Текст книги "The Fuck-Up"

Автор книги: Arthur Nersesian

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

TWELVE

At nightyou have to wait forever for a train, so I took a cab over the bridge, up Church Street, and through West Broadway. Janus wasn’t home, so I went over to Ternevsky’s bar looking for a sufficient cure. Nothing was as potent as his ashtray, which was filled with Thai stick. I lit up and faded away.

The next morning, I had this strange and tender dream; it was actually more of a sensation. I was slipping through a warm, slimy ooze and although I could breathe I was entirely immersed. There was no claustrophobia. In fact, I felt as if I was speeding toward some strange liberation. I was rising high and higher, fast and faster…. Laughter interrupted me: I was laughing and slowly pulling out of my subconscious state, the oozy warmth was part of me: I was ejaculating into Janus’s hand.

I slithered out of bed. As I dressed, she watched me with eyes so clear. “I honestly like you and I’m attracted to you. When I saw you this morning, you were tossing and turning; I just wanted to comfort you.”

“You don’t do that to a person.”

“It’s not like that. I felt close to you from the first.”

“That’s not even the point. You just don’t do that to a person.”

“Well, Sergei says that there’s no better way to be awakened.”

“Well, not me,” I replied and cleaned up, dressed, and left to go to a nearby coffee shop. As I drank coffee at the counter, squeezed next to a couple eating their breakfast, I wondered how I was going to spend the next couple of hours before work.

“Do you smell a water buffalo?” the girl sitting next to me asked her companion, loudly. Her boyfriend, who seemed embarrassed, tried changing the topic, but she persisted. I supposed she was right. Tight places are plentiful in New York and lately while in elevators, subways, and even bars, I had become aware of a recent hostility from strangers. I abandoned my coffee and left to a pharmaceutical discount outlet. There, I purchased generic bottles of mouthwash, underarm deodorant, toothpaste, dental floss, and other hygienic offerings to society. Noticing a box of prelubed Trojans, I thought about Ternevsky’s darling. She was gorgeous.

Crossing Astor Place, the vendors were out in full force. After a quick browse, I bought a baggy old sharkskin suit for five bucks and a new pair of shoes. Then I bought dinner, pizza on Third Avenue, and a sixteen-ounce can of Bud. I feasted on the corner of Saint Mark’s and the Bowery under the Optima cigar sign while watching the punks, whores, addicts, and sightseers all clogging eastward. By the time a bunch of Jersey kids asked me where McSorley’s Bar was, I had finished the crust and decided to go to the Zeus.

I turned on the night lights and picked up the drops from the box office. As the closing time rolled around, I carefully rolled back the counter, stole the required sum, and waited to go. As I flipped through the Voice,I thought about Ternevsky’s chick. I had to go back there, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with her. I went to the bathroom where I utilized my body aids. I brushed my teeth, flossed, used a mousse, combed my hair, sprayed on underarm deodorant, gargled and, taking off my cheesy socks, applied foot deodorant. Then I changed into the sharkskin suit that I had purchased earlier that day. Some young buck that was cruising the lobby kept dipping into the john, leering as I was transforming. I then went back into the office, where I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to rehearse an imaginary dialogue with Janus.

But it was ridiculous. I was jeopardizing my living situation. Enough time had passed to heal the tear between me and Sarah. She would be saddened to hear about Helmsley. She’d known what he meant to me and would want to console me. I decided to dial her. After three rings, the answering machine gave a message. Her voice sounded bouncy and far happier than I had ever made her. I could never make her as happy as she now sounded on the recording so I hung up before the beep. Looking through my shirt pocket, I found some loose change and the wrinkled title to the Mercedes. I picked up the phone and held it awhile. Who could I call? Thoughtlessly I dialled some familiar digits and listened to the recorded announcement, “the number you dialled is out of service at this time, please check the number and…” I had dialled Helmsley.

Soon the film was over and the guys went home. I locked up the theater and made the night drop. As I walked back down Third Avenue, I felt an increasing pain in my leg, a stabbing from a metal barb. I pulled the contents out of my pocket and found a bunch of loose change and a big ring of keys. Examining the keys, I recognized the two keys to Helmsley’s house and a lump arose in my throat. I had never even noticed them before and now they were all that was left. I let them slip through my open fingers, clinking onto the pavement. The locks they once opened had probably already been replaced. Glenn’s house key was the next key under scrutiny, and as I walked the next block, I relived each punch and kick of the previous night. I held the keys to the Mercedes, her garage, and front door. I threw all three keys into Third Avenue traffic. By tomorrow they would all be irretrievably ironed into the tar. All the six remaining keys were still active, four were for Ternevsky, and two were for the theater. I halted and of course turned back. Waiting until the light turned green, I ran into the street and searched until I found the key to the car. Tiredly I made it back to Ternevsky’s place.

When I entered, Janus was wearing headphones, lying on the director’s circular bed watching his VCR. I quietly went to the most distant part of the place, the reading area. I sat in the great director’s reading chair, which was adjacent to his great custom-made magazine rack filled floor to roof with great periodicals. If we were what we read then Ternevsky was a voyeur, a connoisseur, a bodybuilder, a midget wrestler, a numismatist, a philologist, and there I stopped. Most of the magazines were current, and even though they were broad in scope, most of them were crisply unread.

I glanced at an old copy of the SoHo Weekly News,which had gone out of business, and then a copy of the East Village Eye.I didn’t want any confrontation with Janus. I just wanted to go to sleep. Finally curiosity conquered and I peeked over at her. Her back was toward me. With headphones on, she watched the large-screen TV When I glimpsed past her to the TV, I realized that she was watching something pornographic. I discreetly watched it awhile; it was actually some kind of avant-garde film. Something caught my eye in one of the many vanity mirrors. I realized that she was watching, studying me. I looked away, back at the magazine rack.

She rose to her feet and I could hear her walking a bit.

“Want anything?” She was standing over at the bar, pouring herself a drink.

“Thanks no.”

“What you up to?” she asked.

“Just reading the magazines.”

“We just got a copy of New York Native.See it there?”

“No, but its all right.”

“Aren’t you gay?”

“Not right now.” I replied, not caring for any tongue-in-cheek crap. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone. I gazed at the lingerie ads in one of the many woman’s fashion magazines.

“What is your problem?” she finally asked.

“You.”

“What’d I do?”

“I feel as if you’re testing me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What the hell was that handjob this morning?”

“You looked as if you could use it.”

“And now you’re watching porno when you’re just watching me, asking me if I want to read the Native,all of it.”

“All right,” she finally conceded. “You’re right, and I’ll tell you why, I think you’re a goddamned fraud and the thing that bugs me is that you don’t have to be.”

“If I am a fraud,” I nibbled, “why don’t I have to be?”

“Because,” was all she said for a moment, and then she elaborated. “You kind of remind me of me.” She paused awhile, but I still wasn’t going to show any cards. She had to show more than that.

“If you think that I gave you a handjob just to prove that you’re straight, well, please, I’m not that disgusting. But you are straight.”

“How the fuck can you be so certain. Why can’t I be gay?”

“Well, first of all, I’ve known gays all my life. My father was gay, and you just don’t act gay. Also you behave with this kind of repressed quality; you lurk. You’re afraid that if you let yourself go, I’ll see the truth. And you’re always looking at me in this way. And lastly because I’m really attracted to you.”

“So what now? I mean assuming I am straight. Are you going to tell Ternevsky?”

“If I wanted you out of here, it wouldn’t matter if you were gay or not. All I would have to do is say that I don’t like you.”

“So is that what you’re going to do?”

“No, don’t you understand. I’d like to become friends…”

“Friends? Like how?”

“Well”—she moved alongside me and put her hand on mine—“Ternevsky’s a great accommodator. But he’s greasy, slimy and unromantic and he makes me feel ugly and cheap.”

“All right.” All her cards seemed on the table; if she wanted me out, all she would have to do is tell the maestro that I made a move on her. It would take a whole lot less than a handjob.

“All right?” she replied.

“All right, I’m not gay. Now what?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“I’m tired,” I said nervously, waiting to see whether I had been trapped or not.

“Me too. Why don’t you join me. I’ve rented a pretty good film.”

“That porn film.”

“It’s an art film,” she replied. So I got on the bed and she poured us both a drink and we watched this dirty art film, and slowly we got closer and when I started mimicking the film—kissy, touchy, feely—she didn’t stop me.

When I awoke late the next morning, she was still in my arms, something I had never experienced with Glenn, or for that matter most lovers. I felt hot and sweaty, so I carefully pried myself loose and started a bath. While the water ran, I put on a pot of coffee and got the New York Timesthat had been slid under the locked elevator door. In the bath I aristocratically downed the coffee and English muffins while reading the newspaper. Soon Janus joined me in the massive tub, and we giggled and splashed around like toddlers.

The beginning of a relationship is always the prime cut of the affair. I was in love. That night, post-coitally, I asked Janus, “Do you think we’re taking a risk by sleeping together?”

“No,” Janus continued, “even if he did come unannounced, he’d come in the evening after a daylight flight.”

“How self-assured,” I replied. “You sound like you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

She smiled and kissed me. “You’re jealous already.”

“Well, I’ll overcome that. But I’m still nervous about him coming in and catching us. If he was so damn thorough about having a homosexual in residence, then he’s obviously the jealous type. And it’d be a high price to pay if we got caught.”

She agreed and carefully we established certain safeguards. The next day, we went out and bought our own linen, which Janus would put on the bed each night and replace with the normal circular sheets the next morning. Also she warned that we should never be seen in public, as the eminent director had a network of opportunists hoping for jobs in his films, doing anything they could to ingratiate themselves to him. Additionally she would distance us by indicating that I was too effeminate for her liking.

One evening, arriving late at work, I opened the office door and found Miguel sitting at his desk with a smile on his face. He didn’t say a word. When I asked him what was up, he took two paper cups from out of the desk drawer and then a small frosted bottle of Cordon Negro from out of the dwarf refrigerator. Popping the cork, he announced, “We got it.”

“Got what?”

“I just got the mortgage on the Jersey place.”

“But it’s nowhere near June.”

“No, but we got enough in our account to get a loan from the bank. I got it away from the loan shark. If we miss a payment, I won’t get killed.”

We toasted and drank, and he explained that we had several more months of embezzling at the standard pace.

“But even then, we’ve got to leave here gracefully or they’ll become suspicious.” We toasted some more and got more enthusiastic. “By the by,” he interrupted himself, “Owensfield called.”

“About his screening?” I remembered that he was supposed to be finished with his film soon.

“Well, he mentioned it, but do you remember that conversation you guys had about Vienna or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Apparently you really did impress him. He asked me to invite you to his contributor’s party celebrating some new issue of his magazine.”

“Why would he invite me?”

“Actually, he invited both of us.”

“When?”

“This Friday.”

“Not this Friday?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’ll be in Arcadia this Friday with lover boy.” If we went to this Harringtonparty together, Miguel would discover my scam to get published. And although it was no money out of his pocket, I didn’t want him to consider his future business partner so deceitful so soon.

“What is the name of this alleged beloved?”

“Donny,” I selected randomly.

“Like Donny Osmond.”

“More like Adonis.”

“They’re all Adonis,” he replied, and grabbing his jacket he bid me good night and left.

After all the spins of the turnstile and the backward spins of stolen money 1 locked up, made my night drops, and went to Ternevsky’s. I opened the elevator door and stared at the house. It looked like a small tornado had hit. Janus was sitting on the bed. Silently she handed me the postcard that Ternevsky had sent saying that he had concluded all business on the continent and he would be home by the time she got this postcard.

The night was too grim to make love. The next morning we changed the sheets, and waited nervously for Ternevsky’s grand entrance. Although neither of us wanted it, our great love was instantly turned into a protracted one-night stand. Janus even helped me apply some of Ternevsky’s male cosmetics; transforming into a swank gay in season. As evening thickened so did our anxieties. We wandered around the house like strangers. I didn’t have any work that night, so I pointlessly tried to console Janus. But we became increasingly depressed. She commented that we were just property of Ternevsky and finally suggested that it would be wiser if we were apart when Ternevsky arrived. I agreed and left.

I walked around the neighborhood, finally checking out the street vendors on Second Avenue. On the display blanket of one vendor I noticed an old Hamilton wristwatch in fair condition.

“How much?”

“Five bucks,” the seller said. He was a poorly dressed black man in his sixties.

“How about three bucks?” I held out the dollars in front of him.

“Look, them extra two bucks means I eat.”

“Hey, I’m no different than you,” I replied. “It means the same thing for me.”

“Well, I don’t see you selling your shit to stay fed.”

“You want the money or no?”

“Four bucks,” he finally replied. It wasn’t poverty that compelled me to haggle. I just liked the sport of it. Actually, I had this week’s pay on me, two hundred and fifteen bucks. I gave him the three and an extra dollar in change and put the old watch with the elastic band around my wrist. I then proceeded up First Avenue. If Ternevsky was back for good he was probably going to ask me to move. The party was over; he was probably screwing Janus right now.

“Hey,” someone yelled as I was crossing Ninth Street. It was Angel, an usher I had worked with at the Saint Mark’s Cinema. We talked a bit, and he asked me whether I had heard a rumor that the Saint Mark’s Cinema was going out of business.

“No way,” I replied.

“I heard it was going to turn it into some kind of yuppie mall.”

“I wish I was a yuppie,” I said.

“Why?”

“They’re young and they have money, the winning combination.”

“Well, you’re still young—halfway there. You’re not looking for any coke, are you?”

“I’m just out for a walk,” I replied.

“I can give you a good deal on some coke. Have a taste.” And he unfolded a small packet of aluminum foil, dabbed a little on the end of his long-grown pinky nail, and held it up to my nose. I snorted and felt the tingle rise and spread.

“Wait one second,” I said and went to the pay phone where I called Janus. I told her that 1 would be home soon with a parting gift.

“How much is it?” 1 asked the ex-usher.

“I’m freezing out here,” he replied and gave me a great deal; two grams for two hundred bucks. I went home quickly and showed it to a grim Janus.

“Tonight,” I said, “let’s go out in style.”

We went out to a nearby restaurant for dinner and then came home and watched some TV. Initially we were able to forget the impending return, but when we remembered it was additionally painful. We tried to be intimate but it wasn’t working; we couldn’t ignore the sword dangling over our heads. Finally she declared, “This is bullshit.”

“Let’s pack up and just leave,” I suggested. But then there was a new silence.

She eventually broke it with her explanation, “I can’t work forty hours a week just to live in a ten-floor walk up on Avenue C. I’ve lived with rats and roaches and I don’t want to, ever again.”

“I’ve lived like that too, but it doesn’t have to be like that. Right now I’m involved in something and if all goes well, I’ll co-own a movie theater in Jersey. It’ll only bring in a modest salary at first, but there are still some nice places in Hoboken and Jersey City, and you can move in with me.”

“Well, if that happens, great. But let’s only count on what we got: Where’s the coke?” I took out the envelope and she took down a small glass frame from the wall. It was the New York Film Series Award citing Ternevsky for Best Cinematic Effort of 1973. She placed the coke on it. Taking a letter opener from his desk, she plowed through the pile, creating fine lines of white powder. I watched with a silent smile as she quickly got a small piece of aquarium tubing from Ternevsky’s top desk drawer and handed me one. She was an expert, there was no fumbling or improvising.

She smiled, kissed me and started up her nose siphoning.

Quickly a small fireworks ignited in the sinuses soared into the brain. Her eyes became glassy and we both started giggling. The celebration had begun. Half past a gram, the phone rang. Whoever it was, I wasn’t worried. It was night and Ternevsky, the daytime vampire, couldn’t catch us until tomorrow’s afternoon light.

Answering the phone, I found someone in desperate need of Henry, a wrong number. An anonymous male voice had misdialed. From my drugged perspective, this was absolutely hilarious. But a moment after the phone was back on the receiver, it rang again.

“I need to talk to Henry,” the voice pleaded, and once again I couldn’t stop laughing until I hung up. Again the phone rang. This time I instructed Janus, “When the Igor asks for Henry, hand me the phone.” She did so, and when the older male voice asked me if I was Henry, I made an affirmative mumble.

“Henry,” he started sobbing, “Dad is dead.” Janus was restraining laughs. This guy was sobbing and, coke notwithstanding, I was suddenly pushed face to face with an old familiar mood.

I hung up, unplugged the phone and chucked it across the room. Grabbing the aquarium tubing, I started snorting away from the caller and all the pathetic associations, snort exalting up into that cocaine cosmos.

Janus began undoing my clothes and I started stripping her. She brought me over to the big round bed. And everything was done, nothing was shameful, nor vulgar, nor squeamish, nor could be, everything was mustful. Energy launched and abounded; muscles bulged, bunched and loosened again. Nothing retained. Everything was a blastoff-moonwalk-splashdown, shameless sin before the expulsion. Each single sensation was on its own, soaking up itself, every second was lifefull and there was no nothingness, until my liquid concentrate diluted and then sinking forever deep, deep, deep….

THIRTEEN

Awakingto the sensation of a clench, I blinked through the gushing sunlight of those bay windows. 1 could make out Ternevsky standing over me with Marty entering behind him, hauling in luggage. I jumped to my weak feet.

“Doesn’t anyone answer the phone?” asked the still-ignorant Marty, who was just stepping out of the elevator. Realizing my nudity, he dropped his bag and asked, “What the fuck is going on?”

“Your little faggot’s dick!” Ternevsky screamed. “It was in my little girl—that’s what!”

Ternevsky grabbed a vase of roses and poured it on the bed, splashing over Janus and myself. I shoved into my pants and shirt and she bolted up.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked, immediately grabbing the situation.

“I’ve always suspected this, you little bitch. Now I want you and your things out of my house.” Ternevsky, poor actor that he was, lost his exotic accent in his fit of anger.

“Sergei, I can explain.”

“Don’t explain,” I yelled, as I zipped up my pants. “Come with me.”

She looked at me angrily, making no attempts to conceal her nudity. She jumped to her feet before him and dropped to her knees, looking up at her master. She started crying into the loose legs of his trousers. After a moment of this, she pointed to me and started with the accusations, “It was that monster! He did it to me!”

Ternevsky looked at me with wild and widened eyes and since he was nearer to the kitchen than any other part of the house, he seized an electric can opener shaped like the Starship Enterprise and swung it dramatically in the air.

“Wait a fucking second! She’s lying!”

“He did it to me,” she yelled back. I dressed even quicker. As I squeezed my shoes on, Marty’s hands fell softly on my back, not attempting to restrain me, but letting me know that he was prepared to.

“What exactly did he do?” Ternevsky asked her paternally. She looked up into my eyes with absolute terror. Instantly in those pupils I saw tiny saucers of that terror: overpriced rat-infested tenements, dull and underpaying nine-to-five jobs.

Pushing Marty onto the bed, I dashed into the elevator, which was held open by one of Ternevsky’s bags. I kicked it out of the way and yanked the door shut, and as the elevator sank away, I could hear Sergei scream, “Quick, call the police!”

Outside it was a sunny but chilly day as I wandered unsteadily toward the northwest, still hungover by last nights baby powder. Janus had supplied me with a good time, and if there was anything that she could salvage out of the wreck, even at my expense, she was welcome to give it a try, no hard feelings.

Finally, twisting along Bleecker, I arrived at Abingdon Square. There, I joined the collection of young mothers, children, old folks, bums, monkey bars, and swings. I wish I had grabbed more of my clothes, once again I had only escaped with the things on my back. Checking my pockets, I realized I had just about blown all my money on last night’s coke. So, without any immediate prospects, I just sat there awhile, waiting for something to come and for something else to pass. I watched a bag lady feeding pigeons and teenage kids wearing designer jeans.

I bought a candy bar, called it breakfast, and chewed it down as I walked through the West Village toward the F train. Passing the old restaurant where I had first met Sarah about a year before, I realized how quickly I had descended. I finally got to Fourteenth Street where I paid a token and realized as I walked down that long uriney tunnel connecting the IRT with the IND trains that the last time I had passed through this tunnel was when I went with Helmsley up to the Columbia University party. You know you’ve been in a place too long when every other locale serves as a reference for some sad recollection.

When I got to the F train platform, it was bare, so I figured I just missed one. Looking down into the dirty tunnel, I spotted a distant light. The train was on its way. But after a while when still nothing arrived, I checked the tunnel again and realized that it was only the nickering of an incandescent bulb deep in the tunnel’s filth. After about twenty minutes of waiting, a garbled announcement came over the loudspeaker. All I could make out was “an alternative route…” I walked back through the long uriney tunnel. While waiting another small chunk of eternity for the IRT, I thought about how I had grown to tolerate almost all of New York’s degradations. Reality now seemed authentic only with a certain degree of anxiety and humiliation. But I decided that it would be a sad day when I didn’t mind riding the subway.

When a train finally arrived, there was a copy of yesterday’s New York Poston one of the seats. After reading the gossip on ‘Page Six,” I reached Boro Hall. As I walked toward Glenn’s house, I started pulling together some bullshit tale to tell her.

Up the front steps, I rang the door bell and kept ringing it for about five minutes. No one answered. When I took a couple of steps back and looked up at the front of the house, I thought I saw one of the drapes moving. Could she be hiding? I sat on the stoop unsuspecting and waited for the career lady to return from her career.

After about forty minutes of sitting and rereading yesterday’s Post, a van slowly pulled up. Suddenly I heard Glenn’s door behind me swing open. Junior leaped out with a baseball bat and screamed, “That’s him!”

The side door of the van slid open and out plopped a harmless-looking fat kid who fell on his face, but stumbling behind him was a little league team. I dropped everything and ran down the street toward the river. I had at least a half a block lead, which they closed by the time I reached the promenade. Jumping over the encircling gate, I moved through the shrubs and trees and tried squeezing through a fence into a private backyard, but I was too hefty. Through the foliage I could see nothing but running feet. They seemed to be all around me so I squatted low in the thicket and waited. I could hear them yelling between each other, “Is he up there?”

“No—did he jump over there?”

“He couldn’t, either the fall or the cars would’ve killed him.”

“Well he was around here a second ago.”

“He couldn’t’ve escaped. Spread out.”

They were defoliating the bushes and shrubs, and I knew that in a minute they would be on me, so I chose a direction and waited for my big chance. A hard boot suddenly kicked me square in the center of my back, throwing me flat on my face.

“Found him!” one large guy was screaming. “He’s right here.”

“Grab him, grab him!” I could feel the thuds of approaching feet running toward me. I tried to rise but a shower of needles seemed to radiate from my spine. Then the hailstorm started. Feet and fists smashed up and down along my arms and legs. I curled into a ball and tried to get up.

“Hold his arms! Kick out his teeth!” I heard someone ranting orders, and a paddle wheel of shoes started on my head and neck.

“Stop it!” I suddenly made out Junior’s voice. “Just hold him flat!” Anda group of hands and arms weaved into a straight jacket holding me flat on my back. “Mama’s gonna need a new lover.”

Through the throbbing headache, puffy eyes, and loud ringing, I watched him pull that Afghan knife out of his pants. When I saw him snap open the shiny blade, it was like snapping open a capsule of smelling salts and inhaling. Convulsing up with all my might, he quickly gored his knife into my right inner thigh. When I started bleeding, they weakened their grip and I pulled to my feet and dashed through the bramble. As I hurtled back over the gated area, they pursued. A cop car was slowly patrolling the far end of the promenade and nothing was obstructing its view. One of the officers must’ve seen me dashing by with Spanky’s gang close behind, but apparently it didn’t warrant further investigation.

Running off the promenade at the exit with the flag pole, I made it about a quarter of the block up Montague Street before the fastest kid in the group grabbed me. A baby-faced monster with good sneakers, kicked me in the back of my knees. I went down. It was just the two of us. I lunged forward, putting him in a quick half-nelson, and fumbled through his pocket. Just as Junior and the tallest lad bolted forth, I found a Bic ballpoint pen which I placed right in the corner of his right eye.

“A step closer and skinny’s a cyclops, I swear it.” Junior caught the rest of the kids as they came huffing and tumbling out of the park. They encircled me and then Junior made a proposal.

“Let him go, and we’ll let you go.”

“There’s no way you can guarantee that,” I said.

“What do you want?”

“Just stay put,” I replied as I backed up the block holding the hostage boy in one hand and the pen in the other. A retroactive pain was regrouping throughout parts of my body, a limp had caught up with me and bent me over. Neither cab nor cop came by.

As the pain settled, it became harder to hold balance, and when I finally tripped on the consistently broken pavement, dropping the pen, my leash was gone. Skinny broke lose and the dog pack was set free. In an excruciating limp, 1 dashed into the nearest open store, a Häagen Dazs ice cream parlor.

I pushed two people aside and jumped over the counter. When the kids dashed in one by one, each at his own pace, someone yelled, ‘There’s a line!”

Running around the counter, they reached down and restarted with the kicks and wallops. I felt a tooth break in my mouth and fists pounding on my skull and chest. Suddenly, like a piece of furniture, I was lifted into the air for removal and disposal.

“Let him go!” A middle-aged lady wearing a red Häagen Dazs T-shirt cocked a small revolver at the group.

“He beat up our friend,” one replied, the one who had first caught me in the bushes. “We’re taking him to the police.”

“No!” I whined pitifully, as I wiggled myself to my feet. Hands started gripping me tightly. “I was disciplining him for his mother.”

In an unharmonious chorus they all started disagreeing with me, each supplying his own renditions.

“Shut up!” she yelled, pointing her gun. “I’ll call the police here and solve the matter for everyone.”

“Hell no,” Junior replied. “We’re not letting him go.”