~ * * ~
“Ran into an old friend of yours last week,” Tony mentioned casually as we sat around the supper table.
“Who?” I asked without taking a break from shoveling food into my mouth.
Mrs. Ramirez called me her skinny garbage disposal. I was always hungry and she never had to worry about leftovers.
“Grady Bryant,” I could feel his eyes on me. “Have you seen him lately?”
“He hasn’t been in school for a while,” I shrugged nonchalantly.
“And he won’t be for quite some time,” Tony informed me. “We caught him in the middle of a drug bust, apparently he was dealing. The judge sentenced him to two years in Juvie.”
“See how he likes being on the receiving end of the bullying for a change,” I paused long enough from eating to growl unsympathetically.
“Jack,” Mrs. Ramirez said disapprovingly.
“Sorry,” I muttered, resuming the feed.
“So how is the Suzuki family,” Tony asked changing the subject and attempting to hide his amused grin from his wife.
“Fine,” I replied around the food in my mouth.
“The guys miss you down at the gym,” he continued casually.
I stopped shoveling for a moment, something in his voice catching my attention.
“Sorry,” I murmured, “Mr. Suzuki’s been working us pretty hard.”
“Do you miss boxing?” he asked hopefully.
“Some,” I replied cautiously, not wanting to admit that boxing seemed almost boring after the things I’d been learning.
“Oh,” the disappointment in his voice was obvious.
At first, I was confused. Why would Tony care if I missed boxing? He’d spent time at the gym before I came along and continued to go without me, so it wasn’t like he had only been doing it for me. Absently, I lifted the fork to my mouth then sighed with relief as it dawned on me that Tony didn’t care about the boxing, something else was bothering him.
“What I really miss is fishing,” I turned my attention back to my food, hoping I had guessed correctly.
“Really…?”
The subdued excitement in Tony’s voice told me all I needed to know. He wasn’t disappointed about the boxing…it was the fact that we never spent time together any more…not since...
“Shun’s never been fishing so…” I trailed off hoping he wouldn’t mind if we made it a threesome.
“Now that’s a crying shame,” Tony said frowning. “Every boy needs to know how to fish.” He paused for a moment then continued. “I’m off-duty this weekend. Do you think you and Shun might want to head out to Lake Conroe on Saturday?”
All right, I thought with satisfaction, loads better than some stupid party.
“I’ll ask him tomorrow at school,” I replied getting up and taking my plate to the sink.
Filling one side with dishwashing liquid and water, I grimaced as I stuck my hands in the water and automatically began washing the dishes.
1976
“So, you have five weeks to complete your research and write your paper,” the Civics teacher, Ms. MacInnes informed the class. “I will not be checking your outline or notes as you progress…this time…but that does not mean you should procrastinate and let things slide until the last minute.” She paused for a moment eyeing the class speculatively. “You’re juniors now, and as such you should be mature enough to be your own taskmaster.”
There were a few snickers as I heard Frank Shelton in the back of the classroom croon softly, “Oh yeah baby I’ll be your taskmaster.”
Opting to ignore his crude remarks—his obsession with Ms. MacInnes was well-known and turned my stomach—I determinedly concentrated on Cynda, one of the varsity cheerleaders and not the sharpest stick in the stack, asking a stupid question as usual.
“I don’t understand,” she whined. “What’s the assignment again?”
Ms. MacInnes was the soul of patience I had to admit. She hadn’t been teaching long, I’d heard it was her first year but I didn’t know for sure, and unlike a lot of our other teachers hadn’t yet been worn down by the constant crudeness, rudeness, and idiocy of much of the student body.
Shun called her a fox, and I suppose she was, but I felt dirty thinking of a teacher that way. My mother had been a teacher and the thought of male students having those types of thoughts about her…I shuddered, quickly obliterating that image from my mind.
“I want you to find an event or person in Houston’s history that had—what you consider to be—a huge impact on the city,” she explained kindly. “It can be someone or something we’ve studied in the history portion of the class, a current figure or event that we’ve talked about, or you can go look for one on your own.”
As she finished, Linda’s hand shot into the air. My ears pricked up, interested in whatever Linda was going to ask. Although they were both varsity cheerleaders and their names rhymed, that was all they had in common. Linda was as sharp as Cynda was dull, and I knew her question would be extremely pertinent and to the point.
“If we wanted to find something on our own,” she began, “where would you suggest we search?”
“Good question, Linda,” Ms. MacInnes nodded approvingly. I caught Cynda sticking her tongue out at Linda behind her back and narrowed my eyes at her. Cynda noticed my glare and lowered her eyes quickly. “I would try the public library; they keep copies of old newspapers which might give you a start and if you know any elderly people who have lived here a long time, you could ask them,” she suggested smiling. “You can also use them as a source for your paper as long as you document it correctly.”
Linda nodded and made a few notes. Cynda was craning her neck to see what she had written, but I doubted she would be able to understand any of it with her limited intelligence as well as vocabulary.
“Are there any other questions?” the teacher asked, glancing around the classroom.
“Yeah, are you busy tonight?” I heard once again from the back of the room.
Frank never spoke loudly enough for Ms. MacInnes to catch what he was saying, but she always heard the accompanying laughter. Mostly she just ignored it but, at times, it was too loud and rowdy for her to let it pass. I could see the debate raging in her head…should she disregard it, hoping it would stop, or should she say something and risk a confrontation.
Knocking my pen off the desk, I casually reached down to pick it up and, turning my head slightly in order to see Frank sitting two desks back and one row over, gave him what Shun laughingly called “The Stare”. Frank didn’t notice it at first, too busy taking congratulations for his questionable comments from his surrounding flunkies, but one of his groupies noticed and elbowed him, pointing. Frank defiantly tried to sustain the eye contact but ended up looking away.
Satisfied, I picked up my pen and settled in to listen to Ms. MacInnes’ lecture.