Lark turned, looking at me through glassy eyes and giving me the drunkard’s grin. Even though he was stooped over, I still looked up at him, and he outweighed me by a good forty pounds. But I also knew he had a full ride to play football at Brown and that I was forty times smarter than him. “You need to apologize,” I said.
He stumbled. “We’re cool, man. I didn’t mean nothing.”
“Not to me. To Mickie.”
Lark’s brow furrowed.
“Sam,” Ernie started again.
I cut him off, keeping my focus on Lark. “Stay out of it, Ernie.”
Lark looked to Ernie then to me, his eyes registering confusion. “I apologized already.”
“Not to her you didn’t.”
He leaned forward, close enough that I could smell the acidic odor of alcohol on his breath. It reminded me of Sister Beatrice, and I had the same revulsion. I’d never been in a fight except for my jaunt around the schoolyard on David Bateman’s back. “Last chance,” I said.
“Or what?”
“Or we’re going to go at it right here.”
Lark smiled. “I’ll fucking kill you, Hell.” He said it without animosity, with a chuckle in his voice.
“You’ll have to kill me,” I replied in the same even tone. “Because once we get started, I’m not stopping. Then we’ll both get expelled and throw away our futures, and next year the senior class can come by the McDonald’s where you and I will be flipping burgers together instead of you playing football at Brown. Explain that to your mother and father.”
For a moment Lark’s face looked like he was attempting to solve a complex mathematical equation and failing miserably. Then he grinned, and I felt everyone in the room breathe a collective sigh of relief. “You’re a red-eyed crazy motherfucker, Hell, but I like you.” He stepped past me to where Mickie stood with Alicia and Ernie. “Hey, Mickie.” She considered him with scorn. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, or said those things. If Hell likes you, you must be okay.”
Mickie wiped her cheeks but did not respond. Lark looked at me and nodded. Then he left.
11
I retrieved Mickie’s shawl and escorted her through the hotel lobby to the parking lot. She kept her head down, her shawl draped over her shoulders. I opened the passenger car door and helped her in, gathering her shawl for her so it wouldn’t get caught in the door. As I walked to the driver’s side, I took a moment to catch my breath. We were misfits, Mickie, me, and Ernie. For all his exploits, Ernie remained the black kid. For all my achievements in the classroom and on the newspaper staff, I was still the devil boy—or at least the kid with the red eyes—and Mickie was the girl with the reputation. We were something for other people to talk about and make fun of. I thought of all the times Mickie had stood up for me, all the times she’d been there for me. She had been having so much fun that night, happier than I might have ever seen her. I wasn’t about to let Lark ruin her evening. When I slid in, Mickie remained pressed against the passenger door.
“We have a problem,” I said. Mickie raised her head to look at me, her makeup still smeared. “I can’t drive with you sitting way over there.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re sorry because Lark is a drunken moron?”
“I’m sorry you had to go with me, if I embarrassed you.”
“I had to go with you? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you going with me.”
“Maybe that would have been better.”
I had never seen or heard Mickie defeated like this, never truly realized the depth of her pain. Her home life had not improved with her parents’ divorce. Her mother drank most nights and either passed out or became belligerent, belittling Mickie. Her father had moved on, found himself a hot young girlfriend, and expressed little interest in being a father. It was a loveless home, and I wondered if that was why Mickie was promiscuous, if it wasn’t about the sex at all, but about feeling loved, if only for a little while.