I held my breath and looked at him. He wouldn't stop struggling, twisting his body beneath me. I wanted to lean over and brush my lips against his, but somehow I didn't dare. I wondered for the millionth time what his name was. I could feel the cold air against my face, I could feel his wrists beneath my palms.
"Kid, listen, I'm not going to hurt you," I said, my voice almost soothing. But I knew that those words were a lie, because I was hurting him. I wasn't letting him up, I could kiss him if I wanted to, I could beat him if I wanted to. I could see the hurt in his eyes.
"Let me go," he said, the words low, almost a growl. His voice, deep and scratched, pulled me down toward him, toward those red lips. I brushed them with my own and tasted something sweet, like coke and cigarettes. His eyes widened when I did that and his breathing became faster and more shallow, and I could feel every muscle of his tensed beneath me.
I wanted more but would deny myself. I saw the fear creep back into his eyes. I didn't want him to be afraid. So I let his wrists go and stood up and he stood up, too, backing slowly away from me.
"Here," I said, tossing the closed switchblade to the ground between us, not wanting him to be without his protection. He only stared at it, stared at me, and I turned and went back to my car.
I drove back through the seedy side of town, into the decent part of town, and into the lush elegant part of town where I lived. I imagined where this kid lived, some house near that vacant lot, a house that was falling apart and unpainted and with a porch that was weighed down with junk. I could imagine his parents drinking and fighting and collecting unemployment and spending it at a bar or on a poker machine. Bob hated that about them, about the greasers and their deadbeat parents, sucking up all the city's resources, forcing the tax payers to finance jail cells and county provided lawyers and all the welfare checks. But I found myself unable to imagine this kid's life when my own was so opulent.
Back in my massive bedroom in my mahogany bed, I thought about him, how he trembled with fear when I was on top of him, how I could feel the beating of his heart. I thought about his tan skin and the scar high on his cheekbone that looked almost tribal. I thought about his huge dark eyes and how he didn't always look at me, he'd look off to the side like it was too much, the reality that was in front of him was too much for him to deal with. I was falling in love with his brokenness, and I know I had contributed to it.
I couldn't think of how to win him. He hated me, or socs, and I supposed that it was the same. I wondered if he knew I had been there when Bob beat him in the vacant lot. How could he not know? I remembered the solid feeling of his ribs against my fist. I remembered how he had cried, the tears mingling with the blood.
I closed my eyes and licked my lips and tasted him. It wasn't fair because this fight was beyond us, this greaser/soc thing. This class warfare. But how could we ever get beyond it? I tossed and turned and it was the pink gold dawn before sleep would come.
The next day I was drawn back to the east side, hoping for a glimpse of this kid that I couldn't stop thinking about. I drove around endlessly, seeing greasers with blond hair and dark hair and greasers dressed in leather jackets or army surplus coats or work overalls, and none of them were him. I searched, slowing my car to a halt a few times and getting odd and hostile looks from the resident hoods. I wanted to ask someone, to demand that they tell me who he was and where he was, but I couldn't and I knew it. He was nowhere to be found.
I found myself back in the company of Bob, and he slouched down in a booth in a diner and sipped from his flask, and I could smell the whiskey.
"Hey, Bob?" I said, feeling myself start to blush already just thinking of bringing the subject up.
"Yeah?" he said, disinterested, taking a deep swallow from the flask.
"Remember that kid we jumped a few weeks back, that greaser?" I said, fiddling with the wrapper of my straw, twisting it.
"Which one?" he said, and his eyes lit up at the thought of the violence and the glory.
"The one in that vacant lot, he had a football, the small kid with the black hair?"
He didn't seem to remember, and I think all the jumpings and the beatings ran together for him in some drunken blood soaked haze.
"He was bleeding a lot, and he was unconscious when we left?" I said, trying to jog his memory. Dimly, somewhere in the booze addled brain cells, he may have remembered.
"Oh, yeah, that kid. Yeah. What about him?" Bob tried to focus on me, his blue eyes blood shot. I blinked, took a sip of my coke.
"Well, uh, do you know what his name was?"
He laughed, scornful, "No, what does it matter? They're all the same, those white trash low life greasers. Who cares what his name was?"
I shrugged, thinking of those dark eyes that had looked at me with such fear that day. Maybe when we were beating him up it triggered memories of other violence, of getting beat by his father or something. I remembered how he had curled up and away from us, trying to protect himself from our kicks and punches. I remembered Bob dragging him to his feet when he could barely stand, and I remembered the way Bob had been laughing. Right now his bloodshot blue eyes were closing, but he struggled to keep them open as he sipped the last drops from the flask.