I kind of saw what was going on with Rick out of the corner of my eye. I mean, I saw Jimmy and Spinner picking on him. And others, you know, kind of a herd mentality. I saw him being shoved into lockers and punched in alleys and ignored and ostracized. I saw it and I knew it was dangerous. I knew this because, well, it was kind of like when I lived with my dad. My dad was, sometimes, really mean. He'd hit me and stuff, but it was more than that. He'd say things, these little things that would make me feel like shit and I know that I was dangerous then. I'd run away and try to kill myself but if I was another kind of kid I could easily have brought in a gun and blown away the first person that looked at me funny, or killed my father because I couldn't take it. Some people did that shit, and looking at Rick, his tightly wound up personality and his violence and his anger, I knew he'd do something like that someday. Maybe here. Maybe at a mall or maybe years later at some office where people weren't being something enough to make him happy. Nice enough or friendly enough or whatever, he would have found the excuse he needed and caused a lot of damage.
So I felt bad at the car wash when they made him leave and I laughed because I was part of the herd, too. But I knew that this campaign of abuse against Rick would blow up in someone's face someday. I just hoped it wouldn't be here.
But I wasn't psychic or anything. I just thought things would go wrong somewhere, someday, because I could look at Rick and see what he was capable of doing. Maybe this was because when I lived with my dad for those years after my mother moved in with Joey, I had to try and figure out my dad like that. I had to try and see when he'd be nice to me and when he'd beat me. It was self preservation, really. No 12 year old kid should have to be that observant. And I guess it kind of seeped from my dad to everyone. When I'd visit my mom at Joey's I had to figure out Joey, too. Would he hit my mother? Would he make her feel worthless in some way? Would he do that to me? So I'd go over there and observe, I'd see how he interacted with my mom and me, and how he treated Angie when she arrived. Joey was a good guy, I could see that. He laughed and he joked and he never made anyone feel bad, and his anger didn't mean danger. And then it seeped to my friends, how would this person act? Could I trust them? And girls. And teachers. And everyone. I didn't like what I saw in Rick, and I wished that Jimmy and Spinner could see it, too.
I tried to tell them.
"Hey, you should maybe lay off that Rick kid," I said to Jimmy one day at the Dot after I'd seen him grab Rick by the throat and slam him into a locker. I reached for a fry and dipped it into ketchup.
"Why? The kid's a jerk," Jimmy said around bites of his hamburger.
"Yeah, I guess," I said, and that's the shortcoming of kind of sensing something but not being able to put it into words. I couldn't tell Jimmy that I knew that Rick was dangerous. I couldn't tell Jimmy that what he had done to Terry was now just an excuse for everyone to be mean to him and not feel bad about it. I couldn't tell him that the way they were treating Rick wasn't helping Terry, it was only hurting Rick, and that kind of thing can come back to you. I couldn't tell him that how you act and what you do matters, that it goes out into the universe and creates consequences, that the seeds you sow will reap a crop. I couldn't tell Jimmy that while his father was benignly neglectful mine had been actively cruel and that that had taught me different things about human nature.
I didn't even attempt to tell Spinner to lay off because, truthfully, we weren't getting along that well at the time. Spinner was, uh, wanting Manny. And I guess I hadn't totally let Manny go and I was jealous that they were flirting and everything. Spinner was at me. Everything he did bugged me. We had that fight at the mall. He pushed it, he did. But I was the one who ended up pounding the shit out of him until Paige's boss threatened to call security. So if I'd told Spin to lay off he would have smiled at me, that smug smile that I always wanted to just punch off his stupid face, and he'd say not to worry about it or whatever and then he'd go at Rick with an increased vengeance just because I had slept with Manny and that wouldn't help anyone.
So I was kind of left to just helplessly watch events unfold and hope that Rick would leave of his own accord or do something bad and get kicked out or move or whatever. But as the violence against him increased and he started to retaliate in little ways like spray painting Spinner's car, then I knew. It was like pressure building up in some bottle. It was gonna blow.