Junior Year Box Set

“Should I bring something? What should I wear? Would it be better if I made reservations somewhere?” I asked, acting as if I were utterly infatuated with her mom.

Of course, I was, but Halle didn’t need to know that. She kissed me to get me to shut up. She was used to everyone fawning over the great Rita James. Right now, I was more interested in Halle James.

“Do you think your mom would be upset if we skipped dinner with her?” I asked.

“Normally I’d say we could just go out, but she has someone she wants you to meet. As a matter of fact, your parents will be there, too.”

“I thought you were trying to talk me into coming to dinner.”

“You can survive dinner with our parents. I think Trip is getting a weekend pass from rehab. He seems to like you,” she teased.

“It’ll be your own fault when he steals me away.”

I heard a cough behind us that told me Phil was eavesdropping. I promised Halle I’d come to dinner and then took Phil home with me.

◊◊◊

When we got home, I was starved, since I didn’t eat my breakfast. Mom had some Italian beef in the freezer, so I pulled it out and put it in the microwave. While it heated up, my parents went to unpack and left Phil and me alone.

“You know you’re a bastard for what you did to me last night,” Phil started in.

“I can still kick your ass,” I threatened.

Poor Duke picked up on the hostilities and wanted me to love him. He definitely came from the lover-not-a-fighter school of thought.

“Mom! Call Duke,” I called out.

“Duke, come!” Dad called, and I watched him run to the stairs and disappear.

“You had no right to call in reinforcements. You scared of me?” Phil asked.

“Come on,” I said and led him to the backyard.

Phil suddenly wasn’t as tough-acting.

“I’ll even give you the first punch,” I offered.

Greg used to do that to me until I dick-punched him one day. That took the fun right out of being a big brother. I think we were like six and nine at the time. The sad part was I learned it from Tami when she got pissed at Alan, Jeff, and me one day. We must have told her that boys were superior or some such nonsense. She did a little happy dance as we rolled around on Alan’s basement floor. The funny part was Alan wasn’t afraid to punch girls, and we had to hold him back until he calmed down.

I underestimated how mad Phil was. He unleashed a haymaker at the side of my head. I stepped back, and I could feel the air as his fist whistled by my nose. This, of course, caused him to be overbalanced, so I simply used my palm to help him fall down. I let out a long sigh as he got back up with a determined expression on his face. This time he came at me like a tank and began to throw lefts and rights to my body. I blocked his punches with my arms.

I was content to let him punch himself out. From experience, I knew how tired you could get when you tried to pummel a heavy bag. Phil hadn’t landed anything that could cause any real damage. I planned to let him keep swinging until he was done, then put him on his ass again. Frankly, Cassidy hit me harder in practice, but that was because she knew what she was doing.

All was good until Phil tried to play dirty and head-butt me. Something that I knew when I went at it with Greg was that neither one of us would try something that could seriously injure the other. Nut-shots were never done with full force because you knew that at some point there would be retribution. Apparently, Phil, growing up as an only child, didn’t know the rules of brother-on-brother combat. What the attempted head-butt told me was that this was no longer a game.

Phil’s eyes got big when I slapped him four times before he could get off his next punch and then made an open-hand strike to his stomach. My half brother suddenly found he couldn’t breathe and collapsed on the ground. I knew that his body would figure out how to breathe before he died. Again, Cassidy had done it to me many times. My mom, on the other hand, had watched our entire confrontation out of her bedroom window.

I swear Phil acted like Precious when I left her in my apartment, and Brit saved her. Here I thought I was the actor in the family.

“David Allen Dawson!” Mom yelled as she barreled into the backyard.

I was impressed: Phil had almost turned purple when I heard a huge intake of air.

“He fell down.” I offered the usual excuse Greg and I used when Mom caught us roughhousing.

“I think he had a little help. You’re bigger than he is and much stronger. What made you decide this was a good idea?” Mom demanded.

“He needed to get it out of his system. If he hadn’t tried to head-butt me, I wouldn’t have knocked him down.”

Phil shakily got to his feet and still looked pissed.

“You ready to go again?” I asked him.

He looked at my mom.

“She won’t help you,” I told him.

Mom actually laughed at that.

“If he’s dumb enough to take a swing at you, go ahead and let him,” she said and walked back into the house.

“What the hell?” Phil asked.

“What, you thought my mom would save you?” I asked as I danced around. “I can do this all day.”