Chapter Eighteen
Long Island, 1982
Henry wasn’t much different at sixteen than he was at thirteen. He was still a quiet kid; still physically squat and awkward-looking, although he was wider and his hair was much longer making him look more than a little like a shorter and lumpier version of the singer Meatloaf. He had a tiny circle of friends—really only three, with Nancy Bower being his closest bud, as she liked to call him. He still struggled in math, barely passing each semester, still excelled in art, and still created his own comic books, although no longer superhero ones. Instead the comic books he drew were the stuff of nightmares. Horrific monsters doing horrific things to their victims. One major difference between thirteen- and sixteen-year-old Henry was that bullies steered clear of him, especially Brad Black, whose surgically repaired earlobe looked as if a blob of silly putty had been used to fill in the torn-off piece.
Henry, a sensitive boy, had a penchant for steering clear of trouble. As long as others left him alone, he was more than willing to do the same. This was why it was so surprising to Johnny Franco, quarterback and captain of the school’s football team, and his two cohorts, also starters on the team, when Henry told them to quit picking on Gary Fleishman. At the time Franco had Fleishman, a scrawny fifteen-year-old freshman, in a headlock while Franco’s two cohorts were in the process of removing Fleishman’s corduroys.
“Mind your own business, fat boy,” Franco ordered.
Instead of doing that, Henry told Franco again to let go of the kid they were picking on.
“If you don’t I’m going to knock you down to the floor, and then I’m going to break both your arms,” Henry stated calmly.
By this time a crowd of other students had gathered. Even though the incident with Henry and Brad Black had happened in middle school, Franco had heard the story about the odd ogre-looking kid who had gone all mental on Black and had left Black with half an earlobe missing. He let go of Fleishman, as did his two cohorts. Fleishman, for his part, gathered up his pants and fled to safety. It might’ve been over then if a crowd hadn’t formed. Franco couldn’t just walk away, not with how several of the kids in the crowd were jeering him on.
“What’s to stop me right now from beating the stuffing out of you?” Franco asked, his voice a low, menacing growl, his eyes closing so that they were barely slits and his hands clenching into fists.
“Because if you try, I’ll knock out your two front teeth.”
That caused some more egging on from the other students. Franco turned to them making a can-you-believe-this-moron face, then sucker punched Henry in the jaw.
The last few years Henry’s dad often told him that he was as strong as an ox, and that he should be playing football. “High school girls go nuts over football players, Henry, especially the cheerleaders. With how strong you are, you’d be a monster playing on the offensive line.”
Henry didn’t believe his dad about the girl part, and he had good reason not to. Whether or not he played on the school’s football team, it was doubtful any of the cheerleaders or other girls would be interested in him as a boyfriend. His dad was also exaggerating about him being as strong as an ox, but he was still a deceptively powerful kid with heavy hands and a low center of gravity, and Franco’s sucker punch didn’t budge him. Instead, Henry immediately went for Franco’s knees. In a flash he lifted Franco up and slammed the teenager to the floor, then sat on his chest. With one hard punch, he lived up to his word knocking out Franco’s two front teeth, as well as two of his bottom teeth.
Franco’s two football team cohorts jumped into the melee, and as they wrestled with Henry while Franco lay on the floor bawling, teachers rushed in to break up the fight.
Things got confusing then. Because of Franco’s teeth being knocked out and his mouth being turned into a bloody mess, the school at first wanted to make this a police matter and have Henry arrested, but then as students came forward and the school’s principal got a clearer picture about what had happened, he shut down that idea. These were three of the school’s top football players, and if he went after Henry, he would have to go after those players even harder. The whole mess gave him indigestion.
“Why’d you get involved in the first place?” the principal demanded of Henry. “Did you have some sort of vendetta against Johnny? Is that it, you were looking for an excuse to hurt him?”
Henry’s jaw dropped as he stared at the principal, not quite believing what he was asked. He stuttered in his confusion and anger as he told the principal that he had warned Franco and the other two to stop picking on Fleishman. “They were pantsing him right there in the hallway! What they were doing to him was humiliating! And Franco punched me first!”
There was no denying that Henry had a swollen jaw, as well as other lumps and bruises that he’d gotten while wrestling with the other two football players. There was also no way of getting around the fact that the students who came forward all claimed Franco threw the first punch. The principal, though, persisted, asking, “Are you friends with this Fleishman kid?”
Henry, still confused, shook his head. “I don’t know him,” he said.
“You should’ve found a teacher to handle the situation,” the principal said coldly. “Because of your actions a fellow student has been seriously injured. That type of behavior won’t be tolerated.”
Henry was sometimes slow on the uptake, but he wasn’t a stupid kid, and he understood then what was happening. At that point he refused to answer any more questions, which allowed the principal to get away with suspending him for two weeks while Franco and his two cohorts escaped punishment. After leaving the principal’s office with his suspension starting immediately, he saw Aisley Martin hanging out in the hallway, obviously cutting class. Aisley was one of the goth girls in the school who wore all black, dyed her hair the same pitch black as her eye makeup, painted her fingernails blue, and her lips bloodred. Henry had had a crush on her for over a year, although he never would’ve been able to work up the nerve to talk to her. As he approached her, he tried to act as if she weren’t there, or at least as if he hadn’t been gawking at her a moment earlier. When she started walking alongside him, his face flushed and his heart thumped like mad in his chest.
“They suspend you?” she asked.
Even though she was walking less than a foot away from him, it surprised Henry that she actually talked to him. His voice noticeably cracked as he squeaked out that he’d been suspended for two weeks.
“That’s bull. I bet they don’t suspend those fascist jocks who started everything.” There was a pause, then, “Mind if I walk with you? I’m heading outside for a smoke.”
Even though Henry’s heart now thumped so hard that he thought he might faint, he was able to croak out that he didn’t mind, and so Aisley Martin continued to walk alongside him as they left the school building.
“I think that was so cool of you standing up for that kid like you did,” she said.
“I don’t like bullies,” Henry said.
“Neither do I.”
They continued on until they were half a block away from the school, then Aisley stopped so she could take a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “Do you smoke?” she asked.
Henry shook his head no because he didn’t smoke, and then felt sick to his stomach as he realized that Aisley was really asking him to hang around and smoke a cigarette with her.
“Then we should get coffee sometime,” she said. “Maybe after your suspension.”
“Cool,” Henry said, trying his hardest to sound cool.
“Cool,” Aisley agreed.
* * *
That night Nancy Bower came over to visit. She’d blossomed from the thirteen-year-old girl Henry had first talked to. No longer pear-shaped, her braces gone, her skin having cleared up, and her blonde hair no longer oily but shoulder-length and curly, she was actually quite pretty, but she and Henry had long established themselves as platonic buddies.
“I missed all the fireworks earlier,” she said. “You’re all the school’s talking about. What possessed you to take on three football players?”
Henry was at his desk hard at work on his latest comic book, the fourth in an apocalyptic series he called Shriekers, which had these horrific creatures that one day showed up and started following people around shrieking, and then ripping to shreds anyone whose heart rate goes up, or if their physiology in any other way indicates fear.
“I won the fight,” he said. “And I’ve still got my teeth.”
“You did, and you do,” Nancy conceded. Her expression melted into one of concern. “You also got suspended, and you look like you’ve been hit by a truck. So why’d you do it?”
Henry shrugged. “I flashed back to when Brad Black and those others used to bully me like that. But I warned them. It wasn’t like I started it. They should’ve listened to me.”
“Are you okay? Your face looks pretty beat up.”
Henry grinned at her. “You should see the other guys,” he joked. “And it’s not like they made me any uglier.”
“You know I hate it when you talk like that. You’re the sweetest boy I know, even if you do draw the most disgusting comic books.” Nancy walked over to Henry’s desk, her hand resting on his back as she looked over his shoulder. “Are you still working on volume three of your Shrieker books?”
“Nope, I had all this extra time this afternoon so I was able to finish it. This is number four.”
Henry dug through his desk and handed Nancy a folder that held his most recently completed comic book, and she brought it over to his bed so she could stretch out on it and look at what he’d drawn.
“The artwork is so good,” Nancy said as she studied the first page. “Clearly from a sick, depraved mind, but so, so good.”
“Ha! Who’s the one who got me reading H. P. Lovecraft?”
“I’m not saying I don’t like it, just that you’re clearly warped.” Then more seriously, “You’re going to be famous someday.”
Henry blushed at that. “You think?”
“I think.”
For the next fifteen minutes Henry worked feverishly on his comic book while Nancy read the one he had given her. Offhandedly, he commented that Aisley Martin was waiting for him when he left the principal’s office.
That got Nancy’s attention. “No kidding? The goth girl?”
“Yep.”
“The one that you’ve been nuts about since forever?”
Henry blushed at that. “I wouldn’t say I’ve been nuts about her,” he argued.
“So what did goth girl want?”
“Not much. Only that she’d like to have coffee with me sometime.”
“Congratulations,” Nancy said, although she didn’t sound congratulatory. “What do you know. My boy’s in love.”
That caused Henry to blush even deeper.