Charlie Huston - A Dangerous Man

– Hey. Hey, man. You can’t do that.

At the top of the fence are three strands of barbwire. I boost myself up so that both my feet are on the top bar of the fence. I balance there for a second, then push off, driving with my legs.

– Hey! I’m gonna call a cop, man.

I clear the barbwire and belly flop on top of the nearest bus.

– Hey.

The wind knocked out of me, I worm to the edge of the bus and push myself over. I drop to the ground and lay there for a second, trying to get my wind back. Sprawled on my stomach, I can see under the bus and through the chain-link. I see two sets of feet run up. One of them starts to climb. The feet of the VHS guy come around his booth.

– Hey! That’s city property. You can’t go in there.

I see the VHS guy’s feet leave the ground, and then he’s lying on his back, holding the side of his head. The other feet are going up the fence. I stand, one hand held over my stomach, and start working my way into the maze of yellow school buses. By the time I realize I’ve lost my gun, Adam and Martin are over the fence.

I STAY HUNCHED below the level of the windows. It’s easy enough because my gut still aches from slapping down on the roof of the bus. Crap. That’s where my gun is, either on top of that bus or on the ground next to it. I can cut back, circle back to that spot in the fence. No. Think. There are two of them, they’ll be spreading out. I can’t circle back. I need to lose them in here. Maybe go to ground. Find a good spot to hunker down and wait them out until they give up. I look around for a good hiding spot. It’s all buses, the same hiding places over and over. I keep moving, heading toward what I think is the farside of the yard. I hear something. A voice? I stop. There are footsteps. They crunch in the gravel and then stop. I get down on my hands and knees and look under the buses, back in the direction I came from. Several buses back, Martin is lying on the ground, his phone pressed to his face. The footsteps crunch after me. I stand and start running. He’s spotting for Adam, tracking my legs under the buses. I need to put a few more between us so he loses sight of me in the jumble of tires.

I dodge back and forth randomly, losing all sense of where I came from or which way might lead to the edge of the yard. I stop. I hear nothing but “99 Problems” blasting from the bumper cars. I’m sandwiched between two of the short buses that used to bring the special education kids to my high school. Straight ahead is the rear of one of the big buses. A ladder runs up past its emergency exit, bolted there so a guy can climb up and clean the roof. I run to it, climb on top and flatten myself on the sunbaked steel.

The hot metal feels good against my sore stomach. I rest my face against it. It burns for the first second and then starts to ease the pain beneath my skin. I crane my neck to get a look around. The Coney midway is to my left, the boardwalk and the ocean straight ahead.

The buses are packed tight. There’s just enough room between them for a man to walk, just enough room for him not to have to turn his shoulders to get through. What I can do, I can stand up and run across the tops of the buses to the fence. By the time these guys realize what I’m doing I’ll be halfway there. I can be over the fence and back on the boardwalk, back where there are people. That’s what I need. People. Coming in here was stupid. I need to get back to where there are people.

I get up to my hands and knees, ready to jump to my feet and start running down the length of the bus.

– Hey!

I flatten.

– Hey.

It’s coming from below.

– You! Hey, you! Hang on there. Hang on.

I twist my head from side to side, looking for who is calling to me. But nowhere does a head poke up above the level of the bus tops.

– Hang on, hang on!

– What? Yes. We are. Hello.

Adam’s voice. He’s below me.

The new voice comes closer.

– Yeah, you. Who the hell do you think I’m talking to? Hold on there. And tell your buddy to hold on.

– Uh, yes. Da. Yes.

Adam says something in Russian.

– You guys see the No Trespassing signs around this place?

– We are sorry. What?

– The signs. No Trespassing?

– No. No. Sorry.

– This is off-limits in here. Verboten, like.

– Sorry. No. We did not know.

– Yeah. Well there’s a guy over in the flea market says you gave him a shove. Want to explain that to me.

– We. No. A man. He tried to.

He mumbles to himself in Russian.

– He tried to grab my brother.

Martin starts chattering loudly in Russian.

– Whoa. Fucking whoa! Tell your brother to settle down.

Adam says something else in Russian and Martin is quiet.

– The guy grabbed your brother?

– Da. Yes.

– The little guy out there shoved your bigass brother?

– He. Bigass? He grabbed him. Da.

– OK. Well, that’s not his story.

– He is. He is bigass! We. We do not.

He starts rattling off Russian again.

– Whoa! Fucking shut it.

Adam shuts it.

– OK. Whatever happened, you guys are not supposed to be in here. What we are going to do, we are going to walk to the exit. We are going to go talk to the guy in the flea market and sort out who grabbed who. We’re gonna take it all very easy, ’cause no one has been hurt. And if you and the guy out there can settle your differences without any charges, and that is how I’d really like to handle this, I will give you a citation for trespassing on city property. OK? Sound good? You get all that?

– Citation?

– Like a ticket. Just. Just come on. Come on.

Adam talks in Russian, Martin answers, and footsteps start walking away.

– Hey! Hey! Where’s your friend?

– Friend?

– Tavarich. Right?

– Yes, I know what a friend is.

– Great. So where is he? Guy said there were three of you.

– No. Nyet. No. Only us.

Silence.

– Yeah, OK, fine. Just. Let’s just get out of here, it’s hot as hell.

I scoot to the edge of the roof and look down and see Adam and Martin threading their way through the buses, followed by a cop.

And my phone rings.

I pull it out of my pocket and press the power stud. The phone turns off, but not before emitting one final loud chime to let me know it won’t be ringing again. I wait. The footsteps don’t come back.

OK. Good. That was good. Sometimes a cop is good. Now I’ll. They were going that way. So now I’ll just go the other way and I’ll. I’ll. Shit. I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll get out of here. I dangle my legs over the side of the bus and drop to the ground right at Branko’s feet.

I try to run. Branko trips me. He’s on top of me. His arms dragging mine behind me, his legs twining around mine.

– Calm down.

I jerk and writhe, trying to break free.

– I cannot talk until you calm down.

I open my mouth wide and scream. Branko pulls a racquetball from his pocket, stuffs it in my open mouth and holds his hand over it.

– Stop! We must talk. We will go someplace where we can talk. Out there.

He jerks his chin in the direction of the midway.

– We will go someplace where there are people. You will feel safe and we will talk.

I’m screaming through the ball, trying to force it out of my mouth with my voice.

Branko squeezes my face.

– Stop this. There is no more of this to do. You are not saving your parents this way. Think.

I stop screaming.

I think.

– Yes, think.

I think.

– You see now?

I think.

– Yes, you see.

He takes his hand from my face and holds it below my mouth. I push the ball out with my tongue and it lands in his palm. He wipes it off on his pants and puts it back in his pocket.