I really let the curses fly in this chapter, it matches the grit of the setting and the specific situation. If you are easily offended by mature themes, please read something else.
“Alas, Poor Laski”
March 1958
The first blow came in faster than Stan Laski was able to observe but the ensuing roll of pain that engulfed his stomach, sent Stan staggering backward on legs with little more strength than wet noodles. He was a big man and though he had spent over fifteen years at hard labor on the docks Stan had also dedicated much of his spare time to drinking, vomiting and pissing his strength away. The result was that at nearly forty, Stan found himself inhabiting a big tub stuffed with depleted guts. His opponent was big too but he was fit and much younger. Stan had no idea who the fuck he was or what his beef could be. Stan resisted the urge to spill the contents of his stomach and the rest of his body onto the sidewalk as he battled desperately to regain his footing.
His young opponent waited just outside of Stan’s reach; fresh, unfazed, untouched and ready to deliver more hurt. Stan grabbed hold of his pain and his stance straightened. He planted his right foot behind him, raised his meaty fists in defense and sucked in a great big breath.
“Come on Motherfucka!” Stan gazed into a pair of very calm blue eyes beneath dark brows. Did he even know this bastard? This guy had come looking for him, he called Stan by name, but the pronouncation had been fucking weird. The younger man instantly met his challenge by moving in closer and delivering an unencumbered second punch that made the inside of Stan’s mouth a bloody morrass replete with a number of dislodged teeth. Oh shit! He’s gonna kill me! Stan thought to himself as a hole of boundless misery to match the one in his mid-section expanded throughout the lower third of his face. The younger man moved out of range once more and watched Stan. He desperately wanted to ask what this was all about but Stan well knew that such a question in the middle of a fight would make him look yellow-bellied.
He wiped the overspill of blood from his lips with the top of one fist and mentally shoved aside the voice of defeat that harangued from within. This kid was going to clobber him. Nevertheless, Stan Laski felt deeply obliged to give him a shitload of grief on the way down. He stepped forward; dukes up and torso angled in a hopeless attempt to make his overstuffed body profile less of a target. Stan Laski had grown up on the casually apalling streets of Red Hook, Brooklyn and he had fought in the Pacific theater during the war. He could at least put a hurt on this bastard, maybe Stan could even get a good hit of the big nose jutting off that smug-assed face. Stan was telling himself just that as a blitz of powerful combinations reigned unimpeded through his flimsy guard.
Stan smelled bubble gum and shit. His eyes fluttered in the bright streetlamp light and Stan found that the aching left side of his head was resting on the sidewalk right next to where someone had spit out a huge gob of chewed up bubble gum. There was a swirl of dog shit smeared on the edge of the curb no more than a foot from his face. Remotely, Stan wondered why the streets of Red Hook were always so damned filthy. It was March. It was cold, and judging from the darkness gathered in the sky above, it was well after eight o’clock. His wristwatch had been shattered on the short swift trip to the pavement but Stan Laski easily surmised that he had been lying unconscious and ass-kicked on the cold concrete for over two hours.
He tried to stand up several times but Stan found that he was broken in too many places. It was a bowel-loosening struggle but he managed after some time and a series of groans, to wrench his body into an upright sitting position. Unfortunately, he could not gain any distance between himself and the filth just a foot away. It would be mortifying when he was finally discovered thought Stan. Someone at work was bound to report Poor Laski was face down in dog shit when they found him! He scanned the street, and was grateful for the well-placed street lamps that lined several blocks in two directions. There was no sign of his young attacker or the foreign car that he'd driven onto the sidewalk in front of Stan at the start of their encounter.
Why? And, just who was he anyway? Stan owed no outstanding debts, he had paid his bar tab last Friday on payday as usual, and dutifully kept his mouth shut during the recent union meeting when Pelka, the shop steward, announced that representative elections had once again been suspended without explanation. Stan was a “good guy” he never made waves and he worked hard, yet there he sat without dignity and fucked-up badly for unknown reasons. He could not walk or crawl, Stan could not even drag himself to the telephone booth that stood on a corner two long city blocks away.
The area around the Brooklyn Marine Terminal; populated by warehouses, parking lots and roving packs of feral dogs, was a no man’s land by night, especially during the winter months. The March chill was the least of his worries, Stan shivered as he attempted to divert his attention from the misery at hand but the only things that came to mind were the tall wide-set build, prominent nose, and eerily dispassionate gaze of his unidentified attacker.
