brian beats up kid

  It came to a head in of all places the front entry-way of Mackey’s Pizza Den. Brian had become aloof, sometimes unaware of the social life around him, and without knowing it had upset a boy named Carl Lammers. Carl was a football player, a large boy — his nickname was Hulk — and also a bully who envied Brian’s celebrity. Brian didn’t know him. Apparently Carl thought Brian had said something bad about him and he was coming out of Mackey’s Pizza Den just as Brian was walking in with a boy and girl from school. The boy was small and thin — he was named Haley — and the girl was named Susan and she thought Brian was great and wanted to know him better and had invited him for a pizza so she could talk to him. Haley had been standing nearby and thought the invitation included him, to Susan’s disappointment.
  Carl had asked Susan on a date once and she had refused him. Seeing her with Brian made his anger that much worse.
  He saw Brian through the glass of the door, saw him walking with Susan, and Carl threw his whole weight into his shoulder and slammed the door open, trying to knock Brian off balance.
  It all went wrong. Brian was too far to the side and the door missed him. It caught Haley full on, smashing his nose — blood poured out immediately — and slammed him back into Susan. The two of them went flying backward and Susan fell to the ground beneath Haley and twisted her kneecap.
  ‘‘Oh. .,’’ she moaned.
  For a moment everything seemed to hang in place. The door was open, Carl standing there and Brian off to the side, his face perplexed — he had been thinking about the woods when it happened — and Susan and Haley on the ground, blood all over Haley’s face and Susan moaning, holding her knee.
  ‘‘What—?’’ Brian turned back to Carl just as Carl took a swing at his head. Had it connected fully, Brian thought, it would have torn his head off. Dodging before it caught him, he missed the total force of the blow, but even then it struck his shoulder and knocked him slightly back and down on one knee.
  Then things came very quickly. Haley was blinded by the blood in his eyes but Susan saw it all and still didn’t believe it.
  ‘‘Something happened,’’ she said later. ‘‘Something happened to Brian — Carl just disappeared. .’’
  In that instant Brian totally reverted. He was no longer a boy walking into a pizza parlor. He was Brian back in the woods, Brian with the moose, Brian being attacked — Brian living because he was quick and focused and intent on staying alive — and Carl was the threat, the thing that had to be stopped, attacked.
  Destroyed.
  Brian came off the ground like a spring. His eyes, his mind, searched for a weapon, something, anything that he could use but there was nothing; pavement, a brick wall, a glass door. Nothing loose. It didn’t matter. The thought did not slow his movement, and he had himself. He had his hands.
  He did not box. Nothing in nature boxed, hit with closed fists. Instead he kept his hands open and jabbed with the thick heels of his palms, slamming them forward in short blows that taken singly might not have done much damage. But he did not hit once, or twice — he smashed again and again, striking like a snake, the blows multiplying their force.
  Carl played football, and physical contact was part of it. He actually enjoyed the shock of blocking, tackling. But this. . this was insane. He felt as if he were being struck all over at the same time. Brian hit his eyes, slamming them again and again until Carl couldn’t see and reeled back against the wall, his hands up to cover his face. He tried to quit.
  ‘‘All right. .’’
  Brian was past hearing Carl. He was past anything. He was in a place where normal rules didn’t apply. Carl was temporarily blinded, but he was far from finished in Brian’s mind. With Carl’s face covered, his stomach was open and Brian struck there, pleased to find he was overweight and soft. A place to aim, a place to hurt. He hit again and again, still using the heels of his hands, his wrists rigid, the blows up and into the top of the stomach, forcing air out of the diaphragm so it whistled from Carl’s nostrils.
  Carl’s hands dropped to cover his stomach and Brian went for his face again, pounded the eyes so they were swollen shut, blow on blow until Carl’s hands came up again. When Carl crouched, tried to protect everything and left the back of his head open, Brian took him there, clubbing down with both hands joined, pounding until Carl was on his hands and knees, his nose bleeding, the air wheezing from his lungs.
  It can’t get up, Brian thought, surprised how cool he was. He wasn’t angry. I can’t let it get up or it will hurt me, he thought. At first he didn’t realize that he was thinking it and not him. It has to stay down. I have to keep it down.
  Carl was on the edge of being senseless but something — perhaps the training of football — would not let him collapse completely. It would have been better if he had. Brian couldn’t stop. He kept clubbing down, working silently, crouched on his knees now, bringing his joined hands in a double fist again and again onto the back of Carl’s head as if he were cutting wood.
  Somebody was screaming and other people were running toward them, clawing at Brian, pulling him up and away, but he kept working at it, centered, focused on clubbing Carl down even as they pulled him off. They would pull him away for a moment and he would tear loose and attack again.
  ‘‘Don’t let it up,’’ he said. ‘‘I have to keep it down . .’’

Chapter 2


  Police came to the pizza place. They called an ambulance and took Carl to the hospital, where it was found that the skin around his eyes was severely bruised, as were his ribs and his stomach. Though it was not really necessary they kept him in the hospital overnight for observation, which made his condition seem much more severe than it was.
  The police handcuffed Brian and put him in the backseat of the car while they interviewed witnesses. Susan came to the car but the police pulled her away.
  ‘‘No talking,’’ they told her. ‘‘No talking to the boy.’’
  ‘‘But he didn’t do anything wrong. Carl attacked him. Brian was just—’’
  ‘‘No talking to the boy.’’
  In a short time the police came back and removed the handcuffs but they wouldn’t let Brian go. Instead they drove him home and he had the unpleasant experience of having police with him when his mother opened the door. She was thin, and dressed for work in her real-estate blazer.
  ‘‘Brian? What…’’
  ‘‘There was a fight at Mackey’s Pizza. Your boy was beating up on another boy.’’
  ‘‘Brian? Is that true?’’
  Brian said nothing.
  ‘‘Brian, is that true?’’ she repeated. ‘‘Were you fighting?’’
  He looked at his mother. He thought briefly of trying to tell her the truth: that it hadn’t been the Brian she knew but a different one, a totally different person; that it hadn’t been a fight but an automatic reaction. It hadn’t happened because it hadn’t been him — it had been some kind of animal. A boy animal. No, an animal-boy. I am animal-boy, he thought, and tried not to smile.
  ‘‘It is most definitely not funny.’’
  He shook his head. ‘‘I know. I didn’t mean it’s funny. I don’t know exactly what happened. .’’
  ‘‘Did you fight? Like the policeman says?’’
  He thought a moment. ‘‘I was. . reacting. Protecting myself.’’
  ‘‘The boy was beaten senseless,’’ the policeman said. ‘‘He didn’t know his name.’’

Chapter 3