“Only you got out there and no one else was there. Shit, Kristen, what’s the matter with you? I told you what Mike Barbour is like.”

Kristen looks up, wiping her eyes. I haven’t said anything because I can’t take my eyes off her arm. “Yeah, well,” she says, “that’s what got me in trouble. When I saw we were alone, I told him you said he was like that, and he started getting mad. He said if I was going to listen to some bitch who’s fu-going out with a ni-who’s going out with T. J., he didn’t want anything to do with me.”

Carly massages Kristen’s neck. “That would have been a good time to tell him to take you home.”

Kristen’s head drops. “I know.”

“But you didn’t say that, did you?”

Kristen is defeated. “No. I told him I didn’t necessarily believe it, just that you’d said it. Then he said I could make it up to him by having sex. I thought he was kidding-I mean, I’ve only been out with him a couple of times-but all of a sudden he was unbuttoning my coat, and I was trying to get out and accidentally scratched his face. God, he went crazy. He kept telling me to strip, and I’d say no and he’d punch my arm.” She starts crying again, hard. “And he had me trapped, and he said, ‘Strip’ again, and I said no and he punched my arm again, then he just kept saying it faster and faster and hitting me before I could answer.” Her voice trails away into sobs.

I am pulling my coat on.

Carly says, “Wait, T. J.”

Kristen is gasping for breath. “I finally jerked loose and started running. He started his pickup and came after me, but Don Abemathy and Marcy Caldwell saw me and stopped. I had them bring me back here, but Mike followed us.”

She catches her breath. “God, I am so stupid! He stopped me after I got out of their car and said he was sorry, that he’s really been under a lot of pressure and would I at least get back in the pickup with him and talk about it.”

Carly’s eyes harden. “And you did it. Jesus, Kristen.”

“I know, but he sounded really sorry. And he was. When I first got in, he looked at my arm and apologized again and said he’d never lay another hand on me, that he’d do anything not to have done that. He sounded like he was going to cry and so I was kind of holding him and all of a sudden he was feeling me up again. I jumped out, and that’s when he followed me in.”

I tap Carly’s shoulder. “Okay, I waited. Now I’m going to find Barbour.”

“T. J., don’t do something stupid.”

“I won’t. I’m going to kick his ass,” I say and head for the door.

“T. J.!”

“You guys wait here for me. I’ll be right back.” I am through the exit, ignoring the sophomore money taker reminding me I need a chaperone’s permission to leave if I want back in.

I don’t see Barbour’s pickup in the lot, which is packed now, and I jog up one aisle and down the next, working myself up. If I find him, that pickup is scrap metal. “Barbour! Come out, big man! Let’s see how tough you are! Here’s your chance, tough guy! You been saying ‘someday’! Well, it’s here! Barbour!”

Headlights flash on as I pass cars-I’ll probably have to issue a class-action apology for all the near misses I caused-and then I hear an engine roar and look up to see Barbour fishtailing out the entrance. If somebody clocked me, I might have the new school record for the hundred meters between me and my car.

I hit the parking-lot exit at top speed for a Chevy Corvair in second gear, which barely approaches the speed limit, and gun it down the street, only slowing enough at intersections to look for him. I will run that son of a bitch off the road if necessary; we are going to deal before I go to sleep tonight.

The speeding/failure-to-stop citation is going to cost me $273 even though I pass the Breathalyzer. The cop says if I get another one tonight he will see that I spend the rest of it in jail, because I am so pissed I can’t keep my mouth shut while he’s writing it out. “I suggest you go home and cool off,” he tells me.

“That asshole punches out a girl, and I’m the one going to jail.”

“Tell her to report it,” he says. “If it happened like you say, it’s assault.”

“It happened like I say.”

“Well, if there are bruises, she’s got a case.”

“She won’t report it.”

“Hey, buddy. If she won’t report it, as far as the law’s concerned, it didn’t happen.”

I take the ticket and thank him through clenched teeth.

“Look, Mr. Jones,” he says, reading my driver’s license as he hands it back. “Go home. The guy who throws the first punch never gets the foul. It’s the guy the ref sees retaliate. You’re close enough to eighteen to go straight to the slammer.”

As I pull back onto the street, he follows me: my designated escort. I can forget evasive action; my address is on the ticket. Fine. Barbour will live an extra day. This shit will get cleaned up.

I pull over and, when the cop stops behind me, get out to ask if I can go back to the dance to hook up with Kristen and Carly. He points straight ahead. “Home.”

It’s quarter to one when I find Mom in her study going over papers for a case she has to try Monday morning. I show her the ticket.

“Were you running from Carly’s dad?” My mom can be a smartass, too.

I tell her about Kristen’s shoulder; that I was going after Barbour.

“So what were you going to do if you found him?”

“You mean, what am I going to do.”

In the voice she reserves for hostile witnesses, she says, “No, I mean what were you going to do-before you let your temper get you a ticket equal to a semester’s tuition.”

“Mom, somebody’s got to teach that asshole he can’t be doing that. He gets some bullshit in his head and takes it out on some girl maybe half his size? What kind of ignorant shit is that?”

“Just that,” she says. “Ignorant shit.”

“Yeah, well, he needs a lesson.”

“And you’re going to teach it?”

“Damn right. If I’d have found him tonight it would be in the record books.”

“If you had found him tonight, there’s a good chance your dad would be down at the county jail right now, bailing you out. Jail, T. J., not juvy; because you’re that close to eighteen, just like the officer told you. And then who would pay your brand-new giant-sized car insurance premium?”

“You think the law wouldn’t give me a flyer on this one? He hit a girl so hard her shoulder is going to be black. What about that? Isn’t that evidence?”

She pushes her chair back from the desk, closes the folder, and sighs, which means I’m about to get hit with lawyer shit. “Yes, T. J., it is evidence. It’s evidence against Mike Barbour for an assault he’ll never be charged with, because the person he hit will say it was accidental after he apologizes and swears never to do it again, which”-and she glances at her watch-“he probably has already done, and she won’t go through with it because it will prove to her, in some perverse way, that she isn’t good enough to keep him.” She leans forward to make her point. “It won’t even come up in your assault trial.”

“So I just let it happen?”

“No. Kristen Sweetwater lets it happen.”

“What the hell is she supposed to do? She weighs maybe a hundred-ten pounds.”

“What would Carly do?”

“She’d kick his ass.”

“No, she’d stay away from him.”

I slam my fist into my open hand so hard it almost goes numb. “Something’s got to be done, and if no one else will do it, I will.” I start to walk out of the den, but Mom’s firm hand grips my shoulder and guides me back to the chair. She says, “Sit.”

I sit.

“As long as we’re going down this road, let’s go all the way. What is it you think you’re going to teach Mike Barbour by beating him up?”

“To pick on somebody his own size.”

“It seems to me that if you beat him up you’ll be teaching him not to pick on somebody his own size.”

“You know what I mean.”