Bump

by S.J. Finch

  ***

  Ryan only lived one neighborhood over from Eli, but today he took the long way. He needed time and space to think before he went home and had to put on the false smile all through family dinner. His mind tried to replay the scene over in his head but it was the last thing he wanted to think about. It wasn’t the first time he and Vanessa had gone ten rounds in an argument like this, either that Ryan was too stoic or she was too emotional, but this was by far the worst. He was ashamed of the things he had said, but he didn’t regret them. He knew she couldn’t help him. Not this time.

  Sunset was still a few minutes away, but the clouds that had gathered at the western horizon brought an early twilight that doused the earth in battling hues of bright orange and pale navy. The route Ryan had chosen led him through the outskirts of a third neighborhood, one with slightly older homes and lower income families. The houses here were smaller than those in the surrounding neighborhoods. The cars in the driveways and carports were older. The lawns were less manicured, some even overgrown. The patio furniture was faded, peeling, or rusted. The novelty mailboxes were more frequent.

  As the Jeep snaked its way through the streets, Ryan tried to keep his attention on the things around him, on anything to keep his mind occupied. He had almost reached the edge of the neighborhood when something caught his eye. The house was a small split-level, red brick, set in a yard with more weeds than grass. It was encased by an old chain-link fence which kept corralled the large dog lounging on the crumbling front porch. Parked at the curb on the other side of the street was an old red pick-up truck, and it was this that had caught Ryan’s attention. Inside the cab were a man and a woman who seemed to be in a heated argument.

  Ryan eased off the gas pedal as he approached and the Cherokee slowed to a crawl. He saw the man reach over, and the woman promptly shoved his hand away. The man yelled at her, the woman yelled back, and the passenger door flew open as she stomped out and made her way across the street to the red brick house.

  The woman was younger than Ryan had first thought. She didn’t look too many years out of high school, but the bags under her eyes and the lines already creasing her face made her look older. She wore cheap high heels and a skirt that didn’t match her jacket or the t-shirt underneath. She clutched an oversized handbag with hands that ended in long, false fingernails. Her hair bore signs of meticulous styling and heavy product, but it looked like it had been mussed during the argument in the car. Her eye make-up was running as a result of the tears, and it had left dark streaks down her face.

  The man clambered out of truck on the driver’s side and he stumbled. He left the door open as he walked around the truck and began to yell after the woman in thick, slurred speech. He had a mane of curly black hair that stuck to his perspiring face. He wore stained blue jeans over large brown work boots and an old t-shirt that fit him too snugly. As the man started across the street towards the house, the dog raised its head to watch.

  Ryan’s car was completely stopped now and it idled conspicuously in the middle of the road. Part of him, a big part, told him to keep driving and mind his own business. Another part of him however, told him that the situation might escalate, and quickly. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Ryan’s thumb was at the ready, poised over the keys to call 911 as soon as he saw trouble.

  The woman walked as quickly as she could in her heels, but she had barely reached the curb in front of the house before the man caught up to her. He grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around. She tried to shove him away, then pry his fingers off her, but he was far bigger and he held her tightly as he screamed into her face. She had enough range of motion in one arm to slap the man across the face, and she did. The retaliation made the man furious. He shook her once, hard, then threw her to the ground, as he continued to scream.

  Ryan dropped his phone into the passenger seat and in one fluid motion, put the Jeep in park and killed the ignition. He could see now that there was no time for police. Something was going to happen here and it was going to happen now. He didn’t think about the man’s enormous size. He didn’t think about his own newly-healed injuries. He didn’t think about what he was going to do or say when he got out of the car. In fact there was only one thing running through Ryan’s head as he stepped out onto the street: he could do something, or he could do nothing. There was no third option. Either the woman got hurt or she didn’t, and Ryan knew he was the only variable in the equation.

  Ryan’s heart pounded in his chest as he took his first shaky steps toward the man. Adrenaline raged through his veins and his view became tunneled, focused entirely on the man not fifteen feet away. Ryan’s hands shook and he felt blood pounding through his ears. His breath was raspy and labored.

  Neither the man nor the woman had noticed Ryan yet and by now the man had grabbed a fistful of the woman’s hair and was yelling once again. Ryan was easily close enough to understand the man’s words, but his brain wasn’t comprehending them. All Ryan heard were sounds: random syllables from the screaming man, pitiful sobs from the woman, the dog barking furiously at the commotion, and the blood rushing through his own ears.

  Ryan was ten feet away now and the man brought his other hand down across the woman’s face. It connected with a sickening clap of flesh against flesh and the woman’s whimpers became cries of pain. Ryan broke into a run. Not a jog, but a dead sprint.

  The fear was gone. There was no more hesitation, no more shaking. A wave of calm washed through Ryan’s body and he felt his higher cognitive functions shut down. He wasn’t thinking anymore, he was doing. He was a product of pure adrenaline. He was running at the man full-tilt with one, singular objective that seeped through his body like molten lava: to cause this man pain.

  Ryan was still two steps away when the man turned and realized what was happening. Ryan saw his eyes widen in shock, then realization. The teenager leapt off the ground at full speed and a stillness seemed to hang in the air as he lunged. The man had stopped screaming. The woman had started to scramble away. The dog, seeing Ryan, had suddenly stopped barking.

  As he made impact, Ryan’s senses seemed to kick into overdrive. He felt the sweat on the man’s torso as they collided, smelled the sickly sweet stench of alcohol on the man’s breath, and he felt his own shoulder dislocate with the force of the impact.

  The two sprawled to the ground. The man grunted in pain and Ryan gave a low, guttural scream of rage. He was notified of the pain searing through his shoulder as he hit the pavement, but he didn’t feel it. It was as if his shoulder had sent a polite memo to his brain, alerting it of the damage, and the brain had simply filed it away to be dealt with later.

  The force of the impact sent them rolling over one another and blurred glimpses of houses, trees, and cracked asphalt swirled through Ryan’s field of vision. They came to an abrupt stop but the scuffle had already begun, as each man clawed and kicked. The older man forced him to the ground and Ryan felt, and heard, his shoulder crack back into place.

  Ryan was outgunned. The man was stronger and far bigger than he was, and the surprise attack had done more damage to Ryan than it had to his opponent. The man pinned Ryan to the asphalt with a large, hairy hand around Ryan’s neck. He made a fist and struck Ryan near the eye and his vision swam as his ears rang. The man struck him again and again: the ear, the eye, the jaw. Ryan felt his lip forced against his teeth and cut itself against them. He felt his nose forced into awkward shapes and angles and then he tasted the blood pouring out of it.

  Ryan tried to kick his legs but he had no leverage against the man, and his physical strength was draining as he struggled. His fists flew against the man at every angle, but they didn’t seem to be having any effect. He couldn’t reach his opponent’s face and his blows against the torso were too short and too weak. His fingers and hands ached from the ineffective impacts. Ryan watched as the outside of his vision began to gray and darken. The man’s hand was still firmly around Ryan’s throat and Ry
an couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a breath. He kicked and bucked harder now out of a flailing desperation not to win, but to live. One desperate kick caught the man in the ribs and he instinctively removed his hand to clutch his side.

  It was the only opening Ryan was likely to get, but it was the only one he needed. Without thinking, he brought his hand crashing up into the man’s face. The force behind his blow wasn’t much, Ryan was on the verge of exhaustion and unconsciousness, but his hand made contact with the man’s soft, vulnerable nose and he felt it break.

  The man reared back and howled in pain as blood sprayed everywhere. Ryan felt the warm droplets cascade onto his face and shirt as the man rolled off him, holding his nose in both hands. Ryan coughed and sputtered and wanted nothing more than to lay there and black out, but he knew the man might continue his attack at any time. They both laid there for a moment, not two feet from each other as they coughed and moaned and writhed on the pavement. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

  Ryan recovered first and stumbled, doubled over, back to the Cherokee. It seemed to take forever, with every step a battle of both body and will. Somehow he made it and managed to pull himself into the seat. As bloody fingers fumbled to turn the key, Ryan watched through the windshield as the man pushed himself onto his knees, then to his feet. He heard a muted roar of rage and pain and saw the man begin to drag and limp his way toward Ryan’s car.

  Ryan grappled with the ignition, the strength in his fingers all but gone. The man shuffled ever closer, but Ryan couldn’t apply enough force to the key. After a few more frantic seconds, he grasped the key with bloody fingers and wrenched it, and the engine of the old Jeep coughed and turned over. His left eye had swollen almost shut, but through a bleary right, he was able to see well enough to slam the car into reverse and weave unsteadily away from the man. Ryan spun into a residential intersection and slammed the car into “drive” without stopping. He picked a direction at random and sped away.

  Ryan didn’t have the first clue how he made it home. He drove aimlessly for what seemed like hours, when all of a sudden he looked up and saw his own driveway. His first thought had been to put as much distance between himself and the man as possible, no matter the direction. Muscle memory, Ryan supposed, had taken over, but as he half-climbed, half-fell out of the car and trudged up his front lawn, Ryan couldn’t believe he had any muscles left.

  He had missed dinner, and never in his life had Ryan been so thankful for that. The family was gone. The note they had left him on the kitchen table told him where, but he didn’t bother to read it.

  He stumbled down the stairs to his bedroom and collapsed into his unmade bed. Ryan had lost consciousness before his head hit the pillow.