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Chapter 33
Jack had no excuse. He had every excuse. He was tired, worried sick about his sister, and frustrated because he felt powerless.
Thanks to Lee, he made it back under the Bay and stepped onto the platform not sweating too badly, with most of his nausea under control. God, he hated tunnels. He had hated tunnels in Afghanistan and he had hated tunnels in Iraq and he had hated tunnels in Chechnya. All tunnels smelled of something. And this one smelled of bad design and corruption and inefficiency and fear and despair. What in the hell is wrong with you, Jack? He jogged through the station toward the stairs, pulling Lee along, trying to get first shot at a cab.
He started to move around the huge man, when he heard the man say to the little boy, “You stupid little fuck. When I get you back to the house I’m going to beat your ass ‘till you can’t sit down.”
Jack glanced at the little boy. He was eight, maybe. It was probably too late. He could see bruises on the boy’s right wrist where it stuck out of the too-short shirt. The little boy winced as the huge man grabbed the boy with his left hand and dragged him along.
“De oppresso liber,” he thought, and then said to Lee, “Stay out of the way, please? I need to do something.”
He slammed into the man with his right shoulder.
“Hey, fuck you. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” was the man’s opening question.
In his peripheral vision, Jack saw two large Chinese men move from different parts of the crowd to stand within a few feet of Lee. They appeared to do this casually as if they were simply moving to watch the impromptu theatre. Jack pretended to try to move around the big man. The man stepped in his way.
“Didn’t you hear me, motherfucker? You fucking asshole! Better yet. I want a fucking apology. You rich motherfuckers think you can run over anybody you want.”
The man had him by three inches in height, nearly a hundred pounds in weight, and was maybe fifteen years younger. He stepped back to give himself space. The huge man’s Raider’s jacket must be a quadruple X. It was a Starter jacket, with good solid seams. That would help. The man had shaved lines into the close-cropped blond hair on his pale skull. Tattoos claiming WAR showed on his neck above the soiled collar of his once-white T-shirt. He had a nasty cold sore right in the middle of his bottom lip.
Jack could see dirt soiled into fatty creases of his neck. He must have been down wind. The huge man smelled of old sweat, tobacco, and beer. When he opened his mouth again, he smelled of cheeseburger and bad dental hygiene. The man had tiny hands and feet for someone so massive. The huge man raised his left arm, sticking his index finger to within inches of Jack’s nose and said, “Didn’t you hear me, motherfucker? I said I wanted an apology.”
Jack shifted to center his weight and looked deep into the huge man’s eyes. The man didn’t like it and his gaze wandered to the crowd. Seeing the crowd’s support for free spectator sport, the big man let go of the boy and moved a little closer.
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It doesn’t happen all the time. It only happens when Jack is under immediate threat. Someone or something else takes over. Maybe it’s a part of him that’s only around when he needs it. Years ago he kept company with a woman who said it was his inner child. If it was indeed a child, he didn’t want to meet it when it grew up.
Time slowed. Sounds took shape in space. He felt as if he could see individual molecules of air. He softened his focus, not concentrating on any particular part of the man, seeing all of him.
His mouth opened and words came out. “Shall we take these points one at a time? First-the fuck you. No thank you. I want someone who knows what they are doing. Second, the motherfucker. I am pretty sure I never fucked your mother. A, I’ve never been that drunk and B, you would have been a hell of lot better looking and, C, I wouldn’t have botched the abortion.”
The man pulled back his left arm, swiveled at the hips and threw a meat-ax of a round house. Jack stepped into the man as he pulled back his arm. As the left moved forward, he helped the man, tugging at the fabric below his elbow. He grabbed a hand-full of jacket in the middle of the man’s chest, turned to the side, squatted down and quickly back up, pivoting at the hips and extending his arms. The huge man flew over him.
In a tournament he would have followed with a strangle hold. Here, he relied on the hard tile of the overpriced BART station floor to pin the big man. When the man hit, air exploded form his lungs. The huge man was tough. He sucked air, rolled to his side, faced Jim and tried to get to his feet to press the fight. Jack slid to the side and for a small part of microsecond considered kicking the man in the head.
The thought frightened him. The huge man was a human being. The man might very well have done things to deserve a death penalty. The man certainly did not deserve to die to help him get rid of pent-up frustrations. He half-buried his right foot into the huge man’s big belly.
His kick boosted out what little air the man had left in his lungs. Eventually he sucked some back in. The man’s exhale turned into projectile vomiting. The big man had eclectic tastes in food and didn’t masticate thoroughly. Parts of a pizza, maybe some chili fries, and what could have been a Levi Stadium bagel dog, spewed out along with other unidentifiable silage. No blood that he could see.
The little boy looked down at the huge man. Jack wondered if the boy knew how to smile. Then the boy’s face broke in a huge smile that stayed for a few seconds until he went back to his poker face. In those few seconds Jack saw intelligence and humor and a spark. He saw a kid who could still have fun climbing trees and running as fast as he could just for the hell of it and maybe finding the joy of a good book on a nasty day. The boy reminded him of the one picture he had of himself at that age where he was smiling.
“Is this your daddy?”
The boy shook his head and said very clearly, “He moved into our house. Momma don’t want him there, but he won’t leave.”
“How old are you?”
“Almost seven.”
Jack reached inside the big man’s jacket and pulled out the man’s wallet. The man tried to stop him. He grabbed the man’s left hand in a nerve hold and applied pressure until the man whimpered. He fished through cards, finding one from a parole officer. He put that in his pocket. Then he found the man’s California ID card.
“4715 Great Jones, apartment 17. Is that right?” He asked.
The big man nodded.
“Jesse Wayne Sayles. Is that right?” He asked, pinching the nerve to punctuate his questions. The big man nodded. He put the ID in his pocket. He didn’t want to get closer to the puke covered man, but did when he leaned down to whisper into his ear.
“You will take the boy home. You will not hurt him. You will not hurt his mother or anyone in the house. You will move out today leaving everything you value, especially things you thought were yours. I will have my people check on you tomorrow. I will have my people keep checking. If you do not do what I say I, we will hunt you down and take you in the night. I will cut your balls off and feed them to you. Then I will sew your mouth shut. Then, if you are lucky, I will kill you. Do you understand and agree?”
He tweaked the nerve and the big man bit back a scream and nodded, tears running down his face. “Now I’m going to pick you up.”
Jack jerked the big man to his feet, lifting him completely off the ground, nearly crushing his spine, but making it look effortless. As the man stood swaying, covered in his own puke, Jack turned and walked away.
When he was far enough away, Lee joined him, taking his arm as they walked through the now-silent crowd like a latter-day Moses and his companion parting a polluted sea. The adrenaline letdown hit. He grabbed a railing. He saw the two Chinese men blend back into the crowd. One of the large Chinese men took quick glances back toward the huge man now sitting in his own vomit. The other one scanned the crowd around Lee and to the front. Then one of the two men moved in front and while the other stayed behind. They moved in the same direction as Lee and Jack, seemingly by accident.
He could smell the stink of battle sweat on his clammy skin. He was suddenly cold and so thirsty.
Lee grabbed his arm and said quietly, “You are one crazy man and, if possible, I love you even more than I did ten minutes ago, and don’t ever do anything like that again! Unless you have to, of course.”
He stood for a while, not long in real time, letting his body administer to itself. He visualized the poisons of battle flowing out with each breath, calm of oxygen flowing in. Red clouds of toxins out, green clouds of oxygenated peace flowing in. They made it to the top of the steps, somehow hailing a cab on their first try. He nodded off in the cab on the way back to the Mark. The elevator seemed very far away.