The Feet of God

55 - BOIZ & LIKKER

With the floor show of marital discord seemingly over, I turned back to the lanky stranger.  “Where was we…?”

He stroked the stubble on his chin.  “I was tellin’ you I’m headed to Tennessee.  I got a plane.  Gonna fly out to Bible Hill, between Lexington and the river.  I gotta make a couple of stops along the way, though, for business reasons, y’understand.”  His jade eyes lit up and his golden face glowed.  “But I wouldn’t mind some company.”

“Hell yeah,” I agreed.  “I love flying in the air where the wind blows free.”

My pilot friend looked down at his drink and then into my eyes, “Ain’t exactly free, ya see.  Gonna need some gas money.  How’s fifty bucks sound?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out what cash I had left.  Seventy dollars.  That’d cover plane fare and leave me a lucky $20 to get me away from Bible Hill.  Just as I handed over the money there arose another disturbance from the dance floor.

“Back off, bra’, I was dancin’ with her first,” the driver was pushing at the quiet one.

“Fuck you, bra’, quit hoggin’ all the dances, like you hog everything else, shithead!”  Clearly, a number of shots had given the little fellah a big mouth and some ballsy fortitude.

“Cut it out, you guys,” the big redheaded gal tried to calm things down.  “I can dance with all of y’all.  You don’t gotta be this way.”

Oh, but she should have known.  Testosterone and dope and liquor dictated that the boys, in fact, did have to be this way.

Me ’n my green-eyed friend watched slightly amused from our end of the bar as one red-faced dude glared at another red-faced dude, sweat drippin’, rage buildin’.  The tension broke with the smack of a shotgun barrel on the bar for a second time.  Sam the bartender had everyone’s attention.  “There ain’t gonna be no trouble in my bar.  You got problems, you take ‘em outside.”

The quiet one challenged, “Gonna kick your ass.”  And he headed for the door.

“I'm sooo afraid,” the driver followed right behind.

Everyone else filed out to catch all the action.  Me and my newfound friend glanced at each other, shrugged, and followed the crowd outdoors.  I couldn’t help thinking how my day might not have started off too well, what with the massacre of the Cowridge Clan and all, but this was shaping up to be a day to remember.

The crowd gathered around the two teenagers loaded with hormones, weed, beer, O Promise Me and Old Methuselah shots all flowing hot and heavy.  The girls shouted discouraging warnings but not very enthusiastically.  The other bra’s cheered, along with some of the men, while me and my next ride stood off to one side observing it all.

White-knuckled fists was poised and clenched as one dude’s pair of angry eyes locked with another dude’s pair of identical angry eyes.  Breath steamed in the cold night air, whistling through flared nostrils.  The two boys circled each other.  Round and round they went, taunting each other, hurling obscene curses and insults.

The quiet one seethed with all the repressed anger the quiet ones sometimes hold inside, while the driver gave off an aura of confidence as if he intended to maintain his place as the top dude.  Round and round the two combatants went, bobbing and weaving, in an intoxicated imitation of some unknown martial art.

“You always gotta hog everything, don’t ya?  You always gotta have it your way, asshole.”  Once loosened up, the quiet one sure had a big mouth.  “Well, fuck you, bra’!”

“Go fuck yourself, bra’!” the driver shot back.  “You’re a fuckin’ loser.  If it wasn’t for me, nobody would have your sorry ass around except to rip on.”

That did it.  The quiet one charged forward with his fists whirling around like a windmill in a tornado.  But the driver was faster and he wrapped his arms around the smaller boy’s neck and held him in a tight hammerlock.

“You gonna quit now?  You gonna quit, pussy?”  Even in the dim lighting you could see the driver’s eyes bulge from the exertion of holding close his flailing opponent.

The little guy yelled, “Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!”

Then, amid shouts from the crowd to release the boy, a fist flew upward and back to smash the driver between the eyes.  With a loud splat and the popping sound of breaking cartilage, blood began to spew.  The driver instinctively released his hold on the other dude and cupped his nose screaming, “My nodze!”

Blood was splashed everywhere.

The apparent victor was the first to begin gagging, and then to hurl.  This was closely followed by the projectile release from the victim.  The horrified and grossed out females scurried back into the bar.  A few males made their own reflexive sounds and begun to purge themselves of alcoholic libations while the rest simply ambled back inside The Moose Knuckle for another round.

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