Racetrack strolled down the streets of the city smoking his cigar. He took a puff of the cigar and stopped outside of Jacobi's deli. He began to relax but his ears itched with the sound of whispering. He approached the source of the noise, and creeped down an empty alley that led to it.

"... he squirmed like a worm and coughed all the while," Race heard one man say to another.

"And what happened next, Adam?" the other asked.

"Well it was hard for him to breathe with my boot at his throat, and he ended up dying from his crushed windpipe."

Race barely managed to stifle a gasp. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears. His heartbeat was frantic and he felt on the verge of tears. From what he understood of the men's conversation, one of them was a murderer. He knew being around them wasn't safe.

Race tried to flee from the alley but fell loudly into a stack of crates. He tried to stand but was trapped beneath the scattered boxes.

"What was that?" The men ran into the alley where Racetrack's attempts to be subtle were thwarted by the wooden crates.

"Well what do we have here?" Adam sneered. "What did you hear you little brat?"

"Nothing, nothing I swear," Race stammered.

"You sound awfully worried for someone who heard nothing young man." He picked Race up by the back of his shirt.

"I-I heard what you said but I'll never tell anyone I swear."

"You shouldn't have heard that." The man kicked Race, hard.

Race coughed helplessly. Before he could even register what was happening blows were raining upon him like a beating drum. His mangled cries barely even penetrated the ears of the men assaulting him because with each impact, the breath was stolen from within him. He couldn't stop the tears from running down his face, just as he couldn't prevent the sweat and blood from rolling down his cheeks like angry pinkish waves.

In the course of the attack Race had ended up on his belly. The blows had stopped and he was too shocked to continue his sobbing. How quickly his situation had turned foul?

"Check to see if he's dead," Adam said to the other man.

He crouched down next to Race and held his ear to his throat. Race held his breath and refused to blink. The man left his head there for so long that he felt as though his resolve would break, but at the last moment when his lungs burned something fierce, the man pulled away. The man nodded to his friend, but Race didn't see it. "We need to dump the body."

"Obviously."

"Where did you put the last one?"

"Threw it onto a farmer's wagon."

"And that worked?"

"I'm here aren't I?"

"I suppose you're right. Help me lift him, there's a cart we could use nearby."

"Hold on, put him in that," he pointed at a crate about the size of a small coffin. Race felt the men lifting him up by his armpits and feet. He willed himself not to react, especially when they dropped his body into the crate and his head banged against the box. They pushed the lid over him, and suddenly Race was ensconced in darkness.

He could feel the box lifted and feel himself being loaded onto a cart. Race felt the edges of his vision go black.

…

The next thing Racer was aware of was lying on straw. He felt it poking him and groaned. "Where am I?"

"You're in my barn. Tell me why you were on the side of the road."

Race was struck by the forwardness of the man's questions and he blinked. "I-I don't know."

"I bet you got piss drunk and that's why you don't know."

"That's not what happened."

The man slapped him. "Do not interrupt me boy," he growled. He yanked Race's uncalloused hands away from his face where the clutched the now red mark on his swollen cheek. "You're like a baby, you've probably never worked a day in your life." Race knew better than to correct him. "A young man like you needs to be put to work. Sleep well tonight, you'll be up early tomorrow to correct your discipline problem.

The man left him alone in the stinky barn and Race cried all the tears he had left. He cried for the home in Manhattan that he was torn from. He cried for the brutality he had faced at the hands of strangers. He cried for his dim and uncertain future that seemed to be a tunnel without a light at the end.