CAUGHT OFF GAURD

CAUGHT OFF GUARD: CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

MAIN CHARACTER 👆🏾

DAVE💕

My rage and thirst for blood increased as rapidly as my pulse.

Every time my toes grazed the sidewalk and I saw that fist swing the bottle down across Khalil's head in my mind's eye, I heard, "HEY FAGGOT!" "HEY FAGGOT!" "HEY FAGGOT!" It kept going through my head like a broken record, ratcheting my anger higher and higher.

About three long blocks away from where Khalil lay unconscious and bleeding, we had came from the sidewalk to the street, trying to catch up to Cole when we saw the pickup moving slowly, about a half block ahead of Cole and a full block ahead of us.

One of them was swinging his baseball bat like a pro down on the rear window of a parked car as the other two knelt down low on the same side to watch. We heard the WHUMP and the crackle of the safety glass as it splintered into a million square pieces and sagged in the middle.

They were whooping it up, high fiving each other and guzzling their beers like they thought they were immune to any consequences for what they had done, like it had already slipped their minds that they had just possibly murdered someone they'd targeted for being gay, even though, in reality, they had no fucking idea if he even was gay.

They knew the Houston Police Department didn't put the Montrose particularly high on their list of areas to protect. That was common knowledge all over Houston. The Montrose, the Heights, Fifth Ward, areas like that, just didn't get police coverage like River Oaks and the Galleria, or even redneck Spring Branch.

When cops were to be found in the area they were usually harassing queers, and in a couple of cases, outright killing them-- and getting away with it every single time.

I could see at least five cars in a row with shattered rear windows, with a '67 Mustang's shrieking alarm piercing the night as if the pony was in pain. As we neared them, we watched Cole accelerate to a blinding speed.

He fucking launched himself through the air, diving up into the back of the full sized Chevy pickup in an Olympic worthy leap, slapping the rim of the tailgate with his hands then his feet like a big cat to propel himself headlong even faster into them. The three guys never saw him coming.

I so wished I could see their faces in the street light as this force of nature broadsided them like a tsunami, slamming them all into the back of the truck like dominoes , sending the baseball bat flying up and over the hood it landed with bang as it rattle and roll its way down the windshield and hood.

The truck skidded to a halt as crunching, cracking, screaming and thrashing could be heard from the bed.

Both Tyson and I stopped in our tracks at the sight just about forty feet in front of us. To me, it looked like everything in the back of the truck became a hyperspeed jumbled ball of bodies, feet, fists and heads-- like in a comics strip or cartoon fight, but without the cloud of dust-- while everything around it slowed down.

There was just this blur of swinging fists, flailing arms and legs and screaming and yelling, all in fast-forward in the truckbed, while both doors of the pickup opened in slow motion and the guys stepped out cautiously with weapons in hand, drunk, confused, trying to figure out what the hell was happening in the back of the truck.