I told myself to get the hell out of there and take a hike, or find another bench. There was an ordinance against loud radio playing, but nobody was paying me to enforce it. Nor did some code of chivalry demand that I come to this woman's aid. She could haul ass and go elsewhere if the noise bothered her.
And so could I.
Instead I leaned forward and called out. 'Hey,' I said.
No response, but I was fairly certain he'd heard me. He just didn't want to let on.
I stood up and moved a couple of yards toward him, covering maybe half the width of the path. Louder I said, 'Hey, you! Hey!'
His head swung around slowly and his eyes moved to fix on me.
He had a big head, a square face with a thin-lipped mouth and an upturned porcine nose. He lacked definition around the jawline, and he'd be jowly in a few years. A flat-top haircut accented the squareness of the face. I wondered how old he was,
and how much weight he was carrying.
I pointed at the radio. 'Want to turn that down?'
He gave me a long look, then let his whole face relax into a smile.
He said something but I couldn't get it by lip-reading or make it out over the roar of the radio. Then he reached out very deliberately and turned the volume control, not lowering but raising the sound level. It didn't seem possible that more noise could come out of that box, but it got discernibly louder.
He smiled wider. Go ahead, his eyes said. Do something about it.
I felt a tightness in my upper arms and in the backs of my thighs.
That inner voice was chattering away, telling me to cool it, but I didn't want to hear it. I stood there for a moment, my eyes locked with his, then heaved a sigh and shrugged theatrically and walked away from him.
It seemed to me that his laughter followed me, but I don't see how that could be the case. He couldn't have laughed loud enough for me to hear him over the radio.
I kept on walking for twenty or thirty yards before turning to see if he was watching me. He wasn't. He sat as before, legs out, arms draped over the bench, head tilted back.
Let it alone, I thought.
My blood was racing. I left the path and doubled back behind the row of benches. The ground was thick with fallen leaves, but the last thing I had to worry about was their rustling underfoot. With all that cacophony filling his ears he wouldn't have heard a fire engine.
I came right up behind him and got close enough to smell him.
'Hey!' I yelled, loud, and before he could react I dropped an arm down in front of his face and pulled back, the crook of my elbow under his chin, my arm drawn tight against his throat. I hauled up and back, bracing my hip against the rear of the bench and putting some muscle into it, keeping my arm tight around his thick neck, hauling him right off the edge of the bench.
He was struggling, trying to duck his chin, trying to twist loose from my grasp. I bulled my way onto the
path and dragged him along after me. He was trying to cry out but the sound got trapped in his throat and all he could manage was a gurgle.
I felt it more than I heard it, felt his voice box vibrating against my arm.
His legs twitched and his feet scrabbled at the ground. One of his untied sneakers slipped off. I tightened my grip and his body twitched convulsively, and I dropped him and left him flopping on the ground. I went back for the radio, snatched it up in both hands, raised it high overhead and dashed it down onto the asphalt. Dials and bits of plastic went flying but the damned thing continued to play. I picked it up again, eager for the kill now, and I whirled around and smashed the thing against the concrete base of the bench. The case broke into fragments and the music stopped abruptly, leaving a cavernous silence.
He lay where I'd dropped him. He'd managed to reach a sitting position, one hand behind him for support, the other raised to rub his throat. His mouth was open and he was trying to say something but he couldn't get words out, not after the way I'd throttled him.
Here he was, mute in a suddenly silent world. While he puzzled over this I ran at him and kicked him in the side, just below the ribs. He went sprawling. I let him get up onto his hands and knees and then I kicked him again, under the right shoulder, and he fell down and stayed down.
I wanted to kill him. I wanted to pound his face into the pavement, I wanted to flatten his nose and smash his teeth. The wanting was physical, in my arms, in my legs. I stood over him, daring him to move, and he managed to raise himself a few inches and turn his face toward me. I looked at his face and drew my foot back to kick it in.
And stopped myself.
I don't know where I found the strength, but I wrapped one hand around his belt and bunched the other in the protruding hood of his sweatshirt and yanked him to his feet. 'Now get out of here,' I said, 'or I'll kill you. I swear I'll fucking kill you.'
I gave him a shove. He swayed and almost fell but got his balance and managed to stay on his feet. He took a few shuffling steps in the direction I had him pointed, turned his head, looked at me, turned again, and kept on going. He wasn't running, but neither was he taking his sweet time.
I watched him round the bend in the path, then turned back to the scene of the crime. His magnificent radio lay in pieces over several square yards of Central Park. Earlier I'd carried a cardboard coffee container for blocks to avoid littering, and now look what a mess I'd made.
The woman was still on the bench. Our eyes met, and hers went very wide. She looked at me as though I were far more of a danger than the creature I'd just rousted. When I took a step in her direction she swung the book up in front of her, as if it were a cross and I a vampire.
