He took his glasses off and rolled over to scoop up a set of ironwood knuckles on the night table. A dark-eyed friend of his had bought them in Thailand or Malaysia or some small jungle-black island in the South Pacific. The wood was as warm as honey, but pointed, four little pyramids of pain or panic on a clutch of bunched fingers. Early turned and launched himself at Ben like a small boy jumping off a dock, a dark lake and a hot summer sun.
Wait a second, I said.
The first backhand knocked Ben’s glasses into a pile of laundry. The second backhand drove up his nose, tossed the keys back into the car and strolled through the front door, shouting for a steak dinner. Ben snorted and shook his head and clutched Early close but Early managed to keep his right hand free and laid into Ben like a surveyor zoning a field, mathematical, precise, mapping out future suburbs of bruises. I lunged and grabbed Early’s right as he drew back and managed to pin his hand down on the bed, Early and Ben piling mountain and mountain on top of me. I tried to wrench those wooden knuckles off Early’s hand, but he balled his fingers up and started lashing out with his legs. His knee angled hard and bashed me across the bridge of my nose. I shook the sting off and twisted those wooden knuckles hard as I could, driving them into Early’s own hand until he shrieked and lay still. Ben staggered to his feet and pawed around for his glasses. They were unbroken, a miracle, tipped into a rank pair of Calvin Kleins under the plush chair in the corner. We were all breathing hard, Early most of all, pressing his injured hand underneath his arm.
Early, said Ben.
Early screamed and rushed Ben, bundling the blond giant into the doorway. But the bedroom door had been knocked shut during the fight. Ben let himself be pinned for a moment and then pushed Early away, maybe pushed a little hard. The man straightened and pirouetted, he half-danced half-flew into a short bookshelf. A trade paperback of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction fluttered to the hardwood floor.
Get out, Early screamed again. Get the fuck out of my room.
Alright, I said, We’re going. We’re leaving right now, okay? Ben shouldered his way up the stairs, I followed him.
Who expects that, said Ben. His voice was a bit raggy at the edges, blue eyes bewildered. He tweaked his glasses and brushed back the flutter of hair across his forehead. Just wrestling, right? He exhaled stertorously.
Whatever, I said. Early doesn’t have any brothers, so no one ever told him not to be insane. Or beat him when he was.
My hoodie lay on the edge of the sofa, its hood caping, zipper flickering. I fished a pack of Craven A Menthols out of the pocket and went outside. The light was grey and fading, a smell of rain in the air. A black bank of clouds crept doubtfully over the edge of the city, the autumn early in their darkening shadows, and the dark branches of the trees in the street looked like a thousand hands warding off a slab of piano. The girl across the street banged the door shut behind her and pitched down on the top step, bringing her legs together tightly as she sat. A slim white cigarette glowed in her fingers. I put a cigarette between my lips and flicked the lighter.
By now, of course, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t always believe what you read in the newspapers, you know I haven’t been telling the whole truth. You might even think, damn you, that I’ve been lying. I won’t say you’re wrong. I’m not a particularly honest man, as far as honest men go, which, let’s face it, is not very far. But in the photographs I have from those days, the slick film bruised by the sticky weight of the magnets on the fridge, you can barely see the marks on Ben’s cheekbones, small red shadows like flowers on a mountain, or tiny hoof prints across his face.
