Last Summer Boys(40)

Everett smirks at that. “That’s it, candy-ass. Cry.”

“Will,” I sniff. “Are you just going to let him say those things about us?”

Then, finally, Will speaks.

“Go back to the truck, Jack,” he says in a voice so weak I almost don’t even hear him.

My jaw drops. For a moment I can’t even breathe.

Everett snorts. He ain’t getting his fight. Will don’t have any fight to give.

Everett lets out a bunch of air, like hot steam escaping the valve of some greasy machine. His enormous bulk turns to go.

That’s when Frankie steps into the circle. Our city-boy cousin. His face is smooth, but I feel the electricity coming off him.

“Hey,” Frankie calls out. “You with the face.”

Everett stops.

“Yeah, you,” Frankie taunts in a voice that’s different from his usual one. Thicker. A city voice. And angry.

“You like to talk,” Frankie says. “Talk to me, tough guy.”

Everett looks at him, amazement slowly spreading across his ugly face. The other kids begin whispering to each other.

“Frankie . . . what are you doing?” I whisper. Everett Scott is nearly twice as tall as him. My cousin has to tilt his head back to look up at him.

Frankie ignores me, but he calls out to Everett again: “Because if I was as dumb as you, I’d keep quiet so people couldn’t find out.”

One of the kids in the crowd gives a low whistle. “Hey watch it, Everett! That’s a live one!”

The kids in the crowd laugh.

Frankie ignores them. He’s bouncing on his feet now, shifting back and forth from one to the other, that electricity crackling.

Everett takes a step toward him. “Shut your mouth, kid, or I’ll do it for you.”

At that moment, Anna May squeezes past the kids and comes into the ring. She rushes over to Frankie.

“Everett Scott, you leave this boy alone. He’s only a boy!”

“He talks plenty good,” Everett tells her.

Then Frankie does something that amazes everyone. He laughs. It’s a chilly sound, somehow, in the summer night.

“Is that how you talk, tough guy? Plenty good? Man, you sound like a frigging caveman.”

Everett wears a look of stunned surprise. The crowd goes totally still. Then Frankie finishes it: “You’re stupid, Everett. Dumb as a sack of rocks.” And he smiles.

Everett hits him. Just whips the back of his hand straight across Frankie’s chin.

Our cousin flops over and hits the ground—hard.

The crowd gasps.

“Everett!” Anna May screams.

“Frankie!” I shout.

Everett stands, bewildered, staring at his own upraised hand, like he’s wondering how it got there. He’s still staring at it when Will comes off the hood of that car.

My brother hits him like a torpedo.

I don’t see their fight; mostly I listen as I bend over Frankie to see if he’s still alive. Everett really cracked him good. Anna May kneels beside me in the dust. I catch a whiff of her perfume over the smell of stale popcorn.

Frankie groans.

“Lie still and don’t move,” she tells him.

“Is he fighting?” Frankie asks.

“Can’t you hear it?” I ask him.

Behind us, Will’s voice lashes out even worse than his fists. He’s swearing up a storm.

Frankie smiles. Blood dribbles down his lips.

“You’ve cut your lip,” Anna May tells him.

“I’m fine,” Frankie says, sitting up. “I want to see it.”

It ain’t much of a fight no more. Everett Scott has his hands up in front of his face, trying to protect himself as he stumbles backward. Will comes at him like a freight train, his fists swinging wide and low in a never-ending stream of blows and punches that drives Everett straight into the crowd.

And Will is still swearing. Oh my, but it’s lovely. Such an awful cussing you’ve never heard.

Everett trips and goes into the dust. He don’t try getting up—it’s too dangerous for that—so he rolls over on his belly and crawls like a beetle fast as he can toward the stand. The kids in the crowd scatter.

Will lets him go. And now he stands alone in the circle, his chest heaving, hair hanging in front of his eyes. He’s got a fat lip. One eye is getting dark.

He looks at the crowd. The crowd stares back.

“Holy smokes,” someone says.

Will spits.

Then, as the whistles and cheers go up from the kids around him, he turns and in an unsteady way walks over to us.

Will drops into the dust beside us. “Frankie, you okay?”

“Peachy,” Frankie answers.

“He really hit him,” Anna May says. She dabs at Frankie’s chin with the hem of her dress. “I’m so sorry. He’s just a little boy. I can’t believe he hit him.”

“He ain’t a little boy,” Will says. “He’s tough. Right, Frankie?”

Frankie nods. “Yeah, real tuth.”

He wobbles when we get him to his feet. More blood dribbles down his chin and onto his shirt.

“Jeez, he’s a mess,” I say.

“Not as bad as Everett,” Frankie says, and now he grins.