Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
The stupidly tall and handsome boy’s name—the one who loved his gay brother, so knock it off, Rodney—was Christopher.
Topher for short, which seemed, to Jules, to be exceedingly Connecticut.
Maybe not so much tobacco-farm Connecticut, but certainly country-club Connecticut.
And the state was pretty small so it made sense that lines would blur.
His father was a retired Army officer, and Topher, apparently, was West Point bound.
Or he had been, before Colonel Dad went and kicked his brother Liam out of his house.
For, you know, being true to himself. Apparently, Topher really did love Liam because he packed up and left, too.
They both were now living with the family of Liam’s former high school girlfriend, even though she’d left for college.
Which seemed weird, but really was proof that some people—maybe most people—weren’t awful.
The other member of the FU Club was a kid named Joey who was in ROTC, which made Jules want to hum the song from Sesame Street about one of these things is not like the others while pointing to himself.
He’d had a quick convo with Mr. Harrison while helping to set up the thick floor mats.
“Just so there’s no misunderstanding,” Jules said, “there’s absolutely zero chance of my joining the military.”
“Oh,” Harrison said. “Yeah, I know. Hah. They wouldn’t know what to do with you.” He laughed again. “Hah. Don’t worry, kid. This isn’t secretly the armed forces recruitment club.”
“Phew,” Jules said, which got him another “Hah.”
Because there were so few kids, the structure was informal. And since Jules was new, Joey and Topher sparred as he watched, in part to show him some of the things he would learn here, in part to refresh their memories after the long summer break.
They then spent the rest of the ninety minutes learning about center of gravity—how to stand, how to come in low to knock an ill-prepared opponent off their feet—along with some rudimentary skills to safely fall and to absorb or minimize a blow.
These basics were, Harrison claimed, the secret to winning any fight, particularly combined with running hard (five miles a day, what?
!) while carrying on a conversation, or singing (really.
..?!!) if they were running alone. Stamina combined with being smart, paying attention, and actively avoiding getting hurt could overcome even the biggest differences in size and weight.
And of course, the teacher talked quite a bit about using logic and one’s non-animal brain to evaluate when it was best to “win” by simply beating feet and getting the hell outta Dodge.
At first Jules had thought that Harrison had to advocate for that option, but as the class wore on, he realized that, no. The man really believed what he was teaching them. Ask yourself, Do you really want this fight?
Use your brain.
There was a lot of science involved, and common sense, too. Harrison advocated using elbows or knees to strike a blow instead of a closed fist, because the human hand and wrist had a serious design flaw when being used as a hammer.
These lessons were not even close to gentlemanly fisticuffs, Jules was happy to discover.
This was full-on, free-for-all, defend-yourself-from-serious-harm, kick-your-opponent-in-the-nuts, wartime fighting-back techniques.
Which would include, as the weeks continued, his learning how to pin or neutralize an opponent while waiting for backup to arrive.
It was pretty freaking cool.
Jules had never been into team sports or thought of himself as being particularly athletic, but he was good at this. It felt amazing to use his body this way, too, and he left the gym that afternoon feeling energized and intrigued. He couldn’t wait for next Wednesday, to learn more.
Harrison had given him an info sheet on running—David had always mocked the joggers in his old neighborhood. But Jules did get out of breath rather quickly and if running was a sure-fire way to increase his stamina, he was going to try it. At least once.
“Give it around six weeks,” Mr. H had said in his gravely voice, with that spot-on way he had of somehow knowing exactly what Jules was thinking. “If you still hate it after six weeks, we’ll figure something else out.”
Six weeks, hey? Jules managed not to laugh in his face, but inwardly he was rolling on the floor.
It was then Harrison handed Jules another of those FU permission slips and said, “Tell your fan club president that he’s welcome to join us next week.”
And sure enough, when Jules turned he saw a flash of neon pink that could only be Hobbit. Today had been matching hot-pink-shirt day for Hob and the Esses, and it was highly unlikely that it was Shelly or Sadie lurking just inside the entrance to the boy’s locker room.
“It’s a great idea,” Harrison continued. “Not only do we get a round number for sparring, but you can run together during the week. It’s a solid let’s-just-be-friends activity that lets you give him some of your time without any... shall we say, misunderstanding.”
Was he... really getting advice from a crusty former Marine about how to handle a younger boy who was obviously crushing on him? Yes, apparently he was, and in fact... “That’s actually a good idea,” Jules said.
“I’ve been known to have a few,” Harrison deadpanned as he headed out of the gym. “See you in class tomorrow, kid. Say hey to your mom.”
Jules went into the locker room, but Hobbit had vanished. Joey and Topher were already gone, too—they hadn’t needed the extra several minutes of discussion on home workouts. They already knew the drill.
As the door clunked shut behind him, the vast, not-great-smelling, windowless room, with its nooks and crannies for rooms of toilets, urinals, sinks and showers, its rows and blocks of lockers that created a labyrinth of hiding places, felt dangerously empty and ominous.
On the Ten Places Not To Linger if Gay list, a boys’ high school locker room in a rural American town was in the top three.
Jules wasn’t going to bother to change out of his sweat pants.
He hustled toward his locker where he’d locked his backpack with his books and his jeans—his plan being to grab everything and boogie.
The combination was still new, but he remembered it—oh God, he hoped.
If not, he’d written it on his left foot, but that would require taking off his sneaker and tick-tock, he wanted to get out of here.
He spun the dial and—cah-chunk. Shit. That was the sound of the door that opened into the hallway—on the opposite side of the big room from the door that opened into the gym, to which he was slightly closer.
As Jules spun the dial on his combination lock, searching for the seven, he listened hard for the closing clunk.
Which didn’t come and didn’t come, and shit, how many assholes were coming into the locker room?
Someone giggled. Someone else whispered Shh!
Then, “Ke-vin! Oh, Kehhh-vin,” a voice made purposely high wheedled, drawing out the name, like a cartoon character stalking his prey. Whoever these assholes were, at least they weren’t calling his name, but whoever Kevin was, wherever he was hiding, he certainly didn’t need this bullshit.
So instead of trying to be quiet, when Jules finally landed on that final seven, he gave Kevin what he hoped was a diversion and a chance to escape, opening his locker with a resounding bang as he called out loudly, “Hey, Kev, meet you out in the gym, okay?” Hint hint, run kid, run!
“Oh, hey, Mr. Harrison. Yeah, we’re all still here.
” He slapped the metal surfaces of the other lockers around him, and the sounds echoed in the tiled room as he grabbed his pack and his jeans and hustled toward the door to make his escape into the gym, where hopefully he and Kevin, whoever he was, would have more room to defend themselves should it come to that.
“Hey, guys, sh, sh, sh! Shut up for a second, these lockers make so much damn noise. Did one of you leave your hat in the gym because, nah, it’s not mine.
” He pitched his voice lower. “Nope, not mine. Hey, Bill, you have your hat?” Back to his normal voice.
“Maybe it’s Kevin’s. Or hey, Bobby, is it yours? ”
But right before he reached the door to the gym, steps away from salvation, it opened and Jules dropped both his backpack and his jeans and looked wildly around him, hoping to find a better place than this narrow hallway to defend himself from an attack both from the front and the back.
Except it was Topher and Joey coming back into the locker room, led by Hobbit who looked fierce, like he was ready to throw down.
“Oh, thank God,” Hobbit said when he saw Jules. He scrambled to grab Jules’s bag and jeans and tossed them to Topher, then grabbed Jules’s arm. “Come on, let’s go!” He pulled him through the door and out into the empty gym. Shit, whoever Kevin was, he hadn’t made it out there.
“I saw Rodney and his idiots heading for the locker room,” Hobbit continued, “and I knew you were in there alone, so I ran screaming for Topher and Joey. Thank you guys, so much.”
“I’m pretty sure we can take ’em,” Joey said just a tad too eagerly, loosening the muscles in his neck.
“But do we really want to?” Topher posed the question that Mr. Harrison included in their prep-to-fight mental checklist.
“I think we’re gonna have to.” Jules planted himself despite Hobbit’s persistent tug across the gym to the far door that led to the parking lot. “They’re after some kid named Kevin, and I think he’s still in there. I’m sorry, I can’t just leave him there.”
All three of the boys turned to look at him. Joey looked confused, Topher was definitely puzzled, but the expression on Hobbit’s face was a mix of disbelief and found-Jesus. For a hot second, Jules didn’t know if the younger boy was about to laugh or cry.