If only that had been the end to it. Unfortunately, I had seen this guy sitting at a table with another guy, a white guy, and they seemed to be a ‘salt and pepper’ team of thieves. He yelled at me and came forward swinging. He also was carrying a purse in his arm, and that went whipping towards me. I stepped back and caught his arm as it went around, then grabbed it and twisted him up and over, and dumped him upside down on the floor. I kept twisting, though, and dislocated his shoulder, taking him out of the fight. Thief Number One was starting to get up again, so I kicked him in the face and busted his jaw, and he was lights out. Then I kicked Number Two and busted his knee.
“CARL! BEHIND YOU!” Marilyn was still screaming, and I turned to see what her problem was. As I did, a third guy swung at me, and he wasn’t carrying any purses; he was carrying a large knife! Apparently the team was actually three guys, two black and one white, with one being the backup for the other two. The knife flicked past me twice, as I backpedaled and screaming women blocked my path. Jesus Christ, what a clusterfuck!
My attacker seemed to know what he was doing and was feeling aggressive about it. I guess the plan was to punish me for fucking with his buddies and then try and get them out of there. The knife kept slashing at me, but not wildly enough to act upon, and a few times he came close. Then he made his mistake, when he lunged forward, hoping to skewer me on the point. I twisted to his outside and wrapped his arm up, breaking his wrist and his elbow, and then I lifted him up and rammed him backward and down, throwing him to the floor and following him down. His head bounced on the barroom floor and I pulled my hand back for the coup de grace, and then hands grabbed me and pulled me away.
I struggled for a moment, wondering just how many attackers there were, when Marilyn came around in front of me, a look of horror on her face. “Carl! Stop it! It’s all right, it’s over! You got them!”
Seeing her in front of me was like a bucket of cold water to the face. “Wha… what?”
“It’s over, you got them,” she repeated.
Behind me, the guy who had me wrapped up said into my ear, “It ovuh, mon! Dey down!”
Outside I could hear the peculiar sound of a European style police siren winding up as it got closer. I sagged down, and turned to face the guy behind me. He was a gigantic black guy, and I recognized him as one of the bartenders. “It’s over?”
He nodded and loosened his grip on me. “Yah, dey down, mon. No more, mon!”
The bar was total chaos by now, The two girls on the bar were now cowering behind it, the second robber was screaming on the floor, most of the bar’s clients were streaming out through the front, and to top it all off, a squad of police came barging in through them. I just leaned back against the bar, shaking as the adrenaline washed through me. Marilyn crept through the crowd and came over to my right side and wrapped her arms around me. At that point Marilyn leaped away and stared at her hands. They were red and wet. “Carl! You’re bleeding!”
“What? No I’m not! I can’t be!” I shook my head. “That must be someone else’s.”
“No, it’s not!”
I looked down at my left side, where Marilyn’s hands had been. Big mistake! My left bicep and my entire left arm were red. “Oh, shit!” That third guy, the one with the knife, must have been better than I thought he was.
I fished out my handkerchief and slapped it on my upper arm. It looked like I had a long cut across the arm, maybe not that deep, but deep enough that I was bleeding steadily. I looked over at my wife and she was white as a ghost. I glanced back behind the bar and saw a sink. “Honey, I’ll be fine. You go back there behind the bar and wash your hands. That dress is too pretty to ruin.”
“Carl?”
“Go wash up. I’m not going anywhere.” I had my hand clamped on my arm, trying to keep up pressure. It hadn’t hurt before, but that was changing quickly. Now I was at the ‘stinging like a bitch’ stage! Shit!
That was about the end of the evening in the bar. I think we turned out the entire police force on Eleuthera that night, at least a half dozen, along with a few ambulances. I spent most of my time calming Marilyn down. Nobody even asked me any questions. A large Bahamian cop grabbed me by my right arm and tugged me outside and put me in the back of a police car. Marilyn demanded to go with me, and she went in the other side. Then he drove us to a different part of town. To be fair it wasn’t a very long drive.
We stopped in front of a brick building, but that was about all I could see. I figured I was at the local jail, but the cop who had hauled me away wasn’t saying anything. He just took me by the right arm and hustled me inside. It looked like a hospital actually, and definitely had that medical institution smell. Marilyn followed along behind us. A woman in a white uniform pointed to a room down a small hallway, and we went in. There was a medical table in the center of the room, and I was led to it, so I climbed on and looked around.
Marilyn was standing there next to me, holding my right arm like she would never let me go. “Come on; get up here next to me.” I scooted over as best I could.
Marilyn hopped up next to me. “Where are we? What’s happening?”
I gave her my best smile, even though my arm was really starting to bug me, and I was still dripping. “Well, either this is the local hospital, or the local jail has a really great medical plan!”
“Jail?”
“Maybe the Bahamas have coed jails! We could be cell mates!”
“We’re going to jail?” Marilyn looked scared.
I shrugged. I looked over at the cop who had brought me in, and was still standing in front of the door, blocking any escape. “Do the Bahamas have coed jails?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but he smiled. I leaned over and whispered in Marilyn’s ear, “If this is a jail, it’s a hell of a lot nicer than the last one I was in!” Marilyn’s eyes opened wide at that. She was sobering up very quickly!
After five minutes, a guy in a white coat came in. “I’m Doctor Bellinger. Let’s have a look, shall we?” Doctor Bellinger was as black as the ace of spades and spoke with a distinct British accent, so I figured he came over from England. Then again, on some of the islands, they end up trying to out-British the British. He peeled the handkerchief off my arm, and pulled my shirt sleeve up, which only started the bleeding up again.
“Hold on, Doc. Let me take off the shirt.” I winced as I moved my arm around, but I got the shirt off and tossed it on the floor in the corner. It was a lost cause in any case.
Bellinger poked and probed at the cut for a minute, and then said, “Well, you’ll need some stitches, but it’s not life threatening.” He pulled out an oversized band-aid and slapped it on my arm, and then said, “I’ll be back. I need to see to your other handiwork in the meantime. They need to get sent to Freeport. A helicopter is on the way.”
Great! That didn’t sound too promising, especially since he was calling them ‘my handiwork.’ This wasn’t looking all that positive. I think I really stepped in it this time! I suddenly felt very tired.
I climbed down off the exam table and went over to the sink on the side of the wall. I washed the blood off my hands as best I could, and then dried off with some paper towels. Not only was my shirt cut up, my chinos were red with blood on the left side, and ruined also. I needed to rest, but unless I wanted to lie down on the floor, the exam table was it. I looked it over, and then pulled an extension out at the bottom and cranked the top half into an elevated position. Then I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the table. Marilyn curled up at my side, very nervous. Our silent guard stayed by the door.