David Goodis - The Blonde on the Street Corner

He rushed. He threw a right and missed. He was wide with a left. He took two rights to the side of the face and a left to the nose. He was bleeding. He clinched and held hard and bashed rights to the kidney and lefts to the ribs and tried to butt Ralph in the face. Ralph got one fist free and brought it up to Fred’s chin. The clinch was broken. Fred fell back. Ralph leaped at him and crashed a left to the chest and another to the jaw. Fred went down.

From the other rooms more men came running. They crowded about the circular space. They stood on packages and boxes. Everybody was yelling.

“Attaboy, Ralph!”

“Give it to him, Ralph!”

“Knock his goddam head off!”

“Give it to him!”

Fred was up. He came in slowly. Ralph didn’t wait for him. Ralph rushed and threw a right to the head. Fred was ready. He ducked, came in, clinched. Again he bashed the right to the kidney, and bored the left into the ribs. Pain bounced through Ralph, and for an instant his eyes were closed. And then Fred butted him. Fred’s skull hit Ralph in the forehead. Ralph went down. Fred threw himself at Ralph and grabbed him in a stranglehold.

Ralph slid his hand up under Fred’s arm and his fingers were spread wide. His fingers jabbed up fast. His forefinger went into Fred’s bad eye. Fred screamed and let go and rolled over. Ralph rolled with him. Fred tried to crawl away. Ralph grabbed him by the neck and twisted him around and smashed a right to the nose. Blood squirted.

They rolled over, crashed into boxes. Fred grabbed Ralph in a crotch-hold and lifted him high, slammed him against a stack of cardboard boxes. Ralph got up slowly. Fred leaped at him, bent to apply another crotch-hold. And Ralph brought his knee up fast, and Fred’s head snapped back.

“My God — break it up!” a man yelled.

“Let them finish it out,” someone said.

Fred grabbed at a box and threw it at Ralph. Ralph ducked and the box whizzed above his head. He leaped at Fred. Grunting, bleeding thickly from nose and mouth, Fred threw a short right. It was wide. They went to the floor, twisting and kicking and squirming. Again Ralph jabbed his fingers up, and again one of his fingers went into Fred’s eye. Fred screamed and threw his hands to his bad eye and fell away. Ralph rolled to the side and got up fast. Fred backed away. Ralph rushed him, fell into him and again they rolled over. Boxes toppled and crashed into them. They were up, swinging into each other. Fred was gasping. He was very bloody. He was falling. Ralph would not let him fall. Ralph lifted him with an uppercut.

Again Fred started to fall. And Ralph reached back with his right arm, brought his arm over his head. His fist came down and crashed against Fred’s chin.

It was ended. Fred was unconscious.

Ralph didn’t know that. A lot of men were closing in on him, to stop him. He didn’t want to be stopped. He still had a lot to do. They weren’t going to stop him. They were grabbing at his arms. He couldn’t move his arms. He was kicking and writhing. He pulled one arm away and hit somebody in the chest. They were forcing him back. From somewhere a lot of red was coming down and it gleamed because it was wet and from where it came there was a lot of hurt, like a blade pushing in slowly. Even so, he still had a lot that he wanted to do and they ought to leave him alone.

The men pushed and dragged and pulled, and finally they had Ralph on the floor. They tried to talk to him.

“It’s all done, all over. Take it easy.”

“He don’t even hear you, Joe.”

Cold water came down and splashed into Ralph’s face.

He blinked and sensed that his teeth were locked together. He closed his eyes. Opening them, he saw clearly, as if he had previously been looking through a curtain, and now the curtain was drawn away and he could see everything. He blinked again. He felt pain in his head, and then in his chest and his stomach and all over. Again he blinked.

“He’s all right now,” one of the men said.

“Another bucket of water.”

“No, he’s all right now,” George said, pushing his way through the crowd. “Let me take care of him.”

“You a friend of his?”

“Yeah,” George said.

Ralph sat up, shaking his head slowly. He was gazing at the floor.

“You’re all right now,” George said.

Ralph nodded. George helped him to his feet.

“How do you feel?” one of the men said.

“I’m all right,” Ralph said. He watched blood and saliva drip from his lips.

Men wearing starched white collars and neatly pressed dark suits came down the stairway. In their buttonholes they wore white flowers. They hurried down the steps, frowning and saying, “What’s going on here?”

The men with dirty faces and calloused hands said nothing. As if they had rehearsed long and carefully for something like this, they stepped back and made a path. And down the path walked the starched collars and dark suits, fast and brisk and frowning down the path, to stop finally and stare at the form on the floor.

Fred was on his back and his arms were spread wide. His eyes were closed and puffed and dark green and purple. His nose was a mess. His lips were swollen and cut. There was blood on his clothing. There were thick drops of blood now drying on his shoes.

One of the starched collars put a hand to his face and murmured, “My God—”

Another starched collar turned to the dirty faces and said, “What do you call this?”

The dirty faces grinned. One of them let out a laugh. “You’re fired!”

“Am I?” the dirty face said. He clenched his fists and moved forward. “That’s swell. Before I go I want to give you a little Christmas present.”

“Now don’t get excited—” the starched collar said. Another starched collar was bending over Fred and saying, “We’d better get a doctor for this man.”

From the street came the sound of the crowds and the carol singing and the jingling bells. And the voice of Santa Claus. The voices of children. The sound spun around over the heads of the pouring crowd on the seething street below the brightly colored lights and the cold grey sky.

Ken said, “I wish I was there to see it.”

George looked at the floor and shook his head slowly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Somehow I’m sorry I saw it.”

“What do you mean?” Ken said.

“I don’t know.”

“You must mean something,” Ken said.

For a while they were quiet.

Then Ken said, “I think I know what you mean.”

George kept shaking his head. “To see him like that. Just to see the guy like that. It got me kind of scared. If you had seen him. His eyes. I don’t know—”

“Couldn’t you stop him?” Ken said.

George shook his head. “Nobody wanted to stop him. And even when they did, it took about twelve of them to get him quiet.”

Ken nodded slowly. “I remember once when we were kids, he—”

George said, “I remember a lot of times. Once he—”

They stopped. They looked at each other.

Ken said, “Christ Almighty.”

They said nothing for a while.

George said, “They took this guy Fred to the hospital.”

“What about Ralph?”

“He was fired.”

Dippy walked in.

“Peace, brothers,” he said.

“To hell with you,” Ken said.

“Where’s Ralph?” Dippy said.

George told him what happened earlier in the day.

Dippy rolled a cigarette and said, “What is this?”

Ralph sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the paper on which he had put down some words. Maybe Ken would get an idea from the words. He really didn’t care whether Ken got an idea or not. He wondered why he had put the words on paper. He was only going to tear up the paper anyway. He put the point of the pencil to his lips. Slowly he lowered it to the paper.