The World Played Chess (16)

Car doors flew open and grown men stepped from their cars. I couldn’t blame them, but in a pack about to get in a fight, you take on a pack mentality.

“Just once I’d like to actually see the movie,” I said and pushed open the door.

“This movie sucks anyway,” Billy said. “At least this will be entertaining.”

The unwritten code mandated you didn’t stay in your car when your buddies got in a fight. You backed them up. That was easier for Cap and Mif, who had played football and were well over six feet and more than two hundred pounds. Mif had stunned the Serra weight room that year by being the first student to bench press more than three hundred pounds. Neither of them, however, was anywhere near the car at the moment, and Billy and I were no match for the four lumberjacks coming down the aisle.

Ed sang, largely ignoring the approaching platoon. Mickey Giusti, who had driven the second car, and Pat O’Flynn, who didn’t care if the Forty-Niners’ offensive line approached, always welcomed a fight.

It started with the usual. “You’re a bunch of punks.”

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

And it escalated from there.

Ed still looked largely disinterested. He laughed and continued to sing Serra fight songs, which elicited the obvious and unimaginative refrains from our enemies that we were all homos and faggots. Big mistake. Nothing was more sacred at an all-male high school than loyalty to one’s school and protecting one’s sexuality.

Punches flew.

The fight became a brawl.

Billy and I largely stayed on the periphery, out of the melee, while trying to look like we were in the thick of the battle. This was an art form we had learned over four years. The goal was not to get punched in the face and get your nose broken, or lose a tooth, but to become disheveled enough to make the others believe you were in the fight.

As the fight developed, we watched to see if anyone got knocked down, in which case it would be our duty to jump his opponent. I was looking over my shoulder, hoping to see Mif and Cap returning, when one of the lumberjacks pointed at Ed. “I want the loudmouth doing push-ups.”

Big mistake.

Ed got to his feet and smiled, which I thought stunned the lumberjack. The guy should have taken the hint and left, but now committed, he stepped into a left jab and a right cross that dropped him like a bag of cement. Ed then slid into the heart of the battle. A few more combinations and two more guys went down. The fourth guy separated from Pat O’Flynn, who had pulled the guy’s shirt over his head and pummeled him. I thought it a great skill, one I hoped to never have to use, but which might come in handy someday.

Bright lights from the stanchions flooded the concrete lot, the film stopped, and even louder protests erupted. People wanted us thrown out. Drive-in security came running, high school guys with flashlights who were not looking for a fight when getting paid less than three bucks an hour. They just called the Burlingame police.

To underage boys with open beer cans in their cars, this was an alarm to flee. Billy and I rushed back to his car. By this time Mif and Cap had returned from the bathroom. We didn’t have time to explain what had happened, and they didn’t really need us to. They, too, knew the drill all too well. They flung themselves into the back seat. Billy tossed the speaker hanging from the window, and I chucked empty and semiempty beer cans out of the car as Billy backed down the cement rise.

“That one’s full,” Cap said.

“Screw that,” Billy said. “They called the police.”

I threw the can out the window and looked for others.

“Throw out the rest of the six-pack,” Billy shouted over his shoulder at Cap.

“No way,” Cap said.

We approached the exit. Billy pled, “I’m serious, Cap. Get rid of the beer.”

“I’m not wasting them.”

“You didn’t even buy them.”

“I hear sirens,” Mif said.

“Lights,” I said, and pointed to police coming around the perimeter road.

“Stop the car,” Cap said.

“No way. I’m not—”

“Stop the car.” Cap had the door open like he was about to jump. Billy stopped the car, and Cap got out clutching what remained of the six-pack. He ran for the cyclone fence that enclosed the drive-in and hid until the cop cars drove around the bend in the road behind the movie screen.

“What the hell is he doing?” I said.

Cap tossed the beer over the cyclone fence, beer cans falling from the pack like hand grenades. He then threw his jacket over a strand of barbed wire atop the fence and followed the beer, getting his jeans stuck for a moment before falling over the side, much to our glee.

“He ripped his pants.” Mif laughed.

We reached the exit as the police cars sped toward us from the opposite direction, then thankfully blew past. Mif had his head turned, looking out the back window for our friends.

“Are they coming?” I asked.

“Not yet. Wait. I see Mickey’s truck.”

When we drove the road around to the back of the gigantic movie screen, Cap emerged from behind one of the wood struts holding it up and stepped into the road holding the remains of the six-pack. Billy slowed and Mif flung open the back door. Cap tossed the six-pack inside. Big mistake. Never let the beer go first. Billy wanted retribution for Cap refusing to give up the beer and for refusing to split the cost of the movie. As Cap attempted to jump in, Billy hit the gas. The car lurched forward, and Cap barely got out of the way. Billy and Cap played this cat and mouse game twice more. Ordinarily, Cap would have given up, but we now had the beer. Still, with police to consider, Cap jumped into the back of Mickey’s truck.