Excerpt From A Trial" Or: "How I Lost My Two Front Teeth

"Well? What happened next?"

I squirmed in my seat. I used to think that was just a figure of speech, but here I was, squirming all over the chair on the witness stand. I wished I could squirm all the way out of the courtroom.

"Mr. Manse, please answer the question."

My mouth was dry, the only part of me that was, but I managed to speak anyway. "The guy walked over to them and started yelling."

"By Ð''them' you mean who, Mr. Manse?"

I blanked for a second, then tentatively pointed toward the prosecution's table. "Those two," I said, indicating the young couple sitting side by side, looking for all the world like two embarrassed children. The guy was young, maybe twenty or so, and kinda geeky, his thick glasses catching the glare of the fluorescent

lights every time he turned toward the girl, who looked even younger. Turned out she was older, almost twenty-five, but she was dressed like all the girls in my high school; provocative, revealing, but with a look on her face that said, "Look, but not too long; Want me, but don't come near me."

I hate girls like that.

The prosecutor nodded. "Please continue."

I nodded right back. "So the guyÐ'--that guy," I amended, pointing to the brooding young jock with the put-upon look, "he starts yelling at the other guy, then he and the girl started yelling." The girl seemed madder than he did, I remembered, but I didn't say that. "Then he just wheels around and hits the guy."

The prosecutor looked smug, like the proverbial cat. "Where were you during all this, Mr. Manse?" he asked, turning away from me. Probably to preen for the jury.

"I was dancing a few feet away. I'd never been to the Red Room beforeÐ'--never been really big on clubs, I guess. I was just dancin' around, looking at people." I liked looking at people. I always have. Nothing makes me feel better about myself than when I see people who look and act stupider than me. The Red Room had been full of object lessons, strutting and boasting, gyrating and drinking. I'd seen the happy couple after only a few minutes of wandering, and had stopped to watch.

It had been immediately obvious they hadn't come together. He looked surprised, moving mechanically as he watched the girl in front of him with wide eyes. She was bumping and grinding right up to him, wearing away some invisible wall between them. They were so mismatched I almost laughed; her in a tight silver dress and matching heels, her hair styled so it undulated down her back without flying about, and him in a pair of rumpled gray slacks and an off-white shirt with a pale blue stain near the bottom that he'd tried to tuck away without much success.

I couldn't figure why she was pressing up to him so insistently, but when I saw the other guy, shoving his way through the other dancers like a multihued storm cloud, I figured it didn't matter. Something was gonna happen, and I wanted to see it.

I never made out what was said, but the fight was going quite nicely; the geek went down, his hand over his eye, and she kept bellowing at her Ð''protector', who looked as if he wanted to bite someone. Then, for no reason I could figure, the girl looked around and locked eyes with me. I suddenly felt like I needed to get out of there, but she pointed at meÐ'--at me! I didn't even know her!Ð'--and the storm cloud turned and rumbled up to me.

He grabbed me by my shirt with an arm thicker than my waist and said, "You been hittin' on her, too?" It sounded like a question, but it wasn't, because before I could even squeak out a denial, he punched me in the stomach and dropped me.

It hurt. That's all I understood. I'd never felt pain