The Empress File

show about the high school baseball team. I let out a breath and started to step back.
    “Don’t fuckin’ move.” The voice came from ten feet away and nearly stopped my heart. I turned my head, and St. Thomas was there. He was wearing loose, soiled khaki slacks and a light short-sleeved shirt, which was half open over his fat belly. With one hand, he fumbled with his fly. With the other, he pointed a shiny chrome pistol at my head. I froze.
    “Duane, get your butt out here,” St. Thomas hollered. Then to me he said, “Picked a good time to take a leak, didn’t I?” Then louder again: “Duane, goddamn it…”
    Hill came around the corner of the building and stopped, his mouth half open.
    “God-damn,” he said. He broke it into two words, dragging out the
God
. He didn’t exactly smile, but he was delighted. “I knew you was the nigger in the woodpile.”
    “I talked to the mayor before I came—”
    As I started the sentence, Hill walked up to me and, before I had a chance to raise my hands, swatted me openhanded on the face. The blow almost knocked me down, semiblinded me, and the taste of blood surged into my mouth.
    I put my hands up to defend myself, and St.Thomas screamed, “Put your hands down, motherfucker, motherfucker.…” He shook the pistol at me, and I was sure it was the last thing I’d see. I put my hands down, backing away, watching the gun, and Hill hit me with a left hook and then a right cross, hit me first in the eye and then in the nose. My nose broke with a crunch, and I went down, banging backward into the side of the shed, then dropping forward on my hands and knees.
    “Busted my fuckin’ ribs,” Hill shouted. He grabbed the hair at the sides of my head, jerked me upright, and threw me back against the building. “You was the nigger in the woodpile, wasn’t you? You was the one what set this all up, this whole thing, nobody’d believe me, nobody’d listen.…”
    He punched me in the forehead. My head banged back against the building, and I went straight down, to a sitting position, and he kicked me below the armpit. I rolled with the kick and crouched, ready to roll again, and Hill started screaming, “On your feet, motherfucker, on your feet.”
    St. Thomas danced around beside me, giggling, waving the gun. “On your feet, on your feet…”
    “What’re you looking for out here? What’re you looking for? Were you in that car? What were you doing, cocksucking faggot?”
    I got up again, sputtering, blood running out ofmy broken nose into my mouth. I had my hands half up again, and said, “Listen, goddamn it, I talked to the mayor—”
    “Fuck Bell. You hear me, cunt? Fuck him—”
    Hill screamed. He screamed all the time, never dropped his voice, never laughed, always screamed. “Hands down, cocksucker. Arnie, you shoot the motherfucker in the nuts if he puts his hands up.…”
    “I will,” St. Thomas squealed. “I’ll shoot you in the nuts, faggot motherfucker.…” He pointed the pistol at my crotch. Hill squared up again, and St. Thomas was squealing, and I dropped my hands, trying to edge away, but St. Thomas danced around in front again, blocking me, and Hill hit me in the nose again, and I went halfway down, trying to fall, and he hit me twice more, hard, in the right eye again and on the nose. The world went black and red, and I was down, nearly blind, feeling the grass under my hands, the blood running down my throat.…
    “Get up, motherfucker,” Hill screamed, his face two feet from mine. “Get him around inside, Arnie, let’s get him around inside.”
    I couldn’t get up. I tried but couldn’t. “Get up, motherfucker,” Hill screamed, and kicked me in the thigh. I tried and stumbled. He kicked me again.
    “Kick him in the ass,” St. Thomas yelled.“Kick him in the ass, Duane. Kick him in the balls.”
    Hill kicked me again, and I crawled some more, and he screamed, “Crawl, motherfucker.” I crawled another six feet toward the door, and he kicked me in the side, and this time I didn’t see it coming, couldn’t roll, and a couple of ribs went. You can feel ribs when they break because the muscles between them go into spasm. The pain can bend you in half.
    I went down on my face and thought: Keep breathing. Keep breathing, keep your arms around your head, LuEllen’s out here somewhere; maybe she’s gone for help.… And I had an image of the
Fanny
slowly slipping off the revetment and downstream, LuEllen cutting the boat