Peter Buwalda - Bonita Avenue

“You’ve already got undressed.”

He answers, but has no idea what.

“Who’d you expect, wanker? Your stepwhore?”

The second time, the nunchuk hits him numbingly hard in his neck: pain shoots its way to his jaw. (Nunchuk: the overestimated, vulgar weapon he is being assaulted with, two sturdy steel handles connected by a short chain, a double flail that owes its dwindling popularity to Bruce Lee films. Once favored by skinheads with testosterone overload who went to public festivals or football matches looking for a brawl.) As he gasps in pain he sees in the mirror that Wilbert wants to say something. The bastard thinks there’s time for that. He couldn’t be more mistaken. If you only knew who you’re dealing with, asshole, then you wouldn’t stand so close .

Funny how it works, but he makes all the necessary approximations in the first second. Right after the first slug: a chain of assessments. The distance between him and the doorpost. The relative strengths: his opponent is a fighter and is armed, he himself is relatively well trained, but old and tired — a brief jolt of uncertainty: can he put up a good fight against a violent ex-con in the prime of his life? His vulnerable nakedness might seem like a drawback but, humiliating as it is, it’s also an advantage: he is nearly impossible to grab. The moment: this scumbag wants to fight, he has chosen his exact timing, and that’s now . At the same time he suspects that he’s just woken Wilbert up, when he walked through the hall, that this pig had mussed up the covers of the master bed — a thought that recharges him.

“Been patient long enough, wanker, it’s payback ti—”

He pushes himself with a groan from the washbasin, his left leg takes a giant step toward the doorpost, he drags the other one with it, and with his left shoulder lunges like a battering ram against the thickset chest, a firm mass that only grudgingly gives in, but the push is unrelenting. They commence their fall and, programmed as he is, he claws at his adversary’s pant legs, his hands clutch at the loose-fitting cotton around the calves and the knee hollows, grab it low , and straightaway he yanks the bastard’s legs out from under him, lifts him up, it has to be explosive, this is a tried-and-true, brutal technique. As one body they tumble into the dressing room, Wilbert has no time to grab hold of the doorframe, an indivisible moment later the back of his head smacks against the low shoe rack opposite the door, a loud, dry wallop, and again his shoulder drills into the fleshy chest, something cracks, squeaking vocal cords, the smell of alcohol fills his nose.

They lie there, dazed, both on their backs, he on top of his assailant.

Then something hard and cold slams against his chin: the chain of the nunchuk, the links chafe his skin. He reflexively tucks his chin to his chest, the metal glides over his stubble, the pain is direct and sharp. The chain slips to his neck, the fingers of his left hand immediately grab the iron chain, his fingertips lodged between the links and his Adam’s apple. Wilbert pants loudly in his left ear, spit dribbles with it; growling, he tugs on the handles, Sigerius’s Adam’s apple is being crushed. He swings his arms backward, hits Wilbert’s shoulder with his elbow, delivers a series of hard pops to the shoulder and upper arm, by now his air is getting cut off, he hawks, blood collects in his buzzing head. He was afraid of this, has been for a long time, from the moment he realized that the kid was out of control, knows no limits — that he is no match for him.

In a surge of exertion he contracts his stomach muscles, he has the stomach muscles of a gorilla. His knees shoot upward, he throws them back with all his might, the right one lands with a soggy thump in Wilbert’s face, take that, you bastard —the bang is intense, the kid groans, his left hand lets the nunchuk fly, it slaps against Sigerius’s chest with a leaden thud. Sputtering, spitting mucus, he grabs Wilbert’s left arm, clamps both hands on his wrist, and as if in a dream— it’s like he’s dreaming about judo, just as he so often dreams about judo —executes the technique he excelled in long ago, a classic armlock, a juji gatame , words that well up in him like the first and last names of an old friend. In a flash he turns his own body perpendicular to Wilbert’s, throws his left leg over the meaty chest, the right one over his throat and shoulders, contact, control , it is a fluid motion, at right angles to the body, his crotch under the left shoulder blade, a crowbar of muscle . Euphoria: the nominal resistance reminds him that there’s only one judoka here. Wilbert thrashes with the nunchuk, the steel handle whips his thigh, but he hardly notices. The sweaty wrist is locked in the vise-grip of his hands, he forces Wilbert’s arm — a strong, well-trained arm, he feels that all right — across his own stomach and chest, it goes so quickly, a perfectly outstretched, no, overstretched arm; if he wanted to he could bite off the thumb. Not necessary: all he has to do is tighten his back, hollow it just a tad, so that his hard stomach rounds itself under the elbow, and anyone will sing. Wilbert raises his bloodied face, tries to bite his lower leg, kicks wildly against the shoe rack. He removes one hand from the wrist and jerks the head back by the flaxen hair. He tightens his back. Right away Wilbert screams, a fierce cry from the bleeding mouth — yeah, it hurts, he knows it, nobody can stand it, not Geesink, not Ruska, not you . The screaming becomes shrieking, but he feels no sympathy, only deep satisfaction; he hears the joint crack. Or is it pleasure? It is pure gratification. Infinite, sadistic pleasure. “ Sto-o-o-o-o-o-p, sto-o-o-o-oo-p, dirty fucker ”—he keeps going, until he passes the point where in the past he stopped hundreds of times, the shrieking becomes inhuman, go on, scream, no one hears you, as if in a dream he crosses the boundary, presses his belly mercilessly far forward, his heels dug deep in the carpet. What he hears is a dull, gruesome crack, wreathed in hoarse screams, bone breaking like a table leg, the elbow breaks completely through, makes an unnatural angle of nearly ninety degrees, the arm loses all its strength, a floppy rag, the sweater sleeve becomes drenched in blood, he feels the warm moisture on his belly, and something sharp, a bone has probably been thrust through the skin.

“ That’s what you get, God damn it ,” he screams. First he gives the underarm a furious twist, as though it’s got to come all the way off, then he kicks the screaming marionette away from him. But it springs into action, like a spasming chicken. Wilbert struggles to his haunches, his hideous face is frozen in shock, his mouth is a squashed tomato. He is wailing so loudly the pain must be excruciating, it sounds like tearless crying, putting up any more of a fight seems out of the question. He stares, awestruck, at his ruined elbow, squeezes the splintered joint with his good hand, blood trickles over his fingers.

“I’m gonna kill you,” he blubbers, but instead of doing so he starts crawling out of the dressing room like a crab. He trips over the leg of a galvanized steel rack holding Tineke’s dresses; accompanied by a loud clatter he rolls around in the glistening fabric, clambers upright, sputtering and panting, and disappears into the bedroom.

Should he go after him? Sigerius stays lying on his back. A second later, the moaning and groaning echoes through the hall, a thumping, hollow gait. A door slams shut with an angry bang, the living room door — the enemy is there , he is here , flat out on the dressing room carpet.