What uncertainties roiled through Brad when he lay in bed at night, asking the dark where his life was headed?
"Whatever you decide, I'm behind you. Any time you, " "Faggots! " Duncan started at the word and glanced around. To his right, three shadowy figures slouched in predatory poses in a darkened recessed doorway, each with a bottle or can of some sort in hand. Light from the street reflected from their bare scalps. He kept walking.
"Skinheads, " Brad whispered and began to pull his arm from around Duncan's waist.
Duncan grabbed his wrist. "Don't you dare." "Dad, they think we're, " "Are you going to let them be the arbiters of how a father and son can walk down the street? " "I know how you are with the never complain, never explain stuff, but these guys are crazy." Duncan reached his free hand into his jacket pocket and wrapped his fingers around the metal cylinder there.
"Maybe I'm crazier." The M Street-Wisconsin Avenue area had always been the tacky section of Georgetown. A farrago of trendily overpriced boutiques, bars, clubs, and evanescent restaurants ranging from upscale ethnic cuisine to Little Tavern Hamburgers, peopled by roaming demimondaines and boulevardiers in search of something called fun.
Folksingers had peopled the cafes in the early sixties, giving way to the hippies at the end of the decade. Discos came and went in the seventies. Through it all, the Georgetown street people had upheld a noble tradition of remaining determinedly dissolute but generally good-natured.
Until lately. Strolling the area these days was like navigating a third world bazaar. The boutiques bedizening Wisconsin's terminal slope were cheaper and gaudier, nobody seemed to speak English or be on speaking terms with a bar of soap, and lumpen denizens panhandled on every corner. The slovens of the grunge cadre were as unwashed as the hippies of old, but they lacked the latter's sense of style and humor.
The atmosphere was as blowzy as ever, but the mood had turned grim.
Despite a new mall and brighter lighting, the Georgetown street scene, like everything else, was changing for the worse.
What a world. What a screwed-up world.
They moved out of the pedestrian traffic and turned right onto 2gth, Duncan had parked the Mercedes on the hill that fell away toward the C8cO Canal. He was just turning the key in the lock when something whizzed by his head and smashed on the sidewalk half a dozen feet away.
" Faggots! " The light wasn't as good here as up on M, but he had no trouble recognizing the skinheads. The three of them were trotting down the hill. They must have belonged to some sort of gang because they all wore jeans, black leather jackets, and fingerless black leather gloves. One carried a Budweiser can, one was empty-handed but repeatedly pounded his fist into his palm, and the guy in the lead carried some sort of metal pipe.
"Shit, Dad, " Brad said. "Let's get out of here." Duncan's mouth was dry. His legs urged him to run but his feet seemed anchored to the pavement. The thugs were too close and moving too fast. No time to get in the car, get it started, and maneuver out of the parking spot.
His heart began to hammer as he pulled the little cylinder from his pocket and held it down by his thigh, out of sight.
"Time to make some faggo-burgers, " said the leader, grinning as he raised the pipe and charged. His two companions were close behind.
"Hey, listen! " Brad shouted. "We're not, " "Quiet, Brad." Duncan's thumb found the trigger atop the little cylinder. It slipped and swiveled in his sweaty palm. His hand shook wildly as he raised the canister and shot a stream of liquid at the leader's face.
It missed, arcing past the raised pipe to splash against the throat and upper chest of the second in line. As that one gagged and turned, throwing his arms across his eyes and mouth, Duncan adjusted the stream and caught the leader square in the face. He dropped the pipe and fell to his knees, choking, clawing at his eyes. Meanwhile the third skinhead had run into the second, who had skidded to a stop and doubled over. The two went down in a tangled heap.
"Fucking Mace! " screamed the third.
Duncan caught him square in the mouth with a squirt and that was the last he heard from him.
Duncan sagged back against his car, gasping, panting as if he'd run a marathon. He could feel his underwear sticking to his sweaty skin.
How long had it taken? Three seconds? Five? Seemed like so much longer.
Whatever the interval, the three attackers had been reduced to writhing, wheezing, groaning, gagging, cursing lumps of blind flesh.
'"Thank God, Dad! " Brad said. "I didn't know you carried Mace. ' Actually it was pepper spray, five-percent capsicum. Duncan had never had occasion to use it before now. He was impressed. And almost giddy with relief. He held it up to the light.
"Not exactly a Wayne thing, I know, " Duncan said. "But since I'm not exactly a street fighter, I figured it was the prudent thing to do.
" He slipped the canister back into his pocket. "Maybe we should, '' The rattle of steel on concrete made Duncan turn. One of the skinheads had picked up the pipe and was on his feet, careening their way. His eyes were puffy slits, streaming tears. He couldn't see. He had to be homing in on their voices. Duncan lurched out of the way as he saw the bar swing wildly in his direction. It left a chipped dent in the car ender near where he'd been leaning an instant before.
Rage flared in Duncan. Impulsively he grabbed the steel shaft of the pipe and ripped it from the staggering skinhead's grasp. Then he swung it like a bat, catching him on the side of the head, sending him sprawling into his two companions, who had struggled to their hands and knees.
Duncan found himself standing over them, flailing away with the pipe, "You . . . " muttering through clenched teeth ". . . dirty . . . " as he cracked a head, ". . . filthy . . . " broke a rib, ". . . rotten .
. . " crushed a nose ". . . Iousy . . . " Then someone had hold of his arm and a familiar voice was shouting in his ear.
"Dad! For Christ sake! Dad! " He turned. Brad's face was inches from his, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.
"Dad, you're gonna kill them! " Duncan looked down at the squirming, bloody tangle of their attackers.
He dropped the steel bar and turned toward the car.
"Let's get out of here. ' The keys rattled in his shaking hand as he fished them out of his jacket pocket. "You drive." The next few minutes were a blur, a fugue state in which he was vaguely aware of the car moving, pulling away, joining the flow of traffic on M Street. He sat in the passenger seat, shaking, shivering, trembling with the aftereffects of the adrenaline that had surged into his system moments before. High-pitched beeps brought him around.
Brad was punching the buttons on the car phone.
"What are you doing? " "Calling nine-one-one. ' - Duncan gently pulled the phone from his son's fingers and turned it off.
"No police. Let them crawl back to their cave and lick their wounds.
Maybe they'll think twice or even three times - before they jump another faggot."
"Shouldn't we report, ? " "If we involve ourselves, you know what will happen? We'll be on trial for assaulting them. That's the way our legal . .
system works.
They drove in silence for a while before Brad spoke again. "Why wouldn't you tell them? " "Tell them what? " '"That we're not gay." Gay. He hated that term. He couldn't imagine anything gay about being a homosexual. And he was a little disappointed in Brad.
He just didn't get it.
"That's not the point. If I want to put my arm around my son's shoulder, that's my business. I don't need anyone's permission but yours. I will no more allow myself to be dictated to by these troglodytes on the street than by the decerebrates on Capitol Hill.