Ok people I know that you're going to flame me but I'll live! I really didn't want to put Yami it that kind of place but Laura the main female character shares my name... and I think Yami's the best so at lass... (im sooo kicking myself right now...) Any one who has read the "elements of English 9" A Ontario high school text book will realizes that this is a parody of the story... so please no flaming don't own either story (on the sidewalk bleeding by evan hunter and yu-gi-oh!)
The boy lay bleeding in the rain. He was 16 years old, and he wore a bright purple silk jacket, and the lettering across the back of the jacket read THE ROYALS. The boy's name was Yami, and the name was delicately scripted in black thread on the front of the jacket, just over the heart. Yami.
He had been stabbed ten minutes ago. The knife had entered just below his rib cage and had been drawn across his body violently, tearing a wide gap in his flesh. He lay on the sidewalk with the March rain drilling jacket and washing away the blood that poured from his open wound. He had known excruciating pain when the knife had torn across his body, and then suddenly comparative relief when the blade pulled away. He had heard the voice saying "That's for you, Royal!"And then the footsteps hurrying into the rain, and then he fell onto the sidewalk, clutching his stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood.
He had tried to yell for help, but he had no voice. He did not know why his voice had deserted him, or why the rain had suddenly fierce, or why there was an open hole in his body from which his life ran redly, steadily. It was 11:30 pm. But he did not know the time.
There was not another thing he did not know.
He did not know he was dying. He lay on the sidewalk, bleeding, and he only thought: That was a fierce rumble. They got me good that time, but he did not know he was dying. He would have been frightened if he had known. In his ignorance, he lay bleeding and wishing he could cry out for help, but there was no voice in his throat. There was only the bubbling of the blood from between his lips. Whenever he open his mouth to speak. He lay silent in his pain, waiting, waiting for someone to find him.
He could hear the sound of automobile tires hushed on the muzzle of rain swept streets, far away on the other end of the long alley. He lay with his face pressed to the sidewalk, he could see the slash of neon far away on the other end of the alley, tinting the pavement red and green, slickly brilliant in the rain.
He wondered if Laura would be angry.
He had left the jump to get a package of cigarettes. He had told her he would be back in a few minutes, and then he had gone downstairs and found the candy shop closed. He knew that Alfredo's on the next block would be open till at least two, and that he had started through the alley, and that was when he had been ambushed. He could her the faint sound of music now coming from a long, long way off, and he wondered if Laura was dancing. Wondered if she had missed him yet, maybe she though he'd cut out for good. Maybe she'd already left the jump and gone home. He though of her face, the steel coloured eyes, and the fire red hair and thinking made some of the pain go away, forget that the blood was rushing from his body. Someday he would marry Laura. Someday he would marry her, and they would have lots of kids, and then they would get out of the neighbourhood. They would move to a clean project in the Bronx, or maybe they would move to Staten Island. When they were married, when they had kids...
He heard footsteps at the other end of the alley, and he lifted his cheek from the sidewalk and looked into the darkness and tried to cry out, but again there was only a soft hissing bubble of blood on his mouth.
The man came down the alley. He had not seen Yami yet. He walked and then stopped to lean against the brick of the building , and then walked again. He saw Yami then came towards him, and he stood over him for a long time, the minutes ticking, ticking, watching him not speaking.
Then he said, "what'sa matter buddy?"
Yami could not speak, and he could barely move. He lifted his face slightly and looked up at the man, and in the rain swept alley he could smell the sickening odour of alcohol and realized that the man was drunk. He did not feel any particular panic. He did not know he was dying, and he felt only mild disappointment that the man that had found him was drunk.
"Did you fall down buddy?" he asked.
"You mus' be as drunk as I am." he grinned, seeming to remember why he had entered the alley in the first place, and he said
"Don' go away. I'll be ri' back."
The man lurched away. Andy heard his footsteps, and then the sound of the man colliding with a garbage can, and some mild swearing, and then the sound of the man urinating, lost in the steady wash of the rain. He waited for the man to come back.
It was 11:39.
When the man returned, he squatted alongside Yami his long white hair covering his one eye patch. He studied him with drunken dignity.
"You gonna catch a cold out here," he said "what'sa matter? You like layin' in the wet?"
Yami could not answer. The man tried to focus his one good eye on Yami's face. The rain spattered around them.
"You like a drink?"
Yami shook his head.
"I gotta bottle. Here," the man said. He pulled a pint bottle from inside of his jacket bottle. He uncapped it and extended it to Yami. Yami tried to move, but pain wrenched him flat against the sidewalk.
"Take it," the man said. He kept watching Yami. "Take it." and when Yami did not move he said, "nev' mind, I'll have one m'self." He tilted the bottle to his lips, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "You too young to be drinkin', anyway. Should be 'shamed of yourself, drunk an' layin' in a alley, all wet. Shame on you. I gotta good minda calla cop."
Yami nodded. Yes, he tried to say. Yes call a cop. Please. Call one.
"Oh you don't like that, huh?" the drunk said. "You don' wanna cop to fin' you all drunk in an alley, huh? Okay, buddy. This time you get off easy." he said. He waved broadly at Yami, and then almost lost his footing. "S'long, buddy," he said.
Wait, Yami thought. Wait please, I'm bleeding.
"S'long," the drunk said again. "I see you aroun'," and then he staggered off up the alley.
Yami lay and thought: Laura, Laura. Are you dancing?
The couple came up the alley suddenly. The ran into the alley, together, running from the rain, the boy holding the girl's elbow, the girl spreading a newspaper over her head to protect her hair. Yami lay crumpled against the pavement, and he watched them run into the alley laughing, and then duck into the doorway not ten feet from him.
"Man what I rain!" the boy said. "You could drown out there."
"I have to get home," the girl said. "It's late Joey I have to get home"
"We got time," Joey said. "Your people won't raise a fuss if you're a little late. Not in this kind of weather."
" it's dark," the girl said, and then she giggled.
"Yeah," the boy answered, his voice very low.
"Joey...?"
"Um?"
"You're... you're standing very close to me."
"Um,"
There was a long silence. Then the girl said, "oh," only the single word, and Yami knew that she had been kissed, and he suddenly hungered for Laura's mouth. It was then that he wondered if he would ever kiss Laura again. It was then that he wondered if he was dying.
No, he thought, I can't be dying, not from a little street rumble, not from just getting cut. Guys get cut all the time in rumbles. I can't be dying. No that's stupid. That don't make any sense at all.
"You shouldn't," the girl said.
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
"Do you like it?"
"Yes."
"So?"
"I don't know,"
"I love you Mai,"the boy said.
"I love you, too, Joey." the girl said, and Yami listened and thought: I love you, Laura. Laura, I think maybe I'm dying. Laura, this is stupid but I think that maybe I dying. Laura I think I'm dying!
He tried to speak. He tried to move. He tried to crawl towards the doorway where he could see the two figures in embrace. He tried to make a sound, and a grunt cam to his lips, and then he tried again, and another grunt came, a low animal grunt of pain.
"What was that?" The girl said, suddenly alarmed, breaking away from the boy.
" I don't know," he answered.
"Go look Joey."
"No, wait."
Yami moved his lips again. Again the sound came from him.
"Joey!"
"What?"
"I'm scared."
"I'll go see." the boy said.
He stepped into the alley. He walked over to where Yami lay on the ground. He stood over him, watching him,
"You all right?" he asked.
"What is it?" Mai said from the doorway.
"Somebody's hurt," Joey said.
"Let's get out of here," said Mai.
"No wait a minute." he knelt beside Yami. "You cut?" he asked
Yami nodded. The boy kept looking at him. He saw the lettering on the jacket then. THE ROYALS. He turned to Mai.
"He's a Royal," he said.
"Let's... what... what do you want to do Joey?"
" I don't know. I don't want to get involved with this. He's a royal. We help him and the guardians'll be down our necks. I don't want to get mixed up with this Mai."
"Is he.. Is he hurt bad?"
"Ya, it looks that way."
"What shall we do?"
"I don't know..."
"We can't leave him out in the rain," Mai hesitated. "Can we?"
"If we get a cop, the guardians'll find out who," Joey said ' I don't know, Mai. I just don't know."
Mai hesitated for a long time before answering. Then she said "I have go get home Joey. My people will start to worry."
"Yeah," Joey said. He looked at Yami again,. "Are you all right?" he asked. Yami lifted his face from the sidewalk, and his eyes said: Please, please help me, and maybe Joey read what his eyes were saying, and maybe he didn't.
Behind him Mai said, "Joey, let's get out of here! Please!" Joey stood up. He looked at Yami again, and then mumbled, "I'm sorry." He took Mai's arm and together they ran towards the neon splash at the other end of the alley.
Why, they're afraid of the Guardians, Andy thought in amazement. By why should they be? I wasn't afraid of the Guardians. I never turkeyed out of a rumble with the Guardians. I got heart. But I'm bleeding.
The rain was soothing somehow. It was a cold rain, but his body was hot all over, and the rain helped cool him. He had always liked rain. He could remember sitting in Laura's house one time, the rain running down the windows, and just looking out over the street, watching the people running from the rain. That was when he'd first joined the Royals.
He could remember how happy he was when the Royals had taken him. The Royals and the Guardians, two of the biggest. He was a Royal. There had been meaning to the title.
Now, in the alley, with the cold rain washing his hot body, he wondered about the meaning. If he died, he was Yami. He was not a Royal. He was simply Yami, and he was dead. And he wondered suddenly if the Guardians who had ambushed him and knifed him had ever once realized he was Yami? Had they known that he was Yami or had they simply known that he was Royal wearing a purple silk jacket? Had they stabbed him, Yami, or had they only stabbed the jacket and the title and what good was the title if you were dying?
I'm Yami, he screamed wordlessly, I'm Yami.
An old lady stopped at the other end of the alley. The garbage cans were stacked there, beating noisily in the rain. The old lady carried an umbrella with broken ribs, carried it like a queen. She stepped into the mouth of the alley, shopping bag over one arm. She lifted the lids of the garbage cans. She did not hear Yami grunt because she was a little deaf and because the rain was beating on the cans. She collected her string and her newspapers, and an old hat with a feather on it from one of the garbage cans, and a broken footstool from another of the cans. And then she replaced the lids and lifted her umbrella high and walked out of the alley mouth. She had worked quickly and soundlessly, and now she was gone.
The alley looked very long now. He could see people passing at the other end of it, and he wondered who the people were, and he wondered if he would ever get to know them, wondered who it was of the Guardians who had stabbed him, who had plunged the knife into his body.
"That's for you, Royal!" the voice had said. "That's for you, Royal!" Even in his pain, there had been some sort of pride in knowing he was a Royal. Now there was no pride at all. With the rain beginning to chill him, with the blood pouring steadily between his fingers, he knew only a sort of dizziness. He could only think: I want to be Yami.
It was not very much to ask of the world.
He watched the world passing at the other end of the alley. The world didn't know he was Yami. The world didn't know he was alive. He wanted to say, "Hey, I'm alive! Hey, look at me! I'm alive! Don't you know I'm alive? Don't you know I exist?"
He felt weak and very tired. He felt alone, and wet and feverish and chilled. He knew he was going to die now. That made him suddenly sad. He was filled with sadness that his life would be over at sixteen. He felt all at once as if he had never done anything, never seen anything, never been anywhere. There were so many things to do. He wondered why he'd never thought of them before, wondered why the rumbles and the jumps and the purple jackets had always seemed so important to him before. Now they seemed like such small things in a world he was missing, a world that was rushing past at the other end of the alley.
I don't want to die, he thought. I haven't lived yet. It seemed very important to him that he take off the purple jacket. He was very close to dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, "Oh, it's a Royal." With great effort, he rolled over onto his back. He felt the pain tearing at his stomach when he moved. If he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket. The jacket had only one meaning now, and that was a very simple meaning.
If he had not been wearing the jacket, he wouldn't have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Yami. The knife hated only the purple jacket. The jacket was as stupid meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life.
He lay struggling with the shiny wet jacket. His arms were heavy. Pain ripped fire across his body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm was free and then the other. He rolled away from the jacket and lay quite still, breathing heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sounds of the rain and thinking: Rain is sweet, I'm Yami.
She found him in the doorway a minute past midnight. She left the dance to look for him, and when she found him, she knelt beside him and said, "Yami, it's me, Laura."
He did not answer her. She backed away from him, tears springing into her eyes, and then she ran from the alley. She did not stop running until she found a cop.
And now, standing with the cop, she looked down at him. The cop rose and said, "He's dead." All the crying was out of her now. She stood in the rain and said nothing, looking at the purple jacket that rested a foot away from his body.
The cop picked up the jacket and turned it over in his hands.
"A Royal, huh?" he said.
She looked at the cop and, very quietly, she said, "His name is Yami."
The cop slung the jacket over his arm. He took out his black pad, and he flipped it open to a blank page.
"A Royal, " he said. Then he began writing.
The End