Cities of the Plain(79)

John Grady walked out from the side of the car. A match flared and Eduardo’s face leaned in the flame with one of his little cigarillos in his teeth. The dying match arced out into the alley.

The suitor, he said.

He stepped forward into the light and leaned on the iron railing. He smoked and looked out at the night. He looked down at the boy.

You could have just knocked at my door.

John Grady had taken the slicker from the hood of the car and he stood in the alley with it folded under his arm. Eduardo smoked.

You have come to pay me the money you owe me, I suppose.

I come to kill you.

The pimp drew slowly on the cigarillo. He tilted his head slightly and blew the smoke upward in a thin stream from his thin lips.

I dont think so, he said.

He turned and slowly descended the three steps into the alley. John Grady moved out to the left and stood waiting.

I think you do not even know why you are here, Eduardo said. Which is very sad. Perhaps I can teach you. Perhaps there is still time to learn. He drew again on the cigarillo and then dropped it and twisted it out with his boot.

John Grady never even saw him reach for the knife. Perhaps he’d palmed it in his hand the while. There was a sharp little click and a wink of light off the blade. And then the wink again. As if he were turning it in his hand. John Grady drew his knife from the top of his boot and wrapped the slicker around his right forearm and caught the loose end in his fist. Eduardo walked out into the alley so as to have the light behind him. He stepped carefully to avoid the pools of rainwater. His pale silk shirt rippled in the light. He turned and looked at the boy.

Change your mind, he said. Go back. Choose life. You are young.

I come to kill you or be killed.

Ah, said Eduardo.

I didnt come to talk.

It is only a formality. Because of your youth.

You dont need to worry about my youth.

The pimp stood in the alleyway. His shirt open at the neck. His sleek oiled head blue in the light. Holding the thin switchblade knife loosely in one hand. I wanted you to know that I was still willing to forgive you, he said.

He had come forward by steps almost imperceptible. He stood. His head slightly cocked to one side. Waiting.

I will give you every advantage. Perhaps you have not been in so many fights. I think you will find that often in a fight the last one to speak is the loser.

He put two fingers to his lips to caution silence. Then he cupped his hand and gestured the boy forward. Come, he said. We must make a beginning. It is like a first kiss.

He did. He stepped forward and feinted and passed the knife sideways at the pimp and stepped back. Eduardo arched his back like a cat and held his elbows up that the blade pass beneath them. His shadow on the wall of the warehouse looked like some dark conductor raising his baton to commence. He smiled and circled. His sleek head shone. When he moved in it was very low and from left to right and the knife passed before him three times too fast to follow and almost too fast to see. John Grady fended the blade away with his wrapped right arm and stumbled back and recovered but Eduardo was circling again, smiling.

You think we have not seen your kind before? I have seen your kind before. Many and many. You think I dont know America? I know America. How old do you think I am?

He stopped and crouched and feinted and moved on, circling. I am forty years old, he said. An old man, no? Deserving respect, no? Not this fighting in alleys with knives.

He moved in again and when he stepped back his arm was cut just below the elbow and the yellow silk shirt was dark with blood. He seemed not to notice.

Not this fighting with suitors. With farmboys. Of whom there can be no end.

He stopped in his tracks and turned and started back the other way. He looked like an actor pacing a stage. At times he hardly seemed to notice the boy.

They drift down out of your leprous paradise seeking a thing now extinct among them. A thing for which perhaps they no longer even have a name. Being farmboys of course the first place they think to look is in a whorehouse.

The blood dripped from his sleeve. The slow dark gouts vanished in the dark sand underfoot. He swung the knife back and forth before him on his slow clockwise walk. Like a man hacking randomly at weeds.

By now of course longing has clouded their minds. Such minds as they may possess. The simplest truths are obscured. They cannot seem to see that the most elementary fact concerning whores—

He was suddenly very low before John Grady. Almost kneeling. Almost like a supplicant. The boy could not say how he got there but when he stepped away and commenced his circling again the boy’s thigh was laid open in a deep gash and the warm blood was running down his leg.

Is that they are whores, said Eduardo.

He crouched and feinted and circled again. Then he stepped in and with the knife backhand made another cut no more than an inch above the first.