by Scott Blade
One of the others asked, “What're you talking about?”
Widow took a last pull of the espresso, knelt at the knees, and set the empty cup on the ground. He was back up on his feet. He stood tall, shoulders straight, like he had with the Kodiak bear. The only difference was he didn’t wave his hands up in the air.
The third one said, “Hey boy. We don’t appreciate litter around here.”
“I’m not littering,” Widow said.
The second one pointed at the empty paper cup on the ground. He asked, “What do you call that?”
Widow said, “I’m setting it down. I’ll pick it up after I break bones—your bones.”
The three roughnecks kept their eyes forward and chuckled.
The first said, “Really? You think you can take us?”
Widow changed gears and said, “You boys have been following me all over downtown.”
The three roughnecks stared at each other. Eyes glanced back and forth. None of them looked behind him, like they were trying to hide their numbers from Widow. He knew the other two were around.
The last of the three in front of him repeated a question. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “You saw us?”
Widow said, “Of course, I saw you. You boys stick out like—”
“What you gonna say? A sore thumb?” the first one said, interrupting him.
Widow said, “No. I was going to say like five dumbasses.”
The three roughnecks repeated the same glances at each other—three dumbfounded looks on three dumbfounded faces, like they were rehearsing for a skit.
One asked, “Five?”
The third one said, “You not too good at counting? There’s three of us.”
Widow breathed in and breathed out. He kept his hands down by his sides, visible and in plain view, like a magician before a trick. He said, “There’s five of you.”
All three of the roughnecks’ eyes turned from their empty glances at each other to staring directly at Widow. Then they all glanced behind him like they couldn’t help it. It was a colossal mistake. They gave away their drinking buddies, not that it mattered. Widow had seen them already. He had no problem counting to five.
Before any of them knew it, Widow exploded at the hips. He stepped forward on his left foot and back on his right. He pivoted and angled, and his left arm reared back like a spring-controlled mechanism, and his fist fired forward like it was rocket-fueled and someone slammed on the ignition switch. He sent a gigantic open-handed palm strike right into a fourth guy’s neck, like an automated machine-arm slamming into a car part and bolting it together in a factory somewhere.
Widow moved with robotic precision.
The guy was trying to sneak up behind Widow. He was smart enough to stay in the shadow of one of the buildings but dumb enough to think it would work.
Widow’s palm strike slammed into the guy’s jugular with tremendous force. The impact into his neck was hard enough to put him in the hospital for a week. It might’ve killed the guy had Widow applied a little more torque to it. Widow had intended to hit the guy in the chin, but he misjudged the guy’s height. This one was taller than he thought by a few inches. It was a simple mistake. He almost felt bad about it, until the fourth roughneck dropped a two-foot-long piece of rebar from God knows where. The rebar bounced a couple of times on the grassy concrete, resonating and echoing between the buildings like a guitar’s tuning fork.
The fourth guy slumped to the ground like a puppet with the strings cut. He wheezed and grabbed at his neck. He was in pain. No doubt about that. Widow listened to his wheezing for a long second, keeping part of his attention on the others. He didn’t want to lose track of them, but he also didn’t want the fourth guy to die.
Widow wasn’t a cop, not anymore, but he knew enough to know that if he killed a local guy, intentional or not, self-defense or not, the local police would detain him. How long they might detain him could be days, weeks, months, or hell, even years. The US Constitution guaranteed that every American got the right to a speedy and public trial—the Sixth Amendment. But Widow had heard of people getting arrested and being kept without trial for years. It happened, even in a democracy. The system wasn’t perfect. And for a nobody like him—a drifter, a stranger—the local justice system might be more forgetful that he’s in custody. Widow had no plans of going to jail for murder.
Unfortunately, the guy looked bad. Widow wasn’t a doctor, but he had enough training and experience to know the guy could breathe—barely—but he was getting air. The guy wheezed in and out. If Widow wanted to kill the guy, all he had to do was take a step forward and stomp on the guy’s neck while he was down. That would’ve ended it right there. But there was no reason for that. Tactical assessment didn’t call for it, and if he wanted to avoid cops and handcuffs and charges and long investigations, it was best to move on to the others.
Widow didn’t have to turn back or to look far for another one. The fifth roughneck stood right there to Widow’s right. He was a little further than the fourth guy had been, a little out of reach. He stood there frozen in fear. He stared at Widow. The look on his face looked like someone slammed the breaks on a truck, and it just stopped inches from killing him. He was in utter shock that he and his friend’s plan of attack was foiled so quickly and violently.
The fifth guy also had a long deadly piece of rebar.
Widow asked, “That meant for me?”
The fifth guy stared down at Widow and then glanced down at his wheezing friend. He looked back up at Widow. For a split second, Widow saw horror in the fifth guy’s eyes. In that second, Widow thought the fifth guy might drop the rebar and turn away and run as fast as he could, but he didn’t. He stayed there for a long second, still frozen, still lost on what course of action to take. Widow gave him the chance to run. He didn’t attack. He could have. But he didn’t. He gave the guy a long second to make his mind up. Widow kept the other three on his radar. In the end, the fifth guy made up his mind. It was obvious because the look in his eyes turned from terror to retribution to anger.
Widow didn’t wait for the guy to retaliate. Widow stepped up to the fifth guy fast, pivoted on his left foot, and threw a right hook. This time, he didn’t hold back on the use of force. He saw the guy clear as day. No need to worry about missing his target. Plus, the guys were armed. Widow was not. This was enough to justify the use of deadly force. The rules of engagement were clear. But Widow wasn’t looking to kill anyone.
Widow’s fist slammed into the guy’s right cheek like a freight train. It was a colossal blow. The fifth roughneck stumbled back off his feet. His body dangled in the air in slow motion, like a TKO scene from a boxing movie.
Widow turned back to the others before the fifth guy hit the ground. And he did hit the ground—hard. They all heard it. It was a loud thud of the guy’s body landing on concrete. It sounded like a two-hundred-pound bag of coffee beans thrown from a second floor window. The fifth guy was out cold. Widow didn’t to turn back to look. He knew it. They all knew it.
Widow stood with both feet planted on the ground. He stayed in an athletic position like he was ready for the next guy. He faced the same three roughnecks that he started out facing. But Widow hadn’t been the only one who had been moving. Once he was fully stopped, he saw the first roughneck pull a weapon out from a place of concealment, and it wasn’t another piece of rebar. It was a gun—a Springfield XD-S, which was a reliable handgun. Ask a cop what his preferred choice of firearm to carry is, and the old-timers will talk about the models they grew up with. The word "Glock" will get thrown around. You might even hear "Beretta." But to the new generations of cops, the Springfield XD-S, was a brand you’ll hear often enough. In the consumer market, it was a completely underrated firearm and cheaper than a Glock but similar enough.
The one in front of Widow wore desert camo like the guy got it serving a tour in the Middle East, which he didn’t—clearly. It had been picked up online or at a gun show or special-ordered from a gun store, he figu
red.
Widow hated the type of guy who liked to dress up and pretend to be in the service. It was called "stealing valor." And it’s a great insult to service members of all branches. It didn’t matter which branch they were in. No one put up with it.
Typically, the kind of guy who stole valor was the kind of military reject who couldn’t hack it. By the looks of it, the closest this guy ever got to military service was the day he was rejected at his local Army recruiter’s office.
Widow knew the type. There were multiple indicators, but the one that stuck out, the one that was big and obvious, was the fact that the gun shook in his hand. His whole hand trembled like he had just climbed out of freezing cold water naked. It shook because he had never pointed it at a living target before, not a human target anyway.
Maybe the guy had been hunting before. Being that he lived on Kodiak Island in Alaska, that seemed like a reasonable deduction. But hunting animals and murdering people weren’t the same thing. There are several key differences.
For one thing, holding a rifle isn’t the same as a handgun. Pointing a rifle at a helpless Sitka black-tailed deer wasn’t the same as a living, breathing man. Maybe the guy had hunted bear. Kodiak Island did have a bear-hunting season, but hunters don’t generally invoke the bear’s rage before killing it. They kill it from high up in a tree stand, from a distance with a scope and rifle. They don’t shoot it up close and personal with a handgun. It’s a whole different thing.
Widow was no grizzly bear, but he was just as dangerous.
The first guy said, “You hold it right there.”
Widow stayed where he was and stared into the guy’s eyes. The distance was too far for him to outrun a bullet but close enough to leap at the guy if he missed, which he might. The best option was to not get shot, but in case the guy did try, Widow wanted to make sure he missed. The thinking part of Widow’s brain calculated his chances of dodging and reaching the guy before he could fire a second round. He guessed fifty-fifty at best, which wasn’t great odds when talking about a bullet. Of course, there were a lot of unknown factors, like how good of a shot was the guy?
The distance was about twelve feet between them. Which meant the first guy would have to be blind to miss Widow. But that’s only if Widow stayed still. Moving targets were harder to hit. That fact alone didn’t increase Widow’s odds much, but when he factored in the guy’s inexperience shooting a man, his hesitation, the trembling hand, Widow thought fifty-fifty was about right.
Those odds went from fifty-fifty to zero chance the guy would shoot him because the second guy stepped in and took charge of the situation like he was their leader, only it was odd. It was a bit off. It felt more like he wasn’t their leader but the next rung down the ladder. They had no leader. Not present. Clearly.
The second guy stepped closer to his friend and reached out and clamped a hand over the first guy’s wrist. He moved the gun down and away so that the muzzle was no longer pointing straight at Widow.
Widow’s first instinct was to bum-rush them while they were distracted, but that would leave the chance open of someone getting shot. So he waited.
The second roughneck said, “No! Johnny, put the gun away! We can’t shoot him!”
Widow stayed quiet.
Johnny said, “But, Eddie, he could’ve killed Carl.”
“Put it away!” Eddie shouted.
The one called Johnny looked at Widow, anger in his eyes. His cheeks flushed like he was boiling over. But he did as Eddie had ordered him to do. He put the gun away. He tucked it back into a concealed holster at his hip under his shirt, tucked inside his waistband. Widow watched him do it. He kept his eyes on the weapon until it was out of sight, until it was rendered a nonthreat—for now.
Widow said, “You boys should walk away now. Take your friend to the hospital. He sounds bad.”
Widow stopped and twisted at the hip and looked back at the one called Carl.
Carl was still wheezing, still hacking, but he was breathing. He laid on his back, tossing and turning, struggling to get back to normal. He reached a hand out to Johnny from far away like he was drowning and begging Johnny to jump in and save him.
Widow said, “I’m not a doctor, but he doesn’t look good. He needs medical attention. Any of you guys doctors?”
No one spoke.
Widow looked back at the one called Johnny. He looked at the Johnny’s face and expression. He watched the cheeks flush more and a vein on his forehead throb like it might pop. Johnny’s anger intensified. Under pressure, Johnny would be the one to snap first. Widow had seen it a million times before. It was the guys like Johnny that always seemed like they were the most dangerous, but in reality, they were usually the weakest link in the chain. Guys like Johnny were always the ones to squeal in interrogations first. The right amount of pressure and anyone will crack. For guys like Johnny, any pressure will do.
Widow decided to try a new tactic. He decided to taunt the guy, to take a hold of Johnny’s exposed nerve and apply pressure. Guys like Johnny are terrified. Under the surface, guys like Johnny are cowards. They are the furthest thing from nobility. They’re fake. Guys like Johnny are often afraid of anyone different. They’re often racists and homophobic. They’re the kind of guys who hated the smallest implication homosexuality, especially directed at them.
Perhaps exploiting this weakness with this tactic was less than civil, less than gentile. Widow was no gentlemen. It didn’t matter what Widow believed in. All that mattered was getting the job done, using any means necessary. Widow never fought according to any kind of gentlemen’s rules. In a gentlemen’s duel, Widow would’ve shot his opponent the moment he got a pistol in hand. He would’ve never turned his back on him. He never would’ve lined up back to back. He never would’ve walked twenty paces and turned and then fired. Why would he? Widow never understood that kind of British-Renaissance philosophy. Graveyards are full of gentlemen who fought by gentlemen’s rules.
Widow said, “You seem really protective of your friend. What’s he to you? Your boyfriend?”
Johnny stared back at Widow. His face turned more flushed than it had before. If that was possible. Eddie released Johnny’s wrist and turned back and faced Widow.
Johnny said, “He’s my brother.”
Widow said, “I guess that explains his stupidity. Is that a family thing?”
Johnny’s lips quivered. His eyebrow fluttered. His cheeks looked like they were going to explode. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. Impulse was always a mistake in a fight with an experienced fighter because an experienced fighter wasn’t fighting on impulse. An experienced fighter was playing chess, thinking several moves ahead.
Johnny exploded into action but on impulse. He shoved Eddie aside and took several big strides forward, cleared the distance between him and Widow. He lunged at Widow bare-knuckled. Widow’s eyes caught sight of the third guy. The knuckle-dusters glimmered on his hand like the little skull engravings were diamond encrusted, only they weren’t, at least not with real diamonds. They were encrusted with tiny fake diamonds. They were probably some kind of cubic zirconia.
Johnny lunged with a fist aimed at Widow’s face. Unlike Johnny, Widow was an experienced fighter. Before Johnny took a step forward, Widow’s tactical brain plotted several moves ahead. Widow’s brain laid the pans, and Widow’s feet did the work.
In an explosion of raw power, Widow sidestepped to the left. Johnny’s momentum and weight and amateur fighting carried him right past Widow. Widow planted a foot in his path, which tripped Johnny up. He stumbled forward and off his feet and fell. He slammed face first into the concrete. There was no rest for Widow because Eddie wasn’t as dumb as Johnny. He recovered from being shoved aside and scrambled around and ran at Widow. The third guy followed alongside him, lagging behind, but only by a few feet.
Eddie raised his fists, followed by the third guy. Widow threw his hands up in a boxing position, hoping that these guys would follow suit because they had probably
seen too many boxing matches on TV. Widow was right because both of them threw their fists up like boxers in a ring. Both the one called Eddie and the third guy took up boxer’s stances to match their fists.
Widow smiled. He saw imitators and not trained professionals.
Widow danced further to the left, forcing Eddie to turn his back to the third guy. Widow kept them both in a straight line in front of him. Every time one of them straggled out of line, he parried by dancing to the right or to the left, whichever was required to get them back in line. He wanted to keep them that way. He didn’t want them circling around him. He didn’t want those knuckle-dusters getting behind him out of his line of sight. He wanted to keep them in plain view.
Widow moved his fists up and down, randomly, which made it seem like he was gearing up to throw a punch. He stood in an upright stance, which was another move a boxer might do. He wanted them thinking that’s what he was up to. He was trying to box with them.
Eddie did the same, mimicking Widow. He put his fists up in a defensive boxer pose like he was ready to guard his face with one hand and throw a punch with the other. All of it was exactly what Widow wanted him to do.
Unlike these clowns, Widow was a trained boxer. He had been trained in everything. Navy SEALs don’t practice one form of combat. They practice everything. In a straight-on, fair boxing match with Muhammad Ali back in 1960, Widow would’ve gotten his ass handed to him by "the Greatest." No question about it. But Widow wasn’t fighting Ali. And it wasn’t a straight-on, fair boxing match.
The secret to boxing wasn’t in the hands at all. That’s a common amateur mistake. It’s all in the feet. Boxing was a sport of skilled eye-feet coordination as much as it was about eye-hand coordination. Defense came from the feet. Punches came from the feet. The power came from the feet and resonated up through the hips and the body until a blow was delivered with the fists. Widow knew this. These two didn’t.
The other thing about boxing is that it comes with rules. Street brawling has no rules. In a boxing match, there are referees and time-outs and rounds and a bell and judges and penalties and rules.