What the fuck?”
The words hit me like a trio of slaps. I was half out of my hidey-hole, on my back, my head and chest sticking into the alleyway from between the dumpsters.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I rolled onto my hands and knees.
Walter Glaze was by the staff entrance. He looked mad as he came toward me. Had I seen him coming out? Or had I slid into the alleyway, and he’d seen me? Judging by the warp and spin of the world, either was possible because I was stomach-pump drunk. Don’t judge me harshly. Soldiers in long-gone wars were often intoxicated in order to be efficient ministers of death. Alcohol in the First and Second World Wars, amphetamines and hallucinogens from then on. I won’t deny I was feeding my addiction, but some part of me was also numbing my conscience.
My eyes watered and burned, but I still tried to draw my piece as Walter Glaze walked over. One hand and two knees weren’t enough to stabilize a man in my condition, and I toppled forward onto my face.
“Jeezus,” Walter said, crouching over me.
“Don’t,” I mumbled as I felt his hand on the top of my head.
I resisted feebly as he pulled off my mask.
“You?” he remarked. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He pulled me by the arm. “Get the fuck up.”
Alcohol and anger raised my temperature as he hauled me upright.
“Attica was in here tonight,” he went on as I shuffled a little to find my feet. “Laughing at you. If she could see you now, she’d laugh some more.”
I remembered the last time he’d humiliated me.
“I’ve got something for you, Walter,” I slurred.
Was I really that drunk?
I managed to register his frown of confusion as I pushed him away and reached for my gun. I stumbled back, collided with one of the dumpsters, managed to free the Smith and Wesson from my pocket—
And promptly dropped it.
The gun clattered onto the concrete, bounced, and skidded between my feet beneath the dumpster that was holding me up.
I looked up to see Walter had also watched it disappear.
“Was that a fucking gun?” he asked. Sober or drunk, there was no mistaking his disbelief. “Did you just pull a fucking gun on me?”
Walter Glaze was a fit, strong man, and if I’d been sober, I might have been terrified, but I was too drunk to care when he came for me. I still don’t know the polite response when you’ve failed to murder someone. Maybe there’s a fancy Georgia finishing school that can tell me. Apologize? Laugh it off as a joke?
I didn’t get a chance to do anything. He threw a right cross that hit me like a sniper’s shot. My legs crumpled and I toppled over with such force, I cracked my head against the concrete.
Everything went disco crazy with flashing lights, and the world danced and whirled around me. I groaned and rolled onto my side as Walter started kicking me in the ribs and gut. I scrabbled around trying to get up, but he stamped on my hands, and despite being numb to the other blows, I felt his heels on my fingers and howled.
I lay in the alley next to the dumpster, surrounded by garbage water, sodden Kleenex, scraps of rotten food, and other unidentifiable matter, crying as I took the beating of a lifetime.