The Rain Began to Fall (18 page)

“Five hundred,” he
said without blinking. A few gasps were heard.

Mindy looked up at
Rob and frowned.

“Did he say five
hundred dollars?” she asked.

“Yep, he sure
did,” Rob affirmed, hugging her close.

Lisa opened her
mouth wide at this figure, glancing up at Kyle, then back at Wade, then back up
at Kyle.

“Did you say five
hundred dollars?” she whispered. Kyle didn’t respond
,
keeping his eyes trained on Wade.

Wade stared back,
his eyes the size of quarters. Billy, ever beside him, looked around nervously
at the group. They had all fallen silent, watching him and awaiting his
response to this huge wager. Wade looked around himself, then back at Kyle. His
eyes narrowed. He licked his suddenly dry lips.

“You’re on,” he
finally replied.

“Alright Wade!”
Billy exclaimed, and everyone cheered.

“Let’s do it!”
Wade shouted, raising both fists in the air as he turned on his heel and went
toward his Impala. “That bet was a mistake, punk!” he screamed back over his
shoulder.

Kyle simply
smiled.

“Beat him, man,”
Rob said, raising his fist. “Beat him
good
.”

“Done,” Kyle
responded, bumping Rob’s fist with his own.

“Good luck, Kyle,”
Mindy added, her hands clasped.

He went to his car
and climbed in behind the wheel. He started the engine and sat for a second,
then dug into the sack for another beer. He twisted off the cap, tossed it
behind him, and guzzled it down in one big gulp. He shook his head violently as
he threw the empty bottle into the backseat, and then stomped the pedal to the
floor. The engine screamed thunderously. He glanced over and saw Rob giving him
thumbs up, and he returned he gesture. The crowd whooped and cheered as Wade
pulled his Impala up to the starting line, and Kyle revved his engine hard
again, turning up the volume as “La Grange” pumped out of the speakers.

Suddenly, Leigh’s
face appeared vividly in his mind’s eye, and he remembered the last time he was
here, when she had dared to venture out to see him. That had been a special
time, a time when she had come to him, when the sky had been the limit and
everything was possible.
I should have kissed her then!
he
thought bitterly. He bowed his head in regret, clenching
his teeth, his jaw muscles flexing. He looked up and around and found Lisa, who
was standing near Rob and Mindy. He motioned her over, and, needing little
prompting, she ran eagerly around to the driver’s side window. She leaned
inside and he kissed her passionately, his hands digging into her hair, kissing
the image of Leigh’s face out of his mind. When their lips parted, she was
breathless.

“Oh, baby!” she
exclaimed, touching his cheek lovingly with her hand.

“See
ya
soon,” he responded, then put it into drive and rolled
up to the starting line beside Wade.

The guy holding
the flashlight who would start the race stood between them, feet apart,
shucking and jiving in place. Wade revved his engine, and Kyle answered with a
loud rev of his own. The crowd of young observers cheered, high from the
alcohol and the excitement of the event. The guy at the end of the quarter mile
stretch signaled with his light. Wade revved again, looked over at Kyle and
flipped him the bird. Kyle simply smiled back, with narrowed eyes, placing his
right hand on the Mickey shifter. He rubbed the knob of the handle, and turned
the volume up higher on his stereo . .
.
they
got a lot of nice girls . . . a haw, haw, haw, haw. . .

The light went up.
Kyle revved his engine to the max and held it. Wade did the same. The noise was
ear splitting. Mindy and Lisa wrung their hands. Everyone stood still, holding
their collective breath, and then the light came down.

They tore out,
rubber burning and smoke filling the air as the collective crowd roared.

Kyle looked over after
a hundred yards and saw they were dead even, side by side. The engines of the
cars screamed as they tore down the stretch, and then the Impala suddenly
pulled a half length ahead. Kyle wasn’t surprised, and he gripped his shifter
hard, yanking it into overdrive. His head popped back with the powerful surge.
He had the pedal to the medal; any harder and his foot would have gone through
the floorboard. He was maxed out, all horses running at top speed. He pulled
back even.

“Come on, baby!”
he implored aloud, and then, as though the Nova heard his pleas and decided to
comply, he pulled ahead by a yard.
Tuned header
, he thought, grinning.
A hundred yards to go.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he pleaded.

They crossed the
finish line, and when the light came down, Kyle was the winner, holding the
yard length he had gained. He was five hundred dollars richer, and he had
bragging rights in Charlotte.

“Good job, girl!”
he hollered in the confines of the cab, slapping the dashboard. He finally
slowed and turned the car around, then sped back down the stretch, stopping and
starting in bursts of raw power. He saw Rob holding both fists in the air, and
Lisa bouncing up and down. He pulled up to them and climbed out.

“Alright, man!”
Rob exclaimed.

“Way to go, Kyle!”
Mindy added, clapping her hands.

“Yeah, the header
made the difference!” he exclaimed.

When Rob and Kyle
separated, Lisa jumped into his arms, kissing him fiercely, and he returned the
kiss with fervor.

“You deserve this
and more, baby,” she whispered into his ear, her eyes sparkling wickedly, “and
you’ll get it later tonight!” She was about to kiss him again when Wade,
flanked by Billy and the crowd, came storming up behind him.

“Watch your back,
man,” Rob warned. Kyle pushed Lisa away, and turned around to face a steaming
sore loser.

“Alright punk,”
Wade said, breathing hard, his face contorted in rage. “You beat me on the
stretch; now let’s see you beat me here!” With that, he threw a roundhouse
punch at Kyle’s face. But he missed, as Kyle pulled his head back alertly, and
Wade fell into him. They went tumbling backwards, onto the hood of Kyle’s car.
Lisa and Mindy shrieked.

Kyle was being
pushed hard back on the hood of his car, Wade’s head buried in his chest. Kyle
pressed down on the back of his head tightly. Wade growled fiercely, pulling
back and fighting to escape his hold and Kyle let him go, attaining the desired
result. Wade stumbled backwards, almost falling to the ground. Kyle stepped
forward immediately, seizing the moment of opportunity as Wade flailed, and swung
a punch at his jaw. It clipped him hard, and Kyle wasted no time. He followed
up quickly with another punch right on his nose, and then another, which
connected hard, directly on Wade’s forehead. Wade was reeling, unable to
respond quickly enough, and Kyle stepped forward, with just the right amount of
leverage, and clocked him hard again on the temple.

Wade had simply
picked the wrong guy to start a fight with this night. There were a lot of pent
up frustrations coursing through Kyle; the recent rejections of his novel, the
strain of adjusting to a new job and a new town. But the most agonizing thing
of all was his love for Leigh, and what was the end of his chances to ever show
it to her last Saturday. The regret, anger and hurt of that loss had built up
in him ever since, and those emotions were bound to come out sometime,
somewhere, somehow. They all did now, in the form of his fists on Wade’s face.

Wade had managed
to swing back once after he had absorbed the second blow, but Kyle was now
landing each shot with eerie, purposeful precision. Blood flew from Wade’s nose
and mouth, and he fell to one knee helplessly, now offering little resistance
to the onslaught. Kyle moved deftly around him, positioning himself, and in a
perfect rage, he landed two more punches, viciously, on top of Wade’s head.
Wade was out on his knees, his eyes rolling around stupidly; but as he began to
pitch forward, unconscious, Kyle grabbed him by the hair of his head and held
him up. He was about to throw that unnecessary and brutal punch when Rob,
realizing Kyle was out of control and had could possibly injure him mortally,
stepped in, wrapping his arms around Kyle’s shoulders. But Kyle was in a
perfect frenzy.

“Out of the way!”
he yelled, and, with heightened strength from his adrenalin rush, he
successfully pushed Rob back and raised his fist to strike Wade and finish him
off. Wade was on his hands and knees, his head lowered, entirely defenseless.
But to Kyle, it wasn’t Wade Singleton gasping on the ground anymore. It was Gene
Sykes, the wealthy, privileged attorney who would marry the woman he
loved,
just because that’s the way it was supposed to be! It
was the author of the last rejection of his novel, and all those before, who
denied him a voice in the literary world for whatever reasons he didn’t
understand, but boy did it royally piss him off to read it over and over and
over again!

Rob had managed to
bounce back quickly, and now forcefully threw himself between the two.

“Time to stop,
Kyle!” Rob hollered, grabbing his shoulders and looking intently into his eyes.
“You’re going to kill him!” Kyle’s fist remained raised to strike.

“Remember me, man?
Your friend Rob?”
Kyle held his position, looking
around wildly, then back at Rob. “He’s done, man! Enough, okay?” Recognition appeared
in his eyes, the rage subsiding, and he finally lowered his fist and backed
off, breathing hard. The crowd that had gathered stood silently, staring at
him, the ruthless warrior, some with mouths agape and shocked expressions
everywhere. Billy’s face was a picture of dejection at the sight of his fallen
hero. Kyle looked around at them, at their scared faces. It was so quiet you
could have heard a pin drop.

“Ah, crap,” he
muttered, looking down at his bloodied hand. He abruptly went to his car, and
Lisa, who had been standing dead still with her hands over her mouth, staring
at Wade’s disfigured face, broke from her paralysis and ran after him, climbing
into the passenger seat.

Wow
, Rob
thought, observing Wade’s battered face and hearing his moans of pain.
He
really kicked his ass
!
What a double whammy
! He ran over to Kyle and
leaned into the driver’s side window before he could speed away.

“Where’re you
going, man?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” he
responded, wiping a hand across his mouth.

“Why don’t we meet
up in a little bit?
Like soon?”
His friend was in an
extremely perilous emotional state this evening, and he knew it could lead to
some real trouble, wherever he landed.

“Okay. I’ll see
you at the crib.” He gunned the engine, making it roar one last time for all to
hear. He then burned rubber and sped off, leaving a cloud of smoke behind.

Kyle went straight
to Lisa’s apartment to drop her off, much to her dismay, and she naturally
protested.

“Why can’t I stay
with you a little longer?” she asked on the way back. “Don’t you want your
prize?” She rubbed a hand suggestively across her chest.

“Listen babe, I’ve
got to go,” he replied. “We’ll go out tomorrow night, okay?
If
you want.”

“Are you sure?” she
purred, her hand wandering down to his lap. He picked her hand up gently and moved
it to her thigh.

“What time do you
get off?”

“Nine.” She was
sulking, and he didn’t really care. But he would play along.

“I’ll pick you up
then, alright?” he offered.

“Okay,” she
finally agreed, reluctantly.

After he dropped
her off, he stopped by a liquor store and bought a fifth of Jack Daniels. He
then went to his apartment, and found Rob and Mindy waiting on him. He took Rob
up on his invitation to go for a ride.

“Is it okay if
Mindy comes along?” Rob asked.

“I don’t care,” he
responded, and he truly didn’t.

The three sat up
front on the broad bench seat of Rob’s car, Mindy in the middle. Kyle got
started on the liquor as soon as they started rolling.  As Rob drove, Kyle
drank, staring grimly and silently out the passenger window. Rob looked
straight ahead; he knew his friend well and there was nothing right now to say.
It was enough that he was here, where he could watch over him. He would talk
when he was ready to. Mindy glanced over at Kyle frequently. She knew what was
troubling him. This past week, Rob had filled her in on the brief history of
Kyle and Leigh. Watching him now, guzzling the whiskey, and remembering his
earlier rage in beating Wade Singleton, she knew he was a very frustrated and
volatile person, a man very much in love with her best friend.

Rob pulled into
the parking lot of the city park, and whipped into a dimly lit parking space.
Except for a couple of cars across the way, the area was deserted.  The
full moon reflected off the still surface of the park’s lake. They all climbed
out, and Kyle stumbled a little, but then caught himself, chuckling. To Mindy,
he looked well on his way to getting hammered, if he wasn’t already there. He
leaned (fell) against the side of the car, as Mindy took Rob by the hand and
led him to the front, out of earshot.

“He’s drunk, Rob,”
she whispered forcefully.

“Nah.
But he’s working hard on it,” he responded, placing an arm around her.

“Yeah,” she
replied distractedly, peeking at Kyle around Rob’s shoulder. She thought for a
moment, and then said: “Listen, I need to talk to him.  Would you mind
getting lost for a few minutes?” Rob understood, and he thought she just might
be able to help. He’d actually planned on asking her to talk to Kyle if she
didn’t propose it first. It was the reason he brought her along. Still, he had
to play with her.

“So that’s how it
is huh?” he responded with mock anger. “He’s the big winner, and you’ve got the
hots
for him?” It was a pretty good acting job, and
it caught her off guard for a second. But then he laughed, and she slapped
him on the chest.