(“Yeah, there’s too much rubbed in to leave now,” I told the kid. Because he’d finally made standing pat tougher than advancing, and losing ground easier than standing pat . . .)
“So get your best hold,” Hank said and drew a deep breath, grinning at me. (“Because we’ve messed in it,” I said, and let him have it, for all I was worth, right on the side of the head.)
The blow surprised me no more than had the discovery of my advantage in height: How interesting, I thought, as I saw stars sparked from my cheekbone. (The kid took the punch. He just stood there and took it. I guess I knew he would, with her watching, because that’s another part of the way he’s got it so worked out . . .) How interesting, I thought—Lee spins backward, tripping, slamming into the side of the garage; Andy bobs and weaves along the dock; Hank moves forward; Viv watches the tiny figures, her fists at her throat—how very interesting and
peculiar
, I found myself thinking, as bells rang in my ears and birds sang round my head just exactly the way it is described in the pulps . . . (He went down at the second punch and I figured that was that, he’s let her see all she needs to see . . .) Viv throws open the window, shouting through cobwebs and rain, “Hank! Don’t!” as Lee slides down the mossy boards of the garage wall. “Hank!” Hank steps backward, crouching, throwing back the hood of his parka like a catcher tossing off his mask. (I heard Viv hollering something at me from that attic window, but I was past the point of being hollered at.) Lee lifts his head, groaning . . . Nor was I really surprised by his second blow, which started as a mere white speck in the distance, then swelled suddenly before me into a great knobby hammer of fist that splashed Fourth-of-July crimson in all directions. (I popped him again, bloodying up his nose . . .
that
oughta do it, I figured.) “Hank! Stop! Stop it!” Viv’s voice stretches across the water, as Hank hunches, waiting for Lee to push himself groggily from the wall. (But, by god, he got back up again. I busted him another one.) Lee pushes himself upright, frowning, annoyed by the numbed and useless hinges of his jaw. Only one side of the jaw seems to function. His mouth opens at a slanting angle. Hank waits until the weaving stops and the mouth closes “Hank, no! Please, honey, no!” (I hit him again, harder) takes deliberate fastidious aim and fits another fist over Lee’s nose and lips, carefully missing the glasses . . . Nor was I much more than slightly surprised to discover myself still standing when the crimson splash cleared. It all seemed natural, somehow, at the time . . .
(The kid just kept sticking his face out. Fall down and stay, I kept saying under my breath, fall down and stay or get up and fight or I’m gonna beat you silly, or, or I’m gonna beat you to
death.
)
“Hank!”
Lee snaps back bouncing again from the wall, and begins sneezing.
“Hank!”
He sneezes violently, three times, creating a thin red mist between them while Hank waits, crouching, cocking his arm again. (. . . you just stand there keep letting her watch me pop you goddam you I’m gonna beat you clean to death!) . . . But I must confess that I was
thunderstruck
to find, that, after I had blinked the tears and terror away, I was striking back! IMBECILE! DON’T . . .
“Lee! Hank! No . . . !”
Lee’s hand jumps, springing forward, seemingly of its own accord, like a small animal into the air after a passing insect; the coat’s weight throws it off its aim so the blow is short, glancing off Hank’s chin and thumping against his Adam’s apple IMBECILE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T FIGHT BACK! (Then I think the kid got the idea, that if he didn’t do something I was going to pound him to death. Because he finally went to hitting back. Maybe he sensed it, that I’m going to kill him. But now it’s too late. I figured, You waited too long and now I’m going to kill you.) My thunderstruck astonishment, however, compared to that of my back-reeling, eye-popping, air-sucking brother, became mere wonder; Hank dropped to one knee, making a noise like a man swallowing his tongue, and his face was a study of stupefaction: What’s
this
? he marveled; Who can
this
be belaboring me about the chops? (I know I’m gonna kill you, I figured.) Who can
this
cat be, standing there in little Leland’s coat and pants, pasting me in the puss? (Because there just ain’t any reason any more
not
to kill you.) After my initial pride and astonishment receded, I cursed myself for losing control. Why did you have to go and hit back, imbecile? WATCH OUT! Now he’s down and you’ve got to let him get up and knock
you
down once more; do you think Viv is going to come rushing to the victor? Now; taunt him again but this time be
cool.
“Do I—” My voice quavered pathetically with a mixture of grim and giddy panic as I goaded him once more. “Do I now go to my neutral corner?”
From his kneeling position of disgrace Hank half smiled at my attempt at humor, not his usual hidden grin of mock shyness, but an icy, cruel, reptilian smirk that turned my wet hair brittle and my saliva to slush. WATCH OUT! a voice warned, and Hank said “You better be reh—reh—” I tried to take heart from the fact that he was having a worse time speaking than myself; I had clearly landed a telling blow to the larynx. “—you better be by god
ready
to go a sight farther than that,” he went on, and the voice in my skull shrieked WATCH OUT WATCH OUT NOW WATCH OUT! “Because I’m gonna
kill
you goddamn you . . .”
When I saw Hank come up off his knees and advance toward me behind his frozen lizard’s smile—RUN! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!—I knew that my blow to the larynx had been a good deal more infuriating than telling. It had stunned nothing but his reason; there was a look now of trapped, futile rage. That one blow was the straw that snapped the animal’s mind! I told myself. NOW YOU’VE DONE IT, NOW HE’S GOING TO MURDER YOU. RUN! RUN FOR YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!
(I can’t see any reason not to kill you, don’t you see. You’ve outfoxed yourself making it too tight . . .)
RUN! the voice kept screaming, RUN! But the river swirled at my back and the voice said nothing about swimming. And for once, I wasn’t
able
to run for my miserable life. I could not back up at all. In spite of the hysterical demands for retreat, I could only move forward. Thus, while the voice screeched IMBECILE! IDIOT!, while my ears rang and Andy shuffled wordlessly, and Viv’s calling came again over the water, my brother and I finally, totally
wholeheartedly
embraced for our first and last and oh so long overdue dance of Hate and Hurt and Love. Finally, we quit fooling around and fought, as Andy kept time with his foot. It kept reminding me of a dance. Clinging to each other in a paroxysm of overripe passion we spun the fight fantastic, reeled to the melodious fiddle-cry of rain through the firs, and the accelerating tempo of feet on the drumhead dock, and the high whirling skirl of adrenalin that always accompanies this dance . . . jointly trampling my surprise, Andy’s shock, and Hank’s astonishment underfoot in the action. (I have to kill you now. It’s what you’ve been begging for so long . . .) And, for never having danced together before, we came on passing fair if I say so myself . . .
Viv watches in horror as the two of them, with Andy shuffling so close he appears to be refereeing, crash together through the rain. She has stopped calling. “Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t . . .”
(I have to go ahead and kill you because you pushed too much . . .) After one overcomes his natural aversion and hesitation and takes the first steps, enters into the spirit, so to speak, of this particular form of primitive gavotte, he finds it is not
nearly
so unpleasant as his apprehensions had given him to believe. Not at all. Certainly it can be a bit more difficult than fox-trotting at the Waldorf or mamboing at the Copa, but then it can also be, in the final analysis, a good deal less painful. For although a clout on the side of the head can set up a ringing sting that makes the ear burn like the fires of hell for the duration of the dance, who has not suffered more violent attacks on that same organ in the calm and cozy two-step? The clout will cease its ringing and the ear its burning, but who hasn’t suffered a few well-placed words breathed softly cheek-to-cheek over the strains of a hotel orchestra? words with the power to ring on for months and years, and not just burn the ear but char one whole side of the brain as well? In this fistic dance a glaring misstep may leave you open for a quick, heavy, sickening punch in the stomach—I managed twice to lace the dock with my Golden Delicious—but this gut-rolling sickness is a sickness you know will pass, a pain you can endure by reminding yourself Hang on; it
has
to be over in a moment—whereas I have made missteps in far more placid dances, and have suffered lighter slower lower punches that still sicken with a pain that compounds itself by reminding you that it may
never
go away.
(Yes; he’d pushed more than he’d need of. But. To where he knows I can’t
but
kill him. But. Kept rubbing things in like one red flag after another in front of a bull until—But
why
, if it’s just for Viv?)
We reeled and shuffled from the dock up onto the gravelly bank; we rocked and rolled down the bank through a litter of roadside garbage. Always with Andy right beside us, cheering neither one nor the other of us. Always with Viv’s voice trickling out of a gray distance, pleading with Hank to stop. Always with that other voice screaming from a much closer gray—IMBECILE—and demanding the same thing of me: STOP FIGHTING! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! HE’LL KILL YOU!
(Like everlastingly pestering a man who has a gun until the man—But
why
does he keep on?)
YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T BEAT HIM. IF YOU KEEP FIGHTING HE’LL KILL YOU. LIE DOWN! STOP!
(Like prodding a bear with a stick until—But if he knows that already, then why is he—?)
HE’LL KILL YOU, Old Reliable kept screeching, LIE DOWN! But something had happened. In a fist fight there is a point, after a cheek has been split or a nose broken with a sound in your skull like a light bulb being popped in mud, when you realize that you have already survived the worst. DON’T GET BACK UP! the voice from the shadows insisted as I struggled to free myself from a deep green net of berry vines where I had been thrown by a booming, eye-closing right. JUST LIE HERE. IF YOU GET UP HE’LL KILL YOU!
And the voice, for the first time in a long, long reign over my psyche, met with opposition. “No,” said a stranger in my head. “Not so.”
YES. IT IS SO. LIE STILL. IF YOU GET UP HE’LL KILL YOU.
“Not so,” the voice dissented again, calmly. “No, he can’t kill you. He’s already done his damnedest. You’ve survived his worst.”
DON’T LISTEN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! HE’LL BEAT YOU UNCONSCIOUS, THEN STRANGLE YOU WHERE YOU LIE. FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T GET UP!
“Listen to me. He won’t kill you. If he wanted you dead he could have gutted you with that peavey pole leaning against the garage there. Or he could have cut your throat with that whittling knife he carries. Or just could have stomped your head in with those boots when you were looking for your tooth over there in the gravel pile. He’s not
trying
to kill you.”
“OH?” the first voice stopped its shrilling and demanded with a sly arrogance. “THEN
WHAT
. . . ARE WE FLAILING AROUND TO GET UP OUT OF THIS BERRY VINE FOR? TO STAGGER BACK OUT IN THE GRAVEL AND LOSE ANOTHER TOOTH? IF . . . HE
ISN’T
BENT ON HOMICIDE, WHAT LOGICAL REASON HAVE WE FOR TRYING TO RISE TO DEFEND OURSELVES?”
I ceased my thorny struggle for a second, perplexed by this new tack. Yes, now that you mention it, why? I pondered the question as the world of my left eye rapidly shrank to a blue-lined slit. Why indeed? Then Hank, mistaking my hesitation for surrender, stepped over to extend a hand of aid. I took it and he dragged me from the vines . . .
(Because if he knows already that I can, could have killed him—might have killed him . . . would have! would have just as sure as sin if he had kept on just standing there letting me beat him up in front of Viv . . . just like he would have drowned under that car at the beach on Halloween if it had been left up to him . . . but this time he didn’t just stand, to my everlasting surprise the kid had fought back, even after she’d seen all she needed . . .)
“Well?” Hank asked. “You had it?”
I was grateful for the opportunity. “I think so.”
“Good goddam deal . . . because I’m shot clean to hell. Let’s wash up.” (This time he had fought with nobody to pull him out from under what he knew was maybe death when he crawled in under it . . . nobody to pull him out but himself.)
We walked back to the landing and squatted there, tossing water into our faces. I rose to get the album with Viv’s photo from the boat, then returned. Andy silently offered a handkerchief and we silently accepted, taking turns. There was no more shouting, either from across the river or inside the head; no more stomping, no more voices . . . it was quiet.
(And when I saw this I gave up my notion of homicide. I had already cooled down a good deal, for one thing—because I got to realizing that whether Lee knew it or not, him prodding me into a hassle was for much more than just Viv’s benefit . . . and for
another
thing, it just ain’t so light a chore doing a man in—I don’t care how hot you are under the collar—if that man himself decides to do something against it.
We finished up washing and walked up to stand in the garage. The kid was looking pretty stunned by all the action he’d been in, so was old Andy, and me too, I imagine; none of us thought Leland had that much gumption to him. “Well, you can take the jeep on in if you want,” I told him. “I’ll stay an’ talk a little with Andy, I believe, about this mill fire business . . .”
“But how’ll you get it back from town?” Lee asked me and said, “I can hitchhike . . . I’ve done it before. If you want to keep it here.”
“Naw.” I patted the jeep on the hood; it was still hot. “Go on and use her,” I told him. “I’ll send . . . somebody in in a little bit, with Andy, to bring her back.”