by H L Stephens
This is what it must have been like for them until the end came.
I was too weak deflect the blows anymore. They had beaten even that means of defense out of me. They beat me until I almost couldn't feel their blows. My attackers were either growing tired, or I was nearing the end.
I remember the moment when the assault simply stopped. I saw a ring of faces, laughing at me in their triumph; five hellions gloating over a single fallen foe. They spat on me, raining insults in their native tongue. One of their numbers held something in his hands over my head as if he meant to hurl it down with all his might.
This is it. It ends now.
Somehow that notion brought me peace. I was tired; wracked with pain. I just wanted it to be over. The leader held up his hand and stopped the other before he could strike.
"No," he said in English. "Not yet."
His face was pale from the loss of blood, but his features had an intensity that carried him beyond his wounds. Whatever might happen to him later on, he meant to deal me one final humiliating blow before my death was allowed. He crouched down and began to tear at my jeans. I tried to brush his hand away but screamed with my own efforts; the pain was so great. He struggled with the button of my jeans. It was comical in a way. I could barely undo them myself on a good day, they were that hard to manage. He finally won the battle and tugged at my pants until he got them to mid-thigh. He reached for my underwear, and I knew this was it. I said a prayer and resigned myself to my fate. There was no more fight left in me.
"Hey, what are you guys doing down there?"
The male voice reverberated through the alley and stopped my attacker in his tracks. I heard several exclamations in Russian, followed by the abrupt removal of the gang of thugs who had brought such misery upon me. They didn't fight over my bloodied body like hungry dogs over a bone. They just left me like the refuse they thought I was.
Relief flooded my system that an angel had come to my rescue to at least offer me some dignity in my final moments. I would have thanked him for saving me, but my body refused to respond to my commands, leaving me barren of the ability to do more than whimper and wait for my guardian to come to me.
His features were obscured by my swelling lids as he hovered over me. He was one gigantic blur. For an angelic being, he had the foulest odor I could have imagined and reeked of cheep gin, with a slight undertone of vomit-laced onion soup. Under the circumstances, I wasn't going to nitpick about my odiferous savior, so long as I was removed from this place.
I felt his hands upon me, checking my vitals, I was certain. It was something any good savior would do. My opinion of my deliverer began to change when he reached my knees and started tugging at my boots. When he removed them altogether, I knew he was no rescuer. Next, came my socks, then my jeans. He sifted through every pocket he could find. He tried to take the rest of my clothes but lost is nerve as each tug of the upper clothing brought gurgles of screams from my lips.
The scraggly ragamuffin took what he could from me and abandoned me to the dank ground. Half naked and all but dead. He left me to die like any heartless scavenger would do. So much for angels in alleyways. I would die in this hellhole alone, with no one to mourn my passing or hold my hand through the process. My family didn't know I was here, so I would be just another Jane Doe to fill the rank and file of unsolved cases that burdened New York's finest. I would most likely be buried in the potter's field, and that would be the sum total of my death.
I lay there for some time, unable to move. I slipped in and out of consciousness and thought I was hallucinating when I saw the blurry outline of another man hovering over me. His touch was real enough, but it was gentle; tentative.
"I have nothing left," I moaned.
"Hush child," was all the stranger said to me. He slipped his arms underneath me and lifted me as gingerly as he could, but it still made me cry out. I started to black out when I heard the man say, "Jones, it's me. I found her, but we're coming in hot."
My body exploded in pain and then all went black. I cannot say if I dreamed or not. Darkness and oblivion remained my constant, blessed companions, yet Death never visited me so far as I know. His cold embrace was a stranger to me while I wandered through my world of blessed nothingness. His bitter bile was held at bay, as was the pain which gripped my body, and so I found serenity of a sort.
For seven days I lay in darkness and for three more days I had no sense of who I was or where I was. On the tenth day of my confinement, I awoke with some sense of myself and came face to face with the uncertainty of my fate. Sitting in a chair facing me was the second man who had found me near death's door, and I would soon find out what he intended as the price for my salvation.
Spilling the Beans
I always wondered what a fallen angel looked like. I imagined they were beautiful and powerfully made, much the same as the angels that remained within God's good grace. A perfectly crafted facade to hide their wicked, fallen interior.
As I lay there in my sick bed staring at the face of the one who had saved me, wrapped like the Mummy because of my injuries, I was uncertain which type of angel I faced. He had pulled me from the brink of death, but for what purpose? This stranger had been my savior but was he now my captor as well?
His expression revealed little. No smile of relief skipped across his features when he saw that I was awake, yet no trace of malice existed either. He was a neutral canvas. I waited for him to break the silence while I stole glances at my surroundings.
The cursory inspection of my current location revealed I rested not in a conventional hospital but in the belly of a large warehouse. The walls that surrounded my sickroom were temporary, similar to the kind used to make cubicles in offices, except bigger and more substantial. I could see all the way up to the beams in the ceiling, yet in the area that acted as my room, it had all the signs of a modern hospital. There were machines to monitor heart rate and blood pressure. I had IV's and tubes sticking out of both arms. Except for the walls and the ceiling, I might never have known the difference. There was of course my glaring guarding angel to contend with.
My silent companion was a large older man of African descent in his fifties or sixties perhaps, though his exact age was hard to gage. He had a bit of gray kissing his temples and gentler wisps of it throughout the rest of his hair, but such was the only indicator of his creeping maturity. He had a strength and vitality that radiated from every pore. Well defined muscles rippled beneath his skin as he moved. Many a younger man would have envied such a physique and many spent most of their youth in pursuit of it.
He had a beard and moustache which he kept cropped short like his hair. His eyes were a deep amber color which gave his gaze an unnerving intensity. Not once did he break his watch of me, as if he was the predator and I was the prey. Such a comparison frightened me.
Again I sought even the smallest hint of malice in his eyes; the kind I had seen from my attackers in the alleyway, yet I saw none. The lack of it failed to remove the sense of unease I felt. I did my best to control fear I felt for every time I contemplated my circumstances or the possible outcome for me, my heart monitor began to blip like a metal detector on an old Civil War battle ground. I had no desire to reveal my unease to this enigmatic stranger, even if he had saved my life.
We sat in silence for some time. I feared my voice would betray me if I tried to speak, and in truth, I was uncertain what to say to this impenetrable force of a man with the intimidating amber eyes.
"Oh for pity's sake Oz," came a voice from behind me. "How long you gonna stare at that girl before you say something to her?"
A tall man of about sixty walked in from behind a curtain, his face beaming with a disarming smile. He had a slight gap between his top front teeth and eyes that were a deep sky blue. A mass of fading wavy cornhusk blonde hair formed a ring around his shiny bald head. He wore a short sleeve plaid shirt over a plain white cotton tank. With his well worn jeans and comfortable shoes, he looked like he stepped right
out of an episode of Andy Griffith. I expected Opie to walk in at any minute looking for Paw.
"Hi there little lady," he said, reaching for my wrist to check my pulse. "The name's Jameson, and that there," he indicated towards my stone-faced opponent, "is Oz, like the great and powerful Oz from the movie, except not always so benevolent." He said the last part with a wink that made me smile and Oz scowl. "So, now that you know our names, what's yours little lady?"
I hesitated for a moment. My mom had always taught me to keep my identity to myself when it came to strangers, but these men had saved my life. I figured giving them my first name couldn't hurt.
"It's Jane," I said.
"Jane what?" Oz asked. His tone was blunt and his voice deep and booming.
I stiffened under his prodding.
"Just plain Jane," I replied, trying to mimic his harsh tone.
Jameson stepped in with his ready smile.
"Well, plain Jane, it is right nice to meet you," he said. "You gave us quite a scare there. It is good to see you conscious again."
I looked around at my unconventional surroundings and the makeshift trauma ward that had been erected in the warehouse.
"How come I'm not in a hospital?" I asked.
For a moment, Jameson's smile faded as he looked at Oz. Some unspoken communication was occurring between these two men. When it was over, Oz just nodded his assent.
"Well, it's like this Jane," Jameson began, "Oz had a choice when he found you. Take you to a hospital where you would have gotten a certain kind of care, but where you also would have been vulnerable to the same men who had done this to you; or bring you here where I could see to your wounds and where the rest of us could see to your safety. So, Oz called me and brought you here. I may not look like much, but I am one of the best doctors around. I know a good deal about the human body; both the breaking and the fixing."
The last part of Jameson's statement intrigued me, but he just smiled like it was nothing.
"Well then," I said, "I guess I owe you both a debt of gratitude."
"You can start repaying that debt by telling us what happened to you," Oz said. Again his voice was intense, and it made me press back into my pillows.
Jameson gave Oz a withering look as he pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket and checked my pupil dilation.
"Pay him no mind Jane," Jameson said. "Oz is just irate at the people who did this to you, and sometimes his anger gets a bit misdirected. You can tell us your story later when you feel a little stronger. For now, it's time for you to rest. Do you think you can eat something?"
I nodded my head.
"Tell you what. I'll see if Dorthia can't whip you up something good to eat," Jameson said. "I hear a bit of Texas in your voice, and she makes a mean fried chicken. Heck we might even talk her into some barbeque chicken if you think your stomach is up for it. That woman loves to cook."
Just the thought of food made my stomach growl.
"I will take that as an affirmative then. Oz and I will let you rest, and I'll let Dorthia know we need to start up the grill. You take it easy little plain Jane. I'll be back later to check on you."
Jameson and Oz left the same way Jameson had arrived; through the curtain behind me. Jameson smiled as he slipped behind the curtain. Oz just looked at me with an unreadable expression. I could hear Jameson scolding Oz as they left.
"Well, you were Mister Merry Sunshine in there. She's scared you big oaf, and you rolled over her like a giant bulldozer. Bet she feels real welcome now. Thank God you don't have kids of your own."
The last thing I heard before their voices trailed off in the distance was Oz replying with, "I want to know who did this, and then I want to break them for it."
Those final words swirled through my head as I drifted back into a drug induced stupor. Images of Oz beating the crap out of the men who hurt me flashed in between the usual drug dreaming oddities of dancing elephants and trash can bands marching down Main Street. It was an odd combination of dreams that embraced me. At least they weren't nightmares. Within them was my tall dark guardian protecting me throughout my swirling, unnatural dream world, brandishing a giant chicken bone as his weapon.
When I finally awoke, it was to the most heavenly smells For one, lingering moment, I thought I was back home in Ironco, Texas, safe in my bed, smelling my mother's glorious creations. All it took was a single movement to shatter that fleeting fantasy, but the longing I felt lingered long after my reality set in. My eyes focused on the smiling face of a woman who was setting up a tray filled with food.
"Well hello sunshine," she said. "I'm Dorthia. Jameson said you might be hungry so I brought you some homemade goodies to tempt your pallet." Her voice was soothing. "He said he thought you were from Texas so I made barbeque chicken, homemade mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and biscuits, and for dessert, hot apple pie. I brought enough for the two of us, assuming you don't mind my company."
Dorthia was a lovely woman with black hair and dark brown eyes. She was hard to put an age to, though something told me she was older than her appearance let on. She was somewhere around the age of Oz and Jameson though she could easily pass as someone a decade or two younger. Her alabaster skin was flawless with the exception of one tiny scar over her right eye that curved in a gentle arch around to the top of her cheekbone. It was so pale, one would hardly notice it. She was of average height and weight, yet she moved with a grace and a presence that made her seem grand. Her smile was disarming, and though I had just met Dorthia, I found myself inexplicably drawn to her.
The food was delicious and the company disarming, which I later discovered was the whole idea behind Dorthia and her delectable dishes. She was there to get information from me, and she was darned good at what she did. Before I realized what I was doing, I had told Dorthia more about myself than I had intended, like when I had arrived in New York and where I had been staying.
Her charm was so artfully applied, I even told her about the stolen car. I was ready to tell her why I had come to New York by the time I realized what was happening. I decided at that point it was safer to stuff my mouth full of buttery biscuit and end my narrative before I gave anything else away.
Dorthia noted my retreat and adjusted her tactics. She served me a piece of spiced apple pie and began opening up about herself. I realized later she never gave me anything of real substance. Nothing to use against her that was blackmail worthy or anything which might incriminate her in a court of law. I mean, who would care that she was inexplicably drawn to the color mustard? What Dorthia gave was a data dump of innocuous information which caused my alarm bells to unfairly retreat. Once she detected the retreat, she wasted no time in exploiting her tactical advantage. She asked about the alleyway and my attack.
Before I realized she had made the strike, I was pouring out the details of my ordeal; every horrifying moment. By the end of it, I was a sobbing, mushy pile of bruised jello, shuddering on my hospital bed with Dorthia's arms wrapped tightly around me as if she would shield me from any further assault.
I heard Dorthia whisper two things under her breath as she held me.
"Those bastards," and "Find them Oz."
Her words made no sense to me. I was too enmeshed within my pain to grasp their meaning. I was too gooey inside to notice the earbud Dorthia wore that carried her message and my story straight to the ears of the one who would take action.
The next time I saw Oz, he looked like he had been hit by a Mack truck - twice. His face was bruised and swollen, and his hands looked like he had been punching a brick wall repeatedly. He plopped a newspaper in my lap and said, "I thought you might need some reading material," and then he left.
I had never been much for reading the newspaper because in Ironco, not much ever happened that was news worthy. The big events to receive coverage by our local weekly paper were things like Mrs. Johnson's cat climbing her giant pecan tree again. If you were lucky, the paper covered the occasional chili cook-off; the likes of which my fat
her always won. He was the chili champ of the tri-counties six years running. In Ironco chili was big news and pretty much the extent of our headlines. That and pecan tree-climbing cats.
As I scanned the paper before me, I was drawn to a headline.
Members of Russian Bratva Ambushed By Rival Gang.
To my surprise, the victims of the supposed ambush were the very men who had attacked me. Mug shots of each of them had been included to help identify who they were. I immediately read the article.
According to the account, the five Bratva members were out and about in their neighborhood when they were jumped by an unknown number of assailants who beat them into comatose states and left them mere yards from their favorite hangout. No witnesses to the attack had come forward, and the authorities had little hope of the victims regaining consciousness again, if they survived the attack at all.
The authorities believed the attack was evidence of an escalation of force between the Bratva and a South American gang called the Doce Diablos. The two gangs had been at war with one another over territory, and the battle had become rather bloody over recent months. The police were gathering the usual suspects but had little hope of solving this case due to a lack of evidence. The article listed a number for the police hotline for anyone to call with information related to the case.
As I placed the newspaper down in my lap, I got the distinct impression the authorities weren't going to be overrun with tips anytime soon. I certainly wasn't going to phone them and tell them anything. I may not know who or what I was dealing with in the silent, brooding goliath named Oz, but I did know this. He saved my life, and from what I could deduce, he exacted revenge on my behalf. I owed him to some extent. What the payback would be remained to be seen - for now.
