Beneath The Skin(151)

And on my way out of the store, I push open the door with my back, facing the fucker that was behind me, and give him the finger.

People can be such pricks. Some don’t want to see the truth that’s right before their eyes; they’d rather see their own truths and live in a world full of things that agree with their own beliefs. No one wants a challenge. No one wants to learn anymore. Once they graduate school, they act like all their learning’s over with and, for the rest of their lives, the world has to bend to their limited understanding of it.

The worst part is, I wonder if I would be just as much of a prick as that dude behind me in line was … had I not lost my hearing. I wasn’t a good person as a snotty, fuck-head twelve-year-old. I was selfish. I was greedy. I was dishonest. I had no honor, no sense of justice, and little compassion for others.

And maybe, just maybe if I hadn’t lost my hearing and spent my high school years enjoying a lesson in humility, maybe I’d be the prick behind someone in line who says, “Hey, dipshit, you deaf?”

Hey, dipshit, you deaf?

Can you hear me?

Listen up, dumbass.

The fuck is wrong with you?

I don’t make it halfway home before something blunt and impolite clubs me over the head.

I stumble, the ground turning uneven suddenly and my feet becoming unsure of where to be placed. I turn too slow and watch the bony knuckles of some mystery attacker as they rush forth to marry and divorce my left cheekbone in one clumsy swing.

The pavement is next to meet my face. No matter how many times I blink, I keep seeing stars. It’s no joke; when you get hit in the face that hard, all you see is a fucking solar system, and somewhere through that mess of twisted galaxies and unnamed planets, you get flashes of the street you’re kissing, barely lit by a setting sun and an unhelpful streetlamp nearby.

I turn onto my back and lift my hands, expecting something else to hit me. When nothing does, I blink twenty more times until I realize there’s no one there.

I sit up and turn, catching sight of three figures as they disappear down the street.

Three to one? Hitting me from behind? What a dick move.

Furious suddenly, I scramble to my feet and shout after them, tearing down the road and determined to put my fist through each of their skulls.

But my left leg gives, a wicked cramp working its way into my hip joint, and I tumble over, collapsing and allowing the road itself to punch me yet again. When I try to rise, a whole new family of pain makes a home in my leg.

I shout out, cussing at the dumb fucks. I shout so loud I feel spit on my chin.

All of this shouting. All of this silence.

After some time, my skull reminds itself that I was bashed in the head a few times. Pain lances through my brain, somehow stinging my eyes. I bring a few fingers to my cheek, then pull them back. Blood. The fuckers split my cheek open with one lucky hit. He must’ve been wearing a ring or something.

I take a deep breath and get back to my feet. With a slight limp, I make my way back to the bags I’d abandoned at the spot I was attacked. One of them is toppled, the one with the drinks. Something clearly broke, a stream of dark liquid drawing itself across the pavement like long creepy fingers.

Fucking great.

I’m so pissed. And the more pissed I get, the more my cheek throbs, as if punishing me for my anger. I suck in air, then blow it all out, ignoring the ache that washes over my face.

I take home whatever I can salvage from the bags, the fuckers dripping the whole way. I’m fuming about the incident, refusing to feel sorry for myself or see myself as some victim. Fuck that. I keep picturing that prick from the store. “Are you deaf??” Even though I didn’t get a clear look at any of them, I know it was him and his buddies who attacked me.

They better hope they don’t go to Klangburg. If I ever see them on campus, the end of my fist will be the last glorious sight they enjoy before I blind them.

I check myself in the mirror before I leave the apartment, then let out a healthy “Fuck!” as I survey the damage. I wet a washcloth and run it over my face, caring for the wound on my cheek, which is just an inch below my eye. If the fucker hit me just a touch higher, I’d have been blinded. I wonder suddenly if I have a concussion. To be honest, I can’t say whether it was fist or weapon that hit me first.

I use the washcloth over the back of my head, unsure if I’m bleeding there too. Soon, my whole face is a mess of wetness, and I have a bandage slapped over my cheek, which stings when I apply it. I run a hand through my hair and stare at my reflection, the bitterness and the fury sizzling beneath my eyes.

After I lock up the apartment behind me and make my way down the road, I curse the fact that I forgot to check the condition of my own room. It’s probably a fucking mess. I was too occupied cleaning up my face, lost in my boiling anger and picturing a hundred and twenty alternative ways that encounter could’ve gone—all one hundred and twenty ending with me standing over their bloodied bodies. Still, even wearing my anger as armor, I find myself looking over my shoulder twenty times on the way to the bowling alley. Better safe.