BILLY HILL Chapter Ten



Walking Home After the Movie
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Billy wasn't looking forward to what was going to happen in the next few seconds and he made one last effort to stop it.

He said to the bully, “I can't let you hurt me, can't we call this off?”

All he heard was a grunt as the bully moved closer and prepared to hit Billy.  

Billy had been trained to be the first one to strike a blow, and that is just what he did.  He hit his opponent a hard punch, right to the heart which almost paralyzed him, and followed with a right and left hook to the short rib cage. Then it was a hard jab to the throat and a right cross which broke his nose and down he went.

Billy stood over him for a couple of breaths, and when the bully could speak Billy asked him if he wanted to continue or if he had enough.  When the bully’s voice returned enough to speak he said; “Enough.” 
 

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The fight took all of ten seconds and it was over. When the bully recovered enough to sit up, Billy pulled him to his feet and said; “Let’s get you to the doctor and get that nose fixed.”

The crowd of people were astonished, for they were expecting Billy to end up in the hospital all battered and bruised, and here he was scarcely having broken a sweat.

Billy was thinking to himself how thankful he was to having the good sense to take those two weeks to get into shape; for he had been in no condition to have fought like he was two weeks ago.

Billy and his brothers got in their truck and left for home before the people could start milling around him wanting to congratulate him.

He felt sorry for the bully for he realized that he must have had a hard life to be as unhappy and mean as he was.

He didn't go to church the next day for he didn't want to talk about the fight.

It was just natural for people to want to discuss it with him. He wasn't especially proud about being involved in it, and certainly wasn't going to brag about it.

After church he managed to see Linda and her folks, and he asked her to go to the movies with him.  She looked over to her parents, and they nodded yes so it was a date. It wasn't far from her house to the movie theater so they decided to walk and talk.

It occurred to Billy that he had never asked her how old she was. She looked fully developed, and he just assumed she was about eighteen but something caused him to wonder about that.  On the way home he got up enough nerve to ask her age, and she questioned “Why do you want to know?”

That stopped him and there was a long silence until he said; “Well if you were several years older than me I would feel funny about going out with you.”  Then he quickly added, “I probably would want to anyhow.”  

She could see that he was embarrassed, and she told him. “I just turned sixteen.”

Billy was quiet the rest of the way to her house, but his mind was fairly active.  - -Sixteen, sixteen, hummm.  

Now he knew several girls who at sixteen already had children, but he thought that was a little young to be hitched for life.

He didn't want to talk to anyone in his family about this for they pretty well accepted whatever came along their way, and didn't discriminate much.

He felt he knew Linda's mother well enough to talk to her about this. He found her alone in the store, and asked her how old she was when she got married. She answered, “I was twenty,” but that wasn't the answer Billy was looking for.

To be continued