Come on. Let’s cut our losses and go. There will be another night for Reilly. It isn’t worth this!
Arthur spoke.
“That’s the word of Paul.”
Tony raised his eyebrows.
“Excuse me?”
“You just quoted a letter from Paul to the Corinthians. That’s the word of Paul, not the word of the Lord.”
“I said get the fuck out of here.”
Arthur’s phone buzzed. It had to be Traci. What little time he had for these sharply-dressed bozos had run out. He squinted and licked his lips. Steven and Rick knew the look: that look of Arthur’s that said “I’m just going to say what it takes to start a fight.” They feared the worst.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that …”
For chrissake, Artie, don’t say it.
“…Nigger.”
Arthur’s hand flew from behind his back, along with an iron bar he’d been slowly and quietly freeing from the debris since the start of Tony’s story. Had Tony not been literally dodging bullets for fifteen years, Arthur might have had a chance of finding his mark. As it was, all Arthur found was air and a fist slamming into his kidneys. His mouth wrenched open in agony, but nothing came out. His vision blurred. He didn’t even realize he had doubled over, until Tony’s elbow went into the back of his head with the force of a sledge hammer. Like a sack of potatoes, Arthur went to the ground. A well-polished shoe thumped into his ribs. He opened his eyes as the air came out of him. In silhouette, he saw Rick and Steven. He wouldn’t have recruited them if they didn’t know how to fight. Both of them seemed to be holding their own. At least they were still on their feet. Struggling for breath, he went fetal. He had no idea where Tony was or where he was aiming the next assault. His face bled. Either by falling or writhing, he’d cut his cheek.
This was all Traci’s fault; it was her plan.
No, it was Rick’s fault; it was his idea to do this in the yard.
Screw that; it was Samuel’s fault; he did the priest. Everything that came after that was on him.
The next blow went into the small of his back. He arched, leaving himself exposed. His assailant was giving him a clean fight…not a favor Arthur intended to return. He reached behind his back for something to swing…anything. The action was too obvious. Tony leapt into view and thrust his knee into Arthur’s already tender ribs, simultaneously grabbing his wrist and twisting it into the air. More kidney punches followed. Tony, apparently, still had a free hand. Mercifully, so did Arthur. He pawed around, hoping Tony would be too preoccupied to notice. He could feel his shoulder on the verge of dislocation and let out an agonizing scream. The sound energized Tony, who hollered triumphantly as he took a break from kidney punches to go to work on Arthur’s fingers. The movement brought a split second of relief to Arthur’s shoulder, and in that moment, his free hand rested on something flat. He had no idea what it was, but it was just light enough to lift and heavy enough to do some damage. With a savage wail, Arthur brought the object up with enough speed to knock Tony off of him. Arthur felt the weight leave his body. He scrambled to his feet to see Tony shaking off the blow. He looked around for another weapon. He saw a second pipe, smaller than the first, sticking out of the ground. He tried to wield it, but it was wedged fast. Tony was coming back at him. It was okay. Now it was a fist fight. Arthur had a chance against a dazed Tony toe-to-toe, or so he deluded himself to believe.
He looked over his opponent’s shoulder and saw that Bubbs was getting double-teamed. Arthur would have been surprised to know that only ninety seconds had passed since he antagonized the suits with the mother of all racial slurs. The suits outnumbered the UJs by only one, so they decided to use the extra man against the biggest target. Unlike Jimmy Cutillo, Bubbs was not fast for a big man,nor was he burdened with an overabundance of intelligence. Within seconds, he managed to get himself cornered. Arthur offered the only help he could.
“Bubbs! Look down!”
Fatefully, Bubbs had stumbled backward onto a pile of rusty brake drums. He played to his only strength, which was brute force and pulled one out of the pile. He had no idea what to do with it. Noticing the action had caused his two opponents to take pause, and he started swinging it like a battle axe. His lazy grin returned, and he walked forward. The suits kept a close but safe distance. At first, they were taken aback by the ease at which the white gorilla was able to one-handedly scoop up twenty-five pounds of iron. When he started to swing it around, they realized the moron was going to wear himself out. When he lumbered into the open, they decided to speed up the process by getting on either side of him. Only by a rare and fleeting moment of cognition was Bubbs able to see what was going on. With his shallow idea pool empty, he grabbed on to the brake drum with both hands and started to spin. All the suits could do was step back and watch as Bubbs whirled around and around like a maniacal discus thrower. He tried to use what little sobriety he had to keep himself oriented, but none of his reference points seemed to stay in one place. There was nothing for it. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep it up for much longer, so he did the only thing he could think of. He let go.
One of the suits hollered.
“Heads up!”
Reactively, everybody stopped
