

Being an optimist, I set up Shadow's bed in the kitchen, hoping he'd take the hint.

I should have known better. I took my shower and walked into the bedroom only to find someone had preempted my spot on the bed. I looked at Beth and got a little sheepish "I couldn't help it" grin. With a silent groan, I turned off the light and crawled in. Beth picked up the kitten and moved him down to the foot of the bed until I could move into my usual spot. As I snuggled against my lady's back and slid my hand into its usual spot I heard a little meow, followed by a furry body insinuating itself between us. There are times when the only option is to give in to the inevitable. I moved just enough to let our new housemate take what he assumed to be his proper spot and could only sigh as he fell asleep cuddled up between us.

The following morning I woke up to find him sitting on my chest, eyeing me about three inches from my nose.

"Blert?"

I guess there is something to this whole idea of heredity. Appearance aside, our feline freeloader was definitely his father's offspring.

I picked him up, put him on Beth's back where I swore he grinned at me, closed his eyes and went back to sleep. Me? I got up and got ready for school. What's-her-face didn't have any early classes that day and could snooze for an extra hour. Another indication that the universe was basically unfair.

The following Tuesday I attended my first self-defense class and felt a little out of place. The majority of the class were kids—maybe eight to twelve years old. There was one other guy about my age and a girl who looked great in her gi. Kurt took us through some warm-up moves and stressed the importance of being limber before starting each workout.

"Yeah, but if you're trying to defend yourself are you going to ask the guy to give you time to warm up?" This from one of the older kids. I had a feeling he was going to be a wiseass throughout the class.

Kurt just chuckled. "The warm-ups are because we're going to be working for an extended time. If you find yourself spending an hour defending yourself you've got more problems than just sore muscles," he finished with a grin.

Amanda, the girl in the well-populated gi, was in front of me and I swore she was trying to make sure I knew she was there. Was I going to be facing another Val?

After our hour was up I grabbed my stuff and beat feet. Chicken? Maybe.

When I got home I dumped my stuff down the laundry chute and fired up my computer to start on my project for Photography. Mr. Nordstrom had given us a list of subjects and one of them turned out to be on how to handle difficult lighting. I had just taken some warehouse shots for a client and this project could not have come at a better time. The warehouse was an older one that had about every type of lighting I could think of—incandescent, fluorescent, mercury vapor, sodium, you name it and I swear they had it. I'd tried to color-match as I was shooting by including a gray card in each image, but still faced a big job trying to get the colors right from shot to shot.

Beth had been spending a lot of time upstairs plotting with Cindy. Apparently even a small wedding required planning equal to the D-Day invasion. How she did it and still kept up at school was beyond the ken of mortal man. She came down from another session with Cindy about six. It was my turn to cook so I opted to take us out. As we neared the end of Spring quarter things started piling up. The quizzes got harder, I had three projects coming due and finals loomed, so I figured a night out was what we needed.

"Tommy, that's cheating! Since you were supposed to cook that makes it my turn to do the laundry. Now you're taking me out? That should get me out of doing the wash, right?"

"Well, if you want to take the clothes along we can stop at the Laundromat..."

Damn elbow!

I was in the mood for shrimp tempura so I took my lady and her elbow to our favorite Japanese restaurant.

"Can you believe we're almost done with our sophomore year? Halfway done," Beth mentioned after we got our tea.