When I spin around, B.E.B. is there. “I didn’t think you were stupid enough to touch her,” he sighs to the men surrounding me. “Guess I was wrong.”
He stands in the mouth of the alley like something spat out from the worst rung of the underworld. Backlit by the sickly orange of the streetlamp, his silhouette is jagged and cruel. Black clothes and hair with those blue eyes. He emanates a terrible, glacial calm, like this is his slaughterhouse we’ve stumbled into and he knows exactly how to wield every sharp implement within reach.
Sir Shelving Unit is crumpled at his feet, unmoving. The gaping sinkhole where half his face once was must explain the gross cracking noise I heard a second ago. I’m transfixed in horror, but B.E.B. doesn’t even look down at the body. He’s already past it, moving on to the next thing that needs breaking.
He is what I wanted to be. This is the version of myself I imagined on all those sleepless nights. The specter of death who’d stand over Raymond with dead-calm eyes and zero hesitation and make him understand, in his final moments, that he was nothing and had never been anything. That his death was administrative. A task on a checklist. Crossed-off for good and forgotten just as fast.
B.E.B. is violence incarnate. Not the sloppy, sweating, grunting kind that these three animals traffic in, but the kind I’ve spent four years trying to embody for my sister’s sake.
But right now, he’s bringing death formysake.
Dr. Dishwasher recovers first from his slack-jawed shock. He lets go of me and charges B.E.B. with a wild haymaker that looks like it could take down a concrete pillar.
B.E.B. couldn’t be less concerned. He steps a half-inch to the left, catches Dr. Dishwasher’s wrist mid-swing, and uses the man’s own momentum to slam him face-first into the brick wall.
If the sound of Shelving Unit’s demise was a fruit being cracked open with a baseball bat, then Dr. Dishwasher’s exploding noise is more like an egg dropped on concrete from a rooftop. I see the burst of dark liquid even in the dim light, painting a Rorschach blot on the filthy bricks.
He bounces off the wall and staggers back, hands going to his ruined face as he screams. These guys were about to literallyrapeme, and yet even I’m inclined to grant him some grace here, based on the nauseating sounds coming out of his mouth-hole.
But B.E.B. is not quite as merciful, I guess. He doesn’t give the man time to regroup. He drives a knee into Dr. Dishwasher’s gut, and when the man doubles over, B.E.B. brings his elbow down on the back of his skull like a hammer on a railroad spike.
At that final injustice, Dr. Dishwasher drops.
To no one’s surprise, he doesn’t get back up.
Even after seeing all that, though, Mr. Refrigerator doesn’t run. He pulls a knife from his waistband. It’s short and ugly, the kind you’d gut a fish with. He brandishes it blade-forward and squares up. “You don’t want this fight, pretty boy.”
B.E.B. says nothing. He doesn’t even look at the knife. He looks at Mr. Refrigerator’s eyes, like the weapon is a non-factor, nothing more threatening than a plastic spork from a deli counter.
Then he moves.
It’s not flashy the way it is in the movies. There’s no spinning or ducking or anything like that. No kung-fu to speak of. He simply steps inside Mr. Refrigerator’s reach before the man can slash, traps the knife arm at the wrist and elbow, andwrenches.The joint goes the wrong way with a sound that will live in my nightmares for years to come. A crunching, fibrouspopthat I feel in my own bones.
Mr. Refrigerator wails. The knife clatters to the ground. B.E.B. still has hold of the arm and he uses it like a leash, yanking the bigger man off-balance and driving his forehead into Mr.Refrigerator’s face. Once. Twice. The second time, something caves in.
Mr. Refrigerator crumples to his knees, then tips sideways into a puddle of trash juice. His arm is bent at an angle that arms are not supposed to bend at. His face is a Jackson Pollock of blood and cartilage.
B.E.B. straightens up. He rolls his neck once, a single, casual crack. Adjusts his cuffs. His knuckles are split and dark with blood that isn’t his, but otherwise, he looks exactly as he did in that corner booth thirty minutes ago. Unbothered. Unruffled. Bored, almost.
The whole fight lasted less than thirty seconds. And he’s not even breathing hard.
He turns to me. Those blue eyes find mine in the dark. I’m on the ground, dress ripped, knee bleeding, mascara running, shaking uncontrollably. He looks me over without expression.
Then he extends a hand.
I don’t take it right away.
Because, as I’m learning here in this school of literal hard knocks, watching brutal violence has a way of clarifying your priorities really fast. Thirty seconds ago, Mr. Refrigerator & Co. were the scariest things in this alley.
Now, they’re unconscious, or possibly dead, I can’t be sure. Which means the scariest thing in this alley is the one still standing.
And he’s looking right at me.
“You can sit there,” B.E.B. says, “or you can come with me.”
I look at his outstretched hand. The split knuckles. The blood drying between his fingers.
I have no idea what happens if I take it.
