Two’fer strolled across the deserted parking lot with nothing in his pockets but his hands. Gnats and moths flurried beneath the harsh glow of the 7-Eleven awning as he scoured the asphalt for half-smoked butts. Past two in the morning. A Florida sky of few stars as if something above had cleared a path to get a good look at him. Maybe the Lord would come for him tonight.
Time of night he heard a thing before he ever saw it. Tires squealing, stereo playing some noise today’s kids considered rock and roll. Two’fer shielded his eyes from approaching headlights. A black Pontiac Firebird gleamed beneath the 7-Eleven’s halogen lights. Two big boys, blonde crew cuts and beefy forearms, spilled out of the cockeyed park job. Might have been brothers. The boys were two pairs of reckless eyeballs.
One took a slug from a beer bottle. “Look at this stinky fuck.”
The other one pointed. “Fucking bums are everywhere.”
Reagan youth who never wagered their life against a military draft. No idea what Two’fer sacrificed so their dumb asses could listen to men in red leather pants sing about fuckin’ California girls. He missed real music. His Walkman was destroyed during the week he slept in Seminole Park along with the cassette tapes he scrounged from the dumpster behind Sam Goody. Smokey Robinson, Jimi Hendrix, CCR. Singing how it was okay to walk away from war. A luxury he never had.
The music cut off. Sound of the engine cooling.
Two’fer collected a couple of partially smoked Winstons and stuffed them in his jeans pocket. Sweat glued his filthy POW/MIA shirt to his skin. No damn breeze, never was. A payphone at the corner of the store dangled its receiver by a silver cord like a hangman’s noose. He walked past the boys and fished around the payphone’s coin return before replacing the receiver on its cradle. Tink. He checked the coin return again and found a quarter.
“Hey bum, get your ass gone from round here.” The one with the beer bottle chucked it at Two’fer. It flew by his head and smashed on the asphalt.
The other boy said, “Holy shit! Hippie didn’t even flinch!”
Hippie? He was no fuckin’ hippie. Two’fer shuffled toward them. They asked for it.
Two ’fer raised his hand and the beer-throwing boy recoiled. Two’fer hit him with a hook to the stomach, folded him over, a hurk as the boy held his belly. Taking a hold of the boy’s head, Two’fer brought his knee up and shattered the boy’s nose. Explosion of blood. Strangled breathing.
Two’fer shook the sting out of his knuckles and took a step towards the other boy. The other boy flinched, stumbled back, fell on his ass, jumped up and rabbited. He didn’t look back.
The beer-throwing boy rolled around the parking lot. Blood leaked through his fingers. Two’fer got him under the arms and dragged him over to the car. He leaned him against the warm hood.
The door to the store opened, and the night manager, a grey-haired woman wearing large eyeglasses, shouted, “Two’fer, git outta here ‘fore I call the cops.”
“Call them, please,” the boy begged, his voice nasally behind his bloody hands.
“We just talking, Tammy,” Two’fer said. He turned to the boy. “Ain’t scared no cops.”
“We were only messing with you, man. We don’t want trouble.”
“Nah, y’all wanted to play a game. And we played. You and your brother lost. Y’all brought this on y’allself.”
“He’s not my brother. Just leave me alone, man. Please.”
“Where’d he go?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
Two’fer pulled the quarter out of his pocket and shoved it into the boy’s bloody palm. “Call him. I don’t care if his daddy answers the phone. Tell him to get his boy back down here.”
“What?”
Two’fer shook the boy by his shirt, spittle dotting the boy’s face as he yelled. “Y’all wanted to play flinch, right? All big and bad. Y’all picked the wrong one. My daddy used to make me flinch. Two for flinching. I paid every two I ever owed him. Knock my ass out on the regular. Daddy said I was soft. Thought I’d run when the draft come for me. I ain’t flinch. Ain’t flinch at basic with a bastard drill sergeant, not in the bush overseas, not when half them boys I knew ain’t make it home. I seen the Lord come for them all. Ain’t flinch when I got back and my own people spit on me, or when they say we killed and got killed for nothin’. My daddy say the only way I’m coming back inside his house was in an urn. Ain’t flinch the year I got locked up for whuppin’ his ass. Not once in all my time sleeping rough, not when the cops rolled up on me in the park and smashed all my shit, and I sure as hell ain’t flinch for y’alls stupid asses. I don’t shake in an earthquake.”
Two’fer got up in the boy’s face, smelled his beer breath.
“Motherfuckin’ God hisself thrown everythin’ he got at me. I ain’t flinch yet, and best believe someday when the Lord finally do come for my ass, I’ma look at him like I’m lookin’ at you, and we’ll see who blinks first.”
“Two’fer,” Tammy hollered, “Lay offa him. Git on now.”
“Call your buddy’s daddy and tell him his boy got to pay what he owes.” Two’fer held up two fingers and let the boy go. The boy fled to the safety of the store.
Two’fer removed a crooked cigarette from his pocket. He leaned into the car through the open driver’s window and pushed in the cigarette lighter. He lit the cigarette and smoked. He looked up. No stars left in the sky. Maybe it would be over soon. Lord, he hoped so.
He stared at the void above. He didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch.
