Continuity: This part takes place the day after "Gung Ho."
The Green Finish on the Portrait
Part II: The Roses among the Leaves
by MegaSilver
Jason and Tommy took to the gym floor at Ernie's after school. "Those guys were definitely stronger than we were," remarked Jason, referring to their adversaries in the Teen Ninja Finals the previous day.
"And more advanced," added Tommy. "I'm still a bit stiff in the legs and torso."
"Yeah, me, too. But we really did well," said Jason. "You know what? I'd say that whole Titanus ordeal saved us the competition. I'm really glad we had to go through that. There was no way those hired mercenaries could match our team chemistry after that."
"Whoa, you got that right." Tommy was a fourth-degree black belt in Karate, but never had he really made a protracted effort at serious team sport when it wasn't a stringent requirement in a class. "You know what, though? I was actually pretty surprised Bulk and Skull would go so far as to try to put together some sort of WMAC-like franchise!"
"Well, those two are always feeding delusions of grandeur… but I was pretty surprised too at how close they actually got to succeeding this time." Jason grinned mischievously. "Too bad for them that in competition sport, 'almost' just isn't good enough."
"Yeah, well, you know what they say. The higher the monkey climbs, the better the world sees his ass!"
Jason laughed out loud at that one. "Tommy, that's a great one! That definitely sums up every single day in the lives of Bulk and Skull!"
"Aww, poor guys. You almost gotta feel bad for 'em. All they want's a little high living!"
Still laughing, Jason took his stance and the pair began sparring.
A little over an hour later, their workout terminated, Jason and Tommy headed to the bar for some fresh food. "Man," sighed Jason, "I'm itching for a big fat double cheeseburger, fries and chocolate shake, but I know that'll offset everything we just did."
Tommy shrugged. "Hey, why not? I mean, look what we did yesterday! We can celebrate a bit. Well, maybe we don't need the chocolate shakes but c'mon, are cheeseburgers so bad?"
Smiling, Jason nodded. "I like your way of thinking!"
Ten minutes later, the duo seated themselves with their cheeseburgers, fries and mango smoothies. "To the Teen Ninjas!" Jason held up his glass.
"To the Teen Ninjas!" Tommy concurred, clanking his glass against Jason's.
"I've gotta say, even though we had our little problems at first, I was really psyched the whole time we were training for the finals," remarked Jason. "Ever since I moved to Angel Grove I've had a terrible time finding someone my age and my level to work with. Sometimes I work out with Zack or Trini a bit, but they do different styles and they're not really as serious about martial arts.
Tommy raised a brow. "Wow, I guess I really lucked out meeting you right away like I did." He sipped the sweet smoothie. "All those years training in Los Angeles I never had to bat an eye if I needed a sparring partner, whatever style, whatever level… anything."
Jason's eyes went wide. "You're from L.A.?"
"Yeah. I didn't tell you?"
"No, I don't think I'd ever gotten the chance to ask! I'm from L.A., too?"
"Really?" exclaimed Tommy. "No kidding! What part of L.A.? When did you come to Angel Grove?"
"I grew up in Reseda. We moved here the summer before seventh grade."
"No!" Tommy shook his head. "You're lying! We lived in Reseda until I was seven years old!
"Seriously?"
"Yeah! You know Sensei Kentaro at the Double Dragon Dojo?"
Jason nodded, looking amazed. "I trained with him from the summer after kindergarten right up until we left L.A.!"
Tommy could scarcely believe his ears. "Aww, man. You're not gonna believe this. I trained there at the beginning of first grade until we moved. You and I must've been in the same class!"
Jason shook his head. "Incredible! How is it we didn't recognize each other before?"
"Well, it was a pretty big group," Tommy remembered. That and he hadn't made much of an effort to make friends from that group.
Jason was still shaking his head. "Unbelievable!"
"So, ahh… what brought you guys to Angel Grove?"
Jason was silent for a moment. "Better take another bite of this first," he said, chomping into his cheeseburger and chewing down before explaining. "We moved to get a fresh start. See, my dad was an officer in the U.S. Army and after he got married in 1970 he was stationed mostly in Japan. He did a brief tour in Vietnam…."
"Whoa."
"It wasn't quite as bad for him as it was for those privates in the jungle," Jason qualified. "But it was a real strain on my parents and on their marriage.
"Then my mom got pregnant with my sister Tamara in 1973 and they decided they didn't want to raise their family overseas, so my dad took a position at the recruiting office in L.A. He's a native Angelino, so we were close to his parents. But it didn't really make our lives easy. My parents had both started drinking—a lot—when they lived overseas and they didn't stop after my sister was born, or after I was born a few years later."
"Whoa," Tommy echoed himself. "I'm sorry. That's rough."
"No, you know, it turned out okay in the end. I mean, yeah, it was hard, but I eventually got to know other kids who had it harder. At least our parents never beat on us and our dad held down his job." Jason took the last bite of his burger, washed it down with a gulp of his smoothie and leaned back a little. "I wouldn't even say they were all that bad of parents. They just weren't… there that often.
He sighed. "My mom got a DUI when I was in sixth grade. Actually, she had a car accident. Luckily, the other driver wasn't hurt but—finding out your mother just got arrested at that age, it's a nightmare. Then word got out, I started feeling people looking at me when I went down the hallways at school…
"But it was a good thing, though: it woke them up to this problem that they'd been ignoring for almost twenty years. They started getting help for their problems and since my sister had just graduated they decided they wanted a fresh start, so my dad found another job and we moved on up here. I think they also knew that my sister hadn't had great friends in our local schools and she turned out just a little… off. They didn't want the same thing to happen to me."
"Do you think it would have?"
Jason shrugged. "Back then I liked to pride myself on being the 'good man' among my friends, but they weren't exactly a positive influence. My parents knew some of their parents and those people were real wackos. Heck, even despite my parents' problems they knew well enough to let me have friends over but not let me go over to friends' houses. But I guess you can only do that with your kids for so long. Especially when they know that you're not exactly practicing what you preach."
Tommy nodded. "Us, we lived in North Hollywood after we moved out of Reseda and the elementary schools were okay, but when I got to middle school and high school they absorbed some rougher kids from the nearby schools and I started facing some pretty rough characters." He smirked a bit. "That didn't bother me. I just went to school and didn't talk to that many people. If something happened I knew I could hold my own, but my brother and sister…"
Tommy finished his last French fry before continuing. "That was the real problem. My sister at least takes Karate lessons, but they're both a bit smaller than I am—see, I'm adopted."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. My sister's in sixth grade this year and my parents hadn't really noticed when I went there but there were some real weirdos in that school. So it was private school and a commute in L.A. traffic—which my mom didn't want—or move to Burbank—which my dad didn't want—or move to a more affluent neighborhood—and from an affordability standpoint that's getting less and less possible in L.A. So, they decided to leave the city. My dad's a mechanical engineer and my mom's a paralegal—there's always some sort of posts for those, so as soon as my dad found a job in Angel Grove, Stone Canyon or San Diego we packed up and left."
"And you like it here?"
"Yeah, I think I could end up liking it." Tommy smiled. "How about you?"
"Honestly? I don't know what I'd do without my friends."
Jason had cited exactly the reason why Tommy thought he might, eventually, be truly happy in Angel Grove. "Yeah, you guys seem pretty tight." He gulped down the last of his smoothie. "How did you meet them?"
"Well, I met Zack first, in seventh grade; we went to Redwood Middle School together. I tell you, he was a character: he'd come here just that year himself, from Virginia, but he was just really cool about everything: he'd go up to random people from the first week shaking their hands and saying 'Hey, how are you doing? I'm Zack; I'm new here!"—you know, just start a conversation. It surprised people but they really got into it.
"That year he kind of just floated around from group to group—got invited to a lot of parties and stuff—so we hung out a few times but not really regularly. I wouldn't say he was 'class clown,' but every now and then his sense of humor would surface inappropriately in class, for sure."
Tommy could definitely see that.
Jason continued: "After seventh grade, the school district redrew the boundaries and a few kids got moved to Angel Grove Junior High. And that's when we met Billy, Trini and Kim."
Jason smiled as he reminisced. "I had my first and second periods with Zack, and I didn't really know anyone else, so I hung out with him a lot that first week—and we lived near each other, so we rode bikes home together and stuff. He found out I was really into Karate and so we sparred together on Wednesday…" Jason paused, looked around, and leaned in to whisper to Tommy. "Don't tell him I told you this, but I'd say I really owned his ass that day."
Tommy snickered.
"So he said, 'All right, man: now you gotta try my game!' So on Thursday he introduced me to the 'Hip Hop Kido.'"
"Ah… so THAT'S what that's called!" observed Tommy. He'd always wondered what to make of what looked like his Black Ranger teammate's proclivity for martial dance.
"Yeah, Zack's family moved out of D.C. when he was little but his cousins still lived in D.C. and not in the best neighborhood—and the family was really tight-knit, so Zack's parents didn't want him not to visit with them but they were worried about his safety playing outside with his cousins and so they made him take martial arts lessons starting at age four…" Jason chuckled. "Then when he played with a couple of his cousins, they'd ask him to show them some of his moves… and his cousins, well, they learned hip-hop dance from their neighbors and taught it to Zack, and then one day he just got the idea to blend Karate and hip-hop and it just stuck."
Tommy laughed. "I can definitely see that!"
"Well, anyway… I'd never really liked hip hop music that much—I've always been more into rock—but when you start to see it applied like that you get to appreciate it more. Now he's got me hooked!"
Tommy nodded. There was silence for a moment. Then: "Did you meet the others right away?"
"Umm, almost right away, actually. We had our first-period English class with Billy and the first day of the second week, I was sitting one seat ahead of Zack and chatting with him when suddenly Billy walks by and Zack goes, 'Yo, ladies' man!'
"Then Billy jumped a little, looked around and caught Zack grinning at him and pointed at his own chest like he wanted to say, 'Huh? Me?'
"So Zack says, 'Yeah, c'mon, don't be modest! I saw you in the cafeteria Friday, surrounded by all those pretty girls!' And I was a bit surprised myself; I hadn't noticed Billy at all up to that point. Then Zack says, 'Hey, what's up, I'm Zack; this right here's my buddy, Jason.'
"I said hi myself, then Zack told him to sit down with us and said, 'So you got a name or do I just call you ladies' man?'
"So, that broke the ice; Billy relaxed a little and introduced himself. Zack asked him, 'So, what do you think of Mrs. Necker?'—that was our English teacher.
"Billy grimaced a little, then he leaned in and said real quietly, 'Well, ah, to be totally honest I'm not sure her affinity for poststructuralist analysis is a highly appropriate fixation for a late-primary school-level module on literature and composition.'
"That brought down the house. Zack and I were both breathtaken. Then Zack said, 'Whoa, dude! I'm gonna write that one down!' So he takes a pen and asks Billy to repeat, then he shows me the paper and says, 'Check it out!' Man, I know I'd never have remembered what Billy said to tell you if Zack hadn't written it all down like that.
"And of course he asks Billy, 'So is that how you got those girls? Dude, that is sweet vocabulary there!'
"So I have no idea what to say, Billy has no idea what to say; we look at each other, both wide-eyed; I shrug…
"Then at lunch time I meet up with Zack at the cafeteria entrance and he notices Billy coming in and says, 'Yo, Billy! Hey, don't worry; I'll call you Billy from now on.'
"Billy laughs a little and says, 'Thanks!'
"So Zack says, 'Hey, you want to sit with us?' And before Billy can answer, he's distracted by a couple of girls across the cafeteria; Zack and I look and there's one that's waving towards him and another signalling for him to come over, and then Zack says, 'Ahhhhhhhhhh. I see! You know, it's gonna be really hard for me not to call you "ladies' man" at the rate you're going.'
"Then I say, 'You usually sit with them?'
"And before Billy can answer, Zack says, 'Cool! Let's all go and you introduce us!'
"So I say, 'You want to sit at a girls' table?' I hadn't really started looking at girls all that seriously yet and the ones in our classes usually annoyed me still.
"But Zack… well, I think he was an adolescent starting at age ten or something," Jason chuckled. "So he prods me and he says, 'Yeah, c'mon! That table's a totally untapped resource, right there!' So, we all went; the girls looked a little surprised—maybe a bit uneasy—but actually we had a really good lunch all together and so we sat together the next day… and the next… and then it just started to become a habit."
Tommy thought about that. This story amazed him more and more the more details he heard. But there was something else he wanted to know. "So, what did you think of Kim and Trini?" Actually, he was a little more interested to know what Jason had thought about Kimberly, but he wasn't sure he wanted to reveal himself quite just yet.
Jason cleared his throat. "I really liked them. You know, Kim told me she was a cheerleader and I thought she'd be just another stupid Valley Girl-type… 'course, you and I know what they're like; we grew up in the San Fernando Valley!"
"For sure!"
"But that first day—you know, it's a good thing Trini was there, because I think I'd have given up trying to be friends with Billy if she hadn't been around to interpret him for us almost right away. I realized he was human after all—kind of hard to access, but a really good guy if you'd stick with him a bit. Of course, Zack was just fascinated by Billy.
"Trini and Billy really clicked… you know, they dated for a little bit, but nothing really lasts that long in junior high school and I think they both didn't want to ruin their friendship. Plus, there was…" Jason trailed off.
"What?" asked Tommy. He suspected that Jason had been going to say that Billy was covering a crush on Kimberly, a suspicion more or less confirmed by Jason's quick subject shift.
"Never mind," said Jason, obviously not wanting to share some sort of secret. Tommy wanted to pry, but he always found it annoying when people did, so he laid off.
"But yeah," Jason continued. "Kimberly, well… I saw that she was friends with people like Billy and Trini and I realized there was no way she could be just a dumb mall girl. But I think she was glad that Zack and I came along—we're more on her level academically and she was glad to find some people who weren't stupid but who didn't make her feel stupid, even unintentionally.
"A couple of the girls on her cheerleading squad were real airheads. Luckily the worst one left. But Kimberly… well, when I found out about her gymnastics I could see she was doing cheerleading because she liked the sport and was really good at it, not just for the attention like most of the other girls were. And everyone liked her—well, except for that rotten girl on the squad, who didn't like anyone who didn't worship her—because she was really good-hearted. She impressed me a lot."
Jason paused for a moment. "Bulk and Skull certainly like her. 'Course, they never really understood how to charm a girl. But neither did any of the other guys who were into her. I remember one time in November that year, Kim came up to me and said, 'Hey Jase, you know Reginald McDonald? He asked me out last period. I didn't answer; I don't know what to say… I just…' She hesitated. 'I don't want to say he's a "dork" but I don't… what do you think I should say?'
"But I remembered had a class with Reginald that afternoon, so I said, 'Hey, look: just let it go. Just try not to think about it. It'll be okay by the end of the day. All right?"
"And she goes, 'Jason, what—?'
"So I say, 'Trust me.' So I managed to start a conversation with Reginald before class, and knowing I was friends with Kim, he asked about her and I told him she had a boyfriend." Jason inhaled deeply. "Which was a fib, but I told myself that if in my head I said 'boy space friend' and he heard 'boyfriend' as just one word, I'd be off the hook."
Tommy laughed. This was kind of a relief to hear: Jason as a brother-like figure, a protector of Kimberly, but trusting Tommy enough to let him know the truth. "You have a sister, though, you said, don't you?"
"I do." Jason raised his eyebrows. "She and her boyfriend are driving over from Las Vegas for dinner tonight. I think…" He looked around and leaned in closely. "Don't tell any of the guys, 'cause I don't want this to get back to my parents, but… she told me on the phone last night she's pregnant, and I think her boyfriend's gonna ask our parents for permission to marry her."
"Wow." Tommy flinched a little. "What do you think of him?"
Jason shrugged. "I don't know him too well. I only know he's a plumber's apprentice—so he'll have an decent job—and that he got my sister pregnant." He took a deep breath. "I really worry about her sometimes. She had a bit of a rough time in high school what with our parents and all… she and her friends were kind of wild and like I said, most of their parents were worse than ours, so they didn't exactly help her want to 'do as they say, not as they do.'"
"Yeah, but at least she talks to you and trusts you," offered Tommy. "At least, I think she does."
"No, that's true," agreed Jason. "She finished high school the year after the accident. She was really mad at our parents for moving out of L.A. and she didn't want to leave her friends, so she stayed with our grandparents for her senior year. But I think they knew the other girls in her group were bad news, because they told her she had to leave after she graduated and that they would help her move only if she left L.A. She was pretty shocked, but pretty quickly she realized there was no way any of her friends would be able to help her find acceptable living situations, so she took up our grandparents' offer and left the state."
Jason sighed. "So, she's been in Las Vegas ever since. At least she's held down the same job as a bartender for a year and a half now. She started calling me to talk more often: I think she wanted to make sure I wouldn't do the same stuff she did in high school."
Tommy nodded. "I worry about my sister Roxanne sometimes," he admitted. "I could look after her when she was in kindergarten, first and second grade, but then I left for middle school—and then the first day of high school I realized that she was going to be going to that same place and I wasn't going to be there and wasn't like elementary school. I went with her, dropped her off and picked her up afterwards, tried to make sure everyone in the school saw that this little girl had a big brother.
"About a month of that and my parents sat all of us down and said, 'This can't go on.'"
"Didn't you say you had a brother?"
"Yeah, Clement. He's in fourth grade. He's a good kid: doesn't do Karate, but he's really involved with Scouting." Tommy shrugged. "Wasn't really my thing; my dad kind of made me do Cub Scouts in second grade, but I didn't really care for the kids in my den and I knew my Uncle John would always let me go up to his house to go boating or hiking or whatever. But Clement really loves it. Seems like he's found a pretty good group here, too—we were worried about that."
"I did Cub Scouts all the way through Arrow of Light," remarked Jason. "But then I started to want to get more serious about Karate and more into competition, so I had to choose time- and money-wise." He thought for a moment. "I'm glad I did it, but I don't exactly regret stopping."
"I definitely don't," said Tommy. Although, now, he wasn't too sure. Maybe he'd missed out a bit on having adventures with other kids outside his family.
But he sure wasn't missing out now.
Jason rewound the subject a bit. "I don't have any brothers and I'm the younger child. Billy… you know, we're the same age but I've kind of always seen him as a little brother. Even after he grew… pretty big starting the middle of eighth grade. When I first met him, his mother had died in a car accident just a few weeks earlier… I wondered if maybe that was why he was so quiet, but Kim told me he'd always been kind of shy.
"In a funny way, though, I think it turned out well for him because he just happened to fall in with a few friends right after his mother's death and—well, from what I've heard she was a much more attentive mother than mine was for most of my life—and she couldn't be there for him when he got home from school anymore, so he was more willing to open up to other people 'cause he needed to."
Jason's thoughts drifted back to one day late in September. Zack had been out sick and they had had a substitute teacher in English, who had dismissed the class early.
Out in the hall, Jason asked, "So, you went over to Trini's last night?" Billy and Trini had "officially" started "dating" about a week earlier.
"Well…" Billy blushed. "Affirmative." He smiled, his lip quivering just a little. "She attempted to transmit to me her advanced stir-fry techniques, but I wouldn't say the finished ensemble was exactly comestible. My dad can't cook, either. Luckily he's hired a chef."
"A chef?"
"Well, since…" Billy swallowed a little. "Since my mother died we've been relying on pre-prepared freeze-preserved alimentation to a rather unhealthy degree."
With concentration, Jason would have figured out what Billy had just said about his diet after a minute or so, but the bit about Billy's mother overrode anything else. He wondered if maybe he should ask about it.
"Do you miss her?"
Billy paused for a while. "I do," he said finally. "Kind of." He paused again. "A lot, actually. I've always preferred solitary recreation, but—I always knew I could at least fall back on my parents, just in case… I wouldn't have to face the world all alone. And Mom was home all day, so I could seek moral support at any precise moment. And now…"
Billy didn't tear up or shake and his voice didn't crack, but Jason could sense the profound fear and heartbreak within. He could see that Billy felt weak, but suspected his classmate might be stronger than he gave himself credit for.
Following Jason's lead, the pair took a seat on the nearby staircase. Jason put a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Look, man, there's a reason why people make friends. Parents can't always be there to understand. But if you need help or anything, you can talk to me. Anytime."
Naturally, that story would have been too intimate to tell someone without Billy's permission, so Jason didn't. Instead, he searched for an anecdote to lead into a cheerier tone.
"I'll tell you… the first time we all went over to Billy's house, the five of us, it was the day after Thanksgiving in eighth grade. Kim hadn't been over there in years and none of us had ever been, and we saw what he'd done to his garage and his attic, with the mechanical, electronic and chemical equipment and the VW Bug that he was working on and everything and I was just… I thought, Holy smoke! I knew Billy was a genius, but I had no idea he was so technically… cultured. We were all just blown away… we were gonna watch a movie on TV but we ended up spending the whole afternoon having him show us around and demonstrate experiments and gadgets and stuff.
"And, well… since then, that's become our main hangout—I mean, after the Juice Bar—since it's pretty nicely-sized and it's only Billy and his dad there."
Tommy looked fascinated. "Billy's got like a whole tech station at his house?" At Jason's nod, he remarked, "Wow, that's awesome! I want to see it!"
"Oh, you will. Yeah, we should do a movie night or something this weekend… be your initiation to the place." Jason grinned. "Soon as I get home, I'm gonna call Billy, see if I can't drop a subtle hint that he needs to invite us over. Hey: you know what? You haven't even seen the RADBUG yet!"
"The RADBUG? What's…?"
Jason didn't answer. He just smiled. "Oh, we'll give you a demonstration." Boy, would they ever.
As the pair left the Youth Center a few minutes later, Jason just glided out casually, his thoughts focused on calling Billy, finishing his biology essay and getting to bed before ten. It was just another typical week in his life, not too far off from that of his four best friends'.
Tommy, however, walked out in a sort of trance, awed at what he would be able to count among the happenings of this week…
… fighting Titanus, winning the Team Ninja Finals and exploring Billy's lab and the RADBUG—whatever that was. If it was something he did with his fellow Rangers, he was sure the tempo would be fast and furious.
A tempo he was scarcely used to—outside the context of individual dojo sessions, that is—but one that was quickly growing on him. Someday soon he'd be able to say of that tempo, "Just the way I like it!"
TO BE CONTINUED…