News Reports and Fist Fights

Rocking around on the bus, all the way to school I thought about the news story. Didn't they have any sympathy? Not even sympathy, compassion? Weren't they angry that this happened?

I saw the story on the news that next morning and it got a mention in the papers. Just like Theo said, they called her a stripper. Not a local woman, a stripper. Some people who commented made my stomach turn in disgust. One man said it was all a hazard of her job, what could you do? My father, ailing with a hangover, muttered ‘f*****g w***e’ under his breath. If I had been braver at that time I would have defended her. But I was too cowardly, and realized no matter what I said my father wouldn’t acknowledge the sense in it.

The rest of the commentary was all about how if they decided to prosecute the man who did this, they wouldn't be able to pin anything on him. As if stabbing a stripper was any different from stabbing another woman. They would blame her for the temptation she presented.

I stepped through the doors of school and heard a familiar commotion going on down the hall. Fight. I ran down to see it. A large crowd had gathered around the two fighting in the center. I spotted Derek in the crowd and wrestled my way over to him.

He saw me and a bright smile came to his face. “He’s kicking Mark’s a*s.”

That’s when I saw the two in the middle. Theo was on top of one of the second sober boys, Mark, known for his episodes of drinking that ended with him getting his stomach pumped.

“Theo!” I screamed and ran towards the two boys who were busy driving their fists into each other. I grabbed Theo and tried to pull him off. I managed to separate the two holding back a raging Theo.

“You f*****g b*****d!” He was screaming. Obscenities poured from his mouth in an endless stream. It was all I could to hold him back. I had never seen him like this. He spit out a mouthful of blood to the disgust of every girl in the crowd before continuing his verbal barrage on Mark. “Go to hell!”

“I’ll see your mother there.” Mark smirked from his place on the ground. Blood gushed from his nose.

Theo lunged for him, but Derek helped me hold him back. "Dude! Calm down. It's over!" Derek said.

All words had escaped Theo at Mark’s remark. His face was twisted in such rage I thought the vein on his temple would burst. I began to think he'd start foaming at the mouth. His eyes moved to his restraints, Derek and me. He shoved off Derek’s hands and removed mine and stormed down the hall. The last I saw of Theo was as he ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

The crowd was beginning to disperse now that the fight had been broken up. Mark’s friends had helped him from the ground.

“Let him know I got twenty bucks and a party coming up,” Mark said to me. He wiped his bloody nose off on his sleeve and smirked. How victorious he seemed.

Derek surprised me by shoving Mark into the lockers. “F**k you, he kicked your a*s and he can come back and finish it. What kind of sick a*****e are you?”

Mark sneered in his greasy, sleezy way. “Same as you.”

Derek shoved him harder.

“Derek,” I mumbled, “leave it. He’s not worth it.”

“Dana, you should start taking lessons from her. Gonna start sometime, might as well,” Mark called after us.

“Want me to-”

“No Derek.”

Teachers were rushing down from the teacher's lounge, but they were too late for the show. Derek and I avoided eye contact with them. If they don't meet your eyes, they don't call on you. Sadly, that tactic didn't work that day.

"What's going on?" My math teacher, Mr. R, demanded. "What was that commotion?"

Derek, lacking any finesse, responded, "Two guys were just fighting."

I could have killed him right then. We could have said we didn’t know. Why did Derek have to say anything? These teachers didn’t care about us anyways.

Mr. R stood up straighter in his beanpole-like stature. "Who?"

"I don't know, I couldn't see. Mr. Rusenski, I'm going to be late for class," Derek tried to weasel out of giving any information.

"And you Dana?"

"I just got here," I managed to choke out.

He eyed me suspiciously before finally allowing us to get to class. I felt like a criminal. I always felt like a criminal in school.

They called Theo over the building intercom, which meant he hadn’t even gone to class. Derek and I met eyes. My stomach flipped.

The intercom called him again. Then again. Then again. They called him Theodore and in my mind I heard him saying, “Theo.”

The intercom didn’t know to tell him, “Sure.”