After that call was over, he headed on foot to the Woodward Bar and Grill, across the Edsel Ford Freeway from Wayne State. It was an old-time gay bar that had a mostly black crowd. Quite a few women and some straight men frequented the bar too. Kouya, traveling from campus, walked towards the club entrance, tucked away at the back of a non-descript red brick building. It was easily missed by a person unfamiliar with the club, but Kouya knew where it was. Kouya had been there a few times to look for a hookup, but today he came to listen to some opera singer who was going to be performing there. He heard about it from Dante, and he thought maybe it would keep him at ease. Plus they had hamburgers that were to die for, and Kouya hadn't eaten out since the time he had the Lebanese food at the hospital, so he may as well treat himself.
Kouya went to the entrance, where he touched a buzzer. The doorman saw Kouya and opened the entrance door. Inside, the doorman patted Kouya down to check for weapons. After Kouya passed the test, the doorman let Kouya into the club. Kouya walked through the energetic scene. Ignoring the catcalls from some of the guys, he headed straight for the bar service. Kouya contemplated if he was going to have a drink and sit down, or if he was going to eat. The drink area featured a long bar counter in front of rows of bottles of vodka and spirits and red and see-through plastic cups, sitting on a series of blue counters with black countertops. Kouya looked at the alcohol labels, but understood that since he was under 21 he was unable to order them. A group of bartenders, dressed in black, poured fairly strong drinks for those twenty-one and over. A large mirror was posted above the cabinets, capturing Kouya and everyone around him. He could see himself, and the crowd, reflected back at one another. As Kouya went up to a bartender to order a juice, or maybe a soda pop, a figure behind him called out to him.
"Kouya, whassup?" Kouya turned around and saw that it was… D-Man. Kouya wondered if he was there for the performance, or for something else. But that's irrelevant now. "Kouya, How are you, my nigga?" Darren called, extending the palm of his right hand as he held a red cup filled with beer in his left hand. The ring finger of his right hand had a silver ring that Kouya had never seen before. Kouya stared at him, not smiling and not offering his hand. Instead he folded his arms. After a beat, Darren withdrew his hand and asked, "What? You have some kind of beef?"
"Where did you get that?"
"That what?"
"That ring."
"Pawn shop," Darren stuttered. "What the hell is wrong with you this evening?"
"That was very stupid of you," Kouya answered. Darren's going to get arrested anyway, and he's just a piece of trash, Kouya figured. No need to waste energy on him by telling him that he had hurt someone close to him.
"What?" Darren asked, a bit confused. Then he remembered. "You mean those videos?"
"Yes."
"You have a problem with that, don't you? That's been causing problems for me. I've been getting death threats on my cell phone, so I had to turn it off. I had to shut down my Facebook and Twitter. Someone even posted naked photos of me!" Darren didn't sound as hurt by that as he should have by that revelation. "I don't even know how the hell they got them…" Then came a plea: "Why don't you think of me?"
"So maybe you… shouldn't have made other people angry at you?"
"What do they think they are? That's not their business, what I do," Darren snapped. Kouya felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he stopped crossing his arms.
"Everyone pays attention to what you do," Kouya replied. He made it sound like he was shrugging.
"Well they don't know the whole story!" D-Man cried.
"What whole story?"
"That punch—I only did that in self-defense – he was trying to attack me!" Kouya clenched his fists in anger.
"Darren Larson, you are full of shit. That was a kid who was half your height. You took his things, and he asked for them back, and you punched him. If you hadn't taken anything, he would have done nothing to you. He didn't do anything to you anyway, and you still punched him." Kouya realized he didn't like where the conversation was going, but he felt he couldn't change the subject.
After a beat, Darren said, "Well maybe that nigga shouldn't have been there. He should know better than to go out in the streets at night all by himself."
"And maybe you shouldn't have robbed him?" Kouya replied. He realized his voice felt sharp, and his eyes were starting to make tears. As the tempo raised, some of the bar patrons began refocusing their attention on the two. Some had seen them arguing through the mirror, before turning around to actually see them.
"That's the law of the jungle, isn't it? The weak are prey! He should have known that."
"You really think that's how society goes?" Kouya asked incredulously.
"Kouya Aotsuki, you know, I like you. You know not to be taken in by bullshit. I respect that. You know when somebody's bullshitting, and you never get jumped. You get respect in the 'hood. That kid didn't know better, and so he is weak, and so he deserved…"
Kouya raised his voice, cutting off Darren, saying "What you didn't know, is that he…" Kouya stopped himself "…had friends and family who love him. Together they are strong, and they are all very angry at you. His community, his school. his family… they want you arrested. The police detective got on TV yesterday and said they wanted help in identifying the suspects. The Japanese consul general—and you knew that kid was Japanese because you took his passport—wants you in jail. The city is under immense pressure to issue a warrant for your arrest, and it will happen."
"How was I supposed to know all that shit would happen?" Darren snapped.
"Then don't beat up random people, because you will get surprises you won't like," Kouya cried. A well-dressed man, wearing a suit and tie, had gotten his phone out, and was recording the encounter from this point.
"You sound like you like crybaby shit, huh. Well, guess what? I beat the shit out of that nigga, and you know what?"
"Stop."
"I liked doing it-"
"Stop it!" Kouya was losing it.
"And why do you-"
"Shut up!"
"You-"
"SHUT UP!"
"Shut the fuck up-"
"YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! HE'S MY FRIEND!" Kouya cried. After a pause, Kouya, repeated, "Shun Kodori is my friend! And you hurt him!" Darren couldn't believe it. Kouya had to have been bullshitting, wait. That was the kid who Kouya said he was tutoring and hanging out with. It all made sense now. Darren knew Kouya wasn't bullshitting. Darren froze for a minute, taking one, but only one, step back. A blonde woman with long, wavy locks in a green cocktail dress got out her phone as whispers echoed through the crowd.
Kouya continued, "I know why you did it. You have a lame-ass dick and you needed to prove yourself by beating down on a defenseless kid with ten other people to show how much of a man you are, huh? You are nothing. I'm out of here." Kouya began walking out of the bar as a woman or two went "Oooh," after hearing the insult. Darren clenched his beer cup in his hand, crushing it and tossing it to the ground in a fit of rage. Beer dripped from his hands and had spilled on the floor.
"You don't disrespect me!" Darren cried, as he raised his right fist, studded with his ring. As Darren swooped in on Kouya, Kouya dodged Darren's punch, and suddenly more people in the room got their phones out.
A man yelled, "WorldStar HipHop! WorldStar!" It was on. Kouya knew there was no backing out of this. The cheers in the bar grew louder and Kouya and Darren traded blows, both dodging each one. Darren's left grazed Kouya slightly in the right cheek, but he wasn't hit full on. As they fought they danced around the cheering crowd. The two then stood apart, on opposite sides of the room. A huge bouncer, dressed in black, came to intercept the fight. Darren approached him, pretending to be understanding, and then knocked him out with a sucker punch, before going back towards Kouya. Kouya tumbled down and Darren did too. As the two wrestled each other on the floor, one man found Darren's wallet, which had fallen on the ground, and picked it up. Darren and Kouya separated and the two were back up, with their fists raised. The two exchanged blows, and Darren's left fist popped Kouya once on the right cheek. It caused Kouya to stumble backwards, but he regained his footing. A huge welt appeared on the dog-man's face. He could feel it sting.
"Oohhhh, oohhhh!" a man cried as the fight continued. Darren went to bar counter and threw other people's glasses and bottles at Kouya, who dodged some and blocked one with a leather-bound menu he had picked up from the counter. The glasses and bottles crashed and caused shards of glass to spray around. Kouya then threw the menu at Darren, who blocked it with his right wrist. Darren launched at him, and after dodging blows, Kouya grabbed his arm, swinging him around to try to get him to fall to the floor. But Darren regained his footing and held his fists. They again exchanged blows, and Darren's right fist grazed Kouya's left cheek; the ring caused a slight cut, and blood began to ooze. Kouya wondered if this was going to be it…
Darren charged at Kouya, who backed away and veered slightly to the right, to give him enough space to charge and miss. At that time Kouya thrusted a right hook into Darren's face, knocking him out! Kouya's hand hurt horribly afterwards, and he flailed it and clenched it as saw Darren on the ground. Kouya decided that he had been defeated; no need to stomp on him or hit him more. "Oooh, oooooh!" the suit-and-tie guy cried. "Daaaamn!" one of the other men in the crowd said. As Kouya walked out, the Suit and Tie Man hovered his phone over the beaten Darren, stone cold on the floor with a broken nose. The crowd gathered around the loser, holding their phones out. When the suit-and-tie guy held his phone up to the crowd again, a man wearing a memorial shirt to his grandmother went "WorldStar HipHop, WorldStar!" as he shoved his face in Suit-and-Tie's camera. The respect for D-Man in the 'hood was gone. There was no going back.
As Kouya Aotsuki was leaving behind the scene, walking out into the deepening sunset sky, a loud voice cried out "HEY!" Kouya turned around. His words seemed to warm up the increasingly chilly air. "WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?" a deep male voice hissed.
"Away from here," Kouya deadpanned.
"You stay here until I call the po-lice!" It was a bald, bespectacled black man with well-trimmed a beard and mustache. He was the club's owner. Kouya waited anxiously as the man chewed him out for being in a fight on his property.
"Sir! Sir!" a bartender in his tuxedo called out, emerging from the bar. "We should let him go."
"Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Don't hold him! He didn't do it!"
"What do you mean he didn't do it!"
"I saw the fight. He had said an insult but he was walking away. It was because the dude bragged about hurting one of his friends." The bar owner's attention was focused. "Look, if the police want something, they'll see the video. Somebody was crying out 'WorldStar, WorldStar', okay?" The bar owner nodded, displaying his confidence.
"Okay, I'll let you go," The bar owner told Kouya.
"Thank you," he said before walking away slowly.
