Damnation Street

43.

The minute I saw them, I knew they were the men I was waiting for: these two cowboys charging out of the saloon. Six feet apiece. Both in jeans and plaid shirts. One guy squinty and barrel-chested, the other with a shaved head on broad shoulders. They both had pale eyes, almost white eyes, glinting with a cruel delight in violence. They were moving fast through the rain toward the House of Dreams.

I sat in the puke green Hyundai and watched them through the rain-streaked windshield as they came. I knew I was supposed to get out and challenge them, but it didn't look like a very good idea. Instead, I tried to convince myself that they might not be who they obviously were, might not be the enforcers Weiss had warned me about. Perhaps they were just customers of the local establishments, said I to my inner man. Perhaps they were just two jolly companions out for a harmless spree among the ladies of the evening. How can one tell, I inquired philosophically, who is a mere reveler and who is a murderous thug come to beat the living daylights out of one's friend?

This is how intellectuals stay out of fistfights. They convince themselves the situation is complex. It's much safer than acknowledging the simple right and wrong of the thing, the need for immediate action.

It's safer, but it's not admirable. And as I was there to become admirable, and as there was no room for me to become any less admirable than I already was, I somehow forced myself to push my way out of the car, to step in front of the porch of the House of Dreams and to plant my tremulous body between these two charging gorillas and the front door they were charging at.

I won't discourse at length upon my fear. Suffice it to say there was a lot of it. My muscles felt gelatinous. My aforementioned inner man had suddenly assumed the stature of a crap-assed, squalling three-year-old. Still, I tried to bolster my confidence. I told myself all was not lost. How much of the outcome of such situations depends on a man's approach to them, after all? How much can be accomplished with the right attitude, a powerful facade? If I could put on a good front, if I could act, I mean, a bit like Bishop, cool and deadly like Bishop, or authoritative and just and inexorable like Weiss, surely these men would hesitate before attempt- ing to get past me. If I could dominate them enough with my sheer presence, perhaps I could even keep them harmlessly at bay for the five minutes Weiss needed inside.

So-quivering within though I was-I set my face as if my soul were made of iron. I hooked my thumbs in my belt. I smiled-I actually smiled a slow, easy, dangerous-looking Bishop-style smile-as the two men pulled to a stop in front of me.

"Sorry, gentlemen," I said quietly. "I can't let you go in there just yet."

Now here's an interesting thing some of you may not know about getting punched in the head. It is thoroughly unnerving. It's not just painful-though, take my word, it is extraordinarily painful. It also completely alters your world-view. In a single instant, you are transformed from a person of varied, multidimensional interests to a person whose sole interest on earth is not getting punched in the head ever again. A man's principles, a woman's virtue, a lifelong dedication to the good-all of them, I'm convinced, are susceptible to a good punch in the head. In fact, this is why head punching is generally acknowledged to be impermissible in a free society and why people who do it must, after civil discussion and agreement, be punched in the head back.

Unfortunately, I was no longer in any condition to implement such retaliatory measures. Because one of these mon-keys-the one with the shaved head-had just socked me in the side of the face with a fist the size of a very big fist.

I went reeling backward. My ankle hit the edge of the House of Dreams' raised porch. Down I fell, my backside landing hard on the wooden platform. The barrel-chested ape kicked me in the side for good measure. Then both men stepped over me, heading for the door.

It was now no longer my goal to stop these guys or to help Weiss. My only goal was not to get punched in the head anymore. It was a good goal-I think so even today. But was it admirable? No, I couldn't say that it was.

So I scrambled to my feet. I leapt upon the rear man-the barrel-chested man-grabbing him by the belt and collar. The attack took him by surprise-hell, it took me by surprise. Though my head was ringing like a church-tower bell, though my eyes felt as if they were rattling in my skull like dice, I was able to swing the bigger man around and hurl him off the porch so that he tripped and fell into the mud and concrete.

I stumbled off the porch after him. I regained my balance just in time to see the shaved-headed thug turn away from the door and come for me. He hit me in the stomach first, and when I bent over with my lunch in my throat, he really clobbered me with another one of those head punches.

I have a hard time remembering much about what happened after that, but I think I know the gist of it. The barrel-chested guy got to his feet and kicked me a couple of times in revenge. Then, muttering with annoyance, both men headed for the door again.

And I got up again and went after them.

A pattern developed. Again and again and, yes, again, I flung myself ineffectually at these two sadistic gorillas. Again and again and, yes, again, they hammered me to the damp earth and kicked me where I lay beneath the pattering rain. Then we repeated the process. I don't know how many times. By the end, I think, these guys were staying around just to watch the show. Standing there with their hands on their hips, shaking their heads in disbelief, laughing in wonder, as I clawed my way up off the pavement one more time in order to stagger toward them and get myself pummeled and battered and kicked back down.

So it was, in that rainy Nevada backwater, that I became admirable, beaten to jelly in the mud outside a whorehouse door, trying to buy Weiss another second, another minute, to do whatever it was he had to do.