The back of your head, too, where it bounced off the cement. That had to have hurt.” The voice is coming from above me.
Clenching my teeth, I force my eyes open and struggle to sit up. I twist my body toward the voice and cop-scan the man sitting at the end of the bench: white, early sixties, longish graying hair, wearing a white overshirt, and black slacks. I’m surprised to see that he’s not Asian. He sounded Asian.
“Who are you?”
“Just a guy in the park,” he says in a kindly voice. “Thought maybe you needed company while you meditated in the horizontal position about how you failed to block that punch.
Is this old guy busting my chops? And what’s with the accent? He sounds like Johnny Tran, my Vietnamese brown belt.
“You know, it is said that we must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. Well, you got lots of fuel today, I think. As Yoda would say, ‘Filled up your tank, you did.’”
What the hell is this guy saying? I touch the back of my head. “How’d I get here?” I can vaguely remember a big guy sucker punching me. After that, just images: red tennis shoes, chair legs, a fat face.
“Maybe the real question is: why? Why are you here? Why does your head hurt?”
I turn my face up toward the sun and close my eyes. It feels good and it eases the pain in my forehead a little, but not the pain in the back of my skull.
“I got sucker punched.” I say, looking back at him.
The older man shakes his head as if the thought amuses him. “Maybe you should learn self-defense if you are going to go around picking fights.”
“I was in line for coffee, pal. I hardly go around picking fights. I teach martial arts.”
The man giggles, child-like. “‘Your powers are weak, old man.’ That is from Star Wars.” He shakes his head again and looks up at the leaves flittering in the soft breeze. “What are you going to tell your students when they see that big knot on your forehead?”
Now I’m pissed. “Star Wars!” I shout. “Who-the-hell are you? Why are you—” I start to stand but a thunderclap of pain simultaneously hits the front and back of my head, forcing me back down onto the bench.
“You should sit for a while,” the man says, ignoring my shout. “It would be wise to get checked by a doctor. Personally, I do not think it is necessary. Of course, you are going to be sore. Why not just enjoy the park, the sun, and good air, and in an hour you will be good to go home. If you wish, I would be glad to go back across the street to the coffee shop to get you a cup. If you went you would just get into another fight.”
I start to react to that but my head hurts too much. I slump, lowering my head, and clasping my hands in my lap.
“That is better,” the man says. “You need your rest.”
“Yes,” I hear myself mumble. “I just need… a moment to…”
I’m holding Jimmy’s limp body against my chest but we’re not in the police car speeding to the hospital. We’re in some dark place, a room, maybe. I can’t tell because there isn’t anything around me but this park bench I’m sitting on, and Jimmy’s dying body nestled in my arms. He slowly turns his head toward me and looks into my face. I nearly scream when I see his lifeless, glassy eyes looking at me, looking into me.
There’s fresh blood on his purplish lips, and they’re moving.
“Not much of a shot, are you?” he says, matter-of-factly, and in a clear, healthy voice that belies the gaping hole my bullet punched through his small chest.
I open my mouth to scream—
“Heeeere’s Johnny!”
I jerk my head up, blinking several times.
“Jack Nicholson from The Shining. They shot the exteriors for that film right here in Oregon, up on your Mt. Hood.” He’s walking toward me carrying two paper cups. “I think you slept for a while. You either feel a lot worse or a heck of a lot worse.”
“You’re back,” I say without enthusiasm, sitting up straighter. The dream fades from my brain but I can still feel the unspent scream lodged in my chest.
“You never got your coffee earlier. Thought maybe it might help diminish the pain from the thrashing you took.”
He sits on the bench next to me again and extends a sixteen-ounce cup, the same size I was going to order. “You do not look like a frou-frou coffee drinker so I got you an Americano, double shot with a little cream. Green tea for me.”
I take it and nod thanks. The guy’s a pain but I need the jolt. “Why are you doing this?” I ask, removing the white plastic lid and blowing across the steaming surface.
The man crosses a leg and shrugs. “Got a soft spot for the down trodden, I guess.”
I can’t tell if these zingers are his way of being funny or if he’s trying to provoke me. If it’s the latter, it’s working. “Listen, pal, if you…”
Red converse! He’s wearing red converse shoes.
I feel my jaw drop. “It was you I saw when I was lying on the concrete? It was you who knocked that big guy to the ground. With a kick?”
“Guilty. One kick and two punches,” he says with that childish giggle before he sips his tea. “Hard to be humble.”
I lean toward him. “Why? I mean, thanks, but why?” I remembered how those red shoes seemed to disappear and reappear in a different spot—like magic. “Are you a martial artist? How old are you?”
“Because. You’re welcome. Just lucky. And what was the other question? Oh, I’m old enough, thank you very much.”
I look at him over the rim of my coffee. Eccentric dude with his red tennis shoes, long hair, the strange accent and flippant demeanor. The face shows his years, maybe even more than his birthday, but his stature and bearing is that of a Marine Corp officer. A Grandpa’s face on a warrior’s body. You don’t see that very often. Not only did he not back away like all the other people, he stood up to the big guy, knocked him down, and then stuck around to look after me.
“How is it going?” the man asks, then sips. “What is the verdict?”
“What?”
“Your conclusion?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You are analyzing me. Trying to get a read on the handsome stranger. Interesting, am I not?”
That’s it. He’s gay. Tiff would love this. She always teases me about gay guys checking me out. “It’s the muscles,” she always said. “They think you’re hard all over.” Tiff. I feel a tug in my chest.
The man twists toward me, his eyes looking into mine. Oh man, here comes the hustle.
“You have a lot of dukha going on right now,” he says gently. Compassionately?
