The Rocky Road Pact

Chapter 4: Highway to Hell

I first met Tommy Slade in grade 10, when my best friend got a shit kicking.

I've known Creegan since the third grade. He's tall and as thin as the leather ties he wears. His hair is white-blond, it waves in the air on the top of his head like a chick fluff. He's 'sensitive,' my mom says, but I know that that means. I think he's gay, but I would never ask him that and if he was, he would never admit it. People have assumed it, and he denies it ferociously. I don't blame him. Coldspring is not like a big city, it's not exactly evolved. Brad Hutton got beat up for wearing a pink shirt one time — and a month later, all the burnouts were wearing pastel colours because of Miami Vice. Idiots.

It's not good to stand out in a town like Coldspring. But Creegan can't help it. He's a fragile star. 

The first week of high school, we were all nervous as hell. Creegan stuck to me like a baby duckling with its mama. He successfully avoided the taunts of the dolt brigade with humour — he was funny as hell. Most of the bullies couldn't help laughing when he started his antics and ended up leaving him alone. But there was one guy who lasered in on him with the relentless precision of a great white who smelled blood in the water. Moosey Jones.

Moosey was supposed to have graduated but failed several years. He was 18 in grade 10 and not happy about it. It made him mean. 

I sat behind Moosey in Economics and he didn't scare me. The first time he met me, he snapped his fingers in my face and said "in case you haven't heard, I'm the class president. In fact, I'm the school president. Go over to the teacher's desk and get me a pen."

He glowered down at me.

"Get it yourself, and then stick it up your ass," I said, looking back down at the homework I was hurrying to finish up. I'm small, but I'm mouthy, my father says. Sometimes I talk before I think and that's what gets me into trouble most of the time, either with my mother or my teachers. But I'm smart, so they put up with my smart mouth.

Moosey made a sound like a grunt crossed with a growl. I glared up at all six feet four of him, me 100 pounds soaking wet and barely past five foot. After a minute of looking like he was going to snap me like a pencil, the anger on his face dissolved and he laughed.

"I like her," he announced to no one in particular, and sat down. "Girl, you got a bad attitude." After that, he called me BA. But even my strange friendship with the class mountain couldn't save Creegan.

Moosey got it into his head one day that Creegan was laughing at him in the hallway, when he was really laughing at Skeeter Jones who tripped up the stairs, fumbling his books everywhere. That was it — the fight was on. From the difference in height, weight and ferocity, more like murder was imminent. Word spread like wildfire, putting the fear of God into Creegan. "Man, this guy is going to kill me," he moaned in the back of English class, head in his hands.

"Shhh!" Mrs. B hissed, as if Hamlet was as important as my dear friend's upcoming demise. 

"Don't worry, I'll talk him out of it," I said in a low whisper.

"You can't talk Moose out of anything," came a rough voice behind us. Annoyed, I turned and saw the new kid, Tommy Slade, twirling a pencil like a drumstick. "You're just going to have to take your shots, man."

"You mean like alcohol? That's a good idea. I'll get drunk off my old man's tequila. Moose would never hit a drunk, would he?"

"That's not what I mean. A couple of punches that's it. You have to nut up and take it. Try and throw a couple at him too. Otherwise, he'll hound you all year."

"Don't tell him that, I don't want him to get hurt!" I whispered, angry at the suggestion "Anyway, it's none of your business. What do you know about it?"