Brennan was lying on the floor and he painfully turned his head a little more and saw the fat, bald Negro who had been with Harley. He was lying across a low couch with a pile of cushions behind his back and shoulders; his big shiny head propped up against the wall. His bulging, heavy-lidded eyes were fixed on Brennan; as Brennan looked at him he lifted a brown wisp of cigarette to his thick lips, inhaled deeply. The air was blue-gray and heavy with the acrid smell of marijuana.
The phonograph went suddenly into the tonal contortions of running down. A door behind the couch opened and the Negress came into the room, crossed to the phonograph and wound it, started the record over again. She glanced down at Brennan, spoke over her shoulder to the fat Negro: “Yo’ boyfrien’ is comin’ around.”
The fat Negro nodded slowly.
Brennan sat up very slowly and carefully. He felt the top of his head gingerly with his fingers; there was a thin raw stripe across his scalp, a throbbing furrow through the thickness of his matted and sticky hair. He looked at his hands and they were dark with blood.
He started to get up and the fat Negro got up swiftly and came over and put his foot on Brennan’s shoulder and shoved very hard; his face was entirely expressionless as he put the middle part of his foot against Brennan’s shoulder and shoved and Brennan crashed into the wall and slid down on his side on the floor. Then the Negro drew back his foot and kicked Brennan very hard in the stomach and ribs. He was breathing very hard and there were little drops of perspiration on his vacant yellow face; he drew his foot back carefully and slowly and then kicked very swiftly and hard several times. Brennan groaned once, lay still.
The Negro turned and went back to the couch and sat down. He sat on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, stared at Brennan.
The Negress had turned from the phonograph to watch him. She shook her head slightly and said, “That ain’t good,” as if to herself; then went to him and reached down and took the thin cigarette out of the corner of his mouth and took several deep drags.
Brennan groaned and rolled over on his stomach. Very slowly he raised himself to his hands and knees, leaned against the wall.
The hoarse feminine voice of the phonograph blared to metallic crescendo: “Underneath the Harlem moon...”
The Negro got up and went to Brennan again and put his boot on his back and pressed him down to the floor. He looked back at the woman and grinned, and then he kicked the side of Brennan’s head hard, once.
Brennan did not groan anymore, nor move.
The Negro stood over him a moment, then turned and went to a door on the far side of the room. He said: “Ah’m goin’ up an’ see how Cappy is — be back in a minute.” He went out and closed the door.
Brennan stirred; he slid one hand along the floor slowly and touched the side of his mashed bloody face, put his hands flat on the floor and raised his body. It took him almost a minute to get to his hands and knees by bracing himself against the wall, working slowly a little higher, a little higher. His breath came in short, rattling gasps.
The woman stood in the middle of the room with the marijuana cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She watched Brennan with wide, hard, fascinated eyes as one might watch a complicated and difficult acrobatic stunt.
Then Brennan stood up. He held on to a small table against the wall and pulled himself up very slowly and leaned against the wall and the table. His face was a dark mask of bruised, bleeding flesh, his eyes bright, shiny, insane; he swayed back and forth drunkenly and stared at the woman. Then he lurched towards the door and the woman screamed; she ran past him to the door and pulled it a little open, screamed again.
Brennan crashed against the door, slammed it shut. He fumbled for the key and as the woman whirled and clawed at him he swung one arm in a wide arc, his forearm struck her throat and she slide sidewise along the wall, down to one knee. Brennan found the key and turned it, jerked it out of the door. He turned and staggered across the room and the woman got up and ran after him and threw her arms around his neck, dragged him down to the floor; her nails ripped across his face. He braced himself against the side of the couch and savagely threw her off; her head struck the phonograph stand and it tippled over, the tinny voice of the blues singer came to an abrupt end. The woman lay still.
Brennan again struggled to his feet. He drew the back of his hand across his face, started towards the door on the far side of the couch and crashed blindly into the wall. There was sudden pounding on the outside of the door, a muffled shout. Brennan felt his way along the wall the little distance to the other door, went through and closed and locked the door behind him. He vaguely registered that he was in a dimly lighted bedroom, lurched across to the one window and opened it.
It was raining a little. Brennan could see the indistinct outline of a roof about five feet below the window; he could not tell whether it came all the way under the window or not — it was very dark there. He got his legs somehow through the window and sat on the sill, and then he took a deep breath and pushed himself forward hard, with his hands and arms. He landed in a heap on the sloping graveled roof, crawled slowly, painfully down the slope. When he came to the edge he could see nothing but darkness beneath him, but a little light from a window some distance away made him feel in a dazed way that he wasn’t very far above the ground. He worked himself carefully over the edge and tried to hold on to the rough wet gravel with his hands to let himself down slowly, but he could not hold on very long. He fell.
He landed on his back in mud, and after a while he rolled over and got to his hands and knees and started crawling. He did not know where he was crawling; he crawled forward. Several times he stopped and sank down in the mud; the darkness went around him and it was full of bright blinding flashes and he thought he was going to vomit, but the feeling would pass and he would get up and crawl ahead.
After a long time he saw the reflection of light ahead and he went on a little faster and then he thought he heard a voice and there were hands on his body and he fought the hands, but there were too many of them, and he sank finally into a deep pool of darkness and hands and confused voices.
A voice that Brennan did not know said: “I’ll come back early this afternoon — change the dressings. He’ll be all right.”
Nick’s voice said: “Sure, he’ll be all right — he’s too tough.”
Brennan opened his eyes, squinted up at Nick; he could see with only one eye — he pulled one hand up slowly and felt his face. There was a bandage over all one side of his face; one eye was covered.
Nick grinned down at him. “How d’ya feel?”
Brennan grunted, “Swell,” as though he didn’t mean it very much.
Johnson’s square pink face, and the thin, bony face of a stranger leaned over the bed.
Nick’s head jerked towards the stranger. “This is Doc Chapell.”
Brennan nodded slightly.
The doctor said: “You stay in bed — I’ll be back this afternoon.”
His face disappeared and his voice said, “So long,” and then there was the sound of the door opening and closing.
Brennan lifted his head a little and looked around the room; it was his own room at the Park Royal. He asked: “What time is it?”
Johnson glanced at his heavy yellow watch. “Nine twenty-five.”
“Huh?” Brennan’s exposed eye opened wide. “It’s morning...” He started to sit up in bed and it felt suddenly as if the ceiling had fallen on his head. He lay back, closed his eyes, moaned: “I’ve got to do the story.”