Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Hey, motherfucker!’ Scanlon yells across the lot from just a little way outside the bar’s entrance. ‘Hey, City Boy! Don’t you and your skank walk away from me! I’m talking to you! Hey!’
Just keep walking, I think. Someone will drag him back inside, keep him behaving. Someone has to. Just keep walking. Just keep walking.
The first rock hits the side of a truck just to the side of us with a clang that makes me jerk around like a puppet on invisible marionette strings. Perhaps that’s my mistake, because the second rock – not large, not more than a pebble, but pointed and thrown with all the force a drunk former high-school quarterback can manage – hits me just above my right eyebrow, and suddenly my world is screaming pain. I drop to the floor immediately, my brain swimming in confusion, but my confusion is nothing next to the look on Hale’s face.
‘Carrie?’ I hear him ask. ‘What happened? Are you OK?’
His voice is loud, but it sounds like he’s shouting underwater – close, and yet so, so far away. Am I OK? Yes – at least, I think so. My head is on fire, but when I touch my dusty fingers to my forehead, I feel a small cut rather than a gaping wound – not that it’s particularly pleasant, of course. I know how much even the smallest head injury can bleed, so I’m expecting the worst. It hurts like a son of a bitch when I get it a cautious poke of investigation, and my fingers come away with the tips a vibrant red, as though they’ve been dipped into a pot of barn paint.
It’s like a rag to a bull.
‘Hale!’ I cry out, but he’s far beyond hearing me already. He cleared the length of the parking lot in what seemed like two mammoth strides, his fist already raised like a spear-wielding warrior charging into an ancient battle, but there’s more to it than just anger. He’s beyond hearing me because right now, right in this instant, I don’t exist to him; he knows I’m safe, knows I’m not going anywhere. Now, the primal part of him has kicked in. Now it’s his job, at least in his mind, to protect me from further harm no matter what the cost.
And that harm has manifested itself in the form of Aaron Scanlon.
There’s a moment, just before Hale’s fist collides with his jaw, when Scanlon’s face turns from his standard shit-eating grin into a look of genuine panic. I wonder, through the haze of pain, if it’s worry for me – if the sight of me bleeding on the floor has finally made him realise he’s gone too far, especially when the rock was so clearly aimed at Hale – but no; that’s not Scanlon at all. The only person he’s capable of caring about is himself.
One punch, and he drops to the ground like a pallet full of bricks. He lets out a low moan of discomfort through his fingers. ‘You son of a bitch,’ he says. ‘You rotten, trailer trash son of a–’
‘Stay down,’ Hale says calmly, cutting him off, ‘and shut your mouth. One more word from you, and I swear to God I’ll put you in the hospital.’ He points back at me. ‘That woman over there is the only reason you’re not shitting teeth right now, you understand me? She asked me not to fight you tonight. Begged me not to. Said I’m better than that. I’m almost starting to believe her, too – but it’s real close, and I’m just looking for an excuse to think otherwise. If you’re smarter than you were in high school, you won’t give me one.’
Scanlon wipes the back of his hand against his lip; it smears blood across his chin, making him look wild, bestial. ‘Oh, I know all about your little girlfriend, Fischer,’ he says. ‘I know all about her. Ain’t that right, sugar?’
Please, I think. Not this. Don’t do this.
If I were closer, I’d try and get in a good punch or two myself – anything to shut him up and keep him from revealing my mistake – but Hale beats me to it. He lunges at Scanlon in the dirt. The flailing kicks pull up clouds of dust around the two of them; the sound of fists colliding sickens me to my core. There’s nothing stylised or dramatic about this fight. The two men seem to be really trying to kill each other.
And then, swooping in from the doorway of O’Hara’s, two figures arrive to separate the two of them – guardian angels in check shirts and Wrangler jeans. Without them, it’s pretty clear that one of the two men would be going to jail tonight.
Thank God, I think, but no; I’m not so lucky. The two men pulling Hale off Aaron Scanlon’s body aren’t helpful bystanders at all, but the two men from the bar – Scanlon’s friends. Are they the same two from when we were kids, from the night outside the Stop ‘n’ Shop? I never got a look at them, but I could believe it. They don’t seem to need much of a reason to pick up their old habits, if they are. As soon as they get Hale upright, they start whaling on him too: a punch to the gut that folds him in half, blow after blow that drops him right back to the floor. Sure, he manages to get a few good swings in, but he’s no match for the three of them at once.
‘Stop it!’ I scream, rising up on shaky legs and rushing towards them. ‘For God’s sake, Aaron, stop it!’
But he doesn’t hear me. He’s not listening. As I rush into him, he pushes me away with one barrel-arm, back down into the dirt. The sight of how cavalierly he tosses me aside gives Hale a second wind. He lets out a primal howl and pulls himself up, charging at Scanlon, but with three of them against one of him it’s a foregone conclusion.
I’m sorry, his eyes seem to scream as he looks across at me. I’m so, so sorry.
‘Oh, I remember this,’ Scanlon says as he lays kick after kick into Hale’s stomach. ‘Don’t you, boys? Call it… what’s the word? Restoring the natural order of things? Showing a piece of trash just where it belongs?’ His friends snort to themselves; they’re letting Aaron get his licks in, letting him have his fun, holding back just far enough that they can step in if – when – Hale finds his feet. He keeps attempting to scramble back to his feet, but Scanlon has the upper hand.
‘F… f…’ Hale spits out.
‘What’s that, City Boy?’ Scanlon says, bending a mock ear down to him. ‘You got something to say, have you?’ He points across at me. ‘Better make it good. Your slut is listening.’ He leans in closer. ‘You know I tapped that, right? All those years, while you were out playing your little guitar… guess I might even have beat you to it. Ain’t that a thing? You got anything to say about that?’ He lands another kick, and Hale moans. ‘Well? We’re all ears.’
‘F…’ he says again.
‘Can’t hear you, bucko,’ he says. ‘Speak up.’
‘Fuck. You.’
And that’s when Hale makes his move. He dives forward – not at Scanlon, who immediately drops into a defensive stance, but at the closest of his two goons. The man isn’t expecting it; his leg buckles under Hale’s kick and he screams out in pain as he drops to the ground. By the time his associate has turned around, Hale is on his feet, punch-drunk but with a look of determination on his face. He barrels forward and charges into the man, winding him with his shoulder and sending him down to join his friend in the dirt.
Now there’s just Scanlon. One against one. A fair fight, at last.
Hale’s not exactly looking at his best; already, there’s a bruise blooming under his eye, and as he puts his hands up I can see that the knuckles are scraped and bloodied. I dread to think what he looks like underneath his shirt. Nothing seems dislocated, at least, but… well, what do I know? He could have a whole rack of broken ribs lurking under there. He was definitely kicked hard enough. Part of me is surprised he can even still stand, but I shouldn’t be. I know how stubborn he can be. I know he’s not going to give up until someone makes him.
Run away, I think. I’m not sure whether I’m talking to Aaron or to Hale in my mind; I don’t much care. I just want it over with. I just want to take him home.
‘No more,’ Hale says. ‘I’m not putting up with your shit anymore. You hear me?’
Scanlon smiles – but it’s not at Hale, and it’s not at me either. He’s looking directly over Hale’s shoulder.
Behind him, at the entrance to the bar, there’s a crowd of people standing.
Watching.
Judging.
Everyone in town seems to be there. Willie O’Hara. Polly Kimble, Gossip Queen of the Chambers Street Guest House. Al and Jerry. Even Pete is there, his eyes sad as he gazes at the scene in front of him. It’s only once I see the expression on his face that I realise exactly what it looks like.
Scanlon is bleeding from a busted nose; his two friends are laid out on the ground nearby. No one was outside to see it when Hale was being laid into by the bottom of Scanlon’s boots – I would have noticed, for sure – which means all they saw was Hale fighting back, and winning.
All they saw was him attacking three of the town’s own.
Just like Scanlon wanted.
‘Help!’ Scanlon shouts to the crowd, turning off his grin before he turns to face them. ‘Someone call the police!’
No one moves.
‘Did you not hear me? Call the police! The guy’s nuts. He just attacked us. Ain’t that right, boys?’
His goons pause for a second, then realise they’re supposed to be playing along. ‘Yep,’ one says, clutching his leg. ’Came out of nowhere. Fuckin’ psycho. Should be in jail.’ The other just nods; I think the wind that Hale took out of him with that shoulder-barge still hasn’t come back enough to let him speak.
‘See?’ Scanlon says. ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’
A low murmur rises up through the crowd. Sure, they heard Hale singing in there just a few minutes before, and they heard the way Scanlon was picking a fight… but did they, really? After all, Scanlon is One Of Us, and Hale is an outsider now. Even if he hadn’t shipped in from New York, he was never really from Eden. He lived in the Grove, with everything that entailed. Can you really ever trust people who grow up like that? They’re troublemakers, and violent. How could they ever have thought otherwise?
No. Celebrity or not, facts or not, they’re siding with their own.
And so Hale does the only thing he can.
He runs.
His feet thud against the sidewalk as he rounds the corner and disappears from view. For a brief second I’m almost sure he looks back behind him, but I couldn’t swear to it. A couple of members of the crowd make motions as though they’re going to follow him, but it lasts only a few moments before they realise the show is over; they scoop up the wounded and all head back inside to clap and cheer for whoever else is taking over the microphone next. Just another day at O’Hara’s Bar & Grill. Nothing to see here, folks.
Well… almost all of them.
Pete comes over and helps me up of the ground. He’s strong, for an old guy; his grip is comforting. Until he helped me to my feet, I was just about too stunned by what had gone on to react. How did such a perfect night go so wrong so quickly?
‘You alright, kiddo?’ Pete asks.
‘He didn’t do it,’ I say. ‘I mean, he did do it. But they started it. He was just defending us. Defending me. And now…’
Shit.
And now he’s gone. Run off, without even saying goodbye. Maybe he’s back at my apartment, waiting for me. I hope so… but somehow I doubt it. My apartment is only a street or two away; hardly the place you’d run to if you thought a crowd of people might be looking for you.
‘I believe you,’ he says. ‘Your boy seems like a good sort, and everyone in this town knows what a shitheel Aaron Scanlon is on the quiet.’
‘You sure about that? They seem pretty set on taking his side.’
He shrugs. ‘Heat of the moment. What are you going to do about him?’
‘Hale?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t know. Try and find him, I guess. Make sure he’s OK. Tell him…’
Tell him everything will be OK.
Tell him I love him.
Pete nods. ‘I think that’d be a good move.’
‘Why?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Why do you think that’s a good move? No one else seems to. Not Mom. Not those people in there. Everyone in town seems determined to shit on him.’
Pete’s brow creases a little. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I guess… well, I mean, I’ve known you for five or so years now, right? Never seen you with a smile on your face that lasted longer than five minutes. You always seem to have the weight of the world on those little shoulders of yours. Since your boy rolled back into town, I’ve never seen you grinning so damn often. It’s like you’re a different person.’ He pauses. ‘Maybe that’s why, Carrie. Maybe I just think you deserve to be happy. That’s not such a crazy thought, is it?’
Oh, Pete, I think. You big lug. I wrap my arms around him and squeeze as tightly as I can, as though I’m never going to let him go. When I pull away, there’s a damp patch on his shirt from where the first of my tears has landed on the fabric. I get the feeling they’re not going to be the night’s last, no matter how things play out.
‘Sorry.’
‘Hey now,’ he says, putting an arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t get all mushy on me. I’ve still got to work with you tomorrow.’
I hear the roar of a motorcycle engine in the near distance. It can only be Hale, and there’s only one place he can be going.
Home.
‘Pete,’ I say. ‘I need your truck. Please.’
He looks me over. ‘You been drinking?’
‘One beer. I’m good to drive.’
He pauses for a second, then tosses me his keys. ‘She’s around the corner,’ he says. ‘Go get him, kiddo. And stay safe, you hear me?’
But I’m barely listening. As soon as I snatch the keys out of the air, I turn on my heels and I’m running, running, running, ignoring the sting of the blood in my eye and the pain of the exhaustion in my lungs. I’m running to Hale, running for Hale.
Because if I don’t save him now, who will?