London led one goal to nil, and the players were taking no chances.
‘Fucking pussies? he shouted in English at the top of his lungs to the Liverpudlians around him. They laughed boisterously. Several voiced their concurrence. ‘Fucking big hairy pussies!’
‘Bugger off, faggot!’ the mark shouted from across the sagging fence. Laughter rose from the crowd on the London side.
He turned to the mark — a large, ruddy-faced redhead. He reached into the lining of his coat and pulled the now-warm beer from a pocket. The bull moose was smiling through twisted, yellow teeth. The up-and-down shaking motion of the bottle drew the attention of the street toughs on both sides. The anger of the London supporters rose in anticipation of the affront to come. Smiles of amusement at the slow-motion act lit the faces of the Liverpudlians.
He opened the bottle but plugged the eruption with his thumb. Everyone stared as he held the bottle up and pointed it at the face of the bull moose. A spray of white foam spewed straight across the fence. He slewed the geyser back and forth, shaking the bottle still more as the laughter and shouts from the respective sides rose up.
A bottle was thrown, but he ducked. ‘Shit!’ the man behind him shouted, reaching up to feel the bloody slit in his forehead. More bottles began to fly, passing over the flimsy fence and spilling their contents in a fine rain of alcohol. He made for the exit.
By the time he made it to the aisle, the fans had forgotten the game. They were lobbing projectiles over the fence in high trajectories. By the time he reached the exit the game had been stopped. The sounds of a stampede were under way. The crush of the crowd grew as people streamed both toward the fighting and away from it, compressing those caught in the middle into a human traffic jam. It took an elbow here or a knee there or an unexpected stomp of his boot to make his way out of the stadium.
When he finally broke into the relative calm, the riot was in full swing. Bobbies were gathering in large numbers on the field. Over the tops of heads he could see wildly swinging fists and flailing arms. The fence was nowhere in sight underneath the trampling feet. Men were being pulled off into the sea of enemy fans. The lone victims kicked and twisted. Their jackets were half torn from their arms. They slowly disappeared beneath the pummeling blows. It was a drunken frenzy, and the first spinning canisters of tear gas did little to tame the beasts.
Gay and Roger Stempel sat in the front seat of their Mercedes as they drove Harold into the fort. ‘I still just can’t believe he did this,’ Gay said for the hundredth time — the tissue wrapped around her finger and permanently pressed under her nose. ‘I just can’t believe this.’ Harold’s dad was silent. He’d given up replying. ‘You should’ve called a lawyer, Roger,’ she sniped — her anger turned on her husband.
‘He’s eighteen years old, Gay,’ Roger said. The car wound through the sun-baked Georgia base.
‘Harold!’ she burst out — turning and shaking her head ‘What… what possessed you to,’ she looked out the window, ‘to join the Army?’ Harold looked at the sculpted green lawns — ignoring a question he’d tried vainly to answer. ‘I know you were upset being wait-listed at Harvard when all your classmates got early admission, but you got in! That’s the important point,’ she said insincerely.
‘The Worths!’ she suddenly blurted out, turning to Harold’s dad. ‘We have reservations for dinner with the Worths in Boston!’
‘I’ll call Harry Worth and explain,’ he replied.
Gay Stempel rolled her eyes and groaned at the ceiling. She turned back to Harold. ‘Their son is an upperclassman. It’s important for you to network from the very first day. We set this dinner up to get you off on the right foot. It’s the early days when friendships are formed, when everybody’s new. Your father and I have told you over and over how much those friendships can mean to you later in life when you’re trying to get ahead in your career and in society. And it’s not as easy as it used to be. Everything is getting more and more competitive. Some of the better clubs require not just one, but two or three members to sponsor admission. Some even require four! Four, Harold!’
Harold ignored her as best he could. Just a few more minutes of this and he’d be free of them. Of her.
‘Roger,’ she said, ‘maybe if he was on drugs, he couldn’t have known what he was doing. Some sort of legal way out.’
‘That’s probably the place,’ Harold said. He tapped his father on the shoulder and pointed to the gathering of green Army buses whose former occupants filled the streets all around.
Gay growled in frustration and anger, flipping the sun visor down and lifting the small mirror. By the time they found a parking space, her face was freshly powdered. The large sunglasses took care of her puffy eyes.
The three doors all opened at once.
‘Your offer right, maggot!’ shouted a disembodied voice from the other side of a bus. Harold tried not to look at his mother, but his father rounded the car to take her arm.
‘I’m all right,’ she said, and shook off his attempt to help her. ‘No, I’m all right.’ She straightened her back and headed off toward the noise made by the hundreds of others gathered on die steaming concrete. ‘It is so hot!’ Gay said, fanning herself with the tissue as she disappeared around the bus.
Harold and his father hurried after her. Rounding the bus, they encountered a sea of people in loose groupings. It was a motley crowd, wearing clothes of different colors and styles. They had long hair and short hair. They wore shorts and jeans. One poor soul had chosen to wear a suit. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian — everybody stood around waiting.
Harold’s mother was nowhere to be seen.
‘Uh, son,’ Roger Stempel said, looking down at the ground and shuffling his feet, ‘this is a big step in your life. You know, your mother and I obviously had different plans for your next few years, but sometimes these things happen. You need some time to find yourself, so…’ He shrugged. Harold looked at him, but his father’s gaze was toward the masses of recruits.
‘It’ll all work out,’ Harold said. ‘It’s only two years.’
‘That’s the attitude, son.’ His father put his hand on Harold’s shoulder. A rare feeling of closeness seemed to bond them. ‘All I wanted to say was, your mother and I understand how anxious you’re going to be to get on with your education and the rest of your life when you come out. Despite all the words we might’ve had in the heat of the moment, we’re still your parents, and I wanted,’ he paused, reaching into his pocket, ‘we wanted you to have this.’
He brought Harold’s hand up to his. ‘It’s a gold card. It has a twelve-thousand-dollar limit, not the two thousand like on the VISA card you had before. If you ever get into any trouble — any trouble at all — this card will get you out. We’ll take care of it, no questions asked.’ His father sniffed and looked away — his eyes watery. He cleared his throat. ‘Now, let’s go find your mother.’
Harold slipped the card into his pocket and waded into the amorphous clusters of men and women. As he watched people joke and chat casually amongst themselves, he again regretted not coming by himself and meeting people on the buses from Atlanta. Instead, he had acceded to his mother’s wish that they drive down from New York. It’s gonna be just like Dalton, he thought with growing anger. I miss the first week of school because of mother’s fittings in Paris, and by the time I get to school everybody’s already made all their friends.