T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

The choke holds, but Lex curses, his voice nasal, “Motherfucker!”

They fall onto the stairs, onto Blow, who bites Achilles’s thigh. All three of them now pile at the bottom of the stairway. Lex shakes Achilles, and the locket slips to the floor.

Blow slips the locket into his pocket, and staggers triumphantly to his feet, standing with hands on hips, panting, leaning forward with each exhalation like he’s breathing fire. He stomps on Achilles’s stomach. Achilles swallows hard against the vomit bubbling up his throat. Blow makes a cutting motion in the air, like he’s feeling his way through heavy curtains on a dark stage. Is that a knife in Blow’s hand? Sweat, or blood, stings Achilles’s eyes. Blow’s face hovers there, and before grabbing the hand with the knife, Achilles sees that Blow has near-perfect teeth, like his parents always got him to the dentist, a slightly oily forehead splotchy with acne, that faint teenage mustache, a left eye slightly larger than the right, a ring that says Washington High. Achilles grabs the hand with the knife, finds the pinkie, and bends it back until it snaps, then the ring finger. Snap. Then the middle. Snap. Blow drops the knife and cries, “Shit!” backing into the corner, clutching his injured hand to his chest, cradling it like a bird.

Lex pushes with his legs, pulling Achilles up the stairs as he twists Achilles’s head sharply to the side. Achilles claws weakly overhead at Lex’s face. He was never good at getting out of headlocks; Sgt. Click always teased him about that in basic training. He could see the drill sergeant now, pacing back and forth in his T-shirt and creased BDUs, taunting Achilles. “Don’t be a sissy, Connie. Don’t panic. It feels like forever, but it’s only been thirty seconds, and you can hold your breath for sixty. Don’t panic. Release a little air to let out carbon dioxide so your body doesn’t panic.”

There’s movement above him. He’s sure of it this time. Troy? At the top of the stairs the darkness unfolds as shadow ripples over shadow like an undercurrent. He pushes upstairs, toward that movement, even as Lex squeezes tighter.

The pinch in Achilles’s neck is sharp as a pin through the eardrum, hot enough to make him emit one high cry, “Troy!”

He sees his mom in her backpack, in his room, surrounded by boxes, stacks of paper, and those old Playboy s he never threw away.

Pain gallops down his spine, running in spikes, leaving a trail of fire that’s doused by the sensation of cold oil rising up his back the way it climbs a wick, the dark tide fingering his limbs until they’re heavy, as if he’s wading through a marsh. His legs twitch, his arms jerk involuntarily, his fists and feet knocking holes in the sheetrock. A cloud of white dust settles on his face and his body convulses, wanting to sneeze. With each beat of his heart, he feels he’ll explode, his lungs grating, his skin straining like it’s two sizes too small, his entire body growing taut as if overinflated, his head heavy, filled with water. The tingling in his limbs passes to burning then blistering then warm. They are almost to the top of the stairs. His eyes adjust. On the landing, wearing a Saints cap, leaning casually in the corner like a referee, a coat rack watches over them. Relaxed, Achilles pisses himself.

“Shit!” Lex shifts. Achilles finds air.

Come on, Connie. God hates a coward. Achilles reaches overhead, grabs one of Lex’s ears with one hand, pulls out his mechanical pencil with the other, and stabs overhead three quick times. The first blow bucks off Lex’s forehead, the second glances off the side, hitting the carpet. The third finds the eye, soft and wet. Achilles feels a primordial cry — mournful and panicked — travel up the big man’s chest and clatter in his throat.

The chokehold breaks.

His voice dry and chiseled with fear, Lex whispers, “Arnold, help.”

Lex crab-walks up the stairs. Achilles struggles to his feet, holding the wall for support. Blow shrinks deeper into the corner, pressing his back tight against the wall, that squat neck all but disappearing as he drops to his haunches, tucks his bad hand under his arm, and waves his good arm like a white flag. Achilles kneels before Blow and calmly extends his hand, palm up, holding it there until Blow returns his necklace. When he does, Achilles first pockets his locket, then throws Blow to the floor, forcing him onto his back, kneeling on his chest, choking and punching, slamming Blow’s head against the floor until the dry thuds become wet. Blow’s face contorts with each blow, the web of red spit stretching across his lips and breaking just as panic passes into shock. He looks as if this is the first time he’s lost a fight, as if Achilles popped his cherry.

He is Bud, Lex, the shiftless kid in the Afro waving wildly at Wages. He is the teens hanging on the corners in southwest DC, drug dealers, death dealers. The man who mugged Achilles and his mom. Men who think that fucking makes fatherhood.

He is the other Achilles.

Face blank and black as a TV that has lost its signal, Blow writhes and coils, his limbs twitching as if electrified. And, and squeezing, and the other Achilles keeps squeezing, squeezing so tightly Blow’s skin presses through his fingers like dough; squeezing until Blow, in his panic, bites the tip off his tongue; until Blow’s movements are weak and dreamy; until his twitching is only an occasional jerk, like a lazy swimmer barely staying afloat; until his eyes bulge and his pupils zoom out and a shroud of calm seals his face and even his acne scars smooth out, and he stops crying, and even Achilles, finally satisfied, has stopped breathing.

He hears a shot. Lex stands at the top of the stairs, waving a pistol, his left eyelid curled around the mechanical pencil that pins it shut.

“Daddy, he’s killed me,” whispers Blow.

Lex fires again. Achilles scrambles out of the stairwell, down the hall, and through the back door. He runs down the alley, away from the car, and doesn’t stop until he’s sure he isn’t being followed, by which point he is lost, wandering one dark unnamed street after another.

His stinging eyes made stars of the streetlights. He tried blotting his face with his shirt, but that didn’t staunch the flow. He knew that head wounds bleed easily, so he wasn’t worried by the blood or the bruises. When he stopped to study his reflection in the window of a rim shop, his head was framed in faint silver. But he deserved no halo. He had cut and ran. His shirt was sticking to his back like a wet rag. In the distance, blinking red and yellow lights. He limped down the deserted street in the direction of the neon oasis, a Kikkin Chikkin. Chikkin indeed sounded Kikkin, Praise Jesus. He pushed the door open. A blast of cold air. A golden bell jangled. Time for school, Sunday school, Praise Jesus. The security guard, hands out as if he were afraid to touch Achilles, escorted him back outside before he could get to the bathroom. He promised to buy something, offered to pay first, but the guard pushed him out. “Not like that you don’t. You could infect somebody. No one wants to eat around you looking like that. Go on now. Get.” The guard had the same New Orleans accent as Bud and Lex and Blow: “gone” instead of “go on,” “git” for “get.”

Achilles stood at the door. A woman at the counter ordered a large bucket of chicken, half mild and half kikken, all dark meat, a dozen biscuits, macaroni on the side, and a few of those peppers. Orange or red? She couldn’t decide on the drink. Achilles drooled. The scent of fried chicken was strong now. The guard stood in the doorway, flanked by two friends, the smells and cool air wafting around them.

“Orange,” the woman at the counter said, flipping her hair. “Large orange drink.” She pronounced it “erenge.” She wore a shiny black sleeveless shirt and her bra straps hung by her armpits. Handprints were painted across the back of her jeans, one on each cheek. She was dark-skinned with platinum dreads, heavy in the legs and ass. The last thing she needed was fried chicken. She was about one two-piece dinner away from the ripcord being pulled on her raft. Merriweather would’ve liked her, being a thigh man. Achilles usually preferred drumsticks, and wasn’t into women like her, but between the arch in her back and her manner of sashaying even as she stood, his gaze was drawn back to her again and again. She was scrappy, spunky, but he could easily see her kneeling, hunched over with her head to the floor as if praying to Allah, naked, slathered in Crisco, with an apple jammed in her mouth like a gag ball.