I tripped getting out of the car and landed on my side in the middle of the street. Darius was still in the car, holding my foot on his lap, trying to tie my laces, but he was laughing too hard, and he couldn’t get his hands to work.
“Leave it,” I said.
“No, man. You gonna trip and hurt yourself.”
“I already did trip because of you. Let go.” I yanked my leg free and kicked the door closed, and that made them laugh more. And then he and Christoph drove off, both of them laughing. Darius called out, “See you later, man!”
No, I thought. I suddenly had no desire to see him again. I was hurt, and I wanted to be done with them and with wrestling, though I had no idea what I’d do next. Or who my friends would be. All I could think about at that moment, all I wanted, was my bed. A misty rain was falling, fingering my face, and the trees were whispering something I couldn’t make out, and my body was aching. I moved toward the house, intending to slip in through the front door, but before I got to the porch my foot caught on something, and I timbered forward, smashing my nose on the sidewalk. At first I just stayed down on my belly, my head throbbing and my palms stinging. Rain slid down my face. It tasted salty, and I thought that was strange, that the rain would be salty, and then I realized it wasn’t rain, but blood. It was streaming over my lips. I couldn’t go into the house like this. I would scare Yukiko and Pill if they woke and saw me. I needed a doctor. But for some reason I didn’t go to a doctor, I wandered into the backyard, to the little shed tucked into the corner, its roof glowing purple from a light above. The air inside was earthy and damp, soothing in a way. I turned over a pail and sat on it, then I found a rag, an old t-shirt, and I pressed it into my face. It felt gritty on my skin and it smelled of gasoline and dead leaves and a trace of something more fragrant—aftershave or cologne. Which made me think of my father, whoever he was.
I pulled out my phone and looked at myself and crust almighty, it was bad, the upper right quadrant of my face puffy and discolored from the blow the Sledge had given me and my nose now swelling, my lips puffy and darker from the blood. There was a gash over my cheekbone, short but deep. I didn’t know how I had gotten it, if it was from the fight or the fall. I needed a doctor. I grabbed another rag and cleaned myself up, and I went out to my car and dropped into the front seat, and it felt like an embrace, the old viny with its smell. I fired the engine and it roared to life. I drove through the empty streets and merged onto the freeway, heading west instead of east, which was wrong if you were going to the hospital—I knew this. But it felt easier that way, open and free-flowing, and it was good to fly along, the tires hissing over the wet, the windshield wipers thumping. I checked my face in the rearview. The bleeding had stopped. A doctor seemed less necessary now. The only thing I needed at that moment was my car humming along and the open road before me.
The sun came up as I was passing through some little town. The pain was building in my face and I had to stop. I pulled into a gas station, killed the engine, and leaned over, holding my pounding head as if that would help, but it didn’t help, it made things worse. I sat up and looked in the rearview—the whole upper right quadrant of my face was swollen and leathery like a baseball mitt.
Standing was better—it drained the blood from my face, easing the pressure. Inside the station, an older guy was leaning over a newspaper spread out on the counter. He looked up when I came in, and he stared long and hard at my face. I ducked into an aisle and grabbed a bag of chips and a drink, and I took them to the counter.
“Do you have any painkillers?” I asked. He took a packet of Motrin from a shelf behind him and threw it on the counter.
“Might take the edge off,” he said. His voice was deep and rough. “You get into a fight?”
“Yeah.”
“You kick his ass?”
“Not really.”
“That’s how you learn.”
“Exactly,” I said. Though I’m not sure what I had learned, if anything. Still, I liked talking about this. I had gained membership in a new club, one where guys swapped stories regarding ass-kickings, and it seemed like an arrival. A kind of manhood. As I pulled out onto the highway, the attendant’s gravelly voice stayed with me: “You kick his ass?” Yeah man, I kicked his ass. And then I suddenly experienced a painful need to know my father. I wanted to see what he looked like, wanted to hear his voice, feel his hand on my head. I could make it happen, I realized. My father existed somewhere in this world. He was real. And Frankie knew.
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