Trouble is a Friend of Mine

‘Get that punch of yours ready,’ Digby said. ‘I don’t think he wouldn’t hit you just because you’re a girl.’


Red Plaid didn’t bother with the usual opening threats. There was no pose-down. He just ran up and hit Digby in the face. Digby went down. Instead of getting back up, Digby waited for Red Plaid to come closer and kicked Red Plaid’s shin. It was Red Plaid’s turn to go down and as soon as he hit the ground, Digby straddled him. They did what sounded like mostly open-handed slap-fighting but somewhere in there, Digby landed two hard punches on Red Plaid’s face.

Red Plaid managed to kick Digby off him just as his gang of plaid shirts poured out of the mansion. I should’ve called 911, but I ran into the garage and got a tire iron instead. My ears buzzed with adrenaline, and, jacked up as I was, I seriously believed our two could take their six.

‘Quit hiding behind your girlfriend and fight me like a real man,’ Red Plaid said.

‘Real man? What, you learned English from a comic book?’ Digby said. ‘And I’m not hiding. Come at me. See what happens.’

I swung the tire iron from side to side, thinking, Do I even know how to fight? But I never found out because as the plaid shirts closed in, a huge amazon came out of the mansion. She was wearing a floor-length black dress and her thin black hair was pulled back in a tiny tight bun.

‘Ezekiel!’ she shouted.

All the fight instantly went out of Red Plaid, whose name was apparently Ezekiel. The amazon took her time crossing the street. Even though hostilities were clearly canceled, my grip on the tire iron tightened as she approached. We were all scared of her.

‘Have you completed your chores? It’s almost eight o’clock,’ she said.

She was taller than all of us, even Ezekiel, who was at least six feet. She made him look like a sulky preschooler when she grabbed his chin and looked at the shiner that was already coming in.

‘Young man, I could call the police and have you charged with assault with a weapon,’ she said to Digby.

‘I’d hardly call my lunch money a weapon.’ Digby revealed the roll of quarters his fist was wrapped around. ‘Good luck telling the story of how I got your boys to cross the street for me to assault them. I mean, they’re dumb, but is anyone that dumb?’

The amazon stared. I was sure she was making some awful calculation about what size boxes she’d need to stash our bodies.

Digby resumed his apple consumption, reaching past the amazon to casually photograph the mansion’s windows with his phone.

Then I noticed her. A crying girl wearing a prairie dress, peeking out of an upstairs window. She was there just a second. Digby got two shots before an arm yanked the girl out of sight. She was gone by the time the amazon turned to look.

‘Back in the house. This instant,’ the amazon said.

As they were leaving, Mom came out of our house. ‘Zoe! Got to go, babe! I got to copy handouts for my class. Oh, hello …!’

My adrenaline was still pumping, but there wasn’t so much of it that I wasn’t embarrassed by her reaction to seeing Digby.

Mom asked, ‘Who’s this?’ What her expression said but her mouth didn’t was: ‘Zoe likes a boy!’ Luckily, though, Mom’s from the MTV generation and has the attention span to prove it. ‘My tire iron! I thought I’d lost it in the move,’ Mom said.

Never mind the huge red welt on Digby’s cheek or the leaves stuck all over his suit. Never mind that my trembling hands were still gripping the tire iron like a baseball bat.

Mom offered Digby a ride to school and I sat there, my adrenaline rush wearing off, listening to them chat about how great it was living in River Heights. ‘Blah-blah-blah great school system blah-blah-blah yoga at the community center.’

I pondered almost getting killed on my own lawn and the fact that in addition to needing to tell Mom about Schell, I needed to tell her about our pissed-off neighbors who’ll now probably murder us in our sleep.

I wished Mom would ask some nosy parent questions already so we could get it over with, but when we got to school she, oblivious as ever, just waved good-bye and drove off to work.





SIX


As far as I could figure, Mom’s obliviousness was a defense mechanism that went into overdrive toward the end of her marriage, when Dad didn’t even care enough to hide the fact that he and his assistant shared a room on business trips. That all ended, though, when Dad brought Shereene home not knowing Mom and I were in the basement. From the way Shereene banged around upstairs and complained about our still-broken espresso machine, it was clear she’d hung out at our place before. A lot.