The guttural
breathing increased with the anger. The beery breath was expected. The knife
digging into his throat was unexpected. The boy watched from a hazy fury as the
cold steel disappeared into the five o’clock shadow. He froze, it happened that
fast. He could only see the handle of the blade. That meant the blade. The entire
blade? He wanted to run, somewhere, away from the handle sticking out of Rogers’
neck. The boy figured correctly that stabbing and throat cutting . . . if
that’s what he’d done . . . would cause blood. But so much blood?
Bubbles gurgled and
rode the bloody mess out of the gash. Between the continued flow towards Rogers’
chest steady jets of blood super-squirted out towards the boy and wall. The
spurts were strong enough to hit the wall at first. Rogers didn’t really do
anything. He seemed intent on figuring out why he was fading. He stumbled
around some, digging his hands into the opening that was blocked by the knife.
His Adams apple thing-a-ma-jig slid to the side but was hung up on meat and
stringy stuff. Blood pushed chunks towards the floor and then . . . BANG! Rogers
tumbled onto the yellow linoleum, followed up with some kicking and twitching.
His hands were balling up into tight fists and then relaxing before balling up
again.
“Mr. Rogers, y’all
okay? Mr. Rogers?” The knife turned a punch into a reddish mess. Rogers had swung
first but missed. The boy hadn’t. Rogers on-no goddamn account should have
swung at him . . . maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be bleeding out if he hadn’t.
The boy wondered if what he’d done was really an accident. When Rogers swung at
him the boy quit thinking and just swung back is all. He swung back and was
holding the knife but wasn’t thinking on it as much as he should’ve.
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