by Ed Kurtz
The drunks behind my friend cleared a path as Ernest staggered back. Doyle was already on his feet; stalking him even though he was several inches shorter than Hemingway.
I’d expected Doyle to begin beating him, but he didn’t. He just stood there, waiting, while Ernest shook off the effects of the blow. Ernest’s face was soaked with whiskey. Blood had just begun to seep through the tiny cuts in his skin from the broken glass. Even in my drunken haze and the dim light of the bar, I could see several small shards of glass had been embedded in his skin.
Doyle could’ve pounced, but waited until Hemingway wiped at his face with the sleeve of his coat. Doyle smiled up at Ernest and a chill went through me when he said, “There’s not much I hate in this world, but I hate bullies. And the only thing I hate worse than a bully is a windbag who can’t back up his bluster. What’s it going to be, turd-snatcher? You going to stand your ground or are you going to run off like you always do?”
Hemingway charged at him just as I’d seen him charge others in bars in France when liquor and his temper got the better of him.
Again, Doyle surprised me by easily moving out of the way; allowing the bigger man’s momentum to send him into a wall. The bar crowd cheered as if they were watching a bullfight in Madrid, though I’m sure none of them had ever seen one in actuality. The cheers seemed to drive Ernest mad as he regained his balance and rushed Doyle again.
This time, Doyle didn’t move away. Instead, he slammed a roundhouse right into Hemingway’s jaw just as he got close enough. The blow stopped Ernest in his tracks before he staggered back to the wall.
“Come on, Nelly,” Doyle taunted. “We’re just getting started.”
Perhaps it was the drink or simply my embarrassment for my friend, but I quickly lost count of how many times Ernest came off that wall and how many times Doyle sent him right back to it, each blow more savage than the last. Doyle could’ve pummeled him whenever he wanted. He could’ve knocked him to the ground and beaten him to death if he’d wanted to.
But even in my drunken state I knew Doyle wouldn’t do that. He wanted to make a point instead. Perhaps to his patrons. Perhaps to Ernest. But most certainly to me. For what I had done to Zelda.
When Ernest stumbled forward that final time, his face swollen and purple and bloody, Doyle hit him with a savage left hook that snapped his jaw and followed it up with a powerful right that surely must have broken his nose. Ernest, to his credit, wobbled and fell back against the wall, but somehow managed to keep his feet. His eyes were foggy and his mouth hung open as blood ran freely from his nose down onto his coat, but he didn’t fall down.
Tommy the bartender came out from behind the bar and went to Doyle’s side. “He’s had enough, boss. How about letting me and some of the boys throw him out of here before you kill him?”
But Doyle didn’t answer him. He didn’t even move. It was as though there was no one else in the bar but him and Hemingway. His bloody hands balled into fists at his side. “The only way this ends is when Nelly walks out of here. But as long as he stays here, he takes a beatin’.” He sneered at Hemingway. “What’s it gonna be, scribbler? I’m just gettin’ started.”
I watched my friend stagger blindly off the wall again. His eyes were swollen shut and his face was beginning to swell, too. Judging by the angle of his jaw, I feared it might have been broken.
But he didn’t charge Doyle as he had all those other times. Instead, I watched Ernest, a man I'd seen take on and beat three men in many a brawl, simply shuffle over to where the crowd had parted and head for the door. I’d like to think I would’ve gotten up to help him if I could have felt my legs. I’d like to think I was as drunk as I thought I was. It helps make the memory a little easier to bear.
I noticed the blood on Doyle's knuckles when he took his dead cigar from the ashtray on my table before he called out to Hemingway, “If you pick up your pace a little, Nelly, you just might make that Temperance League meetin' around the corner."
A chorus of howls and bellows—some forced, most not—ushered my friend up the stairs and out the door, otherwise alone save for the ridicule.
Fatty handed a matchbook up to Doyle as the laughter died down. "Well done, Archie. Well done."
Doyle thumbed the match alive. "Thanks, fat man."
I'll admit a shiver went through me when Doyle looked at me while his cigar took the flame. His hands looked blood red and terrible as the match light cast shadows on his rugged face. "What do you think, Frankie? You sore that I beat the hell out of your buddy like that?"
Despite my fear, I managed something close to a smile and said, "I suppose that was for my benefit. To prove a point or some such thing."
Doyle waved his match dead and tossed it in the ashtray. "I told you I hate bullies. That’s why I beat that one half to death just now and he’s twice the man you are." He slowly took the cigar from his mouth. "Now imagine what I could do to you."
I wanted to say something, but my voice grew small and died in my throat before I could even say anything.
"You won't have to imagine if you ever lay another hand on Zelda again. You get me?"
I thought my bladder may have gone, but I wasn't quite sure. I knew for certain that my mouth was dry from drink and fear, so all I did was nod.
"Good,” Doyle said. “So why don't you go check on your buddy out there. Make sure he doesn't wander in front of a trolley or something."
Fatty snickered. "A blow from which the literary world would hardly recover."
Most people within earshot laughed, but not me.
Perhaps it was from the alcohol or the fear, or a healthy mixture of the two, but I somehow managed to get on my feet. Unfortunately, I only took a step or two before I lost my footing and fell face first onto the floor.
Some people rushed to pick me up, but Doyle called them off. “Stay where you are, boys. He doesn’t need any help. After all, he's a tough guy, just like his pal Ernest. And, just like his hero, he can walk out of here on his own steam. Let him crawl if he has to, so long as he goes."
I’ll admit that I crawled some, at least until enough feeling returned to my legs and I felt I could stand without falling over. I got to my feet and made as equally an uneasy path toward the door as Ernest had.
The patrons, many far drunker than I, watched me with bemused contempt in their eyes. And why not? Two writers had been laid low before them in the same night by the mighty Doyle. They'd earned their smugness.
When I’d made it to the steps leading up to the street, I expected a pithy retort from Doyle and he didn’t let me down.
“Do yourself a favor, Frankie. Next time you're in the market for a hero, make sure you pick a real one next time.”
The final blow came from Corcoran. “And for heaven’s sake, at least pick one who doesn’t swish when he leaves here.”
The trickle of laughter quickly became a flood that I dammed up behind me as soon as I closed the door. I thought I heard Zelda’s cackle in the storm, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t blame her, either.
There was no breeze to greet me as I walked up the street to hail a cab. No wind or rain or any ceremony whatsoever save for the horns and traffic sounds of an ambivalent New York night.
Passersby paid me no mind either, save to get out of my way if I staggered too close to them as I made my way up the street. To them, I was just another drunk in a city lousy with the same. Unremarkable in every way.
And so deservedly alone.
The Rat and the Cobra
by S.A. Cosby
When I was seventeen years old, a killer came into my house. He walked right in and sat in our living room. My father opened the door for him and let him stroll through. He was not afraid of him. He didn't cower in fear. After all, the killer was his brother.
At seventeen, my life was glorious and I didn't appreciate it. At the time it felt like a horrid existence that I was suffering through like a martyred saint. My father owned a successful real estate business. M
y mother was a registered nurse at the local hospital. It was 1992 and I was driving a '93 Honda Accord. I always had money in my pocket and food on the table. I wasn’t the captain of the football team, but I was a member of the squad and had lost my virginity that previous summer. I had a girlfriend who was not the young lady who deflowered me.
However, in my mind, my parents were horribly oppressive ogres whose only purpose in life was to embarrass me. They lived to make me suffer the indignity of actually wearing pants that were not acid-washed. Like all children, I had no clue to the maelstrom of bills, worry, and insecurity that circled our household like a school of great white sharks. I didn't know and didn't care that they were dealing with a complex amalgamation of problems and pain. All I cared about was whether I got the new Soundgarden CD or the newest pair of Doc Martens. In a word, I was spoiled.
You often read in books how things changed in "an instant." I used to think that was all unmitigated bullshit—until everything in my life changed in an instant.
It was the night before the last day of school. I was in my room lying on my bed with my eyes closed. In my mind, Kim Basinger was licking her own nipples and begging for me to take her. Or "it" more specifically. My hand was wrapped tight around my penis and I felt the familiar itching inside my balls signaling that the end was on its way. Right before I made a mess of my hand, I heard my mom yell my dad's name.
It was not the scream of passion. I had heard that before and I had used every mental technique at my disposal to forget it. This was different. It was the scream of anger.
She yelled my dad's name like it was a dirty word. Simultaneously I busted my nut. I groaned and reached for my towel. As I was cleaning up, I heard both their voices. My dad's was the low rumbling of a jet engine. My mom's, the high whine of a jungle animal. I pressed my ear to the wall and tried to ascertain why they were arguing. Just as I put my ear to the wall—where it landed in Eddie Vedder's crotch on the poster hanging there—something slammed against the sheetrock and made me fall back against my bed. Then the door to my parents' bedroom slammed and I heard Mom crying as she passed my door.
I lay still for a moment. I had never heard my parents fight like this. My mom had never stomped down the steps and out of the house like that. I got up and crept toward my door. I poked my head out and saw my dad shuffling out of the bedroom.
"I guess you heard that, huh?" he said sheepishly. Dad was not a fellow who wore sheepish well. He was a tall broad-shouldered blond man with a face like a block of granite. His hands were huge, with fingers the size of hot dogs. He was wearing a shirt and tie that strained to contain his Norse-god-like frame. He wasn't some muscular underwear model. He was solid like a mountain. It was a solidity that was both physical and emotional. Ronnie Gustafason was SOLID. He exuded a kind of monolithic calm. It soothed his customers, it charmed his friends. To see him looking reproached was disconcerting.
"Dad, you and Mom okay?" I asked already knowing the answer.
"Hmm… I made your mom upset. I…I made a bad mistake, son. But I'm going to fix it. Don't worry. Mom just needs a minute to think. She'll be back. I'm going to make a sandwich—a Reuben I think. You want one?" he asked, the old confidence suddenly reappearing like a ghost.
"Sure Dad. Can we split a beer too?" My dad would sometimes split a beer with me when Mom wasn't around. It was nasty as hell, but I liked having a secret with my old man.
"Not tonight kiddo. I think your mom is mad enough already," he said as he walked to the stairs.
The next morning, I came downstairs and my mom and dad were sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was smoking a cigarette. This made me more nervous than the argument from the night before. I had never seen my mom smoke. Ever. She was a nurse who railed against cigarettes and weed (both of which I had tried and found distasteful) at every opportunity. I stopped on the edge of the last step. I could see them in the kitchen, but they couldn't see me. If they were still arguing, I was going right back upstairs. My dad sat there sipping his coffee. Silence ruled the roost for what seemed like an eternity.
Finally my dad spoke: "Joyce, it's only for a couple of days."
My mom inhaled deeply on her cigarette and exhaled directly in my dad's face.
"I don't give a damn Ronnie. I don't like him. I don't want that psychopath anywhere near me, my house, or my son. He went to prison for killing someone, Ronnie. Killing someone. And God only knows what he's done that he didn't get caught for! And you want him staying with us for a few days! And you won't even tell me why. I'm your fucking wife or did that slip your mind?"
"I told you…it's a family thing. I've got to have him here to take care of some things with Aunt Irene’s estate. He has to be here."
"Bullshit," my mom said plainly.
"Joyce, he is my brother and Irene is, I mean was, our aunt. It has to be done. It's only going to be for two days. He has to sign some papers and then he's gone."
"Ronnie, he is your half-brother. Your dad had him by some whore after he left you and your mom to fend for yourselves. He can stay in a hotel, or in his car. I don't care. I don't want him here and I mean it!" My mom punctuated her statement by grinding out her cigarette in her plate full of eggs. She got up from the table, grabbed her purse, and walked out the door. She didn't notice me on the last step. Or maybe she didn't care.
I walked into the kitchen. Dad was staring down at his coffee. I went to the fridge and got a bottle of water. I closed the door and turned to him.
"Who's coming here, Dad?"
My dad never looked up from his cup. "My brother Skunk…I mean, Yardley. But everyone calls him Skunk," he said in a flat listless voice.
"Your brother? I have an uncle? Why didn't anyone tell me before?" I asked. I had never heard of any brothers on my dad's side of the family. As far as I knew, he was the only child of a single mother.
"Because he is not a very nice person, son. Not nice at all. But you can't choose your family. You can only choose how you deal with them," my dad said, his voice saturated with weariness. "He's my half-brother, actually. We have the same father but different mothers. He's been in some trouble…a lot, really. Your mom doesn't like him. I mean, she's afraid of him."
"Did he hurt Mom?" I asked.
My dad was not a shrinking violet. I had never seen him in a physical altercation, but I had every confidence he could hand out an ass-whipping with as much ease as a Jehovah's witness handing out a pamphlet. I couldn't imagine him letting someone hurt Mom or me. Let alone inviting that person into our home even if he was his brother. Half-brother.
"No…no. Years ago when your mother and I were dating, Skunk blew through town. He was out of jail and flush with money. I didn't ask him where he got it and I didn't want to know. But the carnival was in town and he asked us if we wanted to go. We said sure. We were in line for a roller coaster when two young guys cut the line. Skunk asked them once to get to the back. They laughed. He asked them again to get in the back. They told him to go…well, they said something rude.
“Before your mom or I knew what was happening, he punched one of them in the throat. He grabbed the other one and put his arm through the bars of the guardrail. He used it to brace the guy's arm and then pulled up on it as hard as he could. He snapped it like it was a breadstick. The bone ripped through the guy's skin and blood was everywhere. Then Skunk got back in line like nothing had happened. Yeah, that's your uncle."
My mouth went dry. That was my uncle? He sounded like a psycho.
A couple of days later I was coming back from riding around with my buddy Josh Henkel. I was pulling up into our long paved circular driveway when I saw an unfamiliar car occupying my usual spot. It was a jet-black four-door LTD. It was clean, but in a functional way. It wasn't polished and glistening in the sun like my Honda. It was low to the ground and had a few rust spots on the driver's side door. Other than that, it was in fantastic shape. I guessed it was a friend of my mom's. Dad's friends all drove BMW's and Audi’s. I didn't think any of
his acquaintances even knew how to spell LTD. I was a fan of the old muscle and luxury cars. Auto mechanics was one of my favorite classes in school and I excelled in the course. I loved old cars. I had asked my dad to buy me an old car I could fix up, but he had opted for the Honda. I think now he didn't want his son to get his hands dirty.
I walked into my house and felt the tension in the air as soon as I stepped over the threshold. There was a hush that wasn't the absence of sound, but the presence of anger. The anger sucked everything else out of the air until it was the only thing left, like fire feeding on the oxygen in a room.
I walked through the foyer into the den. I saw my dad sitting in his recliner. My mom was in the kitchen smoking and staring out the window over the sink. There was someone sitting in the straight-back Queen Anne chair. The back of the chair faced our front door. From my vantage point, all I could see was a hand on the right armrest. Thin, wiry fingers gripped the end of the armrest. Dad glanced up and saw me approaching. His face didn't break out into its usual sly smile. His face remained grim, yet determined—like a man digging through horseshit to find a lost wedding ring.
"Hey kiddo, you're home. Do you mind going to your room. I've got some—" He was cut off by a gravelly voice.
"Don't I get to meet my nephew?" said the voice from the Queen Anne chair. My dad exhaled and stood.
"Kiddo come here, meet your Uncle Yardley," he said tersely. I walked into the living room, slowly making my way around to the front of the chair. The man in the chair stood and held out his hand. He was taller than me but shorter than Dad, lean like a swimmer. He wore faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt that stretched across his chest like a sausage skin. He had on a faded black denim jacket that had seen better days, his face a mute testament to a life lived hard and fast.
A spider web of scars covered one of his ears. His cheek bore another sign of life in the catacombs of society. A ragged fish-hook shaped scar started at his nose and wound itself up beneath his right eye. Other marks and abrasions dotted his brow and chin. His eyes were the palest blue that I had ever seen. They danced like falling snowflakes in his deep-set sockets. An unruly shock of black hair fell almost to his shoulders and was only interrupted by a stark white stripe that went all the way from just above his temple toward the back of his neck.
