been an adult I have owned only one weapon, and it’s suddenly stuck against the roof of my mouth. Which is Randi? The real blonde, I bet.
Blondie reaches across the bar and touches Leon’s bare arm.
“Take him outside, Leon,” she whispers.
“They’ll try to shut us down if there’s another fight in here.”
In no hurry now to leave, I pick up my mug and tilt it back as far as I can to get the last of the beer. “What’s your problem with blacks, Leon?”
Leon gives me a snotty grin and turns and crooks his finger at a man at the door. Either he wasn’t there when I came in or I was temporarily blind. By his size, I judge he can have only two possible occupations-a nose guard for the Cowboys or a bouncer.
Accepting the fact that my question will likely go unanswered for the moment, I try to remember precisely where I parked the Blazer and stride to the door with Leon and several others close behind me. Something just tells me that Leon may not be my only opponent. Don’t run, you chickenshit, I think, and manage to saunter past the doorman, who, as I pass by, helpfully takes my arm and shoves me through the door into the sweltering September night. If I can make it to the car quickly enough, maybe they will let me leave, In the few minutes I was in the bar, it has grown dark. The lights in the asphalt parking lot behind the Bull Run will win no security awards this year, but I have plenty of company as I head for the Blazer. I estimate seven men have come outside. As I stick my right hand into my pocket for my keys, Leon clouts me with a right to my jaw, sending me careening on top of the Blazer. Unable to free my hand, I roll off onto the pavement on the other side. For a moment I think of running. What prevents me is the fear that they have guns in their vehicles and I will be run down and shot.
The others are fanning out around me, so there is no escape.
If I had only Leon to fight, it might not be too bad. Furious at letting myself get pole axed without being in a position to defend myself, I come around the car and pop him directly in the nose as he lunges for me. I couldn’t hit him that square in the face if I fought him another ten years.
For perhaps three seconds Leon stops and feels his nose as if this wasn’t supposed to happen. I hope I have broken it.
Behind me, a hoarse voice commands, “Get the son of a bitch, Leon!”
I should plow into him, but I am hoping he won’t have the sense to realize how lucky my punch was. If he quits now, we’ll be even, like two small countries who have fired one missile each, and are thinking of declaring victory and announcing the end of the war. My hands are raised in the classic fighter pose, my right guarding my aching jaw, my left forward. Every boy pretends at one time to be a prize fighter, but in my case it is strictly for show. At various times Sarah and I have pretended to box. Even with my own daughter I have difficulty warding off blows before we collapse against each other laughing at the silliness of what we are doing. It is too dark to see Leon’s eyes, but I think he is afraid.
Another voice is more insistent.
“Get the fucker!” It is shrill, and I wonder if it is that of a woman, but I don’t dare take my eyes from Leon to search for the speaker. Leon’s hands are up in front of his face, but he looks as awkward and silly as I do. A coward, now, I’m convinced, he will be sure to attack if he thinks I’m not looking. The old saying pops into my head: “One’s afraid to fight, and the other is glad of it.”
Probably fearful of what will happen if he doesn’t, Leon comes for me, swinging furiously. As with Sarah, I block most of his wild blows, but a couple slip in, including a crisp chop on my right ear. In this kamikaze assault, I panic, for getting to swing at him. Instinctively, I try to wrestle him to the asphalt, hoping my weight and advantage will help me.
Caught off guard (he is no more a fighter than I am), Leon trips and I fall on top of him driving my elbow into his stomach as we go down. His head hits the parking lot with a sickening pop, and for a flash of an instant, I think I have knocked him out, but the asshole immediately tries to bite me while I pin his arms in the classic grade-school style. My last coherent thought before the others get to me is that I won.
Only when I am kicked in the balls and kidneys do I scream for help, thinking in a moment of extreme panic that I am being killed. The noise is frightening. One man is crying, “Kill the dumb shit!” and there is yelling and snarling sounds that verge on the inhuman. After three blows to my mouth with somebody’s fist, a front tooth flies out across my face, and I wonder if I will lose consciousness but don’t. A beating takes energy, and apparently it is too hot for my attackers to really enjoy it, for after a couple of minutes (though it seems much longer), they suddenly stop.
Someone says, “Let’s get the shit out of here!”
Leon bends down and whispers, “Don’t you ever come back here, you motherfuckin’ bastard! You hear me?”
I raise a hand to signal that I do, and lie panting in the dim light, feeling my entire body begin to radiate pain. I wait until I hear cars pulling out of the lot, and stagger to my feet, dazed, but deeply grateful I am alive.
I lean back against the Blazer and fish out my keys. I can hear the band, which has begun to play. I don’t recognize the tune, but I don’t think I’ll go back inside to find out. The front of my light blue short-sleeved shirt is dark with blood, and I realize I must look like hell. Sarah has a friend spending the night, so I can’t go home looking like this. Poor Rainey, I think, as I drive away from the Bull Run. I need a nurse, not a social worker, but what are friends for?
“Good God, what happened?” Rainey cries as she opens her screen door. The expression on her face is alarming. Is one of my eyes hanging out? My entire face feels swollen.
In the thirty-minute ride to her house I have convinced myself that I have no broken bones, though my ribs on my right side feel as if someone had been trying to separate them with a pitchfork. At least I haven’t wakened her. It is still before ten, and she is dressed in her usual summer weekend attire:
shorts and a T-shirt.
Gingerly, I let myself in, and close the door behind me.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I say, pleased I can still speak.
The power of speech is about all I have left.
“Believe it or not, I was winning a fight against Leon Robinson, when his friends decided I was too tough.”
Rainey, seeing I am not in too much pain to brag, yells, “Have you gone crazy? You’re a grown man, for God’s sake!
Follow me into the bathroom!”
What does being a grown man have to do with anything?
I think as I make my way through her living room. Grown men do a lot worse to each other than this. Yet for the first time in an hour I begin to relax, knowing Rainey will take care of me. Walking behind her, I notice how nice she looks in blue short shorts. Super legs to go with such a trim ass.
Wonderful! The last thought I will have before I bleed to death will be about sex.
She snaps on the light in her bedroom.
“Take off your shirt!” she commands, opening her medicine cabinet.
“It’s about to make me sick to my stomach.”
I look in the mirror and wince. The assholes. My face looks like mincemeat. At one point it was rubbed into the blacktop of the parking lot, not a beauty tip I would recommend.
Little black pieces of tar and dirt make my grimy cheeks look like a coal miner’s. Rainey says, “I’ll get some ice for your eye-stay right here!”
Not quite feeling up to a trip, I sit down on the seat of her commode and get out of my shirt and T-shirt. Both are soaked with blood. Even my right hand aches from the one punch I threw. A lover, not a fighter, I think, looking around Rainey’s bathroom. Unlike mine, it is sparkling clean. I inspect the sink-not even a single hair. Even the soap dish in the shower gleams. Each week Sarah and I take turns cleaning the bathroom, but this weekend it will be all I can do to keep my head from rolling off into the commode because even my neck aches. The body has only so much room for seven people to beat.
Rainey, it develops, isn’t the gentle nurse of my dreams.
“Ouch!” I mutter more than once when she washes my face.
The washrag is nice and warm, but it feels as if she has decided my chin is a silver tray that needs
