The Losers (27 page)

With mute, almost worshipful respect Jimmy handed Big Heintz a can of beer. The big man tipped back his head, drained the can, and then threw it away.

“All right!” he roared. “Let’s
go!”

With a clatter of chains and clubs the Angels piled into their battered cars or aboard their motorcycles. Their engines roared to life, and with smoking exhausts and screeching tires they blasted off, grim-faced, to that last and final war their leader had promised them. Their women, equally grim-faced, gathered the shouting children and retreated to the house, slamming the door behind them.

Big Heintz, his meaty arms proudly crossed, stood in splendid solitude on the now-deserted front lawn. Then slowly, majestically, girt in steel and leather, he strode to his bike, mounted, and tromped savagely down on the starter crank.

Nothing happened.

He tromped again—and again—and yet again. The big Harley wheezed.

“Come on, you bastard,” Big Heintz rasped hoarsely. “Come on,
start]”

For ten minutes Big Heintz tromped, and for ten minutes the big Harley stubbornly refused to start. “Son of a bitch!” Heintz gasped, sweat pouring down his face. “Come on,
please
start!”

Finally, in desperation, he grasped the handlebars and pushed the heavy machine into the street. Running alongside, he pushed the balky bike along the empty street in the long-vanished wake of his departed warriors. At the end of the block he pushed it around the corner and was gone.

The street was silent again except for the strangled sound of Flood’s muffled laughter drifting down from the rooftop.

iv

“I’m not the least bit sorry for her,” Denise said. “It’s her own fault.”

“Come on, Denise,” Raphael objected.

“Come on, my foot. There’s a little pill, remember? If a girl gets pregnant these days, it’s because she
wants
to get pregnant. It’s just a cheap ticket to an early wedding. I’m glad it didn’t work. Next time she’ll know better.”

“She isn’t that kind of girl.”

“Really? Then how come she’s got a big belly?”

“Don’t be coarse.”

“Oh, grow up, Rafe,” she said angrily, slapping her dwarfed hand down on the table in irritation. “If she’s such a nice girl, why didn’t she keep her legs crossed? Why are
you
so concerned about what happens to some dim-witted trollop?”

“She’s not a trollop. That kind ofthing can happen. Young men can be very persuasive sometimes. Don’t be so Victorian.”

“You haven’t answered my question.” Her pale face was flushed. “Why are you so interested in her?”

Raphael took a deep breath. “All right,” he said finally. “There’s a disease on my street. It’s a combination of poverty, indifference, stupidity, and an erosion of the will. You could call it the welfare syndrome, I suppose. The people are cared for—they get a welfare check and food stamps. After a while that welfare check is the only important thing to them. They live lives of aimless futility—without meaning, without dignity. Society feeds them and puts them in minimal housing, and then it quite studiously tries to ignore the fact that they exist. But people are more than cattle. They need more than a bale of hay and a warm stall in some bam. The people on my street turn to violence—to crisis—in an effort to say to the world, ‘Look at me. I’m here. I exist.’ I’d like to salvage just one of them, that’s all. I’d like to beat the system just once. I’d like to keep one of them—just one—out of the soft claws of all those bright young ladies you warned me about—the ones who smother lives with welfare checks like you’d smother unwanted kittens with a wet pillow.
That’s
what my interest is.”

“You’re trying to save the world,” she said with heavy sarcasm.

“No. Not the world—just one life. If I can’t salvage just one life, I don’t see much hope for any of us. The social workers will get us all. That’s what they want, of course—to get us all—to bury us all with that one universal welfare check—to turn us into cattle.”

“And she’s pretty, of course,” Denise said acidly.

“I hadn’t really paid that much attention.” That was not entirely true. “She’s a human being. Frankly, I wouldn’t give a damn if she looked like Frankenstein.”

“But she
doesn’t
look like Frankenstein, does she?” Denise bored in.

“I didn’t notice any bolts sticking out of her neck.” Raphael was starting to get tired of it.

“Why don’t you
marry
her then?” she suggested. “That’d solve everything, wouldn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“It’s a perfect solution. You can marry her, and you can save her from the goblin social workers. You legitimize her bastard, and then you can spend the rest of your life looking for the bolts. I wouldn’t worry too much about that—” She pointed at his missing leg. “After all, a girl in her situation can’t afford to be
too
choosy, can she?”

“Why don’t we just drop this?”

“Why don’t we just drop the whole damned thing?” she said hotly. “Why don’t you get back to work? We’re not paying you to sit around and drink coffee and philosophize about saving the world; we’re paying you to fix shoes.”

His face tightened, and he got up without saying anything. He grabbed his crutches and stumped back toward his workbench.

“Rafe!” Her voice was stricken. He heard her feet, quick and light on the floor behind him, and then she had her arms around him and her face buried in his chest. He fought to keep his balance. “I’m sorry,” she wailed. The tiny hand, twisted and misshapen, clutched the fabric of his shirt at the shoulder, kneading, grasping, trying to hold on. He was surprised at how strong it was.

Denise cried into his chest for a few moments, and then she turned and fled, her face covered with her normal hand.

Raphael stood, still shifting his weight to regain his balance, and stared after her, his face troubled and a hollow feeling in his stomach.

He was still profoundly troubled when he got home that afternoon. He sat for several minutes in his car, staring vacantly out the window.

Hesitantly, old Tobe came out of the house across the street and walked over to Raphael’s car. For once he did not seem particularly drunk. “Hello, Rafe,” he said, his foghorn voice subdued.

“Tobe.”

“You think you could come over to the place for a minute, Rafe?” Tobe asked, his tone almost pleading. “Old Sam’s took sick, an’ I’m awful worried about him. I don’t know what the hell to do.”

“How do you mean sick?” Raphael asked, getting out of his car.

“He’s just layin’ on that couch in the dinin’ room there,” Tobe said. “He can’t get up, an’ he talks funny—like he can’t quite get the words put together right.”

“Let’s go.” Raphael started across the street.

“I don’t think it’s nothin’ very serious,” Tobe said hopefully. “Old Sam’s as strong as a horse. He just needs some medicine or somethin’ to get him back on his feet.”

“You guys drinking again?” Raphael asked, carefully going up the steps onto the porch.

“Not like before. We cut way back. We don’t even really get drunk no more.”

The little house was almost as filthy as it had been the first time Raphael had seen it. The yellow dog stood in the center of the living room and barked as Raphael entered.

“Shut up, Rudy,” Raphael said.

“Go lay down,” Tobe ordered the dog.

Rudy gave one last disinterested bark and went back into the dining room.

Sam lay on the rumpled daybed in the dining room partially covered by a filthy quilt. He recognized Raphael and tried to smile. “Hi, buddy,” he said weakly in his wheezy voice. His left eye was half-closed, and the left corner of his mouth hung down slackly.

“Hi there, Sam.” Raphael steeled himself against the smell and went to the side of the bed. “How you feeling?”

“Funny, kinda.” Sam’s words were slurred.

Raphael reached down and took hold of the old man’s left hand. “Squeeze my hand, Sam.”

“Sure, buddy.”

The hand in Raphael’s grasp did not move or even tremble. “How’s that?” Sam asked.

“That’s fine, Sam.” Raphael gently laid the hand back down.

“All right?” Sam slurred. “ ‘M I gonna be all right?”

“Sure, Sam.” Raphael turned and crutched toward the living room, motioning with his head for Tobe to follow.

“You come back—real soon now, buddy,” Sam said haltingly, and his head fell back on the pillow.

“Can you figure what’s wrong with ‘im?” Tobe asked anxiously in a low voice.

“We’d better call an ambulance.”

“No!” Tobe shook his head. “He don’t want no more hospitals. He told me that when we come outta that detox place after I got sick that time.”

“This is different.”

“No,” Tobe said stubbornly. “He said no more hospitals.”

“Tobe, I think he’s had a stroke. He could
die
in there if we don’t get him to a hospital. His whole left side’s paralyzed.”

Tobe stared at him for a moment. “Oh God,” he said. “I was afraid that’s what it was. Poor old Sam. What are we gonna do, Rafe?”

“We’re going to call an ambulance. Sam’s got to see a doctor right away.”

“All right, Rafe.” Tobe’s narrow shoulders slumped. “Anything you say. You think he’s gonna die?”

“I don’t know, Tobe. I’m not a doctor. I’ll go call an ambulance.”

“Okay, Rafe.” Tobe’s voice was broken. Tears had begun to fill his eyes and spilled over, plowing dirty furrows down his cheeks.

Raphael went out quickly and crutched across the street to call the ambulance.

V

It was early, very early, even before the first faint hint of dawn. Raphael had endured the heat until about two in the morning when the breeze had finally turned cool, and then he had gone to bed. It seemed that he had only slept for a few minutes when he heard the faint, muffled banging on the locked door at the top of the stairs. Groggily, almost sick with the heat and the lack of sleep, he fumbled his way into his pants and reached for his crutches. The leather cuffs that fit around his forearms seemed cold, even clammy, and he shivered slightly at their touch.

“Who’s there?” he asked when he reached the locked door.

“It’s me.” Flood’s voice came from the other side. “Unlock the goddamn door.” His words seemed mushy, thick.

“Damn!” Raphael muttered, slipping the latch. “Come on,

Damon,” he said, opening the door, “I’m tired, and I’ve got to get some sleep.”

Flood was bent slightly, and his hands were pressed against his ribs. Raphael could not see his face in the dark stairwell. “Let me in, dammit.” He moved into the light, and Raphael could see the blood on his face.

“What happened, Damon?”

“I got hit with a chain,” Flood said thickly, “and kicked in the ribs for good measure. Can I sit down?”

“Come on in.” Raphael stepped back awkwardly. “Let me have a look at that cut.”

Flood lurched across the roof to the apartment, went in, and sank carefully on the couch. There was a long, bruised cut on one side of his forehead, just above the eye, and his lip was cut and swollen. The blood had run down the side of his face and dried there. His olive skin was greenish, and little beads of perspiration stood out on his face. His breathing was shallow, and he kept his hands pressed to his ribs on the right side.

“Let me get some things and clean you up,” Raphael said. He turned and went into the bathroom. He got a washcloth and a small bottle of antiseptic. He juggled them around until he could hold them between his fingers and then crutched back out to the kitchen. “What happened?” he asked from the sink where he ran cold water on the cloth.

“We went out to visit scenic Hillyard—a very unfriendly part of town. We found the Dragons, and Big Heintz got his last and final war. Jimmy and Marvin are in the hospital, and Heintzie’s bleeding out of his ears. A most unsavory group, the Dragons.” He laughed slightly and winced. “I think I’ve got a couple of cracked ribs.”

“Why are you running with that bunch anyway?” Raphael demanded, going to the couch and beginning to carefully wash away the caked blood on Flood’s face.

“For laughs-All that bully-boy bravado is sort of amusing.” Flood’s voice was muted and quavered with shock.

“How much fun are you having right now?”

“Not much.” Flood winced and stifled a groan.

“This is going to hurt.” Raphael carefully started to clean the cut.

“You’re right.” Flood said it through his clenched teeth.

“That’s going to need some stitches,” Raphael said, looking at the cut. “You want me to take you to the hospital?”

“You’re going to have to, Raphael,” Flood said shakily. “I damn near passed out a couple times on my way down here. I dropped Heintzie off up the street, and this was as far as I could make it. The big clown bled all over my front seat. They got him down and kicked him in the head a time or twelve. Jesus!” Flood doubled over, holding his side. “That hurts like hell.”

“Don’t move around too much. If those ribs are broken, you could puncture a lung.”

“You’re a little bundle of good news, aren’t you?”

“Let me throw on a shirt and a shoe.” Raphael went into the bedroom.

“I need a gun,” Flood said through the door. “The bastards wouldn’t have gotten me if I’d had a gun.”

“That’s a real sensible approach you’ve got there.” Raphael was lacing up his shoe. “You shoot somebody, and they’ll lock you up forever. Why don’t you just stay away from those half-wits instead?”

“Nobody’s going to run Jake Flood off. I’ll go where I damn well please and with whoever I damn well please, and the next time some greasy punk comes at me with a chain, I’ll make him eat the damned thing.”

“You’re getting as bad as they are.” Raphael came out into the living room again.

“Nobody’s going to run me off. I’ll get a gun and then I’ll make it my personal business to obliterate every one of those bastards.”

“Damon,” Raphael said firmly, “knock off this bullshit about guns. You don’t know anything about them in the first place—and do you actually think you could deliberately pull the trigger on a man? I had to shoot a sick cat once, and I couldn’t even do
that.”