Free Point of Law by Clinton McKinzie Page A

taken one of Kim’s arms and is trying to pull her away. Sunny takes the other. The construction workers move in a loose circle around where I face Burgermeister. This is what they’d wanted all morning, I realize. They’d come looking for a fight. I size up the man called Rent-a-Riot, taking in his considerable bulk. He probably weighs in at two hundred and twenty or so, forty pounds more than me. Even if I could take him, through speed and cunning and luck, his men will step in and rip me to shreds. I’m in serious trouble. A rush of fear floods through me. But for some reason the corners of my lips twist up in an expectant smile. My blood starts to tingle with a touch of my brother’s madness. Far behind me I can hear Oso bellowing across the meadow. I should have let him off the leash.
    Grinning back, Burgermeister says, “She pushed me first, Scarface. Just like this.” He steps forward and shoves a thick finger hard into my chest. “Now what would you do if someone did that to you?”
    I knock his wrist away. Oso roars again in the distance.
    “If it were a woman, I’d walk away.” I have the familiar sensation of my vision somehow widening, my sense of sound and smell and taste all expanding while time seems to slow to half-speed.
    “Are you saying I’m a woman?” Burgermeister demands, his voice sounding to my ears like a tape playing on low batteries. He tries to jab me again with his finger, and I step back, again knocking his wrist away. I’m aware of the hollow rustle of my own breath flowing in and out of my lungs.
    The men gathered around us laugh. Cal and Sunny are half dragging Kim toward their friends at the screen of trees. Kim’s good eye is locked on me, open wide now in panic rather than anger. She’s talking fast to Cal but he’s just shaking his head. With his free hand he still holds the blood that’s leaking from his face. I can hear Oso roaring and slamming against the heavy rope that binds him to my truck.
    I turn to walk away but a heavily bearded man in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt blocks my path. In his hand he holds a Heineken bottle by the neck, ready to swing. They aren’t going to let me go. No way. The mob of Fast’s men is totally pumped up for this. The fun they’d had with Kim on the ground at their feet, her thin shirt transparent with beer, has stirred up a violent sexual energy that I can taste in the air.
    My dad’s words come back to me. “There are two things worth fighting for, son. The things you can win and the things worth dying for.” I add a third:
You fight when you’ve got nothing to lose, just to get in as many licks as you can.
I spin back toward Burgermeister and shoot a clenched-fist jab at his face.
    He has both hands raised like a boxer; he easily bats away my fist. But it was never my intention to hit him with my hand. That was another rule my dad had taught me about fighting—never hit a man in the face unless you want a broken hand. With my hands high in the air, I snap a clean front kick into his crotch. Then, as he doubles over with an explosion of exhaled air, I bring my left elbow down on the back of his head. I might as well be striking a boulder—a lightning bolt of pain shoots up my arm.
    “Anton!” Kim shouts my name. The two syllables come out as crisp as hands clapping twice. A warning.
    I whip my head toward the sound while dropping into a low crouch. A body is coming at me in a flying tackle. I shove into the air, coming out of the crouch like a whale breaching, and lift the incoming body high, flinging it into the air and sending it crashing into another man. Out of the corner of my eye I see another object arcing toward my skull—a green bottle clenched in someone’s raw-knuckled fist. There’s a flare of bright light as the bottle shatters against the side of my head.

SIX
    T HE PUNCHES AND kicks of seven or eight big men fall on me with an almost mechanical rhythm. It feels as if I’m being run through a threshing