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Something broke loose inside him,as if the rabid dog that I’d sensed in him had been chained up in a yard full of weeds and trash, but the chains were rusty and he’d strained against them so hard that the weakest link finally snapped, and the rabid dog, barking at the top of his lungs, growling and foaming, finally broke free.
He lunged at me.The next thing I knew, he slammed hard into me and we both went flying back onto the carpeted floor of the lobby. I don’t know how I managed to escape cracking open the back of my skull, but there we were, grappling and thrashing at each other on the floor.
Kane ranted,“I never had a damn thing in my fucking life! Look at you! You’ve got it all! Son of a bitch, you’ve got it all! What have I got?What have I got?”
We rolled aroundon the lobby floor. His face was twisted into some insane, furious caricature of itself. I had him by the wrists, and he tried to tear himself free, probably wanting to punch and pummel me into the carpet. But with a good grip on him, I managed to fend him off. When I pushed up at him, the force of it carried us into a roll of straining arms and kicking legs. The sounds of his bellowing, babbling voice filled the lobby with an unholy din, mixing with my own grunts of resistance.
The noisewe were making was now disturbing some of the people in the apartments on the ground floor. I heard doors opening and other agitated voices. I heard someone tell someone else to call 911 as I’d told Corinne to do.
She must be back upstairson my floor right now, standing outside the door to my place. She didn’t have the key, so she couldn’t go in. She must be pacing the hall, or standing there, scared and worried, probably afraid to go anywhere else. And, it was this drug-soaked jackass’s fault. It was as if I were now fighting with every mistake I’d ever made in my life.
I managedto get a knee up into Kane’s chest and push him off me that way. He went flying back onto the carpet. We both sprung back up at the same time. He lunged at me again and swung at me. I dodged; he missed. I got him by the arm that he tried to punch me with and shot my own fist forward, hitting him in the stomach. He staggered back, puffing furiously, and I hoped the force of my blow would deck him. It wasn’t happening.
He leapt forward again,fist-first, aiming for my jaw. I blocked that fist, but to my surprise, he managed to get me with the other, right in the stomach the way I’d gotten him. It sent me toppling onto my back again, and Kane was ready. He made another leap, aiming to land on top of me, but I managed to roll to one side. He made an impact like a sack of potatoes falling, while I scrambled back to my feet.
Givinghim a chance to recover was something I couldn’t afford. I grabbed him by the collar and one arm while he was dazed and hauled him up, dragged him to one side, and slammed him up against a wall, not far from someone’s open door where the occupant of one of those lower apartments stood nervously in the threshold watching this brawl that belonged in a shabbier part of town.
Kane struggledagainst me and let out a beast-like noise. Pressing him into the wall, I said, “Are you gonna calm down now?”
He didn’t answerme in words. He kicked out at me and got me in the shin. Shouting at the sudden pain, I half leapt and half staggered back, releasing him. Kane whirled around and lunged at me again. He swung out with a fist once more, and this time, damn him, he connected and caught me right in the jaw.
To the soundof shouting and shrieking from my ground-floor neighbors, I toppled back. My only advantage was that I was not hopped-up on whatever Kane had taken, so I was in my right and proper mind, while he was standing there with his fists knotted and his brain cells swimming in chemicals. That was what enabled me to jump back to my feet quickly enough to get back at him.
Before his ownreeling mind could react, I landed one blow on his jaw and another on his stomach, giving him the old one-two. He let out an “OOF…” sounding like some character in a comic book, and sailed back onto the carpet.
Kane lay there,struggling to get back up and not managing it. Still wary of him, I kept my fists ready. I still resisted the urge to pity him as he sounded both furious and ready to cry.
“I could make her happy.I could be good to her. I’m just like you, man. We were always just alike, you and me. I’m just like you; really, I am…”
There were stillpeople standing in the ground-floor apartment doorways, watching the whole thing. I could only glance at them, silently apologizing. From outside, maybe a block away but getting closer, came the sounds of sirens. This was the kind of neighborhood where the police showed up quickly, which was the one good part about this whole freaking stupid thing.
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Corinne saton the couch in my living room, her arms wrapped around herself. I stood watching her, hating myself for the way she looked, feeling like the lowest excuse for a human being who ever lived.
“He’s someone from my past,”I feebly explained.
She keptherself wrapped up in her arms. I wanted to offer to hold her, but I was afraid of how she might react. After what she had just witnessed, after seeing Kane the way he was and knowing what he wanted to do to her, without her consent, in that state, she didn’t need to be touched by anyone else just now. I was sure the thought of being touched by anyone, including me, after what happened in the lobby, made her feel dirty and ashamed.
I hated Kane.I hated myself for exposing her, even unintentionally, to that.
In a scared voice,Corinne asked, “What was he on? He must have been using something, right? What was he using to get like…that?”
Bitterly,I shook my head. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just wasn’t about to let him anywhere near you. Corinne…I’m sorry. I really am. I’m just so damn sorry.”
She liftedher head just enough to see my face and no more. She gazed up at me with eyes raised exactly enough to get a look at my eyes, and looked pained and scared just from doing that.
I wantedto ask her if she held me responsible for that sick episode. Again, I was afraid. Just to hear her possibly telling me it was all my fault, and having to defend myself from that, shredded me inside.
“He’sa part of my past, Corinne,” I offered as a feeble-sounding excuse. “For a few years, I was away from here and had a different kind of life than I have now. It was a life that I’m not proud of, and he was at the center of it.
“There were some years,to be honest, when I let him lead me around by the nose. Wherever he led, I followed. And, I shouldn’t have. But, I thought my life back here was dull and full of too many rules and too many expectations. With him, there were no expectations except for him and me and the crowd that we ran with going after whatever we wanted and doing whatever we felt like doing.”
She lowered her head again.I wanted to offer her a drink or something, but I didn’t know if she would accept it. She didn’t seem to want to look at me. She listened, but she didn’t look. I didn’t know what to do for her.
“After a while— and after getting into all kinds of trouble — I started to see what the rules and expectations were for. They weren’t about restrictions and answering to other people. They were about keeping life sane and decent.
“When I finally started to see howsane and decent my lifewasn’t,I wanted something else. So, I came home and my brother-in-law, though he didn’t have to do it, let me go into business with him. That’s when it all got better.”