Round Three

The midday sun spilled in through the large wall-sized windows on the east end of the cafeteria, bathing the students in warm light. Conversations buzzed around the room and the familiar stale smell of schoolhouse grub weighed down the stagnant air. Lunchtime monitors patrolled the area in their ugly attire with watchful eyes.

The cafeteria was more than just a facility to eat lunch in and catch up on homework. Important discussions took place; restricted meetings were conducted in secret, and sometimes, something that started out completely innocent became something more, something much more.

It’s actually quite funny how a single event or in the case of Thomas A. Farrow, a single sentence can change the course of one’s life. Tommy, he preferred this alias over Thomas, was just four days shy of his fifteenth birthday. At five foot eleven, big for his age, he sat in the North Reading High School lunchroom during the meal period he was assigned, his friends, thugs and bullies, the school toughs, were assembled around him.

William Walcott was the oldest of this tight group, along with two younger boys, Ray Maxim and Carl Tunney. They huddled around Tommy Farrow with idealistic attentiveness. At seventeen years old, William had celebrated a birthday a month earlier in April. It was uncommon for a twelfth grade student to mix with younger children, but not unheard of.

Farrow at fourteen, and both Ray Maxim and Carl Tunney, sixteen years old apiece, held the title, the honor, of being the toughest children in school and they fit together like pieces of a complex puzzle.

Farrow, the youngest of the assemblage, was also the most respected, this being due to his size. He worked three days a week after school at the hundred-acre Paul W. Conley Container Terminal unloading cargo from cruise ships that docked at Boston harbor. He was not afraid of hard work, and this particular work contributed generously to his bulk.

William started the proverbial ball rolling and with that, set in motion the career of Tommy Farrow.

“So what’s the problem?” he asked. “You been brooding the whole period. Someone fuckin’ with you?”

“It’s nothing,” Tommy said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“So, there is something bothering you.”

“Not something. Someone.”

This statement had taken William by surprise. Ray and Carl also leaned forward, spiked with interest. Someone was bothering Tommy Farrow?

“Who would ever think about messing with you, my friend? Messing with us?” said Carl. “Don’t they know who you are? Don’t they know the kind of friends you keep? Shit, I wouldn’t want to mess with us, and I am one of us.”

This made Tommy smile.

“Oh, they know us alright. I just don’t think they really care.”

“Is this guy so bad he can take us all?” said Ray. “Is it someone from a different school? Someone at work maybe?”

“When I drop you off at the docks tomorrow, maybe we’ll have a little chat with this fella,” said William.

William Walcott was the only friend in this small group who legally had a license, but that didn’t stop the others from driving when a vehicle was available or there was an absolute need. Even Tommy had snuck his father’s Honda out a time or two, but they mostly relied on William to truck them around. He was Tommy’s ride to work three times a week.

“Yeah, we’ll fuck ‘em up real good!” said Ray. “Fuck ‘em real good! By the way, did I tell you guys I bent Jeanette Fitzsimmons over my dad’s trunk last weekend? The bitch loved it.”

Carl smiled at this.

“Did you take your father’s ride out again?”

“Hey my parents were away for the weekend and I was real horny. I’ll tell you, man, Jeanette, that bitch is crazy.”

The group, including Tommy smiled at this collectively.

“So, my friend,” William said, taking the conversation away from Ray’s sexual adventures and back to the more pressing issue. “What’s up? What’s going on?”

“It’s Mr. Baer,” Tommy said with an almost embarrassed tone underlying his voice.

“Baer? What did that jerk-off do? I can’t even believe that prick is married. I hear he even has a kid. Imagine that someone was hard up enough to sleep with that douche bag.”

Edwin Baer, in Tommy Farrow’s opinion, was the worst kind of asshole there was. New to North Reading just the year before last, and already had a reputation for belittling students with sarcastic remarks and making embarrassing examples of the kids just for the fun of it.

It was widely known that the small man, the size of a woman, William Walcott liked to joke, was a failed principal. Well, maybe a failed principal was the wrong choice of words. Baer, who had an administrative degree, was up for a principal job twice in the last of his eight years teaching high school, and was beat out both times by better-qualified candidates. This did not sit well with Edwin. His father had been a dean of students at Boston College and his brother a high school principal in Connecticut, sort of a family tradition. Three out of his four grandparents (though now all deceased save for his grandfather on his mother’s side) were also highly placed in the educational system, principals or assistants.

It seemed to Edwin that at various functions and summertime get-togethers, he was looked down upon by some members of the family. He felt he didn’t measure up to them, and this had nothing to do with height. Edwin Baer was an ugly troll of a man. He stood just about five feet, seven inches and maybe weighed 155 pounds soaking wet. The skin under his eyes was darkened, giving him a ghoulish appearance, not to mention a mouth that was far too big for his face. On seldom occasions when he smiled, he resembled a shark. At thirty-three years of age, he kept the hair on his head closely cropped to hide the fact that there was almost no hair on his head in the first place. He was the kind of man who was most likely teased and beat everyday of his adolescence by schoolmates and neighborhood children, and now that he was in a position of some authority, even if that position was just over children, he would when it was feasible, make them pay.

Although the other teachers at North Reading High School said hello and goodbye to him at the appropriate times and involved themselves in small talk when cornered, Edwin Baer was not liked, and this consensus was unanimous.

“What? Is he failing you or something?” Carl asked.

“It’s not like that,” Tommy said.

“Then what is it like?” Ray this time.

“I guess it’s like when someone is a short little jerk-off and they gotta show everybody how mean and tough they are. I think they call it Napoleon complex or something.”

Tommy Farrow looked almost embarrassed to be having this conversation with his friends, the four of them close together now amidst the pool of students eating homemade sandwiches, studying in workbooks, and knocking off homework assignments early.

Now that a teacher’s name had been brought out into the open, the conversation had turned secret. Ray and Carl, like sentries or scouts, looked around their small group at other students to see if anyone with wandering eyes or big ears might be zoning in on their little meeting. None seemed to be, but that didn’t dissuade the boys from speaking with softer voices anyway.

“Okay,” said William. “How is he laying on the grief?”

“It’s just that…I don’t know, it’s almost as if…I guess it’s because I’m so much bigger than he is, and the prick’s an adult and all. He keeps making a fool of me, trying to show that he’s not afraid of the big kid,” Tommy said.

“Example,” said Ray.

“Yeah, an example. A lot of little things have been adding up. He’ll say stuff like, The bigger they are, the harder they fall, while staring at me. Or, Just because someone has muscle, doesn’t mean they are strong, then he points to his head meaning I’m stupid or something. This asshole’s been riding me, and I’m not going to take much more of his shit.”

“What can we do to help?” Carl asked. “Wanna egg the fucker’s house? I know where the little prick lives.”

“What’s that gonna to do?” asked William. “This asshole has to be stopped. I’ve heard stories like this about Baer before.”

“How does a grown man like Edwin Baer belittle…basically children and then go home and face his wife and kid? Man, I’d be embarrassed to have him as a father,” said Ray, who was now running a black plastic comb through his hair.

“I’m not taking anymore of his bullshit!” Tommy said again, looking at William who now saw something dangerous behind his friend’s eyes, something waiting to be let loose, something that needed just the smallest of excuses.

“This last period,” Tommy started, “just before I came down to lunch…”

The sun’s rays from the large cafeteria windows seemed to spotlight Farrow, concentrate just on him.

“…I slipped a note to Trish Morrison, I was trying to ask her to a movie. The theater in town, ya know the one that shows the old films? Well, it’s playing a Clint Eastwood double feature this weekend and both movies are westerns. I heard Trish say she loves westerns. I mean, what kind of girl likes westerns? Right? She’s perfect for me. Anyway, I pass her this note, and Baer sees me do it.”

“Oh boy,” said Carl. “I know where this is going.”

“He grabs the note from her desk, reads it to himself, and then says out loud, so the whole class can hear him…”

Tommy cleared his throat and conjured up his best Mr. Baer voice.

“’Mr. Farrow, if you intend to ask someone on a date, I would appreciate if you do it on your own time.’ And then the bastard looks at Trish and says in a condescending voice, ‘Ms. Morrison, I’m sure you can do much better.’”

“The fucking bastard!” William said, slapping a hard palm on the lunchroom table. “We have to finish this cocksucker off!”

Ray and Carl joined in with “Yeahs!” and nods of approval.

“You know what the worst part was?” Tommy said before continuing. “After Baer said that, Trish’s face got all red, you had to see her, she looked like a tomato about to burst, and then the bell rang. When it did, she ran out of the classroom afraid to even look at me. I looked back at Baer, and the bastard was smiling.”

“Son of a bitch! He’s dead! How are we going to play this?” asked William.

“We are not going to do anything,” said Tommy. “I am. I just don’t know what yet, but it’s gonna be big.”

The group of four was silent for a bit among the drone of the cafeteria noises and conversations, and then a sly look registered across William’s face.

“I got an idea,” he said.

The sounds around the four friends seemed to fade away like the volume on a television set being lowered, and three of the four tuned in to listen to what William Walcott had to say.

“Well, it’s not so much an idea, it’s more of a bet. A bet with a prize at the end.”

“And that would be?” Tommy asked.

“Your birthday’s coming up in a few days, am I right? Gonna be fifteen?”

“Yeah, so?”

Looking at Tommy, William started, “My parents are going away this weekend, correct me if I’m wrong, your birthday weekend.”

He stopped talking and let that sink in and then here it came, the sentence that would change Tommy Farrow’s life forever and put him on the path that would become his life’s blood.

 “You get up in class this Friday…just a few days from now…and punch Baer in the face, I mean really lay into the jerk. It would almost be like giving a gift to yourself.” William speaking with more enthusiasm now, “You do that, and I’ll throw you a huge birthday bash with a keg of beer and everything, all expenses paid! Fuck it, you knock the asshole down, I’ll make it two kegs, your choice. Everybody will be there, I’ll even invite Trish Morrison. Shit, man, you’ll be a hero.”

Tommy looked to Ray and then shifted his gaze to Carl, before settling his eyes back on William. They were all smiling, and without realizing it, Tommy Farrow smiled also.

Tommy didn’t think too long or too hard deciding on a time in which the events that had been discussed in the school cafeteria only three days earlier would unfold. What would Clint do at a time like this?

Mr. Edwin Baer’s ninth grade mathematics class and sideshow was fifth period and it ran from 11:45 to 12:30, right before lunch. The kids at that time of their culinary delights are going to actually have something to talk about today, Farrow thought to himself through a hidden half-smile.

He had decided on 12:00 for the main event between himself and Edwin; the perfect time, high noon, even though only one of them knew there was going to be an event. His eyes glanced across the face of the clock that silently ticked the time away atop the classroom door. 11:47, thirteen minutes to party time.

Tommy sat in a desk three rows back and to Mr. Baer’s right. His seating assignment was close to the windows on the west side of the building overlooking an expanse of green fields where the school football team, The North Reading Hornets, practiced drills and tactical formations. He was sure big enough to play on the team and was asked no less than two times by the football coach, Mr. Hagler, to sign on, but he had no interest. He’d preferred to be banging beaver or bird-dogging some chick, rather than running around with a bunch of other boys wearing tight-fitting football pants. Besides, most of the team were pussies anyway.

He reduced his eyes to slits as Baer was handing out math exams to the first person in each of the five rows.

“Take one and pass it back,” he said, an authoritative tone threading through his voice. I’m in charge. You do what I say.

Baer put his little hands behind himself as he patrolled the front of the classroom, his line of vision scanning over the students.

“Mr. Farrow, be sure to keep your eyes on your own paper during the exam.”

Tommy, whose eyes had been looking down at his desk, felt like he’d been sucker-punched by Baer. He wasn’t going to cheat, nor did he need to. This was just another of Baer’s attempts to embarrass the big kid in class. The only difference was that on this day, Mr. Baer was unaware of the two-ton weight dangling on a string above his head that was about to snap.

With that last comment, any doubts that Tommy Farrow may have had were erased like chalk markings on a blackboard.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Baer,” Tommy said.

He wanted no suspicions to arise on the undercard before the main event.

Baer was surprised that Tommy actually answered him, but detected nothing sarcastic in the boy’s tone, so ignored the response and continued to wrangle the front end of the classroom in his trademark, stooped posture.

“Keep your papers turned face down until I give the go-ahead to do otherwise. At that time you can begin the exam.” His beady little eyes, two bullet holes, set deep in their sockets, flicked around the room.

Tommy, with pencil in hand, kept his eyes down and waited for Baer’s command. His classmates were none the wiser to the historic event about to unfold. The twenty-plus students in the room were silent as they waited for Baer’s signal to start. Finally he gave it, with a slow, measured “Begin now.”

The students, including Tommy, turned over their tests in a crinkling whoosh; the sounds of graphite scribbling against paper filled the room as the exam began.

At five minutes to noon Mr. Baer pulled out the chair from behind his desk that was centered in the middle of the classroom and sat down resting his elbows before him. He regarded the children, who were swimming in a sea of mathematical equations, not with pride, but with intent to catch somebody cheating. Even someone just looking up from his or her paper would be reason enough for the failed principal to make an example. His hopeful eyes lingered over the student who was also the biggest. Now that would be a real catch, he thought.

Tommy Farrow, to Baer’s dismay, showed absolutely no sign of shifting eyes, or for that matter, cheating.

At three minutes to noon, Baer folded his arms across his chest and sat back in his chair, his throne. He was the king of this little world. He knew it, and he made damn sure the children knew this fact as well.

The sound of laughter coming from outside the large classroom windows caused one boy, Richard Liston, to look over toward the cheerful noise rolling around in the bright sunlight.

“Mr. Liston! Eyes!” Baer said with such a viciousness it was almost as if he had encountered the man who had murdered his family after a ten year search. The boy immediately looked back to the exam paper and did not shift his gaze again. The test went on.

Mr. Baer wore an “It’s good to be the king” expression across his smug face.

A quick glance up at the clock told Tommy it was now one minute to twelve. In sixty seconds, high noon. The haunting soundtrack to ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ filled his brain. Eyes, now back on his exam, he started to count to sixty.

One. One thousand. Two. One thousand. Three. One thousand.

The classroom was absolutely silent except for the scratching sound the multiple pencils made.

Tommy kept his head down and counted off the last thirty seconds with his eyes closed. He let the yellow #2 he’d been holding in his right hand fall to the desk and roll across his answer sheet.

Fifty-eight. One thousand. Fifty-nine. One thousand. Sixty.

Time was up.

Tommy slowly pushed the desk that he’d been crowded against, away from himself with both palms, its legs made a long scratching sound across the tiled floor loud enough for Baer to target him with dangerous eyes.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Farrow?”

Tommy said nothing as he stood up moving his chair away with the backs of his legs.

“Mr. Farrow!” his voice much louder now and peppered with distaste. He’d been waiting for something just like this to happen. “I asked you if something was wrong?”

Tommy stepped out of his row and took a step toward the front of the classroom where Mr. Baer was now also on his feet and pointing at the boy.

“If you don’t get back in your seat you will fail the exam! Do you hear me? You will fail!” Then added, “I will also make sure you are a prime candidate for after-school detention!”

All of the other students were now looking up from their own papers to see what the commotion was about.

The black arms of the large clock above the door stretched upward reaching for the number twelve pinning themselves on that numeral forever in North Reading High School mythology.

Tommy Farrow was standing center stage as Mr. Baer came rushing around his oversized desk, his voice approaching rage.

“I told you to get back in your seat! Sit back down! Do as I say, right now, Mr. Farrow.” Poking a finger into Tommy’s chest, the pathetic little man had to look up to see the child’s eyes. “Everybody else, back to your exams, this does not concern you! An important math test is still going on!” Baer was really shouting now. Most children obeyed, but curiosity got the best of several of the students.

“Mr. Farrow, you are on very thin ice!” Baer yelled, proving to himself, while at the same time showing the rest of the class he was not afraid of the fourteen-year-old Thomas Farrow who had more than half a foot over the smaller man.

“If you do not sit back in your seat…”

Then Tommy Farrow said a sentence that would follow him through the rest of his life, the rest of his career as a prizefighter. He spoke it loud and clear and by that afternoon the sentence had become legend in North Reading High.

“Get ready to rock.”

 “Huh?” said Baer. “What did you say to me?”

He stood on his feet before Tommy in the front of the classroom.

Tommy Farrow, his right hand at his side pulled into a tight fist, his knuckles seemingly bleached white, once again said, “Get ready to rock.”

Baer neither saw nor expected the blow. Tommy brought his arm up from his side with lightning reflexes and swung with every ounce he had, his fist the needle, his arm the thread following it, a horizontal heat-seeking missile. There was absolutely no contest, or defense. Farrow’s fist exploded, perfectly executed on the right side of Baer’s trollish face. Tommy swung through, partially turning his body. He instinctively brought his left hand, also curled into a fist, up to his face as if to defend himself from return fire, but before both hands were up in a protective position, Baer was lying at his feet. The little man with the big mouth wasn’t moving. Tommy bobbed for a second or two as if there might be something else for him to hit, but Mr. Baer did not get up.

After a long second or two, the math teacher stirred on the classroom floor moaning a bit. That was good, Tommy thought, at least I didn’t kill the fucker.

The students in the classroom, slapping their desks and cheering, quickly drowned out the sounds that Baer made. The Torres brothers, Kevin and Paul, were actually on their feet clapping, a sound that only a few years later, Tommy Farrow would grow very accustomed to.

When the smoke cleared and all was said and done, no legal charges were brought up against Tommy Farrow, mostly because he was a minor, fourteen years of age, that and the embarrassment of Edwin Baer, being knocked down and practically out by a student.

The incident was kept as quiet as possible. Save for the twenty-odd students, and Baer himself, no one else actually saw the event; in fact, only about six of the children in the classroom admitted to looking up from their exams when the punch was executed and the beer keg bet was played out to its full expression. Everyone had heard the loud smacking whump of fist against flesh and knew what had gone down, especially after seeing Baer lying at Tommy’s feet.

The episode did become something of legend that would be talked about for years to come. Students, as well as teachers, whispered in the halls and behind Baer’s back. He quietly left North Reading High in the middle of the following semester, and slit his wrists a year after that.

Just because you had a big mouth and knew how to use it didn’t mean you should. If you were going to walk around like a big man and talk down to people, even if it was spent looking up at them most of the time, you had better make damn sure you could back up the shit you were shoveling. Baer had a mouth…and balls, for a little while, but no back up.

In the end Tommy Farrow was expelled from North Reading High School and implanted in nearby Wilmington High and without ever realizing it, started his career as a professional prizefighter.

His reward, as promised, his trophy for the one-sided bout against Edwin Baer was a birthday party featuring two kegs of beer, compliments of one William Walcott. Although the shindig that was to celebrate Tommy’s fifteenth birthday did not happen on the weekend of said birthday, the day just after the Baer incident, his parents had grounded him for a month in addition to his expulsion. The party would be pushed back six weeks later to coincide with the beginning of summer vacation, and Tommy was okay with that, it was something to look forward to…and, yes, Patricia Morrison would be there.

Farrow had come out of this little bet mostly unscathed. He would still be able to attend school, albeit a new one just a few miles away. He had just about knocked out a prick of a teacher, and most of all, he would still get his party.

On the night of the incident, his father James, a big man in his own right, came into Tommy’s lightless bedroom. Standing in the doorway, the illumination from the kitchen where his mom was cooking dinner leaked into the space framing his dad’s huge shape.                                                       James Farrow stood silent for a moment before taking a full step into the room; the kitchen smells that came in with him were intoxicating. Tommy got up from the bed on which he was sitting and faced his father, the two almost eye to eye, fighters in the ring. James Farrow said nothing, just slapped his son across the face, once and hard. Tommy did not try to duck or block the blow. The thought of fighting or swinging back at his father never even crossed the boy’s mind. He just absorbed the open hand, causing a single tear to leak down his right cheek.

James Farrow turned to leave, his body a black mass against the kitchen lighting that was rushing into the darkened space. Before his father stepped out of the room, he looked back to his son who was bathed in gentle slivers of twilight seeping into his widow through the drawn shade partitions.

“Was it worth it?”

He looked at his father, the tear already drying on his cheek.

“He had it coming, Dad.”

“Well, boy, that’s one thing you’re going to learn in life, we all got it coming.”