The Tennessee Youngster

Chapter Seven

 Restitution

Tommy shrugged his shoulders and was utterly disgusted that his brother would do such a thing like wiping his puke on him. The smell was terribly putrid as Tommy looked for something to quickly wipe it off. All he could find was an old white t-shirt, stained with oil spots wadded up in a ball next to the counter on a little table. Tommy managed to get most of the puke off him and then threw down the t-shirt on the ground and darted outside. He had no idea that he left the phone dangling off its base as he tried desperately to catch up to Nick. Slamming through the screen door, running across the dirt parking lot, as if he was walking on air, as he approached his brother.

"Thomas Jefferson Davidson, what in the world was taking you so long?"

Now that wasn't good news. Being called by all three names was a bad thing. From that tone, he knew his mother was upset. It wasn't as if he was gone for days, but to Tommy, it was only a few minutes. In reality, Tommy was gone for almost a half an hour.

"Just what have you been doing mister? Did you call 911?"

"I was making the phone call."

"Then explain why I had to send your older brother in there to get you."

"I don't know."

"Young man while you were goofing off in there, your father and I were out here trying to figure out how to tie this man up."

"Now go and help your father tie him up before he wakes again. Your father had to smack him on the head to knock him out again."

Tommy did feel it was right to get mad at him for doing what his mom told him to do. He just stood there and took it all in. There was no way he was going to explain his way out of this, especially with a story of a mysterious smell in a trash can. It was better to leave it alone and just go and help his stepfather. Nick had the biggest smile on his face as he watched his mother scold Tommy. He was just thankful that this time it was Tommy and not him.

"And you mister. (Debra pointing at Nick) Stop that smirking or I will wipe it off your face for you and go and give your brother and stepfather a hand."

Nick totally caught off guard, stands there in awe, as he had no clue why he was now the victim. Just a moment ago he was happy as a pig rolling in mud, but that all changed. He was going to make Tommy pay for getting him into trouble, but that was going to have to wait seeing how he had to help him out first. Nick walked back to the trailer and found his stepfather and Tommy standing there pondering about something.

"What seems to be the matter?" Nick asked his stepfather.

"Dad seems to think that we could tie him up with one of the orange extension cables that seem to be holding our bikes tied up against the back of this trailer, but I said it wouldn't work seeing how he barely had enough when we tied them up back in Boston."

"Tommy stop being so analytical and help me get these bikes down. Nick come over here on my side and grab the front tire of your bike and help me bring it down."

"Dad, why do you always use those long words that I don't understand?"

Tommy sure hated words that he had no clue what the heck they meant. It's not as if he was a walking thesaurus that he could just skip to the page that the word was on and find the meaning of it. He just thought his parents did that to just shut him up or confuse him so he wouldn't carry on with whatever thinking he was doing.

"Tommy, are you going to help us or are you going to stand there?"

Snapping out of a short daze, Tommy reaches up to help lift away Nick's bike as Stephen untwined his tie job with the extension cables. Tommy didn't care for his stepfather's idea from the whole beginning using extension cables to tie down the bikes. It would be a matter of time along the trip that the bikes would jar loose or the cables would come disconnected and the bikes would fall off and it would be too late before anyone noticed.