drink?” I asked.
“Why th’ hell not?” And after we’d bellied up to the bar over my beer and his double Teacher’s rocks, he said: “So what is it you’re needing, my man? How much and when. And a name, somewhere along the way.”
Faint tatters of an accent drifted to the surface, Cuban maybe.
“I’m throwing a chicken fry for my friends,” I said. “Someone told me you were the man to see.”
He looked at the bridge of my nose for a minute or so. No sign of alarm, suspicion, etc. (See above.)
“I get it,” he said. “You’re crazy, right? Like ol’ Banghead Terence over there. Hey: you been buttin’ down any walls lately, boy?”
“No sir,” Terence said. My informant.
“Nigger got his head scrambled right good back there in Nam, so now every few days we’ll find him in some alley somewhere and he’ll be running headfirst into the wall over and over again till he falls down and can’t get up no more. Wall just sits there.”
He finished his drink, rolled ice around the bottom of the glass.
“Figure something like that must of happened to you. Ain’t no other possible reason you be comin’ here this way, rubbing up against me like this. You got to be crazy too. Now you tell me: am I right?”
I smiled, ordered a couple more drinks for us, and started telling him why I was there. That Sheryl wanted me to talk to him, explain why he had to leave her alone.
“So you just run on out and do whatever any pussy tell you. That it, man?”
I started over. Clare was a friend of Sheryl’s and—
“So you be fucking them both at the same time? Or they do each other while you watch.”
I tried once more. I really did intend, or at least had convinced myself that I intended, just to talk to him. But intentions are slippery things.
When the gun came over the table’s edge, suddenly, at the exact moment he switched his eyes toward the door and lifted his face as though in greeting, I slammed my glass down as hard as possible on that hand. The glass shattered, but I didn’t feel it then. I did feel bones give way under the glass. My other hand was already moving toward him with a heavy ashtray, and that connected just above his left eye.
“Righteous,” Terence said from the bar.
T.C. went back out of the chair, toppling it, but sprang almost at once to his feet and made a grab for my shirtfront. Suckered, I leaned back with the top half of my body—and he swept my feet out from under me.
“Moves,” Terence said. “ ‘Member that shit.”
Things looked quite different from down there. It was absolutely amazing, for instance, how much bigger T.C. had gotten. Or how many cockroaches there were skittering about under chairs and things. At one point when T.C. was sitting on top of me kind of boxing my head from side to side playfully, I saw by a table leg what I’m certain was a severed, dried-up ear.
Then I watched two fingers jam up hard into his nose and heard cartilage give way there. When he lifted his hands to pull mine away, I struck him full force in the throat and he fell off me, gasping. I kicked him in the ribs, then a couple of times in the head before I noticed he was lying still and turning blue. No one made any move toward us; they simply watched.
“Better call the paramedics,” I told the bartender, staggering over to him. It sounded like: Btr. Kawl. Thpur. Medix.
He looked about the room, timing it.
“Man does comedy too,” he said.
There was skittery laughter.
But he also said, to me: “You better get on out of here. We’ll just ‘low Mr. T.C. to sleep it off a while. But come closing I ‘spect I’ll notice him there. Don’t see no way ‘round that. And then the Man’s gonna want to know things.”
I started out.
“That be two-ninety for the last round,” the bartender said.
Chapter Eight
I RANG THE BELL AND THEN JUST KIND OF leaned there against the sill to wait. I didn’t know what time it was. After one, maybe closer to two. Lights still
“Why th’ hell not?” And after we’d bellied up to the bar over my beer and his double Teacher’s rocks, he said: “So what is it you’re needing, my man? How much and when. And a name, somewhere along the way.”
Faint tatters of an accent drifted to the surface, Cuban maybe.
“I’m throwing a chicken fry for my friends,” I said. “Someone told me you were the man to see.”
He looked at the bridge of my nose for a minute or so. No sign of alarm, suspicion, etc. (See above.)
“I get it,” he said. “You’re crazy, right? Like ol’ Banghead Terence over there. Hey: you been buttin’ down any walls lately, boy?”
“No sir,” Terence said. My informant.
“Nigger got his head scrambled right good back there in Nam, so now every few days we’ll find him in some alley somewhere and he’ll be running headfirst into the wall over and over again till he falls down and can’t get up no more. Wall just sits there.”
He finished his drink, rolled ice around the bottom of the glass.
“Figure something like that must of happened to you. Ain’t no other possible reason you be comin’ here this way, rubbing up against me like this. You got to be crazy too. Now you tell me: am I right?”
I smiled, ordered a couple more drinks for us, and started telling him why I was there. That Sheryl wanted me to talk to him, explain why he had to leave her alone.
“So you just run on out and do whatever any pussy tell you. That it, man?”
I started over. Clare was a friend of Sheryl’s and—
“So you be fucking them both at the same time? Or they do each other while you watch.”
I tried once more. I really did intend, or at least had convinced myself that I intended, just to talk to him. But intentions are slippery things.
When the gun came over the table’s edge, suddenly, at the exact moment he switched his eyes toward the door and lifted his face as though in greeting, I slammed my glass down as hard as possible on that hand. The glass shattered, but I didn’t feel it then. I did feel bones give way under the glass. My other hand was already moving toward him with a heavy ashtray, and that connected just above his left eye.
“Righteous,” Terence said from the bar.
T.C. went back out of the chair, toppling it, but sprang almost at once to his feet and made a grab for my shirtfront. Suckered, I leaned back with the top half of my body—and he swept my feet out from under me.
“Moves,” Terence said. “ ‘Member that shit.”
Things looked quite different from down there. It was absolutely amazing, for instance, how much bigger T.C. had gotten. Or how many cockroaches there were skittering about under chairs and things. At one point when T.C. was sitting on top of me kind of boxing my head from side to side playfully, I saw by a table leg what I’m certain was a severed, dried-up ear.
Then I watched two fingers jam up hard into his nose and heard cartilage give way there. When he lifted his hands to pull mine away, I struck him full force in the throat and he fell off me, gasping. I kicked him in the ribs, then a couple of times in the head before I noticed he was lying still and turning blue. No one made any move toward us; they simply watched.
“Better call the paramedics,” I told the bartender, staggering over to him. It sounded like: Btr. Kawl. Thpur. Medix.
He looked about the room, timing it.
“Man does comedy too,” he said.
There was skittery laughter.
But he also said, to me: “You better get on out of here. We’ll just ‘low Mr. T.C. to sleep it off a while. But come closing I ‘spect I’ll notice him there. Don’t see no way ‘round that. And then the Man’s gonna want to know things.”
I started out.
“That be two-ninety for the last round,” the bartender said.
Chapter Eight
I RANG THE BELL AND THEN JUST KIND OF leaned there against the sill to wait. I didn’t know what time it was. After one, maybe closer to two. Lights still
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