Cosmic Saboteur

They jumped him when he was walking past an alley, a couple of blocks from the stockyards on Chicago's brawling South Side.

He had gotten off the "El" two stops down because it was a damn fine Spring morning and he liked to walk through the Polish section and watch the city wake up. He was 17 years old and he hadn't grown cynical with the world yet. He liked the clean, fresh smell of the early morning and he got a kick out of the sleepy-eyed housewives in their ratty bathrobes, banging open the front door to bring in the milk and the morning paper.

He'd pick up the live-stock reports, he thought, hop an "El" back uptown and maybe he'd be at Amalgamated News Service only a couple of minutes late. And if they didn't like it, they knew what they could do about it. His kid brother ran copy at the News and he said they could use another boy down there.

"
Stan
," Larry had said, "
you're wasting your time at AMS. You won't get as much dough at the News but you'll learn something.
"

Which was something to consider because Larry was one bright cookie and someday he was really going to be somebody....

It was early morning and nobody had started to work yet—the streets were deserted. There was a chill in the air and he stopped by an open alley to light a weed and take the clamminess out of his lungs.

And then he got it.

A handful of knuckles right in the mouth, splintering his teeth and splitting his lip so he sprayed blood like somebody had squeezed a sponge. It was hard to get a good look because the shock had filled his eyes with tears. But there were three of them and they were grown men and the biggest he had seen outside of a television wrestling match.

He screamed "
Help!
" just once before a hand as big as a typewriter buried itself wrist deep in his stomach. He doubled up and went limp, gasping for breath. One of the men caught him by the jacket collar and pulled him further into the alley, to the back of a restaurant where there was a small mountain of empty boxes and garbage cans full of orange peels and eggshells and stale doughnuts.

Nobody said a word.

He was still fighting for his breath and feeling sick when they stood him up against the refuse pile and started going over him scientifically, cutting his face and hitting him in the kidneys. He tried to blink away the blood that kept streaming into his eyes, to get a good look at them. But they kept working on his face until all the world was a bloody haze and it was hard to even make out light and shadow....

He lashed out once and heard a satisfying grunt and then somebody hit his wrists with a slat of wood, deadening the nerves so he couldn't close his hands. He tried to scream but he had no wind left and he realized dimly it wouldn't have done much good. The streets were deserted and it was the type of neighborhood where nobody went to anybody else's rescue—least of all, early in the morning.

A fist caught him flush on the side of the jaw and he staggered over against the garbage cans and fell to the bricks, his face half buried in the stinking garbage. He played dead dog for a moment, catching his breath, then scrambled to his knees, clawing handfuls of rotting orange peels and decayed bones to throw at the three silent men in front of him.

"
You'll never get away with this! The cops
...."

The toe of a shoe caught him in the groin and he collapsed again. He didn't even recognize the thin screaming that sounded in his ears as his own.

A voice from a million miles away said: "
We're not supposed to kill him!
" and he guessed that the men were from out of town because it was an accent that he had never heard before. Then two of them were holding him up, twisting his arms behind him, while the third stuffed garbage in his mouth, choking him so his screams died away to a dull, muffled sob.

They let him go for a minute and he tried to run away. They laughed and tripped him before he had taken three steps. Then they jerked him to his feet and started hitting him again, working him over professionally, chopping at him with fists covered by thin, leather gloves that cut his face and ripped his shirt and jacket.

When he finally slipped limply to the pavement, they let him lay there, kicking him in the thighs and the buttocks. His cap was a dozen feet away, the remnants of his jacket not too far from that. His pants were ripped and his shirt was in shreds, the strips waving like bloody banners in the slight, morning breeze.

One of the three said "
I guess it's time to go.
" Stan could hear running feet and then there was a long silence. He couldn't tell if it was a minute or half an hour later when footsteps again sounded across the bricks and somebody knelt by his side.

"You're hurt, son! Let me help you...."

The voice was soft and full of compassion, like a minister's might be. The man helped him to his feet and Stan lurched to the street and sat down on the curbstone. He tried to wipe away the blood with a tattered shirt sleeve but it still seemed to be running down his cheeks. Then he realized that he was crying.

"Try this."

He felt something pressed into his hands and wiped at his face with the handkerchief.

"T-thanks."

"Who were they, son?"

"I don't know. I was just walking past the alley and they ... jumped me. I don't know why. Honest to God, Mister, I don't know why!"

He felt close to crying again and shut up for a moment to try and control the convulsive heaving of his chest. Then he looked up at the man standing next to him.

Black shoes, brand new. Neatly pressed gabardines. Tall and somewhat thin. Wearing a light, black topcoat like you might imagine a priest would wear. A tan hat, also brand new. Middle twenties, with the face of a saint. The face of a man you knew you could trust.

"What's your name, son?"

"Stan. Stanley Martin." He was still close to sobbing and the name came out with too many syllables.

The man pondered for a moment and Stan thought he looked a little like a high-school principal trying to guess how bright a student might be.

"We'll have to fix you up, Stan. Then we'll have to take you home." He helped Stan to his feet and guided him over to a black car a few yards down the street.

Far away, there was the wail of a siren.

"The cops," Stan said, hanging back. "I gotta tell the cops."

"There'll be time enough for that later," the man said smoothly. There was the faintest suggestion of haste in his voice.

"I oughtta wait," Stan mumbled, but the man pushed him gently into the car and Stan didn't argue. He lay down on the back seat, resting his throbbing head against the cushions and the side of the car. It was a big car, he thought vaguely. Like a rich man's sedan, with a glass partition between the driver and the passengers.

He heard a hissing sound from somewhere and the world started to gray out. And then he suddenly wondered how he could be taken home if the man didn't know where he lived....

Just before he blacked out altogether, a voice said:

"
I'm your friend, Stan. Say it to yourself and say it over and over. I'm your friend. I saved your life.
"

"You're my friend," Stan repeated dully, his mind slipping slowly into a pool of throbbing blackness. "You saved my life...."

The last thing he saw was a quick glimpse of the city streets, the slowly rotting houses, and the bright splashes of green in the front lawns and the cottonwood trees.