Christine - Stephen King [74]
Repperton glanced at me, then glanced at Arnie. 'Come on, Cunningham,' he said. 'What do you say, you want to go for it?'
'Put down the knife and I will, you shitter,' Arnie said. His voice was perfectly calm. Shitter, where had I heard that word before? From George LeBay, hadn't it been? Sure. It had been his brother's word.
It apparently wasn't a word Repperton cared for. He flushed and stepped closer to Arnie. Arnie circled away. I thought something was going to happen pretty quick maybe one of those things the call for stitches and leave a scar.
'You go get Casey now,' I told the nerdy-looking freshman, and he went. But I thought everything would probably go down before Mr Casey got back unless I could maybe slow things down a little.
'Put down the knife, Repperton,' I said.
His glance came over my way again. 'Whit you know,' he said. 'It's Cuntface's friend, You want to make me put it down?'
'You've got a knife and he doesn't, I said. 'In my book that makes you a fucking chicken-shit.'
The flush deepened. Now his concentration was broken. He looked at Arnie, then over at me. Arnie flashed me a glance of pure gratitude - and moved a little closer to Repperton. I didn't like that.
'Put it down,' someone yelled at Repperton. And then someone else: 'Put it down!' They started to chant: 'Put it down, put it down, put it down!'
Repperton didn't like it. He didn't mind being the centre of attention, but this was the wrong sort of attention. His glance began to flicker around nervously, first at Arnie, then at me, then at the others. A hank of hair fell across his forehead, and he tossed it back.
When he looked my way again, I made a move as if to go for him. The knife swivelled in my direction, and Arnie moved - he moved faster than I would have believed. He brought the side of his right hand down in a half-assed but effective karate chop. He hit Repperton's wrist hard and knocked the knife out of his hand. It clattered onto the butt-littered hottop. Repperton bent and grabbed for it. Arnie timed it with a deadly accuracy and when Repperton's hand came all the wav to the asphalt, Arnie stamped on it. Hard. Repperton screamed.
Don Vandenberg moved in then, quickly, hauled Arnie off, and threw him to the ground. Hardly aware that I was going to do it, I stepped into the ring and kicked Vandenberg in the ass just as hard as I could - I brought my foot up rather than pistoning it out; I kicked him as if I were punting a football.
Vandenberg, a tall, thin guy who was either nineteen or twenty at that time, began to scream and dance around holding his butt. He forgot all about helping his Buddy; he ceased to be a factor in things. To me it's amazing that I didn't paralyse him. I never kicked anyone or anything harder, and my friend, it sho' did feel fine.
Just then an arm locked itself around my windpipe and there was a hand between my legs. I realised what was going to happen just a second too late to wholly prevent it. My balls were given a good, firm squeeze that sent sick pain bellowing and raving up from my crotch and into my stomach and down into my legs, unmanning them so that when the arm around my windpipe let go. I simply collapsed in a puddle on the smoking-area tarmac.
'How did you like that, dickface?' a squarish guy with bad teeth asked me. He was wearing small and rather delicate wire-frame glasses that looked absurd on his wide, blocky face. This was Moochie Welch, another of Buddy's friends.
Suddenly the circle of watchers began to melt away and I heard a man's voice yelling, 'Break it up! Break it up right now! You kids take a walk! Take a walk, dammit!'
It was Mr Casey. Finally, Mr Casey.
Buddy Repperton snatched his switchblade off the pavement. He retracted the blade and shoved the knife into the hip pocket of his jeans in one quick motion. His hand was scraped and bleeding, and it looked as if it was going to swell. The miserable sonofabitch, I hoped it would swell,until it looked like one of those gloves Donald Duck wears in the funnypages.
Moochie Welch backed away