Christian Kiefer - The Animals

Let’s go, Nat said quietly.

Rick stood with his hands clenched at his sides. The room around them seemed frozen, the other few diners waiting for whatever was to come.

Let’s go, Nat said again.

Rick shifted his weight slightly and took a first tentative step backward. Then another. Asshole, he said.

Watch out, little boy, the thin man said. He had returned to his hamburger now and sat chewing.

Rick stood for a moment longer and then turned and disappeared out the door. The entire exchange had not even taken a minute. Nat fumbled with his wallet and laid a few bills on the counter.

Your boy needs to be more careful, the man said, and when Nat did not respond he said, You hear me?

I hear you, Nat said then.

Your boy needs to be more careful.

No one was talking to you, Nat said, his voice quiet, as if even in saying it he hoped it would not be heard.

Do I need to teach you a goddamn lesson too? the man said.

Nat looked up at him but the man only stared down at his dinner plate, the hamburger held in his hand above a plate ringed by fries and spattered condiments.

We’re leaving, Nat said.

I thought so, the man said.

Outside it had gone full dark, the sky a black slate without depth or dimension, the streetlight in front of Landrum’s pooling a brief lit circle upon the sidewalk. Rick was already a few dozen yards away, moving up South Virginia Street toward the car and the long hopscotch of bars they had run too many times to count. Grady’s. The 715 Club. Del Mar Station. The Zephyr. And Rick’s favorite: the Grand Ballroom.

He jogged up the sidewalk to Rick, saying nothing, only walking next to him along the street in silence.

That guy was bullshit, Rick said at last.

For sure, Nat said.

I should go back there and kick his ass.

Well, maybe, Nat said. Don’t forget you’re on parole.

Fuck.

Plus, you probably wouldn’t be able to eat there anymore if you started a fight.

I didn’t start a fight, Rick said. That motherfucker started a fight. His pace was furious up the slow rise, moving past a dark yard beyond which a house sat with a faint yellow light burning in the window. A small dog yapped at them from somewhere within.

For no reason he could think of, Nat remembered the nature documentary he had seen on Channel 5 that afternoon. Even now there was a place where lions and water buffalo and white birds circled a muddy watering hole in the center of a vast undifferentiated plain. The animals eyed each other warily, the birds fluttering between the backs of the buffalo and the branches of a scraggly olive green tree that provided a few bars of shade under which the lions sat, watching the water, watching the buffalos, watching the birds.

I’ve got that pipe in the car, Rick said. You got anything in the trunk?

Like what?

I don’t know. A fucking tire iron or something?

Really?

Yeah really. We already let some guy steal our fucking Atari, Rick said. I’m not gonna pussy out again. Not twice in one day. He was silent for a moment. They had reached the car and stood now beside it on the dark sidewalk. You got anything in the trunk or what? Rick said.

I think I got that old baseball bat in there still.

Well? Rick said.

Well what?

Unlock the car.

Nat did so and leaned through and unlocked the passenger door and Rick pulled the short length of steel pipe from the floorboards.

You’re really gonna do this? Nat said.

Yeah, goddammit. He held the pipe in his fist and swung it from side to side. You in or not?

Nat stood looking at Rick and then looking down at the mote of light below. OK, he said at last.

That’s what I’m talking about, Rick said. Just to put some scare into him. No one fucking talks to me like that. Not anymore.

Nat unlocked the trunk and indeed the baseball bat was there. Part of him had hoped the trunk would be empty, but the bat had been there since long before they even came to Reno, an innocent implement now made sinister, as if he had somehow stepped into someone else’s story.

They leaned against the car then, smoking, silently watching the front of Landrum’s where a bright wash of light flooded across the sidewalk. A couple of men stood and smoked in the glow, their shadows casting out toward the street. Beyond that small oasis there was nothing, as if everything south of the restaurant had dissolved, as if everything outside this tiny pocket of light had faded away and was gone.

There he is, Rick said.

The man had come out of the restaurant now, turning away from them, downhill along the sidewalk. At the sight of him, Rick flicked his cigarette and broke immediately into a run, Nat behind him, soundless but for their feet striking the concrete, their bodies crossing through that light and into the darkness beyond.

The man had not yet reached the next intersection when Rick caught up with him and did not seem to understand they were there even as Rick’s pipe struck him across the back of his legs and he fell to the sidwalk like some cut-string marionette.

Motherfucker, Rick said. You don’t fucking talk to me like that.

Rick moved forward as the man rolled away from him and staggered to his feet again, his legs bent weakly but his hands already up, open-palmed, Rick swinging the pipe back and forth. From where Nat stood the two bodies were backlit by the traffic light at the intersection, their halos red and then green again. Someone in a passing car howled, the sound of it echoing up the street.

You just fucked yourself, the man said.

I doubt that, Rick said. He lunged forward with the pipe, feinted, and then lunged again, and this time the man’s fist whipped out and struck him full in the face. Rick stood there a moment, the pipe still clenched in his fist, and Nat thought that it might already be over. You stupid fuck, Rick said, and in the next instant he was advancing down the street again, walking towards the man and slashing with the pipe, the man dancing backwards and sideways, his body all ropy sinew and muscle, like an older, harder, more tattooed version of Rick himself, and when he stopped and changed direction, flashing forward all at once, Rick’s motion was caught short and their silhouettes became entangled, the light turning red again as their twinned breath steamed the air like a pale cloud.

Nat had been following behind, holding the bat over his shoulder as if a baseball might come shuttling out of the dark toward him. It felt like a scene unfolding in a movie or a television show. And yet it was he who held the baseball bat and it was Rick before him who was caught now in some kind of choke hold. The man leaned back, Rick’s feet nearly off the ground, and in the next moment the pipe tumbled free of Rick’s grip and went ringing off the curb.

When he swung the bat it was without clear direction or thought. He brought it down at an angle and the man saw it at the final instant, turning away from the blow as the bat struck him in the long muscle of his lower back, the impact vibrating into Nat’s clenched hands.

There was a long yowl of pain and Rick stumbled forward out of his grasp. Fuck fuck fuck, the man yelled.

Nat lifted the bat again, the man stumbling in a tight circle but always facing him, his teeth drawn tight in a hissing grimace. He might have swung but then Rick was at his side. Give it to me, he said, and Nat did so, and Rick came forward, holding it above his shoulder.

Yeah go ahead, faggot, the man said. Hit me with the fucking bat again. That’s a fair fight. Come on tough guy.

When Rick swung, the man did not seem to understand at first what was happening, as if he believed that his words would end the fight, that Rick would simply turn and walk away. The bat struck him in the shoulder and this time he went down, sprawling onto the concrete of the sidewalk, his shadow a sharp arrow pointing up toward Nat as the light changed to green once again. And Rick swung and kept on swinging, the man arching, twisting in upon himself, his legs spinning in place as if he was pedaling a bicycle, and the sound he made was a long terrible moan.