Christine - Stephen King [75]
Don Vandenberg was dancing more slowly now, but he was still rubbing the affected part. Tears of pain were spilling down his face
Then Arnie was beside me, getting an arm around me, helping me up. There was a lot of dirt smeared across his shirt from where Vandenberg had thrown him down. There were cigarette butts squashed into the knees of his jeans.
'You okay, Dennis? What'd he do to you?'
'Gave my balls a little squeeze. I'll be all right.'
At least I hoped I would be. If you're a man and you've slammed your nuts a good one at some point (and what man has not), you know. If you're a woman, you don't - can't. The initial agony is only the start; it fades, to be replaced by a dull, throbbing feeling of pressure that coils in the pit of the stomach. And what that feeling says is Hi, there! Good to be here, just sitting around in the pit of your stomach and making you feel like you're going to simultaneously blow lunch and shit your pants! I guess I'll just hang around for a while, okay? How does half an hour or so sound? Great! Getting your nuts squeezed is not one of life's great thrills.
Mr Casey shoved his wav through the loosening knot of spectators and took in the situation. He wasn't a big guy like Coach Puffer; he didn't even look particularly rugged. He was of medium height and age, and going bald. Big horn-rimmed glasses sat squarely on his face. He favoured plain white shirts - no tie - and he was wearing one of them now. He wasn't a big guy, but Mr Casey got respect. Nobody fucked around with him, because he wasn't afraid of kids deep down the way so many teachers are. The kids knew it, too. Buddy and Don and Moochie knew it; it was in the sullen way they dropped their eyes and shuffled their feet.
'Get lost,' Mr Casey said briskly to the few remaining spectators. They started to drift away. Moochie Welch decided to try and drift with them. 'Not you, Peter,' Mr Casey said.
'Aw, Mr Casey, I ain't been doing nothing,' Moochie said.
'Me neither,' Don said. 'How come you always pick on, us?'
Mr Casey came over to where I was still leaning on Arnie' for support. 'Are you all right, Dennis?'
I was finally beginning to get over it - I wouldn't have been if one of my thighs hadn't partially blocked Welch's hand. I nodded.
Mr Casey walked back to where Buddy Repperton, Moochie Welch, and Don Vandenberg stood in a shuffling, angry line. Don hadn't been joking; he had been speaking for all of them. They really did feel picked on.
'This is cute, isn't it?' Mr Casey said finally. 'Three on two. That the way you like to do things, Buddy? Those odds don't seem stacked enough for you.'
Buddy looked up, threw Casey a smouldering, ugly glance, and then dropped his eyes again. 'They started it. Those guys.'
'That's not true - 'Arnie began.
'Shut up, cuntface,' Buddy said. He started to add something, but before he could get it out, Mr Casey grabbed him and threw him up against the back wall of the shop. There was a tin sign there which read SMOKING HERE ONLY. Mr Casey began to slam Buddy Repperton against that sign, and every time he did it, the sign jangled, like dramatic punctuation. He handled Repperton the way you or I might have handled a great big ragdoll. I guess he had muscles somewhere, all right.
'You want to shut your big mouth,' he said, and slammed Buddy against the sign. 'You want to shut your mouth or clean up your mouth. Because I don't have to listen to that stuff coming from you, Buddy.'
He let go of Repperton's shirt. It had pulled out of his jeans, showing his white, untanned belly. He looked back at Arnie. 'What were you saying?'
'I came past the smoking area on my way out to the bleachers to eat my lunch,' Arnie said. 'Repperton was smoking with his friends there. He came over and knocked my lunchbag out of my hand and then stepped on it. He squashed it.' He seemed about to say something more, struggled with it, and swallowed it again. 'That started