Free The Lesser Blessed by Richard van Camp Page B

almost as if we were watching an ape and a lizard meet in an arena. Rasp Man raised his arms again and the Boxer held him.
    Johnny snorted and lit up a smoke. “Pretty soon the word is gonna be out that you’re a scrapper. The next time you’re at a party and someone’s looking for a fight they might grab you. You’re fair game now. You’re in.”
    He took a puff and passed the cigarette to me. I was smiling inside: I was in.
    “This here’s unspoken. I’m only gonna say it once. If you get into a fight and you get hurt bad, stay down. Just stay down and cover your head. Whoever it is that’s scrapping you will take that as a surrender. It works 99 per cent of the time. If they’re drunk, you just run your Indian ass the hell out of there, ’cause drunks like to keep kicking. If they’re stoned, they’ll usually stop when you cover your head. You got that?”
    I took a drag and handed the smoke back to him. “Yeah,” I said, goon.
    The brothers stopped up ahead. They were arguing. The Boxer started to yell and Johnny and I stopped to watch. There weren’t any streetlights where we were, but the men were close enough to the Bay that we could make out their silhouettes. The Boxer planted his feet in the cold gravel. The raspy brother tried to walk away, but was grabbed and shaken by the Boxer. Johnny continued to talk, keeping a watchful eye on the two men.
    “Larry,” he said, “if I have to listen to my mom fuck one more guy, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
    He went silent, and I felt sad.
    “Johnny,” I said. “I didn’t know ...”
    “Well, shit,” he said, blowing smoke in my face, “now you got the hunger; you’ll probably want to start screwing anything that walks. I’ll tell you something, Lare, and this is coming to you straight. Sex is a drug; once you start, you can’t stop. Sometimes it’s downright ugly what people will do to get it.”
    “Man, I know that,” I said, thinking of my father.
    Up ahead, Rasp Man was trying to get free of the Boxer. His hands fluttered like the wings of a shot chicken. The Boxer yelled into his face and shook him again. In the distance, from where I stood, they looked like lovers in an incredible dance.
    Johnny continued with his grim message. “You wanna start screwing someone, you talk to Dean Meddows. His mom works at the hospital as a nurse. She knows all the girls in this town that have the dose. She tells Dean every name. I know it’s bad—you can just close your mouth—but this is a shit town and she’s just looking out for her own. I had Juliet checked out. She’s okay. You think you’ll remember that before you wet your wick? You pay Dean five bucks and he’ll give you a list of all the chicks who got the clap.”
    “Yeah,” I said, watching the brothers. Johnny took a long drag and handed me the smoke. “What else?”
    The Boxer threw his brother on the ground and proceeded to smash his sneakers into him. The younger man began to scream. I started to run towards them, but Johnny grabbed my jean jacket and held me with sudden tank force.
    “Never fuck a friend,” he said, looking into my eyes. “That’s the golden rule.”
    I looked back towards the two men. “They’re ghosts, Johnny.”
    “Wha?”
    “Nobody’s told them they died.” I took a big swallow. “Nobody told them they’re dead.”
Big Daddy Love in Free Fall
    Johnny and I had been walking for a while when we came to the church. Johnny howled to the moon, and I could hear the scrape of claws on steel as a thousand ravens on the church roof steadied themselves in the wind. I thought to myself, “This is how death must feel, with its claws cold and sinking.”
    The ravens snapped their black razor bills like a million crabs in battle. I couldn’t see the ravens but I bet they were sharpening their beaks and watching us, their life-steam rising like a thousand tangled arms. Johnny was walking ahead of me. I started to talk to myself so that anything out