"They won't tell me."
The old man shrugged. "They'll tell you if they see fit."
***
"Byrne's gang got hit again," Steve Lucas told me in homeroom Monday morning.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Have you seen Mike Manson? Dude. He looks like he ran the one hundred-yard dash in a fifty-yard gym. Somebody rearranged his face."
"Who?"
"Whoever got the other two. But I don't think so," Steve said.
"Why not?"
"My old man says the Manson's are fucked up. Manson's old man is a mean drunk who's uses his family as punching bags."
Bingo, that voice, it was Manson. That's who Count pounded at Shannie's house. Why would Manson show up at the Ortolans? Why would his cause such a ruckus? He had to have known Count would have been there. He has balls or he's stupid.
The optimism my class felt when Nugent's head dionked his locker transformed into joy with Mike Manson's facial rearrangement. It was great watching the self proclaimed Ayatollahs of the Junior Higha go down one by one. Many people breathed a sigh of relief.
When I got home the good news continued - my mother told me Granddad was coming to visit.
"No Shit!"
"James. I never heard such language from you."
"I'm sorry. Great. When's he coming?"
"The Monday before Thanksgiving."
"Yes! For how long?"
"Until the baby is born."
"Holy shit!"
"James!" My mother shook her head.
"He'll be here for Christmas. I don't believe it. Fucking A!"
"James. I know you're excited. But please watch your language. You aren't the same boy he'll be expecting. Your new vocabulary will shock him!"
" I'm sorry. This is fu- f-in insane," Jumping up and down, I hugged my mother.
***
Over the following weeks I was as miserable as ever. Shannie had gone on a trip with her school. Football season ended. Jenny Wade still did not get the hint - in Shannie's absence she wasn't as annoying. I was bored with schoolwork, but mostly, I was impatient about my grandfather's arrival. My only escape was early morning workouts in the weight room.
A week before Thanksgiving, Beyford was threatened by a freak early season snowfall. The buzz at school said five inches. Electricity filled the air; excitement owned me. I had never experienced a snow storm. Judging by the way people acted in the grocery store, I got the impression snow was akin to nuclear war.