CHAPTER 18 - GUARDIAN ANGEL

            Michael's image haunted my waking thoughts and invaded not a few of my dreams. I carried the picture of him in my mind's eye, sitting on the front porch strumming the Martin, bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun. Or, perhaps it was only my memory that painted everything in shades of rosy gold. I only had to close my eyes, and I could picture the most minute details of Michael's appearance, such as the way he combed his hair back, away from his handsome face, or that one stray lock of silky-soft hair that always fell across his smooth forehead. I tried to imagine what it would be like to brush back the errant stand and place a kiss just there above his right eyebrow. The mere thought gave me terrified goose bumps.

            It had been almost two weeks since I'd last seen Michael and about two seconds since I'd last thought about him. I'd decided to take a walk to the corner store and pick up the latest issue of Seventeen Magazine. Since Michael had a guitar student on Thursday afternoons, I knew that he wouldn't be home until later in the evening. I reasoned that it was therefore safe for me to venture in that direction because there was no chance that our paths would cross.

            The afternoon sun was hot, pinkening my bare arms and the part in my hair as I walked the distance between my house and the Handy Mart. If I continued up Broadview Drive my path would take me directly to the infamous Jacksboro Highway. Once it had been the turf of notorious gamblers and gangsters during the forties and fifties. The neighborhood had grown considerably more staid during the sixties and seventies, but there were still a few reminders of those former glory days, though. Inez's 50/50 Club still resided between the liquor store and the barbershop that was next door to the Handy Mart. All of those establishments, including the convenience store had been there long enough to become landmarks of a sort. On the east side of Broadview was a landmark of another sort. The Tower was Sansom Park's very own no-tell-motel and a never-ending source of embarrassment to the more respectable residents of the neighborhood. "Let's go to the Tower for an hour," was the catchphrase uttered with a wink and a smirk among those inclined to slip away for a clandestine tryst.

            Instead, I turned up Waddell Street and walked toward Arrow Lane. Stopping at the corner, I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the walk past Michael's small, frame house. His house was located in the middle of the block between Waddell and Buchanan, facing Arrow Lane. Situated at a 45-degree angle behind the convenience store, his front yard faced the alleyway. I cast a longing glance at his deserted front porch as I passed. I missed him. A lot. I missed his music, his company, and his friendship, but not necessarily in that order. I supposed it was just as well that he wasn't at home; otherwise I'd have been tempted beyond resistance to go and knock on his door.

            With a resigned sigh of regret, I made my way down the alley behind the liquor store, bar and barbershop until I came to the driveway between the barbershop and the convenience store. Rounding the corner of the building I saw Bobby Sutton, only a few feet away, lounging against the shiny black fender of his Trans Am and swigging a beer, in defiance of the fact that he was still under the legal drinking age. I instinctively went tense like some wild animal when encountering a larger predator. I didn't like Bobby, and I didn't know of anyone who really did. The boy was just not right. He had a cruel streak, and he made me nervous.

            Bobby was the neighborhood bully; the kid whom everyone just assumes will end up in prison or dead under suspicious circumstances. Even though he was a year older than me, he was now a grade behind me in school because he'd failed so many subjects. The only thing that had kept him from being expelled from high school altogether was his impressive physique. His size, coupled with his excellence on the athletic field apparently outweighed his legion of deficiencies in the classroom. This was years before the no pass, no play rule, so as long as Bobby could continue to help the Lake Worth Bullfrog football team to a winning season, the administration reasoned that his athletic prowess compensated for his academic shortcomings. I don't think anything in the world could have compensated for his social shortcomings, however. Bobby Sutton was just plain mean.

            My first and only experience with Bobby's meanness occurred when I was about ten years old. The two of us had just gotten off the school bus. Since he lived a few doors away from us, I knew who he was, but I'd never really spoken to him. I'd never had a reason to. We were in different grades in school and both still at that age when voluntary contact between the sexes was minimal to non-existent. I was in the fourth grade, but I'd seen him on the playground with the fifth-graders at recess. I'd also noticed that he got into fights on a regular basis. As I recalled, Bobby spent a lot of his time sitting in the principal's office waiting for Mr. Collins to dole out punishment with a wooden paddle that looked similar to an English cricket bat. In 1968, a good, firm whack on the butt was still considered regular discipline and not child abuse.

            It was a Friday afternoon, and I was bringing home my first art project. It was a shallow ceramic bowl, a variation on the perennial ashtray theme for a household where no one would have dreamed of smoking, and I was so proud. I had planned it as a gift for Joey to place on his dresser, a receptacle for his pocket change, or maybe his guitar picks and capo. A slightly lopsided guitar had been painstakingly etched into the bottom of the bowl with the end of a toothpick by way of decoration. After being glazed and fired, the result was not half bad.

            Bobby noticed me cradling my treasure as I walked toward the house. "Whatcha got there?" he inquired as we walked along.

            "A present I made for my Uncle Joey," I replied.

            "Lemme see it," he said, reaching out a grubby hand.

            Naively, I complied. At the age of ten, I still trusted in the basic goodness of human nature. "Be careful, though" I cautioned as I passed the bowl to him. "I wouldn't wantcha to drop it."

            The words had no sooner left my lips when Bobby simply opened his fingers and let the bowl fall to the ground. I watched in horror and dismay as it seemed to descend in slow motion. Due to those arcane laws of physics that allow one glass to bounce off a concrete floor while another shatters on a shag rug, my little bowl broke into only three pieces instead of fragmenting into the million microscopic shards one might have expected when it landed on the dirt and gravel of the roadway's unpaved shoulder.

            Bobby regarded me with a blank look, his face completely passive and expressionless as though waiting to see what my reaction would be. I stared back in utter disbelief. My young mind could not accept the fact that Bobby had broken the bowl deliberately. Even though I'd seen him do it, I was sure that I had to be mistaken. It had to have been an accident because I simply could not fathom how someone could do such a thing intentionally.

            Without a word to Bobby or so much as a backward glance, I picked up the fragments of my little gift and carried them home. Bobby was probably disappointed at my lack of reaction, but I was too deeply shocked. Joey had found me later, sitting in my favorite hiding place behind the storage shed, sobbing over the broken pieces.

            Joey sat down beside me. "Whatcha got there, squirt?"

            "It was a present for you," I sniffed, "but Bobby Sutton broke it." I looked up at him, still reluctant to utter the words, "I . . . I think he did it on purpose!"

            Joey hadn't protested. He'd had more experience with Bobby Sutton than I had, and Joey hadn't had any problem at all imagining the occurrence. He simply bowed his head in regret that I'd had to learn the ugly lesson myself.

            Joey had always possessed greater maturity and more compassion than one might reasonably expect in a young man his age. He exhibited that compassion now. Drying my tears, Joey took the broken shards. "Y'know, I think we can fix this."

            "Really?" I asked, hardly daring to hope.

            "Sure," he replied. He fit the pieces together and held them in one hand. "See here? A little Elmer's Glue, and this'll be good as new!"

            He'd taken me into his room, and the two of us had put the little dish back together, securing it with rubber bands until the glue dried. The next day, when the adhesive had set and the rubber bands came off, the cracks were hardly noticeable. Joey held the little bowl in his hands. "Lemme tell ya somethin', squirt. I'm gonna keep this forever, just because you made it for me. That means a lot. More than a present you'd bought me at the store. And it means even more to me because someone else tried to destroy it."

            Looking back at that particular incident from the perspective of 36 years, I know now that Bobby was as evil as Joey had been good. Bobby was just a bad seed, with contrariness deeply ingrained into the very core of his character. The moment I had asked him not to break the bowl, it was as though he had been impelled to do that very thing in some perverse display of power. Because I had shown him a way that I could be hurt, he simply had to hurt me. It was a painful but valuable lesson: Once you admit that you care about something, you give someone else a stick to beat you with. In the lifetime since that day, I have become very careful about choosing the people to whom I hand a stick.

            As I looked at Bobby now, the memory of that long ago day from my childhood was foremost in my mind. I knew very well that the intervening years had wrought no improvement in Mr. Sutton's character. I dropped my eyes quickly and continued toward the store entrance. With any luck at all, he'd been too interested in his beer to pay any attention to me, and I would be able to make it into the store unnoticed and unmolested.

            There's a very good reason that I prefer games of skill to games of chance, however. It's been my experience that luck usually favors the other guy. "Hey, Shannon," Bobby growled in my direction just as I raised my foot to step up on the covered porch at the front of the store. "You too good to speak?"

            To you, yes, I thought, but I replied unenthusiastically, "Hi, Bobby."

            I tried to push past him, but he caught my wrist. "Hey, where you goin' in such a hurry?"

            I looked down at his hand where it encircled my arm like some big ugly spider and tried not to shudder outright. "I'm just goin' to the store," I replied evenly, hoping my forced casualness would see me through what was beginning to look like an unpleasant confrontation. Dealing with Bobby was like dealing with a wild animal. It was never a good idea to show fear or turn your back.

            "Aw, don't be in such a hurry," he cajoled. "There's no reason y'can't take a few minutes to be friendly."

            There are about a gazillion reasons, you big dumb ape, I thought, and the fact that I loathe the sight of you is number one on the list. Of course, it wouldn't have been wise to express those thoughts to their object, so I simply said, "Sorry, but I really am in kind of a hurry. Mom just sent me to pick up a loaf of bread before supper, and she's expectin' me back pretty quick," I lied as I gave a tentative tug in the hope of dislodging myself from his grasp.

            His fingers only tightened slightly. His grip was not painful. Yet. But, the look in his eyes and the pressure of his fingers told me that it could become painful if I decided to struggle. He gave me an appraising look. Apparently boredom and a quantity of alcohol had managed to imbue me with a measure of desirability in his primitive mind. "Oh, well, you still got plenty of time before supper, an' I was thinkin' we could take a little ride, have a few beers, maybe get to know each other better. We live on the same street. It's ‘bout time we got acquainted." He was actually leering, and this time I couldn't suppress a shudder.

            "Not interested," I said flatly as I tried harder to pull away, but he only gripped my wrist more tightly. This conversation had definitely gone far enough. All I wanted to do was get far away from him as quickly possible. I knew very well that Bobby had no interest in me as a person. My only significance came from the fact that I happened to be female, and I happened to be in close proximity to him at the moment. "Lemme go!" I demanded as I struggled harder against his grasp.

            "Or what?" He asked with that same look of blank expectation he'd given me when we were children.

            "Or this!" I exclaimed as I brought the heel of my sneakered foot down hard on his instep and made an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to wrest myself from his grasp.

            Bobby did not respond well to either rejection or pain. He threw down his beer can. As it rolled to a stop against the dumpster a few feet away, spilling out the remainder of its contents, he slapped me hard across the face. The stinging blow brought tears to my eyes, but it wasn't really hard enough to cause my ears to ring or make me see stars. He hits like a girl, I thought absently as he quickly headed for the side of the building, limping slightly and dragging me roughly along behind him. With a force that took my breath away, he shoved me hard against the painted cinderblock wall and pinned me there with his large body and a beefy forearm across my throat while he easily pinioned both my wrists in a vise-like grip with his other hand. Part of my mind registered the fact that the dumpster was now blocking any view of us from the front of the store or the highway, and I began to feel frightened. Bobby was now wild-eyed, red-faced and panting with anger.

            "Y'know, that's your problem, Shannon," he hissed. His face was only inches from mine, and the stink of beer on his breath nauseated me. "You always thought you were better'n ever'body else."

            I'll never know what possessed me to risk antagonizing him further, but I spat back in a hoarse whisper that must have sounded like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, "I don't even have to be good to be better'n you!"

            There was undisguised hatred in Bobby's eyes, now as the pressure of his arm across my throat increased, making it even more difficult to breathe and rendering further speech impossible. Trying to scream for help was also futile.

            Even so, I was willing to give it my best shot. My field of vision was growing dark at the edges like the aperture of a camera closing in slow motion, and I knew that I was quickly running out of time and options. I came to the sickening realization that Bobby was crazy and though he might not actually go so far as killing me, he was definitely not beyond hurting me very badly. Marshalling my slight strength, I renewed my struggle against Bobby's restraining weight in an effort to dislodge his arm just long enough for me to yell my head off when he suddenly flew backwards with a yelp of surprise.

            Abruptly deprived of the obstacle I had been straining against, I fell forward on my hands and knees in the dirt and heat-browned grass. I remained in that position for a few seconds gulping air. When I had collected enough of my wits to raise my head, I saw that Michael had appeared out of nowhere and now had Bobby face down on the ground. Michael's left hand was tangled in Bobby's long hair, pushing his face into the dirt. He was kneeling on Bobby's left arm, immobilizing it while his right knee was planted squarely in the middle of Bobby's back. With his right hand, Michael had Bobby's other arm twisted roughly and painfully behind him.

            Unbelievably, the big dumb ox was still wriggling and bucking, trying to throw Michael of his back, defiant to the end. "If you don't be still," Michael warned, "I will rip your arm out of its socket."

            "Hey, man, this is private," Bobby growled back, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.

            Michael gave a rough jerk on Bobby's arm, showing that he meant what he said and causing Bobby to cry out in pain. "No, man, this is over!" Michael looked at me. "You okay, Maggie?"

            I nodded mutely and vigorously, still enjoying the luxury of unhampered breathing too much to speak.

            "Where did you even come from, asshole?" Bobby demanded.

            "Your worst nightmare," Michael replied ominously, giving Bobby's face another shove into the coarse dirt, abrading his cheek and bloodying his nose in the process. Sweat and spit had turned the dirt on his face to mud. Not the most attractive kid under the best of circumstances, Bobby was definitely looking worse for wear.

            Michael looked back at me, his expression almost as wild-eyed as Bobby's had been a few minutes ago. "Go wait for me in the house." It was an order that brooked no discussion. Looking back down at Bobby with naked contempt, he added, "And, stay away from the windows. If you don't see what I'm about to do, they can't make you testify against me."

            My mouth dropped open as my imagination ran wild through all the things Michael might be about to inflict on Bobby. Apparently, I hesitated a second too long because Michael barked at me, "GO! NOW!"

            He didn't have to tell me again. Followed by Bobby's now-terrified whimpering, I took off running from my half-crouching position on the ground toward the sanctuary of Michael's porch with a burst of speed that would have made me an asset to the high school track team.

            Michael's screen door banged behind me as I darted inside and curled up in the armchair just inside the front door. My knees were drawn up, hugged to my chest. As Michael had instructed, I didn't even offer to look out the window to see what he was doing to my assailant. My heart was pounding and my breath came in gulps and gasps. I felt sick to my stomach and started to tremble as I realized how very close I had come to actual harm. By the time Michael came through the front door, I was working my way up to a full-blown panic attack.