I could hear the music all the way out in the parking lot of the honky-tonk bar. The sign no longer advertised my mother and father, instead they were advertising something else. Something I couldn't bother to read.
I stood in the light snowfall and stared at the front of the building. A porch on the front, the chairs empty. The windows were brightly lit and I could see from the outside that the place was pretty full.
The cars and trucks around me were typical for small farming town Kansas. I'd hear Gail mock them often enough, but to be real, they were just honest farm trucks, just like most of the people in the honky-tonk were just there to have some drinks, and from the looks of it, do a little dancing and maybe a little smooching.
I knew better than to go in. Too many people in the crowd, too many variables, too many angles I could be attacked from without warning.
Instead, I stood at the edge of the puddle of light from one of the parking lights, in front of the bondo and primer Trans-Am, holding its grill in my hands.
of high priority to any soldier is the ability to choose and control the battlefield
Lancer's voice.
I actually lit another cigarette before finally someone came out on the porch, shaded their eyes to look out at me, then vanished inside. I could see them weaving through the crowd for a moment before they vanished into the press of bodies.
I set the grill next to me, then opened up the hood. I quick little bit of work with my Leatherman prepped it for what I wanted. It was pretty easy to do.
I shut the hood carefully.
After a minute the doors crashed open and I could see a handful of people silhouetted by the lights of the honky-tonk. I could hear shouting, but I didn't care about the words. I knew that the words didn't matter.
deeds, more than our words, is what defines us, my beautiful Paul
Four of them were coming down the steps. Four was more than I wanted to take on, to be honest, when I was thinking clearly. Stokes's training, unlike a lot of the martial arts, was less about the perfect fight and more about just surviving second by second and putting the other guy down.
Four of them were in the lead, heading through the light snowfall toward me.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" The one in the lead asked.
Yup, that was the one I wanted. I just stayed silent, watching as they came through the snow. The stopped a couple of steps from me, staring at me.
"Motherfucker!" the junkie I'd faced off against in the parking lot of the general store, the one who had hurt me so bad when I was younger, laughing, and worse, at my tears.
I couldn't stop myself from smiling as I tossed the grill of his car at his feet.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He asked me. He stepped over the grill. "I'm going to..."
Whatever he was going to do stopped suddenly when I turned, grabbed the front of his hood, and, as far as anyone else was concerned, just ripped it clean off. It was broadside when it hit him, smashing against him with a loud bong. He let out a cry of pain and surprise as I let it go, letting it land on top of him as the force threw him to the ground.
I just stood there, in the snow and darkness, staring at the other three.
The one on the right lunged toward me, telegraphing the attack. He reeled back, spitting blood, when I hit him in the throat with the edge of my palm, feeling his trachea crackle. He went down on his knees, coughing and gagging, blood spattering into his hand.
The other one reached into his pocket but I was already moving after the blade hand strike.
never let them set the pace of the battle, always keep it at your pace
He was bringing his hand out of his pocket as I moved in, quickly, my boots keeping traction on the asphalt despite the slush. The other guy was coming in at my side, obviously intending on blind siding me. I brought my elbow up, muscle memory and instinct more than anything else, the back of my elbow colliding with the bottom of his jaw, slamming it shut with a crack. Teeth and blood sprayed from his mouth as the guy in front of me got his hand out.
The one I'd elbowed fell backwards, arms raised at the elbows, wrists limp.
The one with the knife, a cheap, what was it Stokes called it? Balisong, that's right, a butterfly knife. As he got it open. I could see it in his eyes that he'd already taken me out. He'd pointed at me like he was shooting a pistol, and probably figured his cheap knife would change things.
I broke his wrist and two of his fingers taking it from him. He screamed and went down on his knees, holding his hand and I drove my knee into the bottom of his jaw, feeling it break. I spun in place, ready to take on anyone else who wanted a piece of me.
Nobody had moved. A few people were staring as I stepped forward, grabbing the hood, and flung it off the guy.
He was trying to push himself up when I grabbed in and yanked him up. I felt a muscle in my back burn, but I didn't care. He was the one who'd grabbed his crotch, who'd taken joy in hurting me so badly when I was little.
Except I wasn't little any more.
He cried out in pain as I slammed down on the engine. It was a standard hip throw, but it probably looked to everyone else that I just whipped him flat out onto the engine. Someone ceid out in shock as the guy slammed onto the exposed engine, his feet hitting the windshield.
I held my hand up and opened the knife quickly, the way I'd been taught.
Huh, Stokes was right, I could feel the fact the bearings were low quality and had a drag in them, that it felt like it was grinding as it opened and I had to flick my pinky to lock it.
"The rock," I said, grabbing him by his shirt and yanking him up. I held the blade out where he could see it. "Who threw it?"
"Fuck you, I ain't telling..." he started.
they always talk
I shoved the point in his nose and sliced his nostril open ripping it free.
"The rock," I said. The hollow feeling, that cold emptiness, filled me as I stared at him, blood starting to run down his face.
"I don't..." he started.
I put the blade in his mouth, let him feel the steel against his tongue. He shut up.
"If I don't find out, you won't like it," I told him, pulling it slowly from his mouth, slicing the corner open.
"Jack!" the guy screamed. "Jack Timberly, one of Harvey's boys!"
I turned around, dropping the knife and kicking backwards to knock the blade under the car, and grabbed the hood. The guy, I knew his name, but that emptiness inside me didn't care, screamed as the hood came up over my head and I slammed it down on him.
I turned around, looking at everyone.
"Where's Jack Timberly?" I asked. Even though I tried to make my voice mild and friendly I knew my voice was cold, dead, emotionless, like I was on the radio to coordinate strikes.
Nobody said anything and I sighed, walking toward the doors. People got out of my way as I headed toward the porch, moved out of the way as I walked up the steps, and largely stepped aside as I walked inside.
The band was still playing, people were still dancing, and I ignored it as I looked around. The phone was in the front. I lifted up the phonebook, which was attached to the phone by a steel cable, and opened it.
Timberly was listed. I memorized the address, the phone number, and let the phone book fall.
It was less than a mile, and it was only twenty-three hundred.
Plenty of time to visit him.
I dug in my pocket, pulling out a dime, and lifted up the receiver. I held it between my shoulder in ear, dropped the dime in, and dialed the number real quick.
He answered on the fifth ring. "Yeah?"
A hundred lines went through my brain. Snappy one liners, threats, all of them. Instead I just stayed silent, breathing slowly through my nose.
"Who is this?" Jack asked. I stayed silent. "This shit ain't funny, who the fuck is this?" He was angry, but I could hear a thread of fear. "I can tell you're there. Answer! Who the fuck is this?" Now the fear was showing through. I could hear it. "I find out who this, I'm fucking you up."
I hung up.
People moved out of my way as I walked back outside, heading toward the Trans-Am. The junky had gotten the hood off of him and was wiping the blood off of his face as I walked through the darkness toward him.
"Little punk is lucky I went easy on him," The guy was saying. There was a ring of people around him and I shouldered my way through. He didn't notice me at first. "If he hadn't have sucker punched me, I'd have fucked him up."
"Can you see me?" I asked him, moving between a short blonde girl in a ball cap and a bigger guy with a cowboy hat.
He gaped at me, his mouth open.
I knew how I looked. Five foot eight, wearing a fleece-line denim jacket over a flannel overshirt and t-shirt, Levi jeans, and combat boots. It was easy to miss the scarring where they'd fixed my face, easy to miss the fact I'd split open my knuckles so many times they were scarred up.
I didn't look like any big deal. Most of the guys here were bigger, beefier than me.
The guy realized that everyone was staring at him.
"You shouldn't have come back out, Foster," he snarled. "You ain't gonna sucker punch me again."
I sighed. "You can see me, right?" I asked him.
I didn't have to do this. I could have just walked off, but something inside that cold emptiness demanded that I do this, that I seek this confrontation out.
"Yeah, I fucking see you," the guys said. He wiped off his upper lip again, jerking back from the pain. "Gonna fuck you up, you don't have..."
I stepped up, hand cocked back, driving the bottom of my palm into his chin, twisting my hips and pushing off with my legs to get the most power. His jaw slammed shut, snapped under the edge of my palm. Instead of stopping the blow as soon as I hit I followed through, lifting him up and throwing him back onto the engine of his car. I stepped forward again, driving my elbow into him just under the sternum. His breath whooshed out and I turned, driving my fist into his face.
I could have stopped. Maybe, just maybe, I should have stopped.
But that emptiness inside of me wouldn't let me.
I held his hair and punched him once, twice, three times in the nose. Flattening it. I didn't stop there, punching him twice in the mouth, feeling his broken jaw deform.
I stepped back, staring at him for a moment before lifting up my hand and looking at it.
There was a tooth stuck between my knuckles. I pushed where it was the deepest, forcing it out.
I leaned down. "I know you saw that one coming. If I see you again, it's be worse. I promise."
I dropped the tooth on his chest, put my hands in my pockets, and walked away.The people around us moved to the side, silently, and let me pass.
I walked through the snowy night, into the darkness. I didn't bother sticking to the street, and instead cut through the field. The snow was already sticking to the foot or so high stalks that were left after the combines had gone through.
The stalks, iced over slush, and snow crunched over my feel as I walked through the dark and snowy night.
I rolled my shoulders, a habit I'd picked up at Atlas.
The night was cold and empty of everything but snow and darkness, matching inside of me.