The Midnight Avenger!!
In the sound and confusion, I was able to roll away from Ben’s grasp just long enough to be grabbed by a sturdy arm and hauled onto the motorbike’s rear seat.
“Hold on tight, kid. We’re haulin’ ass!” Ok. I guess he meant it literally!
He popped a wheelie and took off fast, lightning fast. Ben had no chance to grab me. The Avenger flew off the island and headed down the dike with me frantically looking for a place to hold on that wasn’t, well, nude! We were at an exhilarating rate of speed while passing a slew of oncoming police cars as they sped toward the island, with their sirens a-roaring and lights a-flashing.
The motorbike wound around the curvy, tight streets at a million miles an hour, until arriving at The Gray Gables Market, where he dropped me off with enough change (hmm, where did he keep that change?) to call my parents. Solid idea, there might be some policemen who want to talk to me too (again!). I counted the coins and walked toward the phone booth. When I turned around to thank him he was gone. His legend solidified. His secret identity, safe. My rescuer au naturel!
Later, my crew of crack investigators filled me in on the details. It turned out the men in that dark car with New York license plates who were looking for Mr. Pinky were scared off by the police (Mary Ellen said they left smoldering rubber fleeing the parking lot!) We were convinced they were mafia mobsters here to take out the aforementioned Mr. Nine Fingers for something he did, didn’t do, or maybe stole? At least that’s what we reasoned.
The police popped Barkeep after chasing him down with police dogs. Damn, I missed that! The reporter, my favorite neighbor Rochelle, showed up and told the cops she had herself been investigating a potential big story. She figured Barkeep Ben either killed Sid the Kid Valentino, the man whose body was found on Captains Row or knew who did, and had most likely been paid off. The police confirmed that the corpse was indeed missing a right pinky finger, so we had been right along! Well, about some things.
We were all exhausted and scared straight. I’d have nightmares for years. But kids are resilient and we got back to our daily lives pretty damn fast. Now, in addition to being “that long-haired kid who was always out running” I was forevermore “that brave kid who witnessed the murder,” or to some, even, “the kid who saved Mashnee.”
That’s the description I liked best, and so did my girlfriend, Christine.
Her tough guy.
A (sort of) hero!
Chapter 60
Truce
When I was finally let out of the house again, all I wanted to do was go boating!
So did the guys. We’d had enough of being sleuths to last a lifetime...
On this late-summer afternoon there was a ‘ski-off,’ and it was on!
We were in Tommy’s boat, the usual crew doing our usual thing, when we got “buzzed,” too close and fast, by who else but the Jackson brothers, in their boat full of clowns, prompting us to retaliate, hurling every curse in the book at maximum volume in their general, fleeing direction. Any urge to go after them (like tough guys) was nullified due to Stevie still being in the water having barely survived a fairly spectacularly wipeout and was currently gathering his skis and simultaneously his balls, while gasping for air, so yeah we were obviously tempted to chase, but idle we stood.
Then curiously, they slowed and circled back, pulling their blue and white skiff surprisingly close to Tommy’s, half-waving as they hollered,
“Truuuce! We come in peace.”
“Hey, ladies, (oh, oh, here we go…), the older Jackson brother bellowed, you girls wanna cut-bait on the fighting today and have an, umm, financial competition? Or do you have to run home to mommy for her purse first?”
Helluva way to ask…I was thinking…
As Tommy responded sharply, “Just what do you nitwits have in mind that won’t buy you a swollen lip?”
(Tommy, demonstrating his touch for tact…)
“How ‘bout a Ski-off, dude? Your fifty smackeroos against ours. Three skiers each boat, winners take all, losers suck balls. Whadaya say, you princesses in?”
“Hey, if you want to contribute your money to our happy fund, we’re glad to take it. Shit yeah, we’re in (Tommy looked around at our nods). Let me see your coin first and how do you see this thing go down?” Tommy jousted.
“Easy. We both pull our skiers at full throttle. Slalom. We do twice around the harbor then out to Wings Neck and back. If your guy falls, you have two more skiers. First boat back to the dike beach marker with a skier wins. And oh yeah, you gotta ski wake to wake the whole time. None of that ‘wake sitting’ bullcrap!”
“Or, you could just quit now and hand over the dough, your choice, girlfriends.”
Surprisingly, Tommy’s head didn’t blow off. Patrick’s nearly did. “We will ski your dumb asses into the bottom of the sea, bags of crap.”
And with that, we cordially accepted.
First things first, we had to dig through multiple pockets to come up with the anti. We weren’t a big cash-carrying crowd but fortunately Patrick had permanently “borrowed” fifty bucks from his old man’s wallet that very morning, so we eked out the entry fee. Now, our intention was not to wipe out or tire at all, of course. But realistically, given the choppy weather conditions, occasional white caps, and sheer distance involved, it was definitely going to take more than one skier, even with Tommy. We decided Patrick with all his brute strength would ski first, and then me, light as a feather, then Tommy to carve it up to the finish.
“Plan?”
“Plan!!”
As was our rallying cry that summer.
Let’s do this.
So for the first time that summer we would have some competitive fun with the Memorial boys, instead of trying to knock each other’s blocks off. I was particularly game for anything that didn’t involve fighting (or throwing up)!
There was a lot of hooting and hollering as the first skiers plunged into the water with their favorite slalom ski and fancy life jackets, and grasped the handle of their tow ropes to position themselves for the much-anticipated start. After the boats were positioned side by side and barely twenty feet away from each other, we agreed to start on the sounding of their air horn (Tommy’s ill-equipped boat didn’t have one so no argument from us.), which would be the signal to start.
Somebody in their boat yelled, “Ready?” Then, before anyone had time to answer, the air horn blew and you could probably hear all eight of us shouting “Hiiiit it” at the top of our lungs, all the way to Hog Island, the cascading volume reaching a feverish pitch!
And with that, both skiers quickly emerged securely from the water, and the race for money and more importantly, bragging rights, was on!
Patrick was strong as we knew he would be. Not only was he skiing his ass off, but also screaming who-knows-what across to his rival skier, who looked pretty sturdy himself. A couple of laps around Phinney’s Harbor was like nothing, we were all used to that, both skiers showing off a little, but the real competition would come once we left those friendly waters and headed into the choppier waters the farther out we went, not exactly water-skiing territory.
The boats were neck and neck as we passed Pocasset Harbor, Patrick still holding on strong while occasional cutting through the boat’s wake, as did their kid, whom I now recognized as Gilbert Sullivan, the long, lean, blond-haired kid several years older who knocked me down, and out of contention at the Mashnee Road Race five summers earlier!! The same kid I had knocked out at the big brawl. That Bastard! He, even more than the Gavin’s, was my personally sworn enemy, and if I couldn’t beat him in the road race, beating him skiing would go far toward healing my bruised ego, still stinging from that fateful day.
