Free Drowning of Stephan Jones by Bette Greene Page B

who was calling to him, but instead of stopping, if anything he quickened his pace. “You know, that’s not very nice,” said Andy, galloping up with his posse. “Hey, don’t you know I kind of thought you were more friendly than that. After all, you did come to my church for Christmas services. So how come you came to my church?”
    “I’ve got to get back to work now,” Stephan explained, as Andy and the Ironman, who could double as a human wall, barred his way. The Spider sandwiched him in from behind as though he were nothing more than a piece of luncheon meat haphazardly thrown between a couple of slices of bread. “Look, I’ve got to go ...” Stephan pleaded. “I’m already late.”
    “Now, now, you don’t have to be like that ’cause I just want to introduce you to my friends, Mike the Spider Horten and Doug the Ironman Crawford, here,” Andy said with disarming sweetness.
    “But, say, I am sorry, but I don’t really remember your name.”
    Stephan’s head drooped, but his answer came out clearenough. “Stephan.”
    “Stephan?” mocked the double-sized Ironman. “Stephan! What kind of a fruititooti name is that?”
    “Hey, now don’t go ridiculing a man’s name, Ironman,” Andy interjected. “A man’s home is his castle and a man’s name is his castle, too. Or something like that.”
    Ironman and Spider laughed appreciatively. “Yeah, so where did you get such a fruititooti faggy name as Stephan?” Spider asked in a voice so deep that it seemed downright misplaced in so tall and spidery a guy. This time it was Andy and Ironman who laughed raucously.
    When Stephan didn’t immediately respond, Andy gave him a shove backward. “Answer the man!” he yelled, as Spider gave their captive an even harder shove forward. “What’s the matter with you anyway, don’t you believe in being polite?”
    “Leave me alone,” Stephan begged with a voice that trembled. “Am I bothering you? I’m not bothering you!”
    “That’s where you’re wrong—you—you fucking fag!” Andy shouted, giving him a two-handed shove so unexpectedly violent that both Stephan and his backstop, Spider, went stumbling backwards. Spider lost his footing and sprawled against the concrete sidewalk. When Andy extended a hand to his fallen comrade, Stephan faked to the right and took off running to the left, still carrying the pizza in one hand and the Portuguese wine in the other. He sprinted down the empty street as though this were one race he had to win.
    Footsteps heavily pounding the pavement, down-up, down-up, in rapid-fire succession came behind him. Stephan knew he could run faster and harder than his two thick-bodied tormentors. But what about the other one? The one built like a willow reed? What about him!?
    Suddenly Stephan was grabbed by the sleeve of his down jacket and spun crazily around. The pizza and wine went crashing to the asphalt. Strong arms from behind encircled his necklike a tightening vise. The willow reed had him! Pressing hard, pressing hard against his Adam’s apple. Air! Air! He began gagging at the same time that he silently screamed for air.
    In the next moments, the other two surrounded him. The steel neck-hold was released, and air, blessed air rushed once again to fill his lungs. “Good work, Spider!” complimented Andy. “Grab those hands—hold them behind his back, Ironman!”
    Shaking his head in disgust, Andy surveyed the debris from the shattered wine bottle as he made tsk-tsk-tsking sounds with the tip of his tongue. “Boy, you got some nerve messing up the street, you really do, Stephan—Stephan- eeee . That is your name, isn’t it, Stephanie?”
    Stephan swallowed and wondered how come it hurt so much to swallow. Then Andy latched on to his cheeks, one in each of his hands, and began pulling them outward until the groaning man’s face took on hideous proportions. “When I speak to you—you answer me! Understand, fruit fly?”
    “Yes,” Stephan answered in a