They’re in the hallway. All four of them. Standing between me and the bar. The big one is in front, arms crossed, his three buddies fanned out behind him. It’s five feet wideand they’re filling it. The noise from the bar is muffled back here. The music sounds far away.
My heart starts beating faster. This is different from the table. At the table there were witnesses, bartenders, a room full of people. Back here it’s just a narrow corridor and four men who followed me.
“You’ve got a real smart mouth on you,” the big one says. He’s not smiling anymore. “Someone should’ve taught you when to shut it.”
“Many have tried,” I say. “I’m difficult to train.”
“We don’t want your kind in here. Why don’t you take your faggot ass back to wherever you came from before something happens to that pretty face.”
The word ‘faggot’ hits hard. I’ve been hearing it since I was eight years old and it still hits the same place every time, that tender spot that never fully heals over.
I should say nothing. I should put my head down, push past them, and get the hell out of here.
Instead, I look the big guy straight in the eyes. “Your shirt has a grammar error,” I say. “Cruiser’s with an apostrophe is possessive. You want plural. Also, that font is criminal.”
I realize what I’m doing is stupid. But when someone tries to make me small, I make them smaller. It’s not smart. It’s not survival. It’s just the only thing I have.
He draws back and hits me. Closed fist, hard, across the left side of my face. My head snaps sideways and my shoulder hits the wall. I bounce off it and go down on one knee. Thesecond one grabs my shirt from behind and yanks. I hear the silk tear, feel the fabric rip down the back, and that registers before the pain does.
My beautiful shirt that I bought on sale at Nordstrom Rack and still paid too much for. It’s the nicest thing I own and they’re ripping it off me in a corridor that smells like spilled beer.
A kick from a boot catches me in the ribs and I fold sideways. Then I’m sprawled on the floor and there are more boots kicking. Somebody steps on my hand, pressing down on my rings, and the pain is sharp. I curl into myself how I learned to do when I was fourteen and the boys at school decided to teach me a lesson. Trying my best to protect my face and head.
A boot catches me low in my stomach. I can’t breathe. Someone spits on me. I feel it hit the back of my neck, hot and wet.
“How do you like it now?” one of them asks.
“Not so smart now, are you, pretty boy?”
I’m trying to get up but my arms won’t hold me. There’s blood in my mouth from where my lip split against my teeth. It spots on my white jeans, bright red on white.
Then suddenly the hallway explodes. There’s a ferocious roar that shakes the walls. Deep and booming and furious. The biggest human being I’ve ever seen in person comes around the corner like a freight train. He is enormous. Six-five at least, wide as the walls themselves, beard, tattoos, wearing jeans and an apron smeared with barbecue sauce.
He doesn’t slow down. He grabs the nearest car show guy by the back of his shirt and throws him into the opposite wall. The man hits the drywall hard enough to crack it and crumples.
The big one turns and swings at the giant. He catches the punch in his hand like he’s catching a baseball. He squeezes. I hear knuckles pop. Then he drives his other fist into the man’s face and the man sits right down on the floor like his legs stopped working.
Now there’s two men left. They’re scrambling backward but there’s nowhere to go because coming through the door behind the giant is a cop. I see him from the floor through tears and blood. And even from down here, beaten and bleeding, some part of my brain stops to look.
He’s tall. Over six feet. Blonde hair cut short, shoulders broad enough to block the light behind him. He’s wearing a dark green sheriff’s uniform. He doesn’t ask what’s happening or hesitate.
“Bay County Sheriff’s Office,” he yells out. “Everybody on the ground. Now.”
The giant has two of them handled. The cop grabs one of the remaining two by the arm, spins him, and pins him face-first into the wall. He’s professional and fast. The last guy, the youngest one, mid-twenties, wiry, the one who’s been hanging back the whole time, puts his hands up and drops to his knees.
It’s over.Thank fuck.
The whole thing, from the giant coming around the corner to the last man on the floor, has taken maybe a minute or less. The hallway is a wreck of bodies and cracked drywall.The noise from the bar is starting to filter back in, muffled and distant, a different world from this one.
The cop is quickly cuffing the man against the wall. The giant turns to check on me and that’s when I see it. The young one on his knees. The one nobody’s watching. He’s holding his right hand up, but his left hand is drifting down toward his jacket.
The cop turns his head. One snap of his chin to the right, eyes locking on the movement, and everything that happens next happens in less than a second.
He drops the man he’s cuffing and steps between me and the man on the floor.
One fucking step.
He doesn’t reach for his own weapon. He doesn’t yell. He just moves and plants himself there.
