Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [75]
But he jerked all the harder, my arm a hot cord to my shoulder and neck and I stumbled over the sand as fast as I could. The one I’d fought was handcuffed in front of me, a big cop at each arm, and they were talking to him like they knew him well. They kept calling him Jimmy, their .38s bouncing in their belts as they hit the asphalt and the strip was brighter than before, louder, and I could feel people looking at us, heard Jeb call my name as the back doors of a paddy wagon opened and the two cops ahead of me tossed in the crew-cut one and the claw let go and I was lifted inside, the doors slamming shut, then the roll away from the beach.
I was on a metal bench next to a sleeping drunk. The only light came in from two high slits in the doors, neon carnival light moving by outside. Jimmy, still cuffed, sat across from me, his hands behind his back while my hands were free. My wrist was hot and swollen and I tried to move it but couldn’t.
“You still want to go at it, motherfucker? ’Cause I don’t need hands to kick your fuckin’ head in, you piece of shit.”
Part of me couldn’t believe he was calling me on. I could start in on him with my left and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
He was leaning forward, a white torso and head. “You think I’m shittin’ ya? Try me. Try me, mothafucka.”
I felt nothing. No fear. No anger. No need to prove myself. Whatever fight had been in me was gone. So was my shirt, the metal wall of the wagon sticking to my back. I looked at him, this kid really, this angry kid all the cops knew by name. Angrier than I was, meaner, and he’d gotten the best of me back there. The same way the one did the winter before in the parking lot of the Tap, by wrestling me down. I wasn’t good at it. If I couldn’t throw hard fast punches I was lost. And if the cops hadn’t broken up me and this Jimmy, he would’ve beaten the shit out of me.
I shook my head. “Say what you want. I don’t have much time anyway.”
“What?”
“Three months. That’s it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cancer. It’s in my bones. That’s what the doctors say anyway. I just came here to have some fun, that’s all.”
“You gotta be shittin’ me.” His voice was hard, but his face was softening.
I shook my head, looked down at the scratched steel floor. I didn’t know where these words came from or why I’d said them.
“Aw, man, but you got muscles, I mean, your health, right?”
I shook my head again. “That’s just on the outside.” I looked back at him, and it was like looking into the face of a small boy, his mouth opened slightly, his eyes on me but also on himself, on his own, hopefully distant, mortality. “Oh, man.” He leaned forward. “Listen, soon as these fat fucks open the door, you book it. Believe me, I do it all the time. They’re too slow to ever get you.”
I nodded. My wrist didn’t hurt as much and I began to rub it, moved it up and down and side to side. I felt guilty about my lie but could see its power too, see how quickly it had disarmed him. The drunk mumbled something. The police wagon was backing up now. No light came through the slits, then there was a yellow glow.
“Lookit, I’ll keep ’em busy and you take off, all right?”
“Thank you.”
He nodded at me, shook his head and winced at my fate, his eyes on the doors as they opened and only one cop stood there. It was the one who’d put the claw on me. Jimmy was up off his bench. “Officer Frank,” Jimmy turned his back to him, “these are a little tight tonight. Can you just loosen ’em one notch, please, that’s all I ask. One notch.”
“Get closer, Jimmy. Squat down.”
Jimmy did, his eyes on me. He mouthed, Go, Go. And he motioned his head toward the open doors and the station house in electric yellow light, a short fence, then the beach, the dim white surf. I didn’t move.
THE CELL was four feet wide and eight feet long, and I was in there with five other men. But not Jimmy. I was around the corner getting escorted down a short yellow hall to my cell when I’d heard it, shouting