Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

Then we heard it. A sort of high-pitched screech. It come gusting past us like a dark wind.

Chip gripped my sleeve. ‘That wasn’t Hiero?’

I listened for something more. Nothing.

‘Hell,’ Chip hissed.

And then we was both running.

We come round the corner breathing hard, and I stopped. Everything slowed right down. Under the faint lamps of our building, in the middle of that alley, three Boots got the kid by his hair, like they hauling a steer by the horns. Trying to drag him off his feet. But somehow the kid ain’t gone down, he just flung about like trash in the wind. A fourth bastard, tall and thick through the neck, was holding Paul by the throat. My stomach lurched, the sick inching up. Felt like a light was going out in me.

‘Chip,’ I hissed. ‘Holy hell.’

He already taken off his hat, was wriggling out of his jacket. He strode right on up to the nearest Boot, and leaning down low, kicked the bastard’s left knee in. There was a curious crunching sound, then a high ugly squeal. And then Chip start to kicking him in the throat where he lay writhing. A second Boot turned, swung back, cracked a bottle over Chip’s head. Old Jones gone down clutching his skull.

‘Goddamnit,’ I hissed.

‘Jewkikes!’ the Boot start hollering. ‘Jewfuckers! Nigger kikes!’

I waded on in. In a flash I seen the shadows under the far building stir, begin to heave, and it was like the whole damn doorway just shuddered on out: Big Fritz. He seized the Boot brawling with Paul by the back of the neck. Lifting him clean off his feet, he thrown him down on the cobblestones like a sack of meat. Started stomping him shitless.

I was punching that son of a bitch with the bottle hard in the teeth, his face twisting up. I kept trying to get hold of his collar but he kept slipping away from me, spitting blood, clawing at my damn cheeks, at my ears. ‘Where’s your racial pride,’ he screamed. His mouth was like a torn hole, filling with blood. ‘Niggerfucker! Niggerfucker niggerfucker niggerfucker!’

His eyes was jagged glass in the weak light.

I hit him again. And again. Then something struck me sharp in the ribs and I fell in a rush, trying to twist away from the damn boot heels I known was coming. I could hear the kid screaming, just screaming and screaming. No kicks come. I winced, glanced up. Big Fritz was standing over me, shuddering.

‘Fritz, you sweet son of a bitch,’ I shouted. ‘You fightin like a bastard .’

But when he turned his face I seen he was crying.

Footsteps echoed from far off in the dark alley. I stumbled up, groaning. I wasn’t thinking clear. Three more Boots was coming hard at us, all plain-dressed but for the damn jackboots under their long pants.

I was moving slow now. I swung clumsily and missed. Got slammed in the gut once, then again. But I got a good knuckle up under the jaw and that damn Boot fell to a knee. Hell. But now the first bastard was back up and I hit him hard as I could in his face, feeling something crack wetly under my fist.

When I turned round I seen Fritz lurching after two of them, as they gone running back down into darkness. There was two Boots just writhing on the cobblestones, whimpering horribly. I just wasn’t able to catch my breath, and kept bending low, gasping, spitting up some of what I et earlier. Wheezing and wheezing.

There was a low scuffling in the doorway to our building and when I lift up my head I seen the glint of it first. That broken bottle. Held to the kid’s throat. ‘I know this Jewfucker,’ the Boot yelled. ‘You’re the fuck who fronts that jazz band, that fucking nigger music. I’m going to gut you. I’m going to gut you.’

But he was looking at Chip, weaving unsteadily in front of him. There was blood all down the back of Chip’s shirt, like a sticky black apron. Then old Jones was crouching, like to find his balance. I blinked, wiped blood from my eyes. Then the kid was crawling away, and Chip and that Boot was punching each other against the walls of the doorway, and then all a sudden Chip was standing over the Boot and the Boot was lying across the stoop, his head lolling in the gutter.

Something black seeped from the Boot’s chest, a long wet stain on the stones.

‘Chip,’ I hissed. ‘We got to go.’

Chip ain’t moved.

Fritz was holding Paul under one arm, pulling the kid to his feet with the other. He give me a sharp look. ‘Sid,’ he called out. ‘Let’s go .’

‘I know. Chip ,’ I said quietly. I gone over to him. ‘We got to go now .’

He was still holding the neck of that bottle in his fist. I watched the blood ooze out from under the Boot’s body, glowing blacker than pitch, like some terrible dark maw been opened in the pavement, a portal going down.

‘ Chip ,’ I said again.

He finally turned. We run.

‘They goin be comin for us,’ said Chip. Wincing, he twisted around, glowering up at Fritz. ‘Hell, brother, you diggin to China or what?’

Frowning, Big Fritz leaned back from Chip’s scalp, a shard of black glass in one palm. His huge fingers poised delicately on the tweezers.

‘So what you sayin, buck?’ I said.

Paul was holding a wet cloth to his cheekbone, where a violent red welt was rising. ‘He’s saying we have to stay here,’ he muttered through the rag. ‘He’s saying he hopes you sleep alright on the floor.’

The kid sat picking at his hands, saying nothing.

I shifted on my seat, trying to breathe better. My ribs was damn sore. The Hound felt dark, utterly silent round us. We ain’t known where else to go.

We sat in darkness at the edge of the dance floor, the stage in shadow behind us, the sole light shining down from Ernst’s office over the alcove where the bar was. His door stood open up there, the light spilling out in a tan shaft over the stairs. Ernst sat smoking in silence at the table beside ours.

There was a quiet click as Fritz dropped the shard into a dish.

‘They goin use this as a excuse,’ said Chip.

‘Excuse for what?’

‘For anythin. Beatin up folk. Arrestin gates. Who knows.’

Fritz frowned. ‘It might not be so bad as all that. There are still laws. They don’t just break them, not any more.’

I shook my head. ‘What country you been livin in? That exactly what they do.’

Chip sucked his teeth. ‘ Hell , Fritz. Go gentle .’

Fritz grunted.

There was another click of broken glass.

Ernst sat at a angle in his chair, one knee folded over the other, a cig flaring and dying out in his pale fingers. When he finally spoke, it was softly, with measure. ‘Chip’s right. We should stay here until we can figure something out.’

‘Guess we ain’t stickin round Berlin after all,’ I said to Fritz. ‘Better pack you spare undershorts. How you say, Mr Armstrong, you got mighty handsome calves in French?’

‘You find this amusing, Sid?’ said Fritz.

‘I ain’t laughin, buck,’ I said. ‘It hurt too damn much to laugh.’

‘Hiero?’ Paul said then. He leaned across, dipped his chin to get a look at the kid. ‘You alright?

The kid was trembling light and fast. He glanced at Paul, glanced away.

‘Aw, he fine. Just dreamin of Paris.’

‘Course he fine,’ said Chip. ‘Kid ain’t got a mark on him. Jesus hell , Fritz. I ain’t a slab of wurst.’

Fritz gestured with his free hand, then set his huge palm on Chip’s scalp, angling it into the light. ‘None of you find it peculiar, this woman showing up with her ridiculous offer the very night we get attacked? How long have we been living here? And how many incidents have we had?’