"I bet he just hangs around the office," Jeannie said.
"Could be," I said.
"I'm scared about all this," Jeannie said.
"I don't like it much either," I said.
"Are you scared?" Aurelio said.
"Some," I said.
"But you'll stick with me?" Aurelio said.
"I will."
"What are you scared of most?" Jeannie asked me.
"It's gotten awful big," I said. "And . . . I never had a fight with a guy sixteen, seventeen years old. That's a pretty big difference."
"Maybe you won't have to fight with him," Jeannie said.
"Maybe," I said.
"But you think you will," Jeannie said.
"Yes."
"Why?" she said.
"Because he didn't scare me," I said. "At least not that he could tell."
"So?"
"So he was supposed to, I mean, it's why he came over. The guys wanted me with them, and I wouldn't do it, so they bring in big bad Leo, and I still won't do it."
"But," Jeannie said, "I should think if you weren't scared of him, he'd less want to fight you, you know?"
"Guy like Leo, there's a reason he hangs around with younger guys," I said. "Maybe the guys his age don't think he's such a big deal."
"Like the guys at the construction company?" Jeannie said.
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe he needs to be a tough guy and they won't treat him like one."
"That doesn't make any sense to me," Jeannie said. "Is it because I'm a girl?"
She looked at Aurelio.
"Does that make any sense to you, Aurelio?" she said.
He shook his head slowly.
"No, but I know a lot of boys need to be macho," he said.
"Are you like that?" Jeannie asked me.
"I suppose," I said. "Some."
"But you don't pick on people," Jeannie said.
"No," I said. "It doesn't make me feel brave."
"Is that what it's about?" Jeannie said. "Feeling brave?"
"Maybe," I said. "But you can only feel brave if you face up to something that you need to be brave about, you know?"
"Like with my father?"
"Yes."
"And like trying to protect Aurelio," she said.
"Yes."
Jeannie shook her head.
"You are not like any other boy I know," she said.
"I was brought up a little different, I guess."
"Because you didn't have a mother?" Jeannie said.
"I don't know. I never had a mother; I don't know what that would be like. But being brought up by my father and my uncles, the way they treated me."
"Which is how?" Jeannie said.
"Like I wasn't a kid," I said. "Like I was a person."
"And they're all brave," Jeannie said.
"They are," I said.
"Is it so important feeling brave?" Jeannie said.
"I guess it is," I said.
"God," Jeannie said. "Being a boy must not be easy."
"No," I said. "No easier than being a girl."
"Being a kid," Aurelio said, "is especially not easy."
Chapter 41
A kid named Petey Hernandez stopped me in the corridor when school was letting out. He was fifteen and already had a scar on his left forearm where someone had cut him with a knife.
"Got a minute?" he said.
I said I did.
"We know how you been looking out for Aurelio Lopez," he said.
I nodded.
"Aurelio ain't much," Petey said. "But he's Mexican, and I figure we owe you for it."
"You don't owe me anything," I said.
Petey shrugged.
"Anyway," he said, "Aurelio ain't the only Mexican they been beatin' on."
"Who's âthey'?" I said.
"Roemer and his pack," Petey said.
I nodded. Croy went by us without making eye contact.
"How 'bout Croy?" I said. "He in the pack?"
"Yeah," Petey said. "Wouldn't you figure?"
"Seems the type," I said.
Petey nodded.
"Gonna be a rumble," he said.
"Yeah?"
"Down back of the Y," Petey said. "Roemer and his buddies like to hang out there. We gonna go down there and settle things."
"When?" I said.
Petey shook his head.
"You don't need to know," he said.
"Why you telling me at all?" I said.
"So you'll stay away from those guys," he said. "Don't want to see you get hurt."
I nodded.
"I don't hang with them," I said.
"Good idea," Petey said. "You gonna tell anyone about this?"
"Nobody you'd care about," I said.
"Nobody at all," Petey said.
"Might talk about it with my father and my uncles. They won't say anything if I ask them not to."
"You can trust them?"
"Certain sure," I said.
"You gimme your word?" he said.
"It ain't about me," I said.
"Your word?" he said. "Nobody tells Roemer?"
I nodded.
"My word."
"I think your word's good," Petey said. "It ain't, you'll hear from us."
"It ain't my fight," I said. "I got nothing to say about it."
"Make sure," Petey said.
"I'll do what I can," I said.
Petey nodded and turned and walked away. I watched him go.
Tough kid, I thought. Lot tougher than Leo Roemer.
Chapter 42
"Sun's down," Susan said. "And it's getting chilly. I think we should go across the street and have a glass of wine at The Bristol Lounge."
"What a good idea," I said.
We walked off the little bridge and headed past the last of the cruising swan boats toward Boylston Street.
Susan took my hand as we walked.
"Was that Mexican boy's name really Petey?" she said.
"Pedro," I said.
"Did they fight?" she said.
I smiled.
"Yep," I said.
"And?" Susan said.
"The Anglos got outthought," I said. "The Mexicans sent one of their smallest guys down back of the Y. He let Roemer and his group see him, and he fired an apple at them and ran. Of course they chased him. He ran across the street to the Public Works parking lot, full of trucks and plows and tractors, and hid in there. Leo Roemer and his troop come after him and start looking for him, which causes them to split up into small groups looking in and around the heavy equipment, which is parked in rows with an aisle in between. The Mexican kids are in there waiting. When the Anglos get in among the trucks, Petey's boys jump them, and, because the Anglos are split up, they are always outnumbered by the Mexican kids, and they get their tails whipped. The fight ends with Leo, with a bloody nose, leading his troop out of there at a dead run."
"And you think Petey planned this out before it happened?" Susan said.
"Down to the apple," I said. "If it was a stone or something that would do damage, they might have been scared to chase him into the lot. But an apple doesn't scare anybody, just annoys them."
"And he knew when they got to the lot, they'd split up and start looking up and down the aisles."
I nodded.
"And how do you know about this?" she said. "Did you attend?"
"No," I said. "Aurelio told me."
"Did he attend?"
"Nope, but some of the other Mexican kids told him about it," I said. "And pretty much it was all over town by the next afternoon . . ." I grinned at the memory. "And Leo was seen around town with a black eye and a fat lip."
"You seem glad the Mexican boys won."
"I didn't care who won," I said. "I never got that whole business about racial loyalty, or gender loyalty, or age loyalty. I always, even when I was little, tried to take things as they came and like or dislike them on how they were."