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Kevin Lannan
At Peace
(Part two)
Jack slowly reached up and took off his Aviators. Not bothering to fold them up, he lightly tossed them onto the ground, close to the building. The black, dust-plagued shades reflected the scene, witness to a reoccurring history. Jack took the dirty white towel in his left hand.
Brendan moved forward slowly, but Jack did not move backwards. Brendan faked a few swipes with his pocket knife. Jack refused to flinch. Not waiting for Brendan to lunge, as this would mean disaster, Jack threw his towel at Brendan’s face. The towel missed its mark, but it did its job well enough. Brendan had to duck out of the way, and in that time Jack had rushed forward, kicking upwards. His heavy boots impacted with the bottom of Brendan’s knife hand, dislodging the knife from Brendan’s grip. Next, Jack rose up and swung downward with his large wrench.
The wrench clashed against Brendan’s jaw, his mouth releasing small streams of blood into the air. The blood hit the ground slightly after Brendan did. Jack wasted no time, and stood up straight, threatening the hyenas. They didn’t know whether they were angry or piss-scared. Brendan tried to raise himself up, which distracted Jack momentarily.
Taking the opportunity while Jack was looking over his shoulder, two of the boys lunged at Jack, the other running to the front of the building. One of the attackers meant to take him out at the knees, and the other aimed to hit him in the face with a wild punch. Jack, only slightly surprised, and more annoyed at his own incompetence than anything, pulled his face out of the way of the punch. However, the boy who had lunged for his knees had been successful, and Jack was knocked to the ground. Realizing his situation was bad, Jack dropped his wrench and sat up as quickly as possible. Just in time.
A fast moving foot was headed for his face. With not much time to spare, Jack pulled his head back, then caught the foot as it swung by. Jack pulled back more, and let his opponent fall down on top of him and roll over him. This interrupted the boy who had been wrapped around his knees from pulling himself up onto his knees and punching Jack. As the boy on his knees tried to take his swing again, Jack quickly picked up the wrench he left on the ground and hit him across the face with it.
Wasting no more time, Jack jumped up and backed away from the fallen gang. The last boy he had hit lay on the ground, moaning. The other two, Brendan and his friend, lay tangled on the ground. They slowly grew angry at each other as they inadvertently interfered with each others attempts to get up.
The back door on the far side of the building, which Jack had used earlier, slammed open. Out of it charged forth an extremely angry George. Following him, the coward. George stampeded over to the scene. Brendan subtly hid his knife in his pocket. George studied the battered and humiliated gang.
“God damn it, Jack! You better have a damn good reason for this!” George said, pointing at Brendan and his friends.
“Simple. Brendan here---” Jack said, indicating the gang leader with a jerk of his head, “felt the need to use the side of our building as a urinal. I asked him politely to stop. They threatened me. We fought.”
Brendan started to protest, but Jack looked over at the piss on the wall, which George looked at as well. Brendan abruptly closed his mouth.
“We’ll talk later, Jack. For now, go fix their car.” George said firmly.
“What ever you say, boss.” George hated it when Jack called him boss. Jack knew this, and always said it when he felt that George wouldn’t acknowledge that Jack was right about something. In this case, it was the fact that their new customers were assholes.
“Okay, you four. Go inside and I’ll talk to you about cutting you a deal on your bill for the repairs.” Brendan picked himself up and walked towards the front. His friends followed him.
Jack picked up his Aviators and started walking back to the garage. George stared at Jack with pity for a moment, then sadly dawdled to the front. Jack slid underneath the black car again. As he fixed the car he reflected back onto his violent past. All of the fights he had won and lost.
Growing up in the streets of New York hadn’t been easy, but Jack had made his way all right. Jack had become part of a fighting society in the back alleys that didn’t technically exist, but was ever present. It couldn’t be named, but men were a part of it none-the-less. In back alleys, day and night, men attacked each other for petty reasons. Someone was on someone else’s turf. Someone looked at someone else the wrong way. Someone was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Whatever the case, Jack had grown up learning to deal with all different kinds of situations. Jack had suffered little in fights and had won many. He eventually became involved with the wrong kind of people, fighting for sport in alley ways. Even though fighting was never easy, Jack had pulled off each fight with an affected sense of calm and ease. Many said that his fighting was flashy, that it came off as having style. Of course, Jack had never been interested in fighting with style, but rather with ending a fight as soon as possible, using the most effective means possible. A shorter fight is much less dangerous than a prolonged fight.
Jack cleared his head of webby memories and let the repaired car down. He drove it back into the parking lot, jumped out, and walked in the front door. Brendan and his friends sat in some chairs off to his right. They stared at him, each of them with different expressions. Jack disregarded the gang. He walked over to the counter, where George stood with his back to him. Jack tapped the counter twice.
“Jack? Ah, you’re done finally.” He said, holding his hand out to Jack. Jack placed the keys in his palms. “Here you go, boys. Have a great day.” A small, fake smile.
Brendan cautiously approached George and Jack, taking the keys at arms length, then proceeded to the exit, staring at Jack. The hyenas, no longer smiling or snickering, followed quietly.
“Are you happy, Jack? I just threw a whole bunch of money out the window because of what you did.” George wasn’t as angry as Jack once remembered him being. Of course, by now, George was probably growing used to this.
“I told you what happened. Why would you let them keep their money? They assaulted me.” Jack’s tone of voice was still calm. It always was. George expected nothing less.
“Damn it…How many more times is this going to happen, Jack? You can’t keep doing this, time and again…”
“You’re avoiding the question. Or more the answer, maybe.”
George stayed quiet for a time. Then looked back up. “Jack, I know your past was a bit rough, but you can’t go beating up every asshole that walks in. You’re not in New York anymore.” Still avoiding the question.
“This had nothing to do with my past. This had to do with them threatening and assaulting me. What I did was self-defense. This will continue to happen as long as people like them think they walk all over people. Like you.”
George shook his head and walked into his office without another word. Jack stood pondering. He knew he was right. People like Brendan thought that they owned the world. With no reason or proof as to why. They grew up inheriting their success. Jack had grown up earning his successes. Jack would never let someone like Brendan walk all over him.
What created conflict between Jack and other people was the way Jack interacted with people. Or did not. Even though Jack was extremely polite in some cases, he had an affected indifference that irritated many people. Even though Jack understood this, he refused to acknowledge or change it. He felt no reason to change for other people. In fact, as far as he was concerned, other people were the ones who were so severely flawed.
While many others considered themselves to be social, many had lost the ability to be polite in public. Others still were compelled to talk incessantly, rambling about trivial matters through entire days. These things annoyed Jack more than anything. If he was indifferent to these people, it was because they truly held no interest in his mind.
Avoiding relationships, both personal and romantic, had been something George had seen Jack do constantly throughout the years he knew him. Although unsure as to why, George had the suspicion that it was because Jack didn’t want anyone to discover his dark past. Although George didn’t know it all, in full detail, he had gleaned enough to guess the rest for himself. It wasn’t a pretty past, more sad than violent, but violent still.
Another thing that annoyed people that met Jack. His unfailing stubbornness when refusing to talk about his past, even a little. Another thing that annoyed Jack was when people asked questions about his past. And questions in general. Breath could not be wasted any more than with useless questions, which is the most common kind of question of all.
Jack jumped into his red Ford Mustang, turning the key. His car roared to life, the engine purring slowly. Turning on his cassette player, he cranked AC/DC all the way to his apartment. His apartment lay in the middle of the city on which the garage he worked at rest on the outskirts of, in the desert.
There was still some daylight, and Jack decided to take a trip instead of just lounging around the apartment. Throwing the car back into Drive, he took off on the highway. The highway signs raced past, all of their big white letters stating how many miles until his desired exit to “Las Vegas.”
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_________________ .:Splak|AWOL Soldier
Red tank! Rubber Sled! What the box am I doing? I am a Walrus, thru && thru, gimme my bukket oar I'll eat u.
Awesome X wrote: It's kinda like fight club. First rule about recruitment, don't talk about recruitment. 2nd rule is do NOT talk about recruitment. Reaper wrote: PAIL 2 DA MAX!
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