“It’s the guy from Colombo’s,” Billy said.
“What guy?”
“The guy who came in with the girl.”
I checked my side mirror. Two people sat in the car behind me, but I couldn’t identify either of them. “What the hell is his problem?”
“No idea,” Mif said.
I took a right turn, onto surface streets. The guy followed. I made another right and drove down a steep grade. The guy pulled alongside me, punched the gas to get in front of me, then whipped his car into my lane. I slammed on the brakes, nearly hitting his car. Now I was pissed. With both cars stopped, I quickly got out. Unfortunately, unsophisticated when it came to fights, I slammed the door shut, temporarily trapping Billy and Mif in the back seat.
“What the hell is your problem?” I said as I approached the driver’s-side window.
The guy turned and looked at me like I was shit on the bottom of his shoe. “What did you say to my girlfriend?”
The question took me off guard. “What?”
“What did you say to my girlfriend?”
I looked across the car to determine if I knew his girlfriend. I didn’t. “When?”
“At the store,” he said. “What did you say to her at the store?”
“I didn’t say anything to her. I held the door open and let you both pass.”
He pushed out of the car. By this time Mif, Billy, and Cap had exited the Pinto and approached. The guy stood the way William stood when taking on the behemoth at the softball game. Like he had no fear.
“One of you said something,” he said to all of us.
“I didn’t say anything,” I said. “I let you walk in.”
“What do you mean let me?”
“You saw it. Don’t pull this bullshit.”
“Bullshit?” the guy said and took a step forward.
I held my ground, and my gaze. His eyes were not pinpoints of black or laser focused. This guy was bluffing. “Yeah. Bullshit. Don’t make up shit to impress your girlfriend.”
He glared at me, but he didn’t throw a punch. He turned to my friends. “Then one of you said something.” They looked equally confused.
“Nobody said anything,” Mif said.
The guy looked in the car. “Kelly, which one was it?”
The girlfriend got out of the car and came around the back. “Him.” She pointed at Billy.
“I didn’t say anything,” Billy said.
“Are you calling my girlfriend a liar?”
“Call her what you want. I didn’t say anything.”
“Either you admit it and apologize or we’re going to go at it right here.”
I had been working hard, swinging sledgehammers, carrying lumber and hundred-pound bags of cement and grout. I still didn’t touch 170 pounds, but I was in good shape and as strong as I had ever been. Maybe that’s what encouraged me to say what I did. Maybe it was just the male hubris I had learned that summer from Todd and William. Maybe it was my realization that the guy was bluffing, because I had seen a guy truly prepared for a fight.
“There’s four of us,” I said, volunteering my friends. “We’d kill you.”
The guy stepped to me and slid off his jacket, throwing it on the hood of the car. “Yeah? One at a time. Who wants to go first? You got a big mouth. How about you?”
“You really want to do this?” I asked.
“You just said you’d kill me. Kelly, take the car. Go get Brian and Tim. Tell them where I am and what’s happened. Tell them to bring the guys.” His eyes didn’t change, and I heard the lack of conviction in his voice.
The girlfriend moved to the driver’s side of the car. I hadn’t expected this.
“Hang on,” I said to the girl.
She had a smug smile on her face, Farrah Fawcett beneath the curls. I realized she had put the guy up to this. She was testing him, his feelings for her, and enjoying it. He’d picked the confrontation to impress her, and now he had no way out. His bravado had backed him into this corner. He wasn’t looking to fight. He was looking to save face.
I didn’t care about losing face, and I didn’t want to get punched in mine. I had no doubt Cap, Billy, and Mif would jump in, but then what? Where would the fight take us? Where and how would it end? And what purpose would it serve? I’d have to explain to my mom and dad why I had a black eye, a chipped tooth, or a broken nose. I stood to gain nothing from this confrontation, even if I won.
Just as William described the war in Vietnam.