Chapter 12 – GLENNA #5
The mood changes. It’s not a mellow fall afternoon anymore. The sun’s getting low in the sky, and there’s a crackling energy now. It’s a lot like after Stonecut High wins a big game on a Friday night.
A lot of guys bet on the pumpkin chuckin’.
The festival’s pretty much over afterwards.
The young people go to bonfires out by the river or field parties, and the parents take the kids home.
Only the seniors go to the closing ceremony.
And me. I’m there every year, taking pictures while Dad interviews the various winners of the day.
Cash is getting into the spirit, high-fiving pals and hollering jokes at wasted buddies staggering by. I catch a glimpse of Dina’s giant biker ahead. When there’s a break in the crowd, I see Dina beside him, orange plugs in her dainty ears.
I can’t imagine her in a crowd like this when we were kids. She didn’t like being around her whole family in one room. Granted, they aren’t small dudes. They dominate a space. Dina looks happy enough, though. People give her biker a wide berth, so she’s not asses-to-elbows like the rest of us.
The walk isn’t long—only four blocks. By the time we spill onto the field, the vibe is definitely rowdy.
Everyone crowds up to the yellow tape hung in a U-shape around the trebuchet.
Per usual, there’s a board resting against it with the sponsors named: Channel 13, Birdy’s Bar, The Stonecut Gazette, Bob’s Variety, The Over Easy Diner, Don Prescott, Esquire, Pizza Haven, Peace, Love other folks are surging forward.
More fights break out. Logan Rolf has Cash’s back, and then he gets dropped to the ground, and Cash knocks out the guy who KO’ed Logan.
It’s a melee. It keeps going and going. I scoot back on my butt and press myself against the fence, guarding my new camera with my body.
I’ve never seen anything like this.
Cash is a beast. He’s not holding anything back. A man steps to him, and he goes for it—fists, feet, forehead. His hat’s gone. His sweater is ripped at the shoulder seam. Blood’s trickling from the corner of his eye, and his nose is crooked. His teeth are bared, and they’re bloody, too.
By the end of it, there are three guys in addition to Matt Cooper and Logan Rolf moaning on the ground. Almost everyone else has cleared the area except Dina and Heavy, standing side by side, both calmly munching on candy apples.
My head reels, taking it all in, when from the periphery, someone calls my name. “Glen!”
My teeth instinctively grit.
It happens so quickly.
Toby is suddenly looming over me, scowling down. He’s got Samantha Becker by the hand. She’s hovering behind him, sticking close to his shadow. Like I used to do.
She needs to run before it eats her.
Toby offers me his free hand.
“Jesus Christ, Glen,” he says. “See what happens when you lay down with pigs? You end up in the mud.”
I swear, my arm moves of its own accord. I’ve never thrown a punch before. I’ve never even done cardio kickboxing.
But somehow, my body knows.
I reach back and swing. At the very last second, as the plastic hits bone and crunches, I realize I threw the hand holding my brand-new camera.
It smashes Toby’s expression of fake concern with a resounding crack.
He makes a strange squeal, his free hand flying to cover his face in defense. He’d have been fine if Samantha didn’t bolt, but she startles and leaps back, snatching herself free, and Toby loses his footing. He goes down, flat on his ass, so we’re sitting face-to-face in the dirt.
“Oink, oink, motherfucker,” I say.
“You bitch—” He draws his arm back, and I tuck my head, brace myself, and pray. I most definitely just wrote a check that my ass cannot cash. “You’re gonna—"
Whatever he’s going to say is interrupted by a bloody, heaving Cash barreling between us. Cash hauls me to my feet and shoves me behind him in one fell swoop.
“Get up!” he shouts down at Toby.
Toby visibly deflates. His shoulders fold, and he cradles his face, moaning. “She broke my nose.”
“Get up!” Cash says again, louder. “Please. It’s all I want. Get up so I can put you back down. Come on, man bun. Come after someone like a man for once in your pathetic life.” Cash cracks his busted knuckles.
Toby spits and scuttles backwards. “You keep her. You deserve her.”
“That’s fuckin’ right, I do.” Cash’s affirmation is whole-hearted. He looks at me over his shoulder. “Let me hit him, Glenna? Please.”
I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have hit him.” I can’t believe I did it. I’m not a violent person.
“You broke your camera.” Cash frowns at the mangled mess I’m still holding.
“You deserve each other,” Toby spits as he struggles to his feet. Samantha’s back, helping him up.
Cash looks back to Toby. “You keep sayin’ shit like it’s an insult, and it ain’t. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Toby takes a breath like he’s about to tell him. Cash raises his hand. “Never mind. Don’t answer. I get it. You don’t know when to quit.” Cash turns his back to face me, his gaze raking from my head to feet. “What about you? You done with this?”
Cash’s brown eyes are dark, swirling with something. His chest is still. Tense. Like what I’m about to say matters more to him than anything.
Like I matter that much to him.
“Yeah.” I don’t make him wait. Not a second. “I am.”
“Yeah,” he repeats. His smile breaks, huge and goofy and bloody. I wince. He just smiles wider. He holds out his hand. I take it. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“Am I okay?” I’m the only one in a hundred yards without a black eye or a fat lip. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Did you hurt your arm?” He’s deadly serious.
“No. I landed on my butt.” And I threw the punch with my left.
Cash’s face falls as he seems to recall the recent series of events. He draws himself up and glares at the circle of onlookers still gathered around.
“Listen up.” His voice booms. Everyone shuts up. “I’m gonna find who pushed her, and this right here is gonna be child’s play. You got me?” I’ve never heard him sound so serious.
“Anyone lays a hand on her again, I’ll fucking end you. You say the name ‘Del Willis’ around her again, I will end you.” He enunciates each of the last four words. “Is that fucking clear?”
There’s mumbling and shuffling feet, but no one has the balls to answer.
In this moment, with the late afternoon sun shining on his bloody and bruised face, there’s no doubt he could or would do it. He kicks a clod of dirt, and snaps, “That’s what I thought.”
Then he rolls his shoulders and sucks down some deep breaths. He squeezes my hand and drops it to go help Logan Rolf get back on his feet. Cash gets him upright, but then Logan doubles over and pukes in the trampled grass.
Dina kind of wanders over to me and stands by my side. Her candy apple is covered in sprinkles.
“So you chose violence,” she says.
I guess I did. “I’ve never been in a fight before.”
“You broke your camera, and you broke his nose.”
It’s a judgment, but for the life of me, I cannot tell which way Dina’s judging. I just kind of nod. Dina’s gaze wanders to where her brother is laughing with Matt Cooper. Every few seconds, Cash glances our way.
“I think he likes you a lot,” she says.
“Yeah.” I think he does, too.
“He’s a dumbass. If you don’t want him, you gotta be straightforward with him. He’s got a thick head.”
There’s a blown-open feeling in my chest.
In essence, Cash Wall just fought the whole town for me. Or all takers, at least.
And if I’m honest with myself—really, really honest—I didn’t smash Toby in the face because he insulted me. I was mad because he called Cash Wall a pig.
He might be, but he’s my pig, dammit.
“I want him,” I say, my lips curving. Cash notices, and he smiles back. He’s missing a tooth.
This idiot lost a tooth for me.
Dina grunts acknowledgement and chomps her apple.
Cash raises a split eyebrow. I can’t hold myself back anymore.
I go to him. Grab his busted-up hands. Swing his arms a bit side-to-side as I step into his chest. Where I’m supposed to be.
“What did you do?” I ask, scanning the remains of the crowd.
“Won the pumpkin chuckin’, babe. That’s what.”
People are collecting themselves and dispersing in high spirits. Stonecut does love to let off steam every once in a while.
There are still a few pumpkins on the table, but the Ellwoods are putting the tires back on the boat trailer that’s the base for the trebuchet.
I rest my forehead on his chest. He cradles the back of my head. Holds me tight.
“You defended me,” I mumble into his sweater.
“Always,” he says. Like a promise.
I draw back, make him loosen his grip. I gaze up into his eyes. There’s a purple ring around one, and the other is half-swollen shut.
“You love me,” I say.
“For as long as I’ve known you.” He gathers me back into his arms.
“Do you really think we’re gonna work?” I ask.
The happiest grin I’ve ever seen breaks across his face. “Stranger things have happened,” he says.
And he’s right about that.
I began to fall in love with Cash Wall when he got me shot, and I finished falling when he started a donnybrook at a pumpkin chuckin’ over me.
“You’re missing a tooth,” I tell him.
His sticks his tongue in the hole. “You still want me.”
I laugh. I do. And that might make me nuts, but it also makes me happy. And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe it’s about time.