Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Told you I'd been drinking?"

"Yes, and don't yell, sir."

“I gave them six hundred bucks," he says, lowering his voice. "What do they mean I was drinking? Seven hundred bucks. I can't believe this! Seven hundred bucks and they say I was drinking. "

"Please don't yell, sir."

"No, wait a minute," he says, "don't go telling me not to…”

"Sir, we have…"

"If anything, I drink only in moderation…"

"We have other customers here, sir. I'm asking you to…”

"Maybe you ought to ask little Josie from Brooklyn if she and her blonde partner with the big tits aren't themselves responsible for what happened, hmm?"

"Watch the language, sir."

"Or is it easier to blame the whole fucking disaster…”

"Sir, I'm warning you…"

"… on a social drink I shared in a bar next door to a fucking whore house!"

"That's it, let's go," the man says, and shoves him toward the entrance door, and then opens the door and shoves him again, this time out into the hallway, where be shoves him yet another time, toward the stairs leading down to the street. Flailing backward toward the gaping steps, Ben loses his balance, reaches out to the black man for purchase. He feels the top step sliding away under his heel, grabs more frantically for the black man's support, the open maw of the stairwell behind him — and feels himself going over.

He knows better than to try to stop his downward tumble by sticking out a hand, that's a sure way to break a wrist or an arm. He's positive he'll break something anyway, a leg, his head, something. The steps are sharp and cruel and unforgiving, each angular joining of riser and tread unyielding. He jounces in punishing collision to the bottom of the stair way, and lies there breathless. He touches his nose, wondering if it's broken, it hurts so goddamn much. Above him, he can hear the black man thundering down the steps. The narrow entrance cubicle inside the frosted glass door is perhaps six feet square. The black man looms over him, reaches down for him, twists his hands into Ben's coat lapels….

"Hey, watch it," Ben says.

…yanks him to his feet, nods as if confirming that he is about to hurt Ben very badly, and then frees his right hand and smashes his fist into Ben's mouth.

The entryway is a limiting arena at best, confining to say the least when a man who appears to be seven feet tall with muscles everywhere and jailhouse tattoos all over his arms is throwing Ben from wall to wall when he isn't trying to batter him senseless. "You want to have some fun here?" he keeps saying over and again. "You want to have some fun, Whitey?" Ben is bleeding from the nose and the mouth. The black man keeps hitting him, mostly in the face because he knows this is where his blows are most visibly punishing, blood spurting, cuts opening, but he punches him brutally in the chest as well, and both arms, and the midsection, and the gut too because there is no referee here to warn about hitting below the belt, there is only a savage black man inexplicably enraged who is trying to teach Ben some kind of lesson here for having broken some kind of rules Ben didn't even know existed, when all he'd wanted to do was have a little fun here. "You want to have some fun here, Whitey?"

He is virtually senseless when the black man opens first the frosted glass inner door, and then the entrance door and drags Ben out onto the sidewalk and props him up with his left hand and punches him full in the face again with his right.

"Goodnight, Whitey," he says, and throws him into the gutter.

His legs are on the sidewalk, the rest of him is in the gutter. It is raining very hard now. Rain riddles the puddle in which he is lying, be will drown. He will die in a New York gutter, his face broken and bleeding, there will be headlines. Bits of flotsam float past his face in the gutter. he will choke, he will drown. A dog has shit in the gutter, the feces lies in a puddle close to Ben's face, it is a shame the people in this city do not obey the law.

I once had a dog, he thinks.

Or perhaps says.

"I once had a dog," he tells everyone or no one.

"Well, well, what've we got here?" someone asks.

A man's voice.

"He drunk?"

Another man.

"Got the shit beat out of him, looks like."

"Roll him over."

Hands on him.

The rain falls steadily onto his face and the front of the light raincoat. His hair is wet and hanging in strings on his forehead. The coat is drenched through to the jacket and shirt underneath. He doesn't know whether it's blood or water running down his face into the puddle In the gutter smelling of dog shit. He keeps his eyes squinched tight against the rain battering his face.

"Travelers checks ain't no fuckin good to us," one of the men says.

“There's cash, too," the other one says.

"How much?"

“Three hundred, looks like."

“Credit cards, too.”

“Take 'em. We'll fly ourselves to Paris."

Both men laugh.

His wallet splashes into the puddle.

One of the men kicks him in the head.

And then they are gone. And now there is only the sound of the rain beating down around him. He hopes a car won't come too close to the curb. and squash his head flat into the asphalt. He hopes a cop won't find him and arrest him, lying in the gutter this way. He wonders if they took his driver's license. He doesn't want anyone to know who he is, lying in the gutter this way. He is Benjamin Thorpe, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, but he doesn't want anyone to know who he is.

"Oh man," he hears someone say.

A woman's voice.

"You okay?"

He is not okay. He hurts everywhere, and he suspects he is bleeding his nose or his mouth or both. He is definitely not okay. He shakes his head. Tries to shake it. Glances upward and to his right. Sees heeled purple shoes, brown naked legs, a short purple leather skirt.

"You okay?" she says again.

Is kneeling beside him now. Shiny knees, purple leather skirt.

"Look what they done to you," she says.

She is lifting his head out of the gutter.

"Jesus," she whispers.

He can hear the sound of the rain everywhere around them.

“Listen," she says, "I got to call an ambulance, you hear?"

Shakes his head.

No.

No ambulance.

"You need a doctor, man."

Shakes his head again.

No.

"You're hurt real bad, man."

"No doctor," he says. "Go away. Leave me alone."

"You wanted or something?"

He doesn't understand her.

"You hear Me? Are the cops looking for you?"

"No," he says. His lips hurt when he talks.

"Then let me call an ambulance."

"No."

“I ain't gonna stand all night here in the rain with you."

"That's okay," he says.

"No, it ain't okay."

"It's okay, you can go. Thanks. You can go."

"Why you being so obstinate?"

The word "obstinate" amuses him somehow. He starts to laugh, spits up something he suspects is blood, begins coughing.

"Oh shit," she says, and sighs heavily. Come on," she says. "Get up. Get out the gutter, man, what's wrong with you? This wallet yours?”

"Yes."

She picks up the wallet, drops it in a purple leather tote, slings the bag over her shoulder again. He feels her hands under his arms, big hands, strong hands. Standing spread-legged, bracing herself on her high heels, she hoists him to his feet.

"Ow," he says.

"Yeah, Ow," she says. "Go tell a doctor Ow, you in such pain."

"Look," he says, "I think I can manage alone."

"Oh sure."

"No, really.

"You can't hardly stand up," she says, and waves her free arm at a taxi. She helps him into the cab, and then slides in beside him. He feels somewhat nauseous. He hopes he won't vomit here in the cab. The cab Ions through the sodden night, tires whispering against wet asphalt, windshield wipers snicking at the rain. Ben closes his eyes. Darkness rolls over him. He rests his head on her shoulder. She pats his hand. He wonders why.