Knotcher was standing out in front. As I’d feared, keying my car wasn’t enough. He’d decided that his manhood was now in question, and that he had no choice but to corner me and deliver a beating—with some help, of course.
Knotcher’s two gargantuan pals were known around school as “the Lennys,” even though neither of them was actually named Lenny. They’d been saddled with this nickname after our class read Of Mice and Men in sophomore English. I didn’t think the moniker really fit. Yes, they were both big and dumb, like the character in the book, but deep down, Steinbeck’s Lenny had been a kindhearted soul. The two Lennys standing in front of me now (who I thought of as Skinhead Lenny and Neck-Tattoo Lenny, respectively) were both as mean as they were massive. But their size was dwarfed by the epic scope of their stupidity.
“Love your new jacket!” Knotcher said. He made a show of slowly circling me to examine each of the patches sewn onto it. “These are really impressive. Is there a little rainbow patch on there somewhere, too?”
After a few seconds of processing time, both of the Lennys chuckled—that was how long it took their reptilian brains to complete Knotcher’s elegant rainbow-equals-gay equation.
When I failed to respond, Knotcher tried again.
“You know, that sorta looks like a varsity letterman’s jacket,” he said. “If being a videogame nerd who can’t get laid was a sport.” He laughed. “Then I suppose you’d be our star quarterback—eh, Lightman?”
I could already feel my anger spiraling out of control. What had made me think it was a good idea to wear my father’s old jacket to school? I’d basically been inviting public ridicule on the one topic guaranteed to set me off—and of course Knotcher would be the one to take the bait. Maybe that was why I’d done it in the first place—the same reason I’d confronted Knotcher yesterday. Some angry caveman lobe of my brain was itching for a fight—and so I had orchestrated this confrontation. This was my doing.
Knotcher and the Lennys took a step toward me. But I stood my ground.
“At least you were smart enough to bring backup this time,” I said as I slipped off my backpack and took both of its shoulder straps in my right hand, feeling the comforting weight of the tire iron inside.
Knotcher’s smile momentarily faltered, then twisted into a sneer.
“They’re just here to make sure you don’t fight dirty,” he said. “Like last time.”
Then, in direct contradiction to what he’d just said, Knotcher nodded at the Lennys, and all three of them began to spread out, forming a rough semicircle around me.
In my head, I thought I could hear the cracked-but-commanding voice of Emperor Palpatine, saying, “Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you!”
“You’re in deep shit now, eh, Lightman?” Knotcher sneered. “Kinda like your old man.”
I knew Knotcher was trying to push my buttons. Unfortunately, he’d pushed the big red one first. The ICBMs had just left their silos, and now there was no recalling them.
I didn’t remember unzipping my backpack, or taking out the tire iron, but I must have, because now I had the cold steel rod clenched in my hand, and I was raising it to strike.
All three of my opponents stood frozen for a moment, their eyes wide. The Lennys threw up their hands and started backing away. Knotcher’s eyes flicked over to them, and I saw him registering that his simian pals had bowed out of the fight. He started moving backward too.
I looked at the curb a few feet behind him, had a nasty thought, and followed through on it by lunging at Knotcher with the tire iron. He lurched backward and—just as I’d hoped—caught a heel on the concrete rise and landed flat on his back.
And then I was standing over him, looking down at the tire iron clutched in my hands.
Off to my left, someone screamed. My head snapped around and I saw that an audience had gathered—a handful of students on their way in to first period. Among them one girl, too young and deer-in-the-headlights to be anything but a freshman, slapped a hand over her mouth and flinched backward as I looked her way. As if she was terrified that I—Zack the school psycho—would choose her as my next target.
I glanced back at the Lennys, who were now standing among the students who had gathered to watch the fight. All of the onlookers seemed to be wearing the same expression of horrified anticipation, as if they believed they might be seconds away from witnessing their first homicide.
A wave of cold shame washed over me as the intensity of my rage faded away. I looked down at the tire iron clutched in my hands and let it clatter to the pavement. I heard a chorus of nervous laughter behind me, along with more than one relieved sigh.