Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [59]
Lit asked, Does anybody know what the term mitigating circumstances means? Raise your hand if you think you know the answer.
Nobody said anything, and Lit said, Right this minute, it means every grey-headed golfer that ever played this hole would trade everything he has if he could swap places with you right now. So I’ll just say good night. I ought, at least, to add, tomorrow’s a school day, but what the fuck.
Lit got in the cruiser and handed Bud the second beer and rolled on.
LATER, THEY SAT BEHIND the Roadhouse, finishing their current beers before going inside to order a couple more. Before Lit saw him coming, a big drunk with a face like one of the raw hams in the trunk had his head stuck all the way inside Lit’s open window, yelling proclamations of anger.
—You remember me? You blackjacked me, you fuck. For nothing but back-talking when you tried to arrest me for breaking and entering. All I stole was a worn-out TV.
—I didn’t try to arrest you, Lit said. I did arrest you.
—I still can’t feel my fingers sometimes. But now you ain’t got your uniform on. You’re off duty and that means you’re not different from any other citizen, you little shit. I’m gonna drag your ass out of that car and kick you all over the parking lot.
Real quick, so that it was done before Bud could take it in, Lit cranked the window up to trap the man’s neck, and then hit him in the mouth over and over, so fast Bud couldn’t count the blows. Lit rolled the window down, and the drunk’s face slid below the windowsill.
Lit shoved his door open and got out. The man rose to his feet, blood dripping off his chin, but ready to go again. He acted like he was in a boxing match and squared up for right crosses and uppercuts, old sporting shit. Like maybe a ref in a white shirt and bow tie stood at his elbow to call infractions.
Not nearly so romantic, Lit grabbed a tire iron from under the front seat and with one hard swing, parallel to the ground, ended the thing.
The man lay in the gravel, trying to coil his body around his shattered knee. Cursing Lit and God equally.
—Nobody to blame but yourself, Lit said. You didn’t have to bring that down on you, but you did. Free will’s a bitch.
Fights came with the job. Bud had witnessed a half dozen already. Some idiot with a load on starts believing he can fight the law, exactly like his Rebel great-granddaddy. Always instructive for Bud to watch the outcome.
Wet from a dunking in the lake, Lit might go one thirty-five. But wiry and high-strung for the express purpose of amazing quickness. When he went man-to-man, he worked his little keen fists in a deeply destructive fashion, probing toward a spleen that needed rupturing bad. The actions of Lit’s hands had no common internal wiring to his face, which stayed as blank as the bottom of an empty bucket. He’d be sweating all over during a fight, but his expression remained mild as Jesus in his sunbeam amid the youngster animals. Drunks and criminals could be trying to head-butt him or shove up close, nose-to-nose, spitting out vile epithets, yet the look in Lit’s eye remained as if he were peering into another green and peaceful world entirely.
CHAPTER 6
STUBBLEFIELD COULDN’T BELIEVE HIS LIFE. It felt like wiring into some science-fiction time machine or downing a new drug and being jolted back to a lost highlight of life where you’d failed badly. But now you’ve been