Dead on the Island (9 page)

I headed on over to the car. I was reaching
for the door handle when three guys came around from the darkness
on the other side.

I have no idea how the three of them managed
to hide there. I wouldn't have thought the car was big enough to
conceal them. They looked like the down linemen for the Chicago
Bears.

One thing I have to give them credit for:
they didn't mess around. No fancy words of warning, no
shilly-shallying.

The one in the lead popped me in the stomach
with a short right. He didn't have on a boxing glove, but his fist
felt about the size of one.

I sort of folded up, and the other two each
grabbed an arm, which was more than just a considerate gesture to
make sure I didn't fall down.

The first guy hit me again, in the solar
plexus this time.

I was sucking for air when he hit me the
third time, in the stomach again. There was no way I could tighten
up. I just took it. The two guys on either side of me held me
upright.

That was their first mistake. Another
mistake was in not doing me in right at the beginning. They should
have cold-cocked me. I'm just crazy enough to fight back as long as
I'm conscious.

So I kicked the guy in front of me in the
balls.

He was surprised as hell. His eyes bugged
out of his head and suddenly he was the one sucking wind. I guess
he thought more of his punching than I did. Maybe he thought he
had
cold-cocked me.

He doubled over, clutching at himself and
gagging. I jerked both arms, hard, trying to get free from the
other two tough boys.

It didn't work. Kicking their buddy had been
my
mistake. I'd made them mad. Their hands were like iron
bands on my arms and wrists.

They gave me a little swing forward; then
suddenly the one on the right let go and chopped down at my right
knee with his fist. It probably wasn't exceeding the speed of sound
when it hit.

He hit just the right spot. It was like
someone had poked a hot iron rod into my knee, right under the
kneecap. I gave a strangled, screaming shout. Anyone inside hearing
it would think I was auditioning for Amyl Nitrate and the
Whippets.

The guy on my left held me up until the one
on my right could grab my arm again. The one on the left then
grabbed the nape of my neck, forced my head down, and then they ran
me--or dragged me--right into the side of my own car with all the
force they had.

They had plenty.

This time they both let me go, and I sort of
slid down the side of the car to the hard-packed dirt and gravel of
the parking lot. They left me there and went to their buddy, who
was only a step or two away.

I reached a hand up, trying to find
something to hang onto and pull myself off the ground. One of them
came over and clubbed me in the side of the neck. I went back down,
and this time I didn't even think about trying to get up.

All three of them were standing over me. One
of them was still having a little trouble breathing, which was a
small comfort to me. A very small comfort. One of the others took
any pleasure I had in the small comfort away by kicking me three or
four times in the ribs. He was wearing boots, and the pointed toes
struck me sharply, like a blunt knife blade.

Then they patted me down. I thought they
were looking for my billfold, but I was wrong. They stopped with
the picture of Sharon Matthews. They looked at it, and then one of
them tore in into tiny pieces. I wouldn't have thought he could
tear it so many times. It was pretty thick at the end. But then he
was pretty strong. He dropped all the pieces and they sifted down
on my chest. It was like watching them fall in a slow-motion
movie.

During all of this, no one said a word. But
no one had to. I was getting the message.

I thought they might start kicking me again,
but just then a car turned into the lot, sweeping its headlights
over them. They faded back into the darkness, and I could hear them
moving away. I guess it hadn't been their Ford in my parking
spot.

The car that had turned in came to a stop,
and I heard a door slam. I still didn't feel much like getting
up.

Before long, there was a man standing over
me. He had what appeared to be a normal-looking haircut, but when
he bent over to get a better look at me, a ponytail fell over his
shoulder. I couldn't really tell in the bad light and in my feeble
condition, but it looked as if it might have been dyed blue.

"Hey, man, you OK?" he said.

"M-ugg-unmph," I said.

"Sure, man. I'll help you get up." He
reached down and put his hands under my armpits.

He pulled up, and I tried to stand. I
thought I could manage all right as long as I didn't put any weight
on the knee. I stuck out a hand and leaned on the car.

"How you feelin', man?"

I took a deep breath. It hurt, but I didn't
think I had any broken ribs. Cracked, maybe. "Like six pounds of
shit in a five pound bag," I said.

"Yeah. I know what you mean. Did they get
your money?"

I told him they hadn't taken my money. "You
got here just in time."

"You want me to call an ambulance? The cops,
maybe?"

I opened the car door and sat in the seat,
my legs sticking out into the parking lot. "No, thanks," I said. "I
think I'll just go on home. You scared them off before they did any
real damage." I twisted around, which hurt like hell, and took my
billfold out of my back pocket. "See? Money all still here. And the
cops'd never catch those three."

"Yeah, you got that right. You sure you're
all right, though? You don't look so good."

"No blood, right? I must be OK if there's no
blood."

He didn't look convinced, but he said,
"Well, if that's the way you want it."

"That's the way I want it. Go on in and
enjoy the band. They're really cooking tonight."

"They're cookin' every night," he said. "I
guess I'll go, then." He started on across the lot. He looked back
a couple of times, and I waved a jaunty hand at him. Then he was
inside.

I just sat there for a while, maybe fifteen
minutes. A couple of other cars came in, a couple left. No one paid
me any attention. The three goons didn't come back.

Finally I got myself turned around and
completely inside the car. I tested my right leg. I could work the
accelerator all right, so I cranked up the engine and drove away
from there, hauling what was left of me back to the Island.

I suppose I could have gone back inside The
Sidepocket then and tried to beat the truth out of Ferguson, but
right at the moment I couldn't have beat the truth out of Pee Wee
Herman. I wondered why Ferguson hadn't picked a nicer way of
telling me to lay off instead of being so stupid and obvious. After
all, I might have believed his lies. How was he to know I hadn't?
Now I'd be certain to follow up on him.

I got back to the Island and drove to the
house. Nameless was nowhere in sight. Just like a cat, thinking
only of himself. Who was going to help me get up the stairs?

I managed to swivel around and get my legs
out the car door. Then I put my left foot down and stood up. Now
all I had to do was hop over to the door. I managed to do that,
too.

I looked around in the darkness for
something to use as a cane or a crutch. I had a cane that I'd used
years before, but it was somewhere up on the second floor where it
was doing me no good at all.

There was a piece of an old one-by-four
lying on the ground by the steps. I leaned down, balanced myself
carefully with my hand on a step, and picked up the board. It was a
little too short, but it would have to do.

I tried a couple of steps in the yard with
it before attempting the stairs. If I didn't put my right foot down
too solidly, I could walk without screaming. I was a pretty tough
guy, all right.

Getting up the steps wasn't easy, but I did
it. Just as I got the door open, Nameless streaked by me and into
the house. Typical. Now he'd expect to be fed. There were times
when I wished I were a cat. It must be nice to live a life of total
irresponsibility. All you had to do was find some sucker to feed
you.

Nameless meowed as I came hobbling in
through the door. Clearly I wasn't living up to my obligation to
get food in the bowl the instant he wanted it.

"Sorry," I said. "This is as fast as it
gets. You want food, go find a rat."

Nameless meowed again, clearly not impressed
with my excuse. I ripped open a bag of Tender Vittles and poured it
in his bowl. He stabbed his head in as soon as I began pouring and
grabbed a mouthful, purring now.

I hobbled on up to the second floor. Very
slowly. When I got to the bed, I sat down and tossed away the
board. The knee was hurting like hell, and my ribs weren't much
better. I lay back on the bed, and against all the odds I went to
sleep almost immediately.

~ * ~

Nameless woke me up. He jumped on the bed,
walked up on my chest, and howled. It was completely dark, and I
had no idea what time it was. I looked at my watch, punching the
button that illuminated the numbers. 4:04. "Nameless," I said, "you
can always be replaced."

"Wr-o-r-r-r-r." He stepped off my chest and
jumped down from the bed.

I sat up. It wasn't so bad. I fumbled around
on the floor until I located the board, and then stood up. That
wasn't so bad, either, but it was bad enough. Nevertheless, a man's
gotta do what a man's gotta do.

I located the light switch. Nameless
preceded me out of the room and down the stairs, his tail high. "I
hope you have a nice time," I said as I opened the door on the
first floor.

Nameless didn't say anything. He just
left.

I went back upstairs. I hoped Dino had
plenty of money. A thousand dollars wasn't going to be nearly
enough. I'd earned that much with the knee. It was time to increase
my rates.

I made it back upstairs, and this time I got
undressed before I fell into the bed and into sleep.

~ * ~

I didn't even consider the usual morning run
the next day, but the knee wasn't permanently damaged. It was a
little swollen and tender, but that was all. It would never be as
good as new, but then it hadn't been as good as new in a long time.
The swelling would go down in a day or two, and I'd be back on the
seawall in a day or two more. My ribs and stomach were sore, too,
and I had some interesting bruises beginning to take shape. Soon
they'd all merge into one big, colorful, liverish splotch, roughly
in the shape of Australia, and almost as large. Nothing was broken,
though; nothing was even cracked. The guys who had worked me over
were real professionals.

The knee was the main thing, but if I was
careful, it would be all right, or as all right as it had been
since my last appearance on a football field.

After we'd wowed 'em in high school, Dino,
Ray, and I had gone our separate athletic ways. Dino wanted to get
away from the humid summers and winters of the Gulf Coast to a
place where there were no palm trees and where he could see snow in
the winter. As a result, he'd wound up in Lubbock, playing middle
linebacker for Texas Tech, where he became an all-conference player
his senior year. Meanwhile, I went to The University of Texas at
Austin.

Ray, on the other hand, didn't have much
choice. A couple of the Southwest Conference schools were beginning
to let the first blacks on their teams at about that time, but Ray
wasn't quite good enough to be in that small, elite number. He went
instead to Prairie View A&M, an all black school that had
neither the academic nor the athletic prestige of the big-time
programs in the state, some of which might have taken Ray if they'd
only known how good he was going to become.

But they didn't, so he was stuck. But he got
bigger, and at the same time he got faster. He led the nation in
interceptions his senior year, and Houston drafted him. He was in a
car accident right after the draft. Some buddy who also got picked
having celebrated a little too long and too hard was driving, not
that it mattered to Ray.

His legs healed fine, but in the process he
lost a step. Not even that much. Half a step. But it was enough. He
could run me or Dino into the ground, but that didn't matter. In
the pros that half step can make all the difference. Ray lost
it.

I lost it a lot sooner. It was one of those
great days for football in Austin, about sixty degrees, not a cloud
to be seen, that unidentifiable smell of fall in the air. A stadium
full of screaming fans.

I went into the Texas Tech game leading the
nation in rushing as a sophomore. People were already talking about
the Heisman, if not that year, then the next one for sure. Agents
were already making discreet and not-so-discreet inquiries. There
was not a doubt in anyone's mind that I would be a millionaire
after two more seasons.

Unless, of course, something disastrous
happened.

The first three quarters of the Tech game
went just fine. I'd gained over a hundred yards already, though it
hadn't been easy. A lot of it had come on one play, a sweep around
the right end. I'd broken loose at my own forty and gone untouched
into the end zone. The rest of it had been ground out two or three
yards at a time, and as often as not the one on top of me when they
unstacked the tacklers was Dino. He was double-tough that day.

In the fourth quarter we were leading,
twenty-one to eighteen, and we had the ball on the fifty. The
quarterback called the sweep around the right end again.

I took the handoff and cut back, running
parallel to the line of scrimmage. I could see the sideline in
front of me, and just then a hole opened up to my left. I planted
my right foot to make the cut; that's when Dino hit me.

I don't know to this day where he came from.
I know I sure as hell didn't see him. I've watched the film since,
and I still can't figure it out.