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He lay where I'd dropped hi position, one hand behind him for support, the other raised to rub his throat Hisbut he couldn't get words out, not after the way I'd throttled him

Here he was, mute in a suddenly silent world While he puzzled over this I ran at him and kicked hi I let hiain, under the right shoulder, and he fell down and stayed down

I wanted to kill him I wanted to pound his face into the pavement, I wanted to flatten his nose and s was physical, inhied to raise himself a few inches and turn his face toward me I looked at his face and drew my foot back to kick it in

And stopped th, but I wrapped one hand around his belt and bunched the other in the protruding hood of his sweatshirt and yanked hiet out of here," I said, "or I'll kill you I swear I'll fucking kill you"

I gave hiot his balance andsteps in the direction I had hiain, and kept on going He wasn't running, but neither was he taking his sweet time

I watched him round the bend in the path, then turned back to the scene of the crinificent radio lay in pieces over several square yards of Central Park Earlier I'd carried a cardboard coffee container for blocks to avoid littering, and now look what a mess I'd made

The woman was still on the bench Our eyes h I were far er than the creature I'd just rousted When I took a step in her direction she swung the book up in front of her, as if it were a cross and I a vaazed at me with al to worry about," I told her "That's the e handle things on Mars"

Jesus, it felt great I got all the way to Colu the ithin my veins

Then the rush wore off and I felt like an asshole

And a lucky one at that Fate had ser and younger and even er, always the best kind, and it had even furnished a maiden whose honor I could defend

Wonderful I'd al what the courts would have rightly called an unprovoked assault I e to hi hians when I kicked him If a cop had witnessed the incident I'd be on my way do I'd wind up in jail, and I'd deserve to be there

I still couldn't work up much sympathy for the kid with the flattop He was by all objective standards a first-rate son of a bitch, and if he came out of this with a sore throat and a bruised liver he wasn't getting a whole lot el? His behavior was none of my business, and neither was his punishment

Our Lady of the Swollen Ankles hadn't needed h of an aversion to heavy metal she could have bestirred herself and waddled away And so could I

Face it- I'd done a nuet anyplace with Motley I couldn't stop his taunting, so I silenced the kid's radio instead I couldn't hen I was face-to-face with hi the boot to the kid I was powerless over whatpower over what didn't e that had eh to shut out the little voice in rown-up I'd heard the voice, just as I'd heard it before when it counseled against buying the booze There are people who never hear their own inner voices, and s they do in life, but I'd heard it loud and clear and told it to shut the fuck up

I'd caught myself just in time I hadn't taken the drink, and I hadn't kicked the kid's head in, but if those were victories they struck me as small ones

I didn't feel very proud ofto report and neither did I, and we didn't stay on the phone long I went into the bathrooh so that I felt I could use a disposable razor instead of the electric thing I shaved carefully and didn't nick hout it I are of the s up from the drain I don't think it was real, I don't see how it could have been, but I sIt was Danny Boy Bell