After the thing with the seagull Josh told on me. Mr. Palmer, the school principal, called me in to his office. I figured I was probably in for it, but that was kind of expected. I wasn’t crazy. I knew you couldn’t always expect to get things cleaned up right away. But I was nervous. Not about beating the tar out of Josh, but about the way I did it.

Mr. Palmer only had three fingers on his right hand, and that’s counting the big thumb that was rumored to be his toe. He was big, but not like my black teacher Mr. Wallace was. Just round and wheezy. When I got called in I was planning on biding my time and not saying nothing. It was Josh’s word against mine. And Josh was likely to want to reconsider that word in the next few days, if I had my way.

But when I came into the Principal’s Office my plans got changed a little. Uncle Theo was sitting there waiting. He looked sober and mad as hell about it.

“Goddammit Theo. What the hell is going on here?”

“Now sir,” Mr. Palmer began. “We all just want to get to the truth.”

“Well why don’t you just tell me what the fuck you think the truth is.” Uncle Theo was staring at the toe-thumb. It was hard not to, and Uncle Theo wasn’t like most grownups. He’d stare at whatever crossed his path. “You blaming Theo for that too?”

Just about every ounce of blood in Palmer’s fat, sweaty body charged into his cheeks. For a second that seemed to drag on for hours the three of us stared at his weird thumb together.

“Sir, that is an old wound from Vietnam, and I’d appreciate it if you’d try and keep on the subject at–“

“Vietnam, huh?” Uncle Theo looked impressed. “You grease a lot of gooks over there? You take out some Charlie? I wasn’t hardly more than five or six back then, but it sure looked like a grand old time, didn’t it? I seen Platoon. ‘Steers and queers!’ Hah.  Sorry. Guess I’m supposed to feel all like you did some big thing for America and all. It’s got to suck knowing you lost your stroking hand while getting fucked in a losing war. Fucking pussy hippies fucked it up good.”

Palmer didn’t seem to be taking in that Uncle Theo was trying to feel sorry for him. “Your kid may have put another kid, Josh Swanson, in a hospital. I mean he’s really hurt. Maybe broke a rib. Definitely lost a front tooth and broke a wrist.” Palmer looked at me. “Theo, what do you know about this?”

Uncle Theo turned and looked at me. “Yeah, Theo, tell me why the fuck I’m down here talking in this goddamn school anyway?”

“Sir, please don’t swear in here.”

“Excuse me?” Uncle Theo looked back at Palmer, then his thumb.

“I said I can’t allow any more swearing in–“

“So what the fuck happened, Theo? Did you kick the shit out of this kid or what? You better not have or so help me I’m going to break your goddamn little neck for this one.”

“Sir, I said you can’t swear in here.”

“Sorry.”  He was rolling his eyes. Then he looked down on me. “Well come on, Useless. I can say ‘useless’, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “USELESSS. Tell me what you done right this damn darn minute.”

“They going to make us pay for the hospital?” I asked. The trick with Uncle Theo was not to be good or bad, right or wrong. It was all about steering.

 Uncle Theo’s eyes lit up. “Now just a damned darned second here. That’s a really good question. Is that what this is all about? A shakedown? Sticking the blame on my kid so I get stuck with the tab? Because I twisted an ankle two years ago and that goddamn hospital stuck me with a bill for seven hundred bucks. Seven hundred bucks for an X-Ray and five minutes time with some know-it-all doctor. She did have nice tits, but not seven hundred dollars worth of nice tits.”

Uncle Theo was getting worked up. He was leaning over Palmer’s desk on the giant knuckles of his fists, his big hairy arms bulging. Palmer looked a little scared. “Well, now, I uh don’t know–“

“You don’t know. Well what do you know? Who saw Useless here beat the snot out of this Josh kid?”

“Well, we’re going by what the boy has told us–“

“What the boy has told us? Hell, I’ll tell you the exact opposite thing. I’ll tell you Theo was digging up worms to go fishing at the time he was supposed to be stomping this kid. I’ll tell you that there ain’t no god damned way I am going to pay a red cent to some pussy kid who fell over on his bike. You can tell the same god damned thing to his mom and dad and you can tell that to the cops too if you want. Is that all you brought me in here for? You got anything else?”

“I’m going to suspend Theo from school for a week. I really have to.”

Uncle Theo leaned in a little closer on his fists. He lowered his voice to a low growl. “Now you listen here. You do that and next thing you know people are saying this is all my problem when it ain’t. Ask around about me. Ask people if I give a fuck. You may not be all that surprised to find out most people think I’m the stupidest, meanest mother fucking shithead in this town. I ain’t above finding somebody’s home, duct taping their cat and sticking a shotgun barrel down its mouth.” He smiled at the photo of a tired old lady on Palmer’s desk. “Maybe blow its guts out right in your wife’s panty drawer. You know, shit like that. Go ahead and fuck with me. I’ll do shit to you that’ll make you wish you were back in Vietnam shooting Japs.”

Uncle Theo stood up straight and gave the thumb-toe a big smile, like he’d just sold it a used pickup truck. “Well that settles that. Come on, Theo. Let’s let this guy get some real work done.

“Sorry about the hand, by the way. Looks like it hurt like a bitch.”

Nobody mentioned anything about the seagull head, which was what worried me the most.