by Scott, Ada
“What happened?”
“That night, you were so… I dunno. I’d never seen you so unsure of yourself, like you were going to unleash the worst fucking news on me you could. Then there was all that shit with your dad. After that… fuck, I was so on-edge, I was just standing there in that parking lot humming with stress, I felt like I couldn’t breathe properly. That’s when I turned around and saw…”
The Apocalyptic Fight
Jeff - Before
Hazel’s dad helped or, rather, shoved her into the passenger side of their Jeep and walked around to the driver’s side while giving me a shitty look. My fists were at my side and I was shaking with rage and confusion, my body still primed for fight or flight.
They drove off with me still standing there, I could see Hazel’s blonde hair through the window, her head bowed, looking at her feet. With supreme effort, I tried to slow my heart but it wasn’t happening, so I settled for unclenching my fists and taking a deep breath.
I turned around to walk back to my car and slowed to a halt after taking only a few steps. Behind the former doctor’s office was an empty lot that used to be the home of… fuck, a carpet warehouse or something if I recalled correctly. That building was bulldozed and then the developer went bankrupt and it had been empty ever since.
Eventually, my bet was that the entire area would be taken over by the business that backed onto it from the other side, Nirohe Shakes. They could afford it because everybody in town was a repeat customer, as far as I could tell.
Four of those repeat customers were striding purposefully across the empty lot in my direction and I recognized them all. First was the biggest cunt in the world, James Poppleton.
Just to his left and slightly behind was something to really be worried about. Nelson Morgan was an absolute fucking unit, a football star back when we were in school and I knew he dabbled in boxing as well. On James’ other side was Matthew Cunningham, some asshole I never remembered saying a word to in school but I knew he stuck to James’ nuts like Velcro. Also on that side was Justin Thomas, one of James’ friends who had been there the day I last beat the shit out of James. Justin had copped an accidental back-swing in the middle of that fight and had never been able to let it go.
Matthew and Justin were smaller than James, certainly smaller than me, but Nelson. Fuck. I circled around to the side of my dad’s car so they couldn’t surround me, and only just made it.
Maybe if I had raced to the old Ford the instant I saw them coming I might have had time to get in and get the fuck out of dodge, but that moment of hesitation shut the window of opportunity on me. Plus, with the way I was feeling, a big part of me was looking for some sweet provocation to start swinging, anything to let this fuckin’ smoking red-hot-motherfucker demon of anger out of me before I burned up.
“Rough day with the missus, cunt?” asked James.
“Keep talking and I’m gonna knock you the fuck out,” I said.
The four of them, already standing with their fists clenched, spread out into a semi-circle. I brought my own fists up, cocking my right hand back a couple times as first Justin and then James feinted at me, but never really came into striking range.
It was about what I expected. You don’t bring a guy like Nelson to a fight and not let him go first. It would be like pounding on a castle gate with your fists, getting in the way of the battering ram behind you.
I didn’t have long to wait before Nelson stepped forward, hands up and head bobbing enough to make it a difficult target without throwing off his balance. The other three faded into obscurity as I concentrated on the main threat. If I could take him out, I had a shot at winning this fight.
Back in school, I tried out wrestling during my final year. I didn’t train long enough to actually be great at it, but Coach Grenshaw did at least teach me to blast a double-leg takedown and then had me repeat the one damn thing over and over again until one night I actually had a wrestling nightmare, sprang out of bed and tried to take down my own closet door before I woke up wondering what the fuck was going on, with my dad shouting at me from his room asking the same question.
The moment Nelson was a few feet away from me, still too far away to land a punch, I faked a jab and then dropped levels, shooting in at his legs. He tried to sprawl and keep his legs away from me, to bring his weight down on top and stop me from locking my arms around him, but he was a fraction of a second too slow and I managed to grip my own wrists behind his knees and lifted with everything I had, driving him backwards.
Nelson’s balance was great, and his sheer size made him a fucking mission to move, but I kept driving forward and at last managed to upend him. I lifted his legs as high as I could, to drive his upper body into the ground.
Coach Grenshaw always said that he may not have taught me any punching or kicking, but damn boy, you take somebody down on solid ground, not these nice soft wrestling mats? Just watch the fight get knocked out of them. I was counting on it now.
The whoosh of air and the pained grunt that forced itself out of Nelson when he came down in the parking lot told me that Coach knew what the fuck he was talking about. The instant he hit the ground, I popped up to pin his upper body and drew my hand back.
Nelson was already dazed when I cracked him on the jaw hard enough to bounce the back of his head off the concrete. Next thing I knew, I felt like my ear had fucking exploded and I was seeing stars myself. Somebody had landed a punch or a kick from behind.
I fell to the side, still trying to keep an eye on what Nelson was doing. If he got up now, then I was in serious trouble.
Normally, being outnumbered, I wouldn’t have wanted to go to the ground and subject myself to the potential hell of having three people rain down punches and kicks on me, but with Nelson and his boxing background, I didn’t see any other way. Thankfully, Nelson appeared to be staring straight up at the night sky without really seeing it as he moved around groggily.
Somebody stomped on my hand as I tried to get up, somebody else threw a knee into my ribs that made my next breath feel like fire. I stumbled to the side, but managed to get my feet most of the way under me before I saw a shoe flying up towards my face.
I felt the crunch of my nose being broken and every external sound was entirely drowned out by some huge bell going BONG! inside my skull where my brain was getting rattled around. The world spun around me and my eyes watered as I stumbled backwards, desperate to keep myself upright, if I could only figure out which way that was.
The first thing I saw when my eyes cleared was James’ face, so I launched a straight right hand at it, feeling a satisfying connection with his cheekbone. He took several steps back, and tripped over the prone body of Nelson. James came down ass-first directly on Nelson’s stomach, sending a fresh whoosh of air out of their ringer and all but assuring me he wasn’t going to get up in time to take part in this fight.
Justin and Matthew did their best to come at me from different angles, but in the wide-open parking lot and with their fearless leader still getting to his feet, they could only do so much. I covered up for a few seconds as they peppered me with punches that didn’t quite manage to sneak through my guard.
It was enough for me to finally feel balanced again, and realize that I had a few more seconds left where I only had to deal with the two smallest people in this brawl, so I better make the most of it. Of the two of them, I spotted an opening on Justin first, hitting him with a body shot to the liver that brought his hands down and left his face wide open for the looping overhand right that sent him crumpling to the ground like a set of clothes whose wearer had suddenly been teleported away.
A moment before James returned into swinging distance, I lunged forward with a desperate front kick to Matthew’s knee that hyper-extended it enough to make him cry out in pain and stagger sideways as his leg gave out under him. Before I was fully recovered from that kick, James punched me square in my already-broken nose.
I swung blindly and felt my fist connect with his
skull, resulting in a grunt from him but an explosion of pain from the knuckle of my pointer finger that left me unable to clench my fist anymore. James and I traded wild blows, all lefts from me, in a blur, and we were still going at it when the sirens I barely even heard stopped and suddenly something that burned was being sprayed in my face as somebody yelled, “Stop resisting!”
Leave or Die
Jeff - Before
When the blast of freezing water hit me, I’d completely lost track of time, drifting in and out of consciousness as I waited alone in the holding cell. I yelled in surprise and scrambled to the far end of the cell, trying to escape the sudden cold, but there was nowhere to hide.
My body had stiffened up while I was passed out on the concrete slab covered in a thin foam mat that wouldn’t even be thick enough for somebody to do yoga on and it sung out in pain with my sudden movements. I shivered against the wall, teeth clenched against a scream that wanted to burst out as I forced my eyes to focus on the source of the water and the laughing.
The spray shut off and I looked through the bars to see James Poppleton holding a hose, smiling. His face was puffy, bruised and split open, a tooth or two was missing, but he was smiling through it all.
Standing next to him was his cousin. Sheriff Greg Poppleton.
“I could do this all night,” said James.
“Naw, he’s awake. Let’s get this over with so we can all get some shuteye like Sleeping Beauty over here.”
Sheriff Poppleton picked up a fold-out chair he’d leaned against the far wall and held it out to James, before picking one up himself. They clattered as they were set down on the hard floor and I had no idea how I could have missed the two of them approaching, putting those down and unreeling the hose before unleashing on me.
“You still speak English, son? You look like you’ve gone feral,” said Sheriff Poppleton.
I looked from him to James and back again before opening my mouth. James cut me off before I could finish taking in a breath.
“Not so mouthy now, huh, cunt?”
“What’s going on?” I asked, knowing it was nothing fuckin’ good.
“You’ve really given me a fuckin’ headache tonight is what’s goin’ on,” said the sheriff. “I’ve had reports about you runnin’ amok all evening. You think you can do that in my town and get away with it?”
“I didn’t start that fight,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” said Sheriff Poppleton. “I suppose you didn’t beat on your missus either?”
My heart thumped once in my ears like a drumbeat to silence the rest of the world, a single beat so hard that it hurt my chest.
“What… are you talking about?” I asked.
The sheriff settled back in his chair and folded his hands over his gut. James mimicked his cousin’s posture and they both regarded me silently, the personification of smug if ever I saw it. All I could do was wait and try to ignore the poster on the wall behind them giving advice for officers if they thought one of their detainees was looking suicidal.
“So, I’ve been talking with all kinds of folks tonight, trying to piece together exactly what happened. Here are the facts, as I see them. This is all corroborated by various bystanders, and the people you’ve assaulted tonight,” said Sheriff Poppleton.
“Assaulted? I was defending my-”
“Shut the fuck up. Ol’ Stan Rivera gave me a call not too long after you were brought in, saying he wanted to press charges against you. He said you’d been on some dates with his daughter, Hazel, but were getting a little too possessive and creepy. Hazel agreed, and against his advice said she wanted to go somewhere private with you to let you down easy, break it off nice and clean.”
If my heart could have continued beating through the painful crushing sensation in my cheat at that moment, it would have been a miracle. I never would have believed what I was hearing unless I heard it from Hazel… yet she had been acting incredibly weird this evening. Upset… scared even? But, breaking up with me? When things were as close to perfect as I could ever dream of a relationship being?
The sheriff continued. “He followed his gut instinct and tracked the two of you down to the old medical center parking lot, where he saw you in a car with his daughter looking extremely distressed, he says he saw you striking her in there.”
“No!”
James laughed like his cousin was the best stand-up comic in the world.
“He intervened, got his daughter out of the car, and that’s when you assaulted him too.”
“He…” I trailed off. Even forming words was taking more energy than I had, with every second seeming to siphon off my will to live. I was in deep shit here, with nothing to grab on to and pull myself out.
“After that, James and his friends were on their way back to his car, taking a shortcut to Grand Drive because the Nirohe Shakes parking lot was full. That’s when you intercepted them and took out all your rage on this small group of law-abiding citizens. Nothin’ angrier than an interrupted rapist, so they say.”
“Bullshit…” I hated how shocked and weak my voice sounded.
“Well look at James here, he’s clearly been attacked by you. That’s his story, and what the other three are saying. That’s what Mr. Rivera is saying. Plenty of people in Nirohe’s saw the fight. And we all know what a fuckin’ low life you are, fuckin’ always have been. I’d say you’re a month or two from getting your shit pushed in by your new cellmate, Bubba.”
I said nothing and an evil grin spread across the sheriff’s face as he leaned forward. “And if that wasn’t enough… well holy fuck if you haven’t been threatening to kill me ever since we locked you up in there.”
James copied his cousin again and leaned forward too. “Hey, fucker, you still listening? You think you’re the only one fucking Hazel? I barebacked that bitch too.”
“Fuck off, she knows you’re a piece of shit,” I growled.
“She says the same kind of stuff about you. That slut knows just what to say to make a dick hard though, huh?” James smirked. “Oh James, I want to feel you inside of me for our first time, not a piece of rubber.” He finished in a falsetto mockery of Hazel’s voice.
My neck refused to work anymore and I hung my head, unable to make eye contact. That was exactly what Hazel said when we first made love.
“She said she made you put a condom on after that, hope she’s not lying about that too, but she still lets me bareback her if I push my luck. Feels good cumming inside her, right? Can you remember back that far? I must have unloaded a fucking gallon in her while you were away and she fuckin’ loved it.”
“That’s more than I needed to know, cousin,” said Sheriff Poppleton, taking off his hat to scratch his scalp, then shaking his head, replacing it and turning back to me to me. “Anyway… it makes me tired just thinking about all the fuckin’ paperwork your sorry ass is going to put me through, so purely out of the goodness of my heart, I’ve got an idea to make this all go away. You wanna hear it, boy?”
My mind was reeling. I could barely tell up from down, let alone think straight. Hazel was… gone? Worse… she was never what I thought she was in the first place? Without her, nobody would back up my side of the story. Not with my history. Without her… even I didn’t much care for what my side of the story was anyway.
“Well?” the sheriff prompted.
“Yeah.”
“Alright, here it is. You leave town tonight, right away, never come back and no communication… or I do believe you’ll try and make good on all those death threats and you’ll die while resisting arrest. Such a fucking tragedy. I’ll have to ramp up that investigation about what… or who is causing all the problems in the Rivera vineyard. Your dad’s got plenty of access to it… and motivation to see it fail, isn’t that right?” He leaned even closer to the bars. “There’s nothing in Shippensburg for you, shit for brains. Nothing but a world of pain. You don’t fucking belong here, so get the fuck out and never come back. You understand?”
They were going to ruin my dad too. I felt so stupid. The Poppletons had too much money, too many connections for somebody like me to have a feud with. People like that always win.
The color was either draining from my face or the entire world, I couldn’t tell the difference in the way it felt. I sat there like a popped balloon for fuck knows how long.
“Speak up, bitch,” said James.
“I understand,” I said.
“I let you walk, you just keep walkin’, right?” the sheriff asked.
“Yeah.”
“Alright. James, you head on home. No more shit tonight, you understand? Don’t get in the way of your old school chum leaving town.”
James took a deep breath and looked like he was going to send a parting shot my way, but there was no point. I was beaten and hosed down in a holding cell. He let out a laugh, smiled and shrugged. “Sure thing, Greg. See you around.”
James left and the sheriff stared at me for a while before speaking. “Now, I don’t much care which direction you pick. Mountains are that way, desert is that way, river is that way. Whichever way you go, I suggest you cross something. You ready?”
“Yeah.”
The sheriff stood and stacked the chairs out of the way before pulling out his keys with one hand and what I thought was a stun gun in the other. The keys rattled in the lock to my cage and the door swung open with a horror-movie groan.
“Don’t try anything,” he said.
I stood with a grunt of pain and shuffled towards him. He backed off to let me through and the thought of seeing how much I could hurt him before I was shot dead crossed my mind.
That wouldn’t work though. It’d end my dad, even if the sheriff didn’t pin the Riveras’ vineyard problems on him somehow.
My joints felt like they had rusted in the time I’d spent in the holding cell, and I limped along towards the only other door in sight with Greg Poppleton following at a safe distance. By the time I reached the door I was moving a little more freely. Free enough to turn the handle and yank the door open without losing my balance at least.