Passing Strange (33 page)

He straightened up. The punishment he’d already absorbed was brutal, and the once-cheering crowd was mostly silenced except for the encouragement of a few of the hard-core zombie haters. A lone voice, not Margi’s, from somewhere on the field urged him to hit back. He stood and grinned at TC with his ruined mouth.

“Protect yourself!” he heard, this time from Margi. One day, he thought, one day she’ll get it right.

TC was breathing heavily, and his shirt was damp with sweat. He bellowed and then charged like a mad beast. Popeye could almost feel the anticipation of the crowd on his dead skin; he knew they were waiting for the moment when he would lash out at TC, maybe at the height of his exhaustion and fatigue, and catch him by surprise by planting a bony fist in his eye.

That moment never came, never would come. TC rocked Popeye’s head back with two shots to the cheek, punches that he got his shoulders into, and he followed them with a devastating punch to the stomach that probably pulped half of his internal organs.

Popeye had to admire his technique. He took another jab across his jaw, one that spun him half around. The accompanying crowd noise was more of a series of anguished cries rather than cheers, he noticed. Even they had their limits. He tried to smile, but didn’t think that he could any longer—the beating he was taking was certainly causing him damage, even if he couldn’t feel it.

TC picked him up and squeezed him like he was trying to crack his rib cage, and then he hurled him to the ground. Dirt and grass that he couldn’t blink away came into contact with his eyes, interfering with his vision. TC kicked him. He stomped on his hand—his right hand, the one that he drew and painted with—and broke bones. He continued to kick him, and TC grunted with each strike, as though it were he and not Popeye that was feeling the force of each blow. Popeye thought that more of his ribs were cracking or breaking under the relentless assault. Then TC wound back and launched a field-goal worthy kick that completely unhinged Popeye’s jaw, flipping him on his back like a turtle.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” a shrill voice cut through the sudden silence. Popeye thought it was Margi, but as he tried to clear his eyes with the hand that still worked he could see that Holly Pelletier was standing in front of TC, her hands against his heaving chest. She, this little tart of a bioist, was begging him to stop the slaughter. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Stop it, please stop it!” she said, wailing. “Stop hurting him!”

Popeye tried to sit up, and couldn’t. Parts of him were broken, muscles moved out of place. But even from his low vantage point on the ground he could see that Holly’s wasn’t the only face wet with tears—many in the crowd were crying, or wore the humbled, contrite expressions of bystanders at the scene of a traffic accident. Even TC looked bewildered and on the verge, as though he’d been a survivor pulled from a burning and twisted wreck.

Cry, Popeye thought, turning his gaze toward the crowd. No amount of tears will ever wash away what you saw today, what you participated in today. My image will be fixed in your brains forever.

Margi was kneeling beside him, using his T-shirt to wipe TC’s blood off his chin and cheeks. He was aware also that the crowd was beginning to disperse, the ring of people surrounding him loosening like the knot of a pulled sneaker lace. From where he lay he couldn’t see if Derek was still watching, but he hoped he was, and he hoped that he was sketching away. TC opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but no sound came out save that of his ragged breathing, and finally he just walked away.

“Popeye,” Margi said, placing his sunglasses back over his eyes. “Are you all right?”

She still didn’t get it, and probably never would. He hoped that Derek remembered what he had told him, because if he remembered, he might understand.

“Pop…Popeye?” she said.

She didn’t understand, but he felt compelled to answer her, his audience. He owed her that much. He lifted his arm, intending to answer her with a thumbs-up, but he realized that the twisted bent claw that had been his hand probably wasn’t going to convey what he wanted it to. His jaw was dislocated, if not worse, and he seemed incapable of speech. Communication would be even more difficult for him than ever before Margi backed away from him a little, but he couldn’t blame her. She had no way of knowing that the sounds he was making, filtered and altered as they were through the loose bones rattling in his chest like wind chimes only to exit past his broken nose and shattered jaw, were laughter—real, mirthful laughter—and not the forlorn howl of one of God’s lowest creatures, crying out in mortal agony.