David Goodis - The Moon in the Gutter

“That winds it up,” someone said.

Kerrigan’s eyes were closed and he was flat on his back. There was no pain, only the feeling of wanting to stay here and keep sinking into the darkness.

But then he heard a voice saying, “Finished?”

He opened his eyes and looked up and saw Ruttman. He grinned and said, “Not yet.”

Ruttman sighed reluctantly and stepped back, giving him a chance to get up. He got up slowly, now feeling the pain, the grogginess, and it was as though his jaw were bolted to his skull and a wrench were tightening the bolt.

He saw Ruttman walking in to measure him, the right hand taking aim. In Ruttman’s eyes there was no satisfaction. Ruttman came in close, feinted with the left, and threw the right.

Kerrigan moved his head, got away from the big fist, blocked a left that tried to find his ribs, blocked the right coming again toward his jaw, then side-stepped going away from another right. Ruttman grunted, lunged, missed with both hands, lunged again, and missed again as Kerrigan crouched going backward, weaving and dodging, ducking and coming up and then moving away from where Ruttman wanted him to be.

Ruttman’s expression had changed. Now his eyes showed impatience. He took a deep breath and charged at Kerrigan, putting everything he had in an overhand right that whizzed toward Kerrigan’s head. The fist hit empty air and nothing else. Ruttman lost his balance and stumbled and fell to one knee.

Someone laughed.

Ruttman came up fast. He rushed again, his left arm swinging hard. Kerrigan went inside the hook, shot a short right to Ruttman’s belly, used the right again, ripping it to the ribs. Ruttman lowered his hands to protect his midsection, and Kerrigan took a backward step, took aim, and hauled off and smashed a straight right hand to the chin.

He saw Ruttman staggering sideways, the thick arms flailing. The dock foreman struggled to keep his balance, managed to hold on and stay on his feet, moving unsteadily, eyes dull, then bracing himself and coming in again.

Kerrigan was ready. He jabbed with his left, jabbed again and again, finding Ruttman’s nose and mouth. Then another vicious jab that had all his strength behind it, his fist twisting as it landed against Ruttman’s brow. He saw the flaring red streak above Ruttman’s eye, and he sent another left to the same place, that widened the cut.

The dock workers were silent, staring in disbelief as they saw Ruttman taking it and falling backward and still taking it. They were watching the downfall of a man they believed to be invincible. And they didn’t like it.

Kerrigan put another left against Ruttman’s bad eye. Ruttman let out a groan of pain, tried to cover up, and Kerrigan, working very fast now, hooked a left to the head, hooked again to the body, chopped with the right and brought more blood and a couple of teeth from Ruttman’s mouth.

Someone yelled, “Come on, Ruttman! Don’t take it. Go after him.”

“Get him, Ruttman!”

“Knock his brains out!”

As the stevedores shouted encouragement to Ruttman, it was like a heavy weight falling on Kerrigan’s chest. Suddenly he realized he was fighting a man he had no right to fight. He was defeating the man and he hated the idea.

Because the adversary was not Ruttman. The true enemy was sitting there at the wheel of the parked car, her golden hair glimmering, her eyes taunting him.

It was as though she were saying, You’re afraid of me.

He could hear the grinding of his teeth as he realized it was true. He had the feeling of facing a high fence, much too high for him to climb. The fists of Ruttman were coming toward him but it wasn’t important, he didn’t care. He scarcely felt the knuckles that bashed his face. It wasn’t a fight any longer, it was just a mess, a loused-up comedy without any laughs.

Something crashed against his mouth. He tasted blood, but he wasn’t conscious of the taste, or the grinding pain.

He was thinking, You can’t handle her, you know you can’t.

A big fist hit him on the side of the head, sent him falling back. He saw Ruttman moving in for the follow-up, saw Ruttman’s arms coming in like pistons. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t even bother to lift his hands.

His head jerked to the side as Ruttman’s right hand caught him on the jaw. Ruttman hit him in the midsection with a short ripping left that caused him to double up, then straightened him with a long left, then another right to the jaw, setting him up now, gauging him, sort of propping him there, and then winding it up and sending it in, a package of thunder that became a flashing, blinding streak of light going up from his chin to his brain. He sailed back and went down like a falling plank and rolled over on his face.

The onlookers stood motionless for several moments. Then a few stevedores moved forward to join Ruttman, who was bending over Kerrigan and muttering, “He’s out. He’s out cold.”

“Is he breathing?”

“He’s all right,” Ruttman said.

They turned Kerrigan over so that he rested on his back. For a few seconds they were silent, just staring at his face.

His eyes were closed, but the men weren’t looking at his eyes. They were watching his mouth.

“He’s smiling,” one of them said. “Look at this crazy bastard. What’s he got to smile about?”

Kerrigan was deep in the soothing darkness and far away from everything, yet his blacked-out brain was speaking to him, smiling and saying derisively, You damn fool.

They lifted Kerrigan and carried him into the pier office and put him on a battered leather sofa in the dusty back room that was used for infirmary purposes. They splashed water in his face and worked some whisky down his throat, and within a few minutes he was sitting up and accepting a cigarette from Ruttman. He took a long drag and smiled amiably at the dock foreman.

Ruttman smiled back. “Hurt much?” Kerrigan shrugged.

The other stevedores were slowly leaving the office. Ruttman waited until all of them were gone and then he said, “You gave me a damn nice tussle. For a while there you had me going. But all of a sudden you quit cold. Why?”

Kerrigan shrugged again. “Ran out of gas.”

“No, you didn’t. You were doing fine.” Ruttman’s eyes narrowed. “Come on, tell me why you quit.”

“I just lost interest. I got bored.”

Ruttman sighed. “Guess I’ll have to let it ride.” And then, deciding on a final try, “If you’ll open up, maybe I can help you.”

“Who needs help?”

“You do,” Ruttman said. “For one thing, you’re out of a job.”

Kerrigan tried to take it casually, but he felt the bite of genuine panic as he thought of the family’s financial condition. His weekly pay check was the only money coming into the house these days. Of course, there were Bella’s three nights a week as a hat-check girl, but she had the gambling habit, mostly horses, and she was always in the red. So here he was with five mouths to feed and no job and the picture was definitely unfunny.

He made an effort to cheer himself up. “This ain’t the only pier on the river. I’ll go see Ferraco on Nineteen. He’s always got a shortage.”

“No,” Ruttman said. “He won’t hire you. None of them’ll hire you.”

“Why not?” he asked, but he already knew the answer.

“You’re blackballed,” Ruttman said. “It’s going down the line already.”

Kerrigan stared down at the uncarpeted floor. He took another drag at the cigarette and it tasted sour.

He heard Ruttman saying, “I’d like to go to bat, but you won’t give me anything to work on.”

He went on staring at the floor. “The hell with it.”

Ruttman let out a huge sigh. “I guess it ain’t no use,” he said aloud to himself. Then, looking at Kerrigan, “Better stay here and rest a while. When you come out, I’ll have your pay check ready.”