We sat on the sidewalk with our backs up against one of the cop cars—me, Billy D., and the big mouth. The officers had called an ambulance for the bloodied kid, which I thought was unnecessary and definitely not a good sign for the deep shit Billy was probably in. They let me sit with Billy, since I was the only one he seemed to be listening to, but they made his mom stand back. When she kept insisting on a lawyer and spouting her own versions of what must have happened, they finally suggested she go get that attorney and get him down to the police station as soon as possible, because that’s where Billy was going.
She nearly lost it then, but Mom had a soothing way with her and managed to get her in the car with promises that Billy would be okay and that the best thing they could do was get him some help and meet him at the station. It was almost comical how convincing Mom was because I knew there was no way in hell she would have let me out of her sight if I were in this much trouble.
Leaning against the squad car, Billy focused on his hands, picking little bits of dried blood off his fingers—none of it his own. He’d gone mute since the cops set him down on the sidewalk. In contrast, the other kid couldn’t shut up.
He went on and on about how he and the other boy were just messing around at the playground, skipping school, when Billy came up acting all weird and just staring at them and not talking.
“Then this retard just ducks down and rams his head into my gut,” the kid said.
“If you call him a retard again—” I growled.
“Oh yeah, what are you gonna do?” The boy leaned across Billy to me, but an officer pushed him firmly back against the car.
I wished they’d put him in cuffs, but that might mean they’d have to cuff Billy, too.
“Looks like I don’t have to do anything,” I said. “My boy Billy D. here already kicked your ass.”
“I could take this ’tard! He just surprised me.”
“What did I tell you about that word?”
“Knock it off,” the officer said. He was down on one knee in front of us.
“Well, then he just went crazy,” Big Mouth continued. “Joe went to help me up, and this kid hit him in the back with that stick or whatever and just kept hitting him. Jacked him up good, too.” He sneered at Billy. “You’re going to jail for sure … retard.”
I held my breath, trying to control the itch in my palms. My only comfort was the fact that the officer looked just as disgusted by Big Mouth as I was. And when he looked at Billy, his expression was much kinder. “Is that how it happened?” he asked.
Billy methodically picked at his bloody fingers and refused to meet the officer’s eye.
“His mom told him not to talk without a lawyer,” I said.
The officer nodded. “Then he’ll have to tell us his side of the story at the station.”
Billy looked up at that, fear all over his face. “They’re taking me to jail?” he whispered to me.
“Not jail,” I said. I looked at the officer for confirmation. “Right? Just the police station.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s okay, then,” I told Billy. “And I’ll go with you, so it’s going to be fine.”
“You can’t come with him.” The officer shook his head at me. “You can meet him down there with his mom, if you like, but he’s gotta come with us. You’ll have to take your own car.”
“I don’t have a car,” I said bitterly.
“Sorry.” The officer stood. “Then you’ll have to go on home. We don’t give free rides to the station.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. Then, fast as lightning, I swung my arm all the way around Billy D. and landed a fist smack into Big Mouth’s face. His head made a satisfying thunk as it hit the metal car door behind him.
I looked up at the cop. “How ’bout now?”
The police station was brighter and cheerier than I’d imagined.
There were lots of windows and clean carpet and shiny desks. Billy and I were seated at one of those desks, across from the officer who had helped us with the search. The cop who’d been called in for backup was questioning Big Mouth at another desk.
Our officer made small talk with us, blabbering on about the station’s recent remodel and how it almost made him want to get off the streets and become a desk jockey. He let me call my mom to explain why I, too, would be needing a lawyer, then we all just sat there and waited for moms and attorneys to show up before anyone agreed to start talking.
But Billy couldn’t help himself. After a few minutes of silently watching the officer type up his report, Billy burst out, “Dane, I didn’t mean to!”
I was too startled by his explosion to tell him to be quiet. “What do you mean, you didn’t mean to?”
“I didn’t mean to make that one kid go to the hospital.”
“That kid’s just being a pussy. He’s fine.”
The officer across the desk cleared his throat. “Lucky your friend here’s not a little stronger. He could have done some real damage,” he said to me.
He’s stronger than you know.
I glared at the officer, willing him to look away, which he did. I lowered my voice when I spoke to Billy again.
“What happened?”
I knew I shouldn’t ask him in front of the cop. I knew we should wait for all the legal know-it-alls, but I was going crazy not knowing, and by the way Billy was fidgeting around in his chair, I could tell he was going crazy not telling me.
“I didn’t go to school today,” Billy said.
“Yeah, that part I got.”
“You made me mad.”
Maybe Billy’s mom was right. Maybe this was somehow my fault.
“I went to Seely’s,” Billy continued. “But she wasn’t home. And I couldn’t remember where she put the key.”
Billy looked embarrassed at that last bit, so I just nodded, encouraging him to keep talking.
“But I didn’t want to go to school, and I was really, really mad at you.”
“Uh-huh. You mentioned that.”
“And I remembered the other time I was mad at you was ’cause you tried to make me beat up those boys.”
I winced and glanced over at the cop. Sure enough, he was listening. But there was no stopping Billy now that he’d started to spill.
“And I was at Seely’s house by the park and thinking about how I could fight, and I could show you, and then maybe we wouldn’t get mad at each other anymore.”
I wished the seat of my chair would open up and swallow me. The more Billy talked, the more his crime sounded like my idea. I almost believed it myself.
“And I thought how you said you don’t hit retards or girls, but hitting everyone else is okay—”
“Because that was different, and I didn’t know why it was different and those guys were right there, over in the park and—”
“Billy D., slow down.”
“And I just wanted to know what it felt like.”
“What what felt like?”
“Hitting.”
So, the big-mouth kid had told the truth. I was acutely aware of the officer falling still across the desk. He’d heard what Billy had said. It was basically a confession and a motive, all in one. Billy went looking for the fight. There would be no way to pin this on the other guys—to claim they started it.
“So?” I asked. “How did it feel?”
“It hurt.”
I stretched out in my chair, trying to sound casual. “Yeah, I told you to keep those shoulders hunched when you go in for a head-butt. Sometimes I bruise my knuckles a little—”
“No.” Billy clutched at his chest. “It hurt.”
Oh.
I thought then about Jimmy Miller—about the way he’d always had a smile on his face, a sort of funny carefree look, until the day I’d knocked him off his bike. Ever since then, the only face I’d seen him wear was one full of contempt. And thanks to what Seely had told me, I now knew I deserved that. I thought, too, about the way other kids skirted me at school or looked down if I caught their eye. Some days that made me angry. Other days it made me proud.
I looked at Billy, still holding his hand to his heart. And if I was totally honest, some days it made me hurt.
“Maybe you’re just not a hitter,” I said.
Billy dropped his hand into his lap and stared at it. “Maybe nobody should be a hitter.”
I smiled. “That’s just what Mr. Miyagi would have said.”
“From that movie?”
“Yeah.” I sat up straight and made my most serious face. “‘Fighting is not the answer, Daniel-san.’”
Billy laughed at my acting. “he says that?”
“Something like that. He says it in the first movie, I think. Actually”—I waved a hand—“he says it in, like, all the movies.”
Billy screwed up his face. “But I thought you said you were the Miyagi, and I was the Karate Kid.”
“I did.” I sighed and leaned my head against the back of the chair, still facing Billy. “But maybe I was wrong.”
The attorney showed up and announced he was representing us both. I wondered if our moms were getting a two-for-one deal. The guy looked cheap enough, with his shabby shoes and no jacket or tie or anything else lawyer-ish about him. The police made our moms wait in some outer lobby, which I was thankful for. It was a lot easier to tell the truth to cops and attorneys than to your own mom. And that’s what Billy and I did—told the truth. Not that I had much choice. I’d thrown my punch right in front of the police. But Billy’s story was more elaborate, and every word of it matched what Big Mouth had said.
We both sighed out loud with relief when the cop and the lawyer agreed we wouldn’t be put behind bars or anything. They yammered on about our charges: assault for me and possibly something worse than assault for Billy D.—or possibly something less, depending on how they decided to factor in his disability. They spoke a language I didn’t understand with all sorts of legal terms like “probable plea deal something” and “knocked down to lesser whatever.”
I rolled my eyes at one point and whispered to Billy, “I think they’re just making those words up to scare us. It’s like speaking pig latin.”
It made Billy laugh.
The lawyer went to tell our moms what was going on while the officer filled out little sheets for us that basically said we got arrested, even though it didn’t seem like we did. The officer passed me mine, and I thought it looked a lot like the slips I had to take home to Mom when I got detention. Except this time, Billy sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to get me out of it.