Ch. 4 Street Encounter
Vincent was paralyzed. He had never seen that much blood before, never human blood that is. On the farm he saw the blood of many an animal, but this was different. The blood had a heavy odor to it, a distinct tone. It was slippery and rough at the same time. He stared at the foot prints that were made from the bloody shoe. He heard the door close and saw a dirty mop streak across the floor in front of him. It seemed like time stopped as he heard the streaking of the mop across the red stained floor. The constant forward and backward motion memorized Vincent as the same thought went through his head, that's human blood. That's human blood.
Finally Moe went in the back with his bloody mop. Vincent ran as fast as he could out the door and out into the street. He didn't even notice the cold air. He just kept running. The same image was his raging in his head, bloody footsteps. All he could think about was Moe's bloody shoes.
Vincent kept running, bumping into the homeless and ignoring their curses. He ran so hard and fast, soon he was out of breath and had to stop. His eyes watered and his sides burned. He collapsed by a wall and sat down. He sat there for a long time not knowing what to do. Finally his arm started moving and he subconsciously opened a pack of Shogun cigarettes that he started smoking on break. He tried to steady his hands to no avail and lit the trembling cigarette in his mouth. He took a long drag and calmed down a little bit. He sat there in a daze as the cloud of smoke lingered around him.
The bloody footprints ripped into his mind again and he shut his eyes tightly, putting his head in his arms as if trying to suffocate the thought. He did this for awhile, tightly squeezing his head, using all his concentration on trying to block the memory out. He then realized there was someone standing over him. He opened his eyes and realized that he was wrong, there were several people standing around him, actually surrounding him against the wall in a semi-circle.
There were four men, each big and in the same white buttoned down shirt. Some had it buttoned, some had it open, and the man standing directly in front of Vincent had a red tie on. Vincent slowly stood up and matched their gazes. When he stood fully erect, the man with the tie shoved him down to the ground again. The men around him smirked and softly laughed.
"Nice jacket kid, how about I try it on for size," said the man with the tie in a menacing tone. Vincent had known what the men were thinking. A scrawny kid sitting alone against a wall with his head down, easy target. What they didn't know was that Vincent was tough as the concrete that Vincent was sitting on. The weeks of hard labor had toned and strengthened his already fit body. And Vincent did not exactly have a peaceful childhood. He learned to hold his own against bullies in the orphanage he was at before he ran away and found the farm that was his home.
He was the runt in the orphanage, a place where the weak were prey for the strong, and for awhile Vincent was weak. But eventually after all the beatings and fights, he started paying attention, something that would always help Vincent out in his life of no mentors. You learn from others indirectly just by watching them. Soon Vincent started to know the signs of muscles and facial expressions when a right hook was going to be thrown and that the best thing to do was dodge left and grab his forearm, wrapping it abound his back and pinning him to the ground as you shove your other elbow to the base of his neck.
Soon Vincent wasn't the weak one anymore, but the kid who no body messed with because he would either pass out from exhaustion or break your jaw. Vincent's fighting days were over when he ran away from the orphanage, at the age of 12. After a thunderstorm sparked a newly made electrical socket that was poorly made and burned down the entire building. Having nowhere to go, he just ran, until he found the farm and began his new life.
His new life also honed his skills of toughness as he wrestled farm animals and broke wild chocbos to his will. A strict regiment of farm work toned him to the fit, tough man he was now. Despite his slim figure, Vincent was not a man to be messed with, and these four men were about to learn that, just like that pudgy red head learned at the orphanage when Vincent broke his jaw. The man in the tie did not even see it coming. Vincent already had a huge amount of adrenaline pumping through his body. The traumatic shock of witnessing human blood on his friend's shoes made everything after that point in time seem like a dream. Vincent felt like he was outside his body as he just responded to the situation. It was as if he was watching a movie of some guy in a tough spot, not him. So as he gave a quick knee to the groin of the man in front of him in a swift motion, Vincent wore a blank expression. The man in the tie curled up in pain and fell toward Vincent. Vincent stood erect swiftly and grabbed his exposed back and started swaying his body with surprising strength to the tightly packed men. One of them lost balance and slipped, hitting his head on the concrete which caused a spray of blood to release from the open wound.
That left two stunned men. One charged blindly with a right hook heading for Vincent's jaw. He evaded it instinctively like the days at the dirty playground, right by the rusty monkey bars that other kids would sit on to watch the frequent fights. He grabbed his forearm and twisted it around his back. The other man ran around Vincent and grabbed him from behind. This caught him off balance and all three men in their tight embrace fell over their sides. Vincent's grip did not falter. He wrested his grip into a choke hold with the man in front of him and kicked free of the man behind him.
The man in Vincent's grasp was gasping for air and Vincent let go of him to turn his attention to the gangster behind. He produced brass knuckles and swung blindly towards Vincent. Vincent swiftly dodged left and right until the man tried an upper cut and Vincent bum rushed him to the ground. Caught off guard, the man laid stunned as he hit his head on the concrete. Vincent sat on top of him and pinned his brass knuckled hand with one of his arms, and with the other grabbed the top his scalp and started to slam his head into the concrete until he was unconscious.
He stood up, out of breath and dizzy. The adrenaline was flowing through out his body and made his hands tingle. The man gasping for air started to run away, and Vincent let him. He collected himself and stared down at the men he had conquered. Now Vincent realized that the movie that he thought he was watching was reality, and the character in it was himself. Three bodies surrounded him, one in a pool of his own blood. More blood, just like on the shoes. The now familiar odor was heavy in the air and its rough texture stared back at Vincent. He simply stared back at the pool wide eyed, not believing any of this was happening. 'This isn't real, this is a dream,' Vincent kept thinking slowly as he breathed heavily. Finally, reason was taking over, denying him the pleasure of denial and he started to panic. What if the police come, what if Moe saw me! Anxiety began welling up in his stomach making him sick. His legs started to move under him on their own and the next thing Vincent was running full speed down the street. He remembered that he ran without thinking just like when the orphanage burned down, that the same nervous anxiety came with the thought of what now? He was feeling the same thing here. The last thing Vincent remembered before he was running for his life down the street was that the man had a tattoo of a black knight chess piece on his neck. Amidst the thousand panicked thoughts racing through his mind, one was wondering what the hell that stood for, and what the hell did he stumble into?