Chapter 6

As expected, the next day I got the third degree about what happened with Terri. Annoyingly, both my parents thought giving up my car to get the divorce settled was a good deal and somehow I’d gotten lucky. I hadn’t been in the NFL long enough for either of them to see me play, and the car had been in storage the one time they’d come to New York, so they’d never actually seen it. To them, it was just an abstract thing they’d heard mentioned once or twice, and so it didn’t really hold any value.

Considering it had been, quite literally, the last major thing I owned, I kind of wished someone would have had my back on it. Belatedly, it occurred to me that Rosita had when I’d told her about it, but she didn’t really know the situation, so that seemed more like her being supportive of her new friend, or acquaintance, or whatever was going on between us.

After a few hours, I’d had enough of the badgering and just needed to get out of there. My first thought was to go see Rosita, but the closer I got to her place, the more I started second-guessing myself. She was already doing me a huge favor by driving me to Charleston the next day and I didn’t want to be a pest.

Besides, except for the several hours a day I spent trolling through job boards and checking to see if there’d been any updates on the school districts I’d applied to, I spent the rest of my time just wandering around town or slowly nursing a beer to kill time. I didn’t really want to give her the all-too-accurate impression that I had nothing better to do with my life, even though I’d more or less said just that aloud to her already.

Despite all that, I drove towards her place anyway, half thinking I was being silly and it would be okay to go see her when I got right up to the turnoff, but the parking spots in front of her restaurant were all taken and I could see a bunch of people inside through the window.

So instead of pulling into the strip center’s parking lot, I pulled into the high school instead, not wanting her to see me drive by and thinking I was some kind of creep or stalker or something. I knew I was overthinking everything, but while I’d been with Terri, I hadn’t so much as looked at another girl, despite having plenty of opportunity as a college athlete. It occurred to me that having basically only one romantic partner for my entire life was doing me something of a disservice now.

Since I was here and had time to kill, I decided maybe walking around the football field would help clear my head. Besides, I’d already walked, or at least swung, down Main Street a dozen times and it was starting to get old.

Pulling out my crutches, I locked up the truck and started my way towards the football field. Even as a kid, I’d always thought it seemed so much smaller in the daylight than at night, when the stands were full of people and everything outside of its high-powered lights was pitch black. Then, it had seemed like the center of the world. Now it barely looked big enough to hold all of the people who lived in my apartment building back in New York City.

I swung past the stands, losing sight of the field, and remembered the times Terri and I had snuck under there to make out after practice. It hadn’t been all that private, but I think that’s probably what made it more exhilarating than getting in my truck and driving out to the middle of nowhere.

I couldn’t help shaking my head at myself. It was sobering to realize you were one of those guys who peaked in high school and college. Back then I’d known exactly what I wanted to be and who I was, and here I was a decade older and not all that much wiser, back in the same place but with absolutely no clue about either.

I made it to the end of the field and was about to turn around and go back to my truck, thinking enough time had passed for me to leave without seeming like I’d only driven out to see Rosita, when a sound caught my attention.

The strip center and the high school were at a four-way intersection, with the strip center and the high school parking lot facing each other on Oak Ridge, which was the major road running south into town, joining with Main Street at the only stoplight, and north off towards one of the county roads. Besides the main parking lot with its entrance across from the strip center, there was a second, smaller parking lot with an entrance off of Smithfield Road which was a small street, barely two lanes, that went east to west. The parking lot had a small driveway connecting the two between the gym and the football field.

In my day, the small parking lot was the teachers’ parking lot, and it might still have been, since there were three cars in it probably belonging to administrators or custodial staff. Down towards Smithfield, just in from the driveway, I saw a man and a woman. I couldn’t see her face, but everything about her posture suggested the woman was terrified and the man was clearly menacing her.

I don’t think either of them saw me and I wasn’t even sure what had caught my attention but some residual cop inside of me had me swinging my crutches in their direction. I briefly considered just calling the sheriff and not getting involved, but out here the sheriff covered the entire county and, if things were like they used to be, only had two officers on at any given time. Evan and I had used their slow response time to our advantage many times, which is why I knew that, unless this woman was very lucky, it would take at least twenty minutes for anyone to get here, by then whatever was going to happen would be over.

I wasn’t bothering to be particularly stealthy, since it was impossible with the crutches crunching against the beat-up asphalt of the parking lot. Instead, I was just trying to eat up as much ground as I could with each swing, so I could be close enough that he’d only have a choice to run away or deal with me, instead of hurting the woman.

I saw the woman notice me when I was about ten yards from them and I’d hoped for a second she might just keep him talking until I got closer, since with my bad knee the element of surprise would have gone a long way.

My luck, however, wasn’t that good.

“Help me!” she screamed at me, although she didn’t make a move to run away.

The reason why became clear when he took two steps to the right, turning so he was half facing both myself and the woman, showing a knife in his right hand.

“Don’t come any closer,” he yelled, kind of awkwardly holding the knife out towards me as I ignored him and kept closing the distance.

I didn’t stop until he turned the knife back towards the woman, who was within stabbing distance, and yelled, “I mean it.”

I was close enough at this point to see his face clearly, and instantly recognize what was happening. He had the strung-out look I’d seen on the faces of other emaciated men and women as a cop. Although it wasn’t a major problem in New York City, where crack and heroin were the drugs we encountered the most, meth was practically an epidemic in poor rural towns like Buxton. While I don’t remember it being a problem when I was a kid, it was definitely a problem now and this guy was clearly strung out and probably looking for some money to buy his next fix.

“No one wants any trouble. How about you let her go and we can all forget about this?”

“How about both of you give me your wallets?”

“I’ve only got ten bucks on me, but you can have it if you let her walk away.”

“I’m the one with the knife and you’re a fucking cripple. Maybe I should just do you and take whatever you have right now.”

“There’s no need for anyone to get hurt. Just let her go,” I said, putting my weight on my left leg and right crutch, to brace myself as best I could.

“You know what? Fuck you,” he said, and charged at me knife first.

The guy was still coming down off something or maybe he was so strung out he just didn’t have any coordination, because even his charge was barely in a straight line. If he’d had a gun or been a little less messed up, the whole situation would have probably gone differently but I saw my chance with the way he was running, both arms extended and reaching for me, like he couldn’t decide if he was going to stab me or hug me.

I’d already lifted my left crutch off the ground and as he got within range I swung it up and jabbed forward. The guy’s brain was going so slow he didn’t even react to the crutch swinging up, let alone try to cover himself or block the stab with the crutch.

I caught him straight in the solar plexus as the combined force of my stabbing the crutch forward and his awkward run pushed every bit of air in his lungs out. His mouth made a perfect O in surprise as he wheezed and then dropped to his knees, sucking in air. He still had the knife in his hand, but he’d basically forgotten about me as he tried not to asphyxiate, giving me time to bring my crutch back down, this time on the back of his hand using all my body weight.

He made kind of a gurgling sound, as the knife skittered away. As soon as I moved my crutch off his hand he grabbed it and dropped into the fetal position, alternately holding his hand and his chest, gasping for air. While some people would probably tell me that was enough, I knew I’d gotten lucky and that I might not get so lucky a second time, and I needed to make sure he was down for the count, just in case.

Bracing myself again I swung my crutch with all my might, catching him in the temple like his head was a golf ball. He’d been so focused on his hand and his trouble breathing, he’d not seen it coming and wasn’t ready for it. The way he flopped over and rolled twice before stopping, I’d at first thought I might have killed him, but then his chest started to move, which meant he was breathing.

“Are you okay?” I asked the woman, swinging over to her.

She took a half step back, like she was afraid of me, but I didn’t take it personally. In situations like that, the fight or flight instincts are in overdrive and it takes a second for the brain to kick in and actually evaluate threats.

“I’m fine. He jumped out from behind that car and grabbed me, trying to pull me into the parking lot,” she said, holding out her wrist.

I could already see a little discoloration on her arm and she’d have a hell of a bruise by the next day.

“You’re okay now. I’m going to call the cops. Can you stick around? They’ll want you to give a statement.”

She looked down the road and for a second I thought she might just take off. Even in small towns, people were always hesitant around police, like maybe the cop knew something they’d done wrong somewhere else and arrest them, no matter how small or legal the offense. Maybe it was an extension of the fight or flight response or just some ingrained fear sowed by the news, TV shows, and movies. Thankfully, the moment passed and she half shrugged.

“I guess. Is ... is he going to get back up?”

“Not any time soon, and he’s going to feel like shit when he does,” I said, pulling out my cell phone and calling 911.