Edge by M. E. Kerr Read Free Book Online Page B

we’d thought, and I dreaded it when I heard he was going to school with me come September.
    Dad said he’d find his own crowd—let him be, so I let him be. I told kids I hung out with how his father had saved my dad’s life, and what happened to his folks, and then I let him fend for himself.
    Harley was really smart, and that surprised me. But he wasn’t good at making friends. It was hard to be a new guy, too. We all knew each other since grade school.
    Teachers warned Harley about his racist language. He always seemed surprised, and always protested that he was just kidding around. He was funny when he told his kind of jokes. The kids laughed at the accents he’d come up with, but he made them feel uncomfortable, too … I’d just walk away, embarrassed for him, I guess … and embarrassed he was staying with us.
    I’d see him sitting by himself in the cafeteria, looking around at everyone in groups. Once I felt sorry for him, and went over to sit with him. But he said, “You better get back to your crowd.” I didn’t ask him to join us. I knew he’d say something that would either trigger a fight or hurt someone’s feelings. My father called him a “loose cannon,” and I think that was why we didn’t invite the neighbors over for our usual backyard barbecues.
    He was a little guy: short for his age and he said he wasn’t into sports. He didn’t take to the roughneck wise guys he might have got along with better, if he’d made any effort. They ignored him, too.
    I’d stayed on at Tumble Inn, after school started, working afternoons setting up tables, and weekend nights I was in the dining room. Harley was by himself a lot.
    Don’t ask me why Jitz Rossi got it into his head to go after him, but he did. It happened on a Saturday morning when Harley and I were walking back from town after helping Mom load the groceries into her Pinto. She had other errands—it was a great fall day—and we decided to head back home along Highland Avenue.
    Jitz was waiting for us at the top of the hill. He had his own Harley, and he was sitting on it, with a red-and-white bandanna around his forehead, a leather vest, and bikers’ gloves … A few of his buddies were behind him on their bikes.
    The funny thing was Jitz wasn’t that different from Harley. He was a lot bigger (star of the wrestling team), but he had the same “insensitivity,” as my father’d put it. He was a bully, though, and I think what got him going was that he figured Harley’s style was too much like his.
    There was that nickname, too. That might have caught Jitz’s attention.
    The first thing Jitz said was, “How come you call yourself Harley?”
    â€œIt’s my name.”
    â€œWhere’s your Harley?”
    â€œI don’t got one!” Harley laughed. “Got the name without the game.”
    â€œI hear you got a name for Italians, too,” Jitz said. “I hear you’re an outsider with a smart mouth.”
    Harley said, “I hear it only takes two people to bury your relatives, because there’s only two handles on a garbage can.”
    What I remember after that little crack was Jitz getting off his Harley in perfect sync with the guys behind him. It looked like some kind of orchestrated ballet.
    Next, this big bruiser had me down on the ground, slamming my head against the dirt.
    What I didn’t know was that Harley was a Karate expert, and that there was more power in his small frame and tiny hands than there was in all four of the bikers who went after us. He took them on one by one, starting with Jitz, and then the guy holding me down.
    After they all hobbled back on their bikes and roared off, Harley brushed the grass and dirt off me and grinned.
    My head and back felt wrecked and I had a nosebleed.
    â€œWhere would you dumb Micks be without the McFarlands to pull you out of tanks and up off