A nurse wheeled me through a corridor, and the smell of some
acrid cleaning product singed a path through the clotted passages to my brain. I’d just dripped blood onto the clean counter of the check-in desk, and then a doctor stuck a needle between my eyes to numb them. Now my pale feet framed an approaching gurney bearing the other victim of the beating, his eyes drooling from his shaved skull. I made him laugh in passing, but I doubt he knew why, nor who I was, nor that his mouth was moving.
The fat CAT-scan lady explained the machine. It would peer through my genitals, past labyrinths of innards, ignoring the heart and all things flesh to capture the cartilage and bone of the skull. She laid me down and positioned my head.
“You sure it’s only looking at bone?” I asked. “I’ve got something down there neither of us wants to see.”
She laughed. The machine laughed. Its bright, whirring light stripped my flesh in a prolonged flash, peeling away, I imagined, at the intricate layers of lies. The blood in my ears sounded like the Eel River, when I’d stand there as a boy on rocks too high to jump from.
The results were black, white, and obvious. The bones in my face looked like those glow-in-the-dark dancing skeletons. My silly ears sprang like wet noodles from the sides. They wheeled me back to my room. The people I’d come with were gone. I didn’t blame them. In fact, I hardly knew them.
When the bartender yelled last call, the band was playing something off of Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock. We drank up and waited outside. I was talking to the musicians in between them carrying gear. Everyone was happy and drunk and hoping to fuck something. Then something changed. A lot happened quickly. It took time to notice because the sounds of laughter and terror are pretty close. I was talking to Evan and a girl I wouldn’t take home. I forgot her name, and the other names I do mention are only names to me. I know nothing more of these people.
Evan was laughing and then his face changed. Someone lunged between us. I turned around and saw Joey on the ground. Joey had played piano and enjoyed boys. His body was sleeping now. Only his eyes moved under the lids. The guys attacking aimed their feet at his head. Evan spread his long, black arms over Joey. There were four or five of the other guys—I really can’t remember. Giant Samoans. They sprang back, surprised that such a little white man had such a big black friend.
It was the smallest of the giants who was the angriest.
He kept his body with the pack and stuck his ugly face out. Yapping with such hatred I couldn’t catch a word. The only words I heard were Evan’s. He spread his arms wide and yelled, “I don’t hate you, I love you, just stop.”
This was beautiful but didn’t go over so well.
These men weren’t searching for sentiment. No one even knows why they did it. But my guess is they each have a giant hole in their soul and they’re desperately trying to fill it before it swallows them whole—and don’t act like you don’t have one. Some fill it with blood, others with God or cock or commerce—but it’s there in all of us and we spend our whole lives throwing things and people into it.
After Evan fell into the street, the ugly one looked at me. I realized I was the only one standing there.
There isn’t much to say about my defending myself. The anger in him far surpassed mine. He swung like a maniac and I kept my face buried into his chest. I may have landed one. Everyone said I got him. But the truth is, all you see are flashes of light, like someone’s smacking the sides of a janky television, searching for a signal. You’re spinning with the world and everything slows down. Nothing was more comforting than collapsing in a puddle of my own blood, behind an exhaust pipe, and finding no teeth in the pool.
Later they found a bloody gash between my knuckles. It was in the shape of a tooth.
I let everyone believe I got him. But I knew it was only reopened from the weekend before, when—no relation to my getting jumped—I’d hit some bridge-and-tunnel fucker down in Belltown. I knew it would all come around.
The bridge-and-tunnel fucker was at a hot-dog stand in front of that Quickie Mart. Had a square jaw. Started yelling at the Middle Eastern vendor about his toppings. The vendor looked perplexed. The guy kept yelling at him as if he didn’t speak any English.
“You got your hot dog,” said Neko, the girl I was with. “Just give the man his money.”
I didn’t like what he said back to her. He smacked his words, like an obnoxious child chewing. Then he pushed her—although, looking back on it sober, I may have made that up.
I went in to swing. Two or three guys caught me and held me back. They shouted calming things at me, let me go. I watched him talk at her. He looked like a hundred shitheads I’ve served in the last two months. “Yes, sir,” I’d always say, smiling, picturing their teeth in my hand.
“I’m two seconds away from hitting this dude,” I said to Neko.
He heard me, stuck out his stout jaw, and started counting, “One Mississippi, two Mississi—”
My knuckle caught his tooth on the second pee-pee-eye.
He fell like a rotten tree in a forest. When he hit the ground, the others swung at me—his friends. It didn’t hurt. Felt like running through branches as a kid.
Now, having been hit myself, I was crying, laughing, and bleeding all over their police reports. I hadn’t made a sound during the beating, but the thought of medical bills broke me. They asked questions and all I saw were Mag-lites. People gathered around, their heads lit just around the edges. Like when the sun falls behind Puget Sound and lights up the rich houses. I felt like I was on a talk show. Only Oprah wasn’t giving away any cars.
Days later, my eye is the color of a sun-rotted plum, the corner cut, scabbed over, a trail of blood down my cheek. Just as a picture is altered by the choice of frame, so the eyes change with a shattered nose. It’s hard to recognize the original piece of work.
I leave my place for a cup of coffee and find two old friends huddled in the corner. They tell me their house burned down. Lost everything, including their cat, from a cigarette. My eyes keep sliding off their faces onto the floor. I have nothing to offer. Out the window, it’s raining and the sun is shining. I walk home and I begin to smile. It’s a smile I’m not supposed to have—the ones that form when you remember how small you are. I suddenly feel the entire world beneath me. Not just cut off at that mountain, that building, or that sea. And everything horrible happening everywhere appears like those dots satellites see from space. Everyone is living out their own end-of-the-world, and I can’t keep from smiling. Not because I am happy, but because hurting doesn’t hurt anymore. Because we are all dying together and we are too stupid to appreciate it.
People keep telling me they saw my face on the news. How upset they are for me. Which is nice. But I’m more disappointed that they all still watch the news. 
@25 This has to be the most eloquent argument in favor of WTF I’ve read all day.
This was a pretty disturbing article. I shuddered at the descriptions of Samoans, and had to read further to find out that the author is a violent out-of-control drunk jerk who may not have suffered anything more than passing out and falling down. And the troubles his friends got into seem to be the kinds of troubles hard-core alcoholics have.
@Shanabanana: Yes, I too have a hole in my soul! 🙁 Like Nathan I project a tough, violent image but inside I’m just a scared little boy at heart. But I never had anyone who was sensitive enough to, you know, care. Someone to tell me “it’s all right, I’ll be there for you”. Call me.
Hello All. My name is Evan Michael Flory-Barnes. AKA Evan the big black man. 🙂 (Well, I do stand a hair over 6’3” Nate does captures this surreal vibe that way there that night. For myself, I can say that I held my own as non-violently as could receiving punches to arms and I got tossed around by the biggest cat. (Yes they were big Samoan dudes, fulfilling an ugly stereotype.) For me, it was end of the night at a club in my neighborhood I played at regularly. It wasn’t my quarrel I could have left but it was my neighborhood. I truly LOVE ALL OF YOU NIGGAS. 🙂 Truly.
This is everything I don’t like about the stranger and summed up well, and why I don’t like going to hipster anything in capitol hill or anywhere else in Seattle. You had this coming. And no not “cool story bro” non-story first world bullshit.
This is a great article. Brilliantly written. Shines like a diamond amongst the other rubbish the stranger tries to peddle as journalism or junk that is only interesting to hipsters reading in the sole hopes of getting mentioned.
Sorry you got hurt.
Please write more.
Evan seems nice.
“What bothers me most about the writing is that it shows an amazing lack of personal insight. One of the things that is most appealing about strong 1st person narration is honest insight into motivations and personal failures…without that there is only pretense and hubris.”
Seattle’s lame tastes for this self absorbed poseur continue to show hipsters as shallow and easily impressed. Bukowski lite indeed… & isn’t this the same boy who posed with tomatoes across his privileged mug last year? He likes to start shit and then play the victim. Tiresome. No matter how many Black friends you have. Yawn.
@60 perfect. thanks.
Nathan- Perhaps a few more vigourous ass-whippings, and perhaps some jail time, and you just may start to get a glimmer of a clue. Make haste!
Nathan- Perhaps a few more vigourous ass-whippings, and perhaps some jail time, and you just may start to get a glimmer of a clue. Make haste, dumbass!
This reminds me – whatever happened to the meathead ordinance?
This is such unadulterated, pretentious, mindless crap! When did The Stranger become the livejournal for all of Capitol Hill’s cocaine-ridden population? What a fucking joke this paper has become. Seriously Dan Savage, THIS is what you let run? Suddenly every alcoholic with access to a laptop thinks he’s Kerouac.
This dude Nathan has a documented history of getting into fistfights with the only common theme in all of them being his involvement. At some point can’t we just put two and two together to realize that perhaps he DESERVED what he got? Fuck this guy. He ain’t a fucking artist. He’s a fucking drug-addicted alcoholic who needs to stop running his mouth so much. Oh, and Mad Rad fucking suck. How did that ten minutes of Capitol Hill fame feel, suckas? Have fun spending the rest of your “career” giving handjobs for crack rocks. Ha, fucking losers.
I’m with @45 too — if you meet three assholes in a week, you are the asshole.
While it actually does seem likely that this probably was an unprovoked incident from the other accounts people gave, when you hear it coming from someone who admits to getting drunk and getting into fights and has notoriously fought a security guard at Neumos because he wasn’t let in the club, it creates a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” situation. Even if he didn’t start it, I have difficulty engaging with his flowery prose about “holes in souls” given his track record of being a belligerent drunk.
This really is not a good article. It’s self-serving, disingenuous and filled with empty words. It really stands out as the worst article I’ve read in the Stanger in over five years. Its style over substance at its worse. It would have been much more interesting if he just wrote it as he remembered it instead of painstakingly spending what I assume to be hours searching for the right sequence of words that make you sound cool to hipsters.
“I turned around and saw Joey on the ground. Joey had played piano and enjoyed boys. His body was sleeping now.” Puke.
The truth is that this guy is a violent asshole himself. He punches random people and random people punch him back. He’s been arrested for assault and his band is banned from half the clubs in town. The city is of Seattle is better off without people like this. The reason people dislike this article so much is because he is glorifying his own delinquency in a kind of beat poet, pretentious,trash talk that most people can see right through. When you realize that he had this beating coming to him, it makes the whole article trash. Come on Stranger! You are better then this!
Oh my god, these comments are amazing! Nathan Quiroga is one of my best friends in the world. I talk to him once every week or so on the phone (i recently moved to L.A.). He discussed with me in great detail the events that lead up to this article. Violence, anger, temper, instant karma, chivalry, regret, shame, pain, reality checks, booze, etc. The pile of shit talking and integrity bashing comments above is completely ridiculous. You don’t like the read, fine. Stay on task people. But calling him a slacker, weak ass pussy, mama’s boy, privileged, cry baby, etc. etc. etc. is so off the mark that it’s almost funny. Nate is one of the hardest working, dedicated to his craft, driven cats i have ever met. He is also a total sweetheart. The above mentioned bashing actually says a lot about the authors and their insecurities. To take the time on your computer and type such words of contempt is silly and immature. What have YOU done with YOUR life? Do YOU care about things? My guess is that YOU are dissapointed that life is not how you envisioned it when you were young and full of dreams. And looking in the mirror honestly and sincerely is probably difficult and underwhelming. If this is the case, which i’m assuming it is, then tearing up someone who has had some success and puts their work out there and wears their heart on their sleeve must make you feel a little more potent and significant. Unfortunately for you, it’s only a shallow, fleeting sensation that will fade away completely moments from now. I don’t usually participate in these ANONYMOUS chatter forums, because i think they are generally weak in insight and genuine critique. But Nate is my pal and I felt like saying something. Last but not least, Arturo Bandini, YOU obviously are a piece of shit. My name is William Feffer. xoxo bitches
Oh my god, these comments are amazing! Nathan Quiroga is one of my best friends in the world. I talk to him once every week or so on the phone (i recently moved to L.A.). He discussed with me in great detail the events that lead up to this article. Violence, anger, temper, instant karma, chivalry, regret, shame, pain, reality checks, booze, etc. The pile of shit talking and integrity bashing comments above is completely ridiculous. You don’t like the read, fine. Stay on task people. But calling him a slacker, weak ass pussy, mama’s boy, privileged, cry baby, etc. etc. etc. is so off the mark that it’s almost funny. Nate is one of the hardest working, dedicated to his craft, driven cats i have ever met. He is also a total sweetheart. The above mentioned bashing actually says a lot about the authors and their insecurities. To take the time on your computer and type such words of contempt is silly and immature. What have YOU done with YOUR life? Do YOU care about things? My guess is that YOU are dissapointed that life is not how you envisioned it when you were young and full of dreams. And looking in the mirror honestly and sincerely is probably difficult and underwhelming. If this is the case, which i’m assuming it is, then tearing up someone who has had some success and puts their work out there and wears their heart on their sleeve must make you feel a little more potent and significant. Unfortunately for you, it’s only a shallow, fleeting sensation that will fade away completely moments from now. I don’t usually participate in these ANONYMOUS chatter forums, because i think they are generally weak in insight and genuine critique. But Nate is my pal and I felt like saying something. Last but not least, Arturo Bandini, YOU obviously are a piece of shit. My name is William Feffer. xoxo bitches
This pos has got “rich daddy” written all over him. Living wild when you’re covered by daddy’s premier health insurance plan, no prob.
@69 What have *I* done with MY life?
Well I can start by saying I honestly dont refer to the only women in my stories with body-shaped descriptions like “fat” or as someone “I wouldn’t go home with” (aka a “slut”). Or refer to everyone in my stories as their race, like that means anything, or by their sexuality, like that means anything. That’s a start. Your homeboy dug his own grave in this article. I won’t call him names but the sympathy you have for him that apparently he pulled out of you with his detailed accounts are nowhere found in this article. We only have the article to base our ideas and opinions off of. Nowhere does he imply that he felt shame, or instant karma.
Maybe he needed more editors.
This was an interesting account of a truly horrible incident. Although I did not finish the piece liking the author that much, due to the account of his previous encounter with his knuckles to someone’s face, I know one of the others involved in the beating and it was truly horrifying to hear his perspective. The perpetrators really did come at them out of nowhere, unprovoked, just for the sake of pure random violence. The person I know, who is mentioned in the article only by his first name, Evan, is a 100% peaceful guy who adds beauty and love to every situation he is in, no joke. He really did keep his love for humanity in the midst of being brutally attacked, and I wish the Stranger would do an article about him, about his sympathy for these angry guys who hurt him and his friends for no reason, and about how he came to have this kind of attitude. He commented earlier in this thread. Stranger peeps, you should reach out, it would be a positive thing. Thanks.
Where there is alcohol, there is mayhem. Sounds to me like the writer has a short fuse. Too, when others bigger, faster, and stronger than him clock him, he whines like an infant.
I believe you got your just due. Call it karma, call it quid pro quo, you have a shiner, an uglier mug, and a half-ass story that is more melodramatic than factual.
@72 Evan isnt only mentioned by his first name, he’s mentioned by his race not once but several times. Just to be clear.
Oh how us fat people love laughing at pain! huh huh huh huh ow shit my fat hates to be jiggled by my laughing at your pain.
Getting jumped sucks, but it just happens. Raise your children well and try to be safe. And avoiding Bell Town and starting fights does a body good.
Duh!
Wait, sorry to bash a fallen pinata, but um, IF YOU THREW THE FIRST PUNCH YOU DIDN’T GET JUMPED! You just got your ass beat being a fool.
Am I the only one who read “I wouldn’t go home with” as implying that that was due to the events that were about to happen? I didn’t interpret it as meaning he wouldn’t have gone home with her if he’d had a choice, but instead he spent his evening getting beat up.
Also, his jerkishness is balanced out by his honesty in admitting that maybe the guy last week didn’t push the girl he was with, maybe that was just his drunkenness. I didn’t feel like he was trying to talk himself up, just share his perceptions of an event, which he did, and well.
Interesting read, and the comments just prove that haters gon’ hate.
@77: …and the ignorant are going to remain stupid.
Ah, yes, another wild night in the city. I’m sure the cops really thought you were sooo cool bleeding all over their reports. What with Universal Precautions, keep your slop to yourself, fool. And the “fat lady” operating the scanner probably saw you as just another assbite who attracts fists like a magnet in the MRI might attract an errant ferrous object. Next time you get drunk in public, hopefully long enough for your sorry wounds to heal, try to stay away from violence. Give the EMS guys a break for a change, ok? They got real emergencies to deal with, most of them not self-inflicted.
Uhg, another self absorbed glorification of meaningless macho violence by an alcoholic with no self control.
You ain’t the center of the universe, sugar, just an enormous waste of breath and ‘talent’.
What’s really funny is how behind-the-times Seattle hipsters are. Seattle is about 2 years behind the rest of the country’s major metropolitan areas.
Jesus fuck, stupid ugly hipster mustaches went out of style over a year ago in Dallas Texas for fucksake.
…and some people fill the holes in their soul with mindless and ignorant comments in this thread. What a great way of proving Nathan’s point though 🙂
This sucks because:
1) He started a fight a week prior instead of solving it w/ a conversation
2) His teeth are hella jacked in that interview – whoo, please try never to smile.
3) He’s a bartender? I’m confused as to what he does for a living.
4) What a crappy piece of writing overall. Using adjectives such as “ugly”, “fat”, “black” etc. which add no meaning to the store is ridiculous.
Every time I see Nathan Quiroga being featured yet again on a local cover, it kind of bums me out. There was “The Unwanted Visitor” piece The Stranger published in August, and he’s also been prominently featured in other publications like City Arts Magazine. I just don’t think the quality of his writing is very high, nor do the insights he relates seem unique or especially worthy of the reader’s attention. There are so many other writers and musicians in Seattle. Why does this guy get so much press? To be clear, the attack he experienced sounds awful, and I’m sorry to hear about violence happening to anyone, whether they happen to be an asshole or not. On the other hand, did I learn anything new about confronting urban violence or humanity or compassion or…anything? Nope. Just more dude-in-freshman-English-thinks-he’s-edgy tired cliches.
An old proverb: “There’s nothing wrong with a shooting in a bar, as long as the right person gets shot.”
Bang.
You’re an asshole, no wonder you got fucked up.
is this good writing?
A miracle is possible,
even though improbable;
first read it is laudable.
This is a gospel,
written by an apostle
who was still yet hostile.
I think the thing that most of the critics here are missing is that the story is portraying a new knowledge of the irony of violence and its karmic self-perpetuation, without spelling it out. The author is still in the midst of the trans-formative evolution that can come from the understanding gained when you have experienced both sides of the aisle of violence. Also the voice and writing is not that of a college professor or professional journalist. It is intended to be altogether his own unrefined voice, who is clearly like so many who are commenting here – a life student sounding out a coarse reality with vocal & physical sonar.
It’s like the majority here want him to jump out and say “I deserved what I got” and you’re mad he didn’t. But he did. Even though he alluded to them being unrelated, that he details the other fight clearly indicates he subconsciously believes they are intrinsically connected – at the very least in the story line that defines his being.
I also find it interesting that he didn’t claim to be better than anyone else in the story (aside from self-excluding surface level judgments), yet it seems the majority of comment authors hold themselves morally and intellectually superior to his character.
The greatest tragedy is that most fail to acknowledge this piece of writing has been composed primarily to demonstrate and/or serves to reflect on the brave & selfless actions of Evan.
Applause, Nathan Quiroga, for a truthful record of a gritty event, written without manufactured, rose-colored, meaning-tinted, interpretative glasses. You are obviously not afraid to share your learning with the world in raw format, and my hope is that your audience is learning as you share it in real time – more than they realize. Travel well.
Applause, Evan, for your mental preparation and execution of a selfless strategy that would make Gandhi & Jesus proud. Self-realized individuals everywhere can hail your action as something we hope we are strong enough to do in a similar situation.
Let us continue to find ways to counter violence with peace, aggressively.
– Charles Montgomery
http://www.BlessedCurse.com
See, where I think he went wrong is that you’re supposed to check yourself BEFORE you wreck yourself. I guess when those Samoans come with their pimp hand they come CORRECT.
@88: You make as much sense as Mike Tyson, Toofless.
A truthful record of a gritty event? Puh-LEASE!!!!
Mental preparation and selfless strategy?!?!?
I’m pretty sure that Gandhi and Jesus wouldn’t start fights, much less try to “solve” violent outbursts with more violence.
I don’t see this as a cry for sympathy, a justification of actions, or anything else so simple. Like a few others stated, it’s just honest. And I don’t care much if a piece is self-centered as long as it is interesting and passionate… and what better to be honest and passionate about than yourself. I don’t see why people are so gun-ho to jump all over a piece that they consider ‘prose-masturbation’. Some people like to watch others masturbate, prose or otherwise, you cannot deny the entertainment value. Besides, I think crazies, eccentrics, and egotistical jackasses make some of the best shit in the world.
“Besides, I think crazies, eccentrics, and egotistical jackasses make some of the best shit in the world”
But not this one. Really, Seattle, he lacks the talent for the template. Enough, already! There are artists with something to say here, can they they get a goddamn shot?
So the kid started a fight the wkend before, now gets randomly beaten. Makes him think…. Good for him. Maybe make him change his behavior a bit. He writes about it and gets it published here, and as usual almost everyone takes another swing at him in the comment section. Another lesson for him to take home about human character and the real world he lives in….
Love it or hate it, this story is certainly getting quite the reaction. Usually shit writing doesn’t make readers react to this extent. This knee jerk thing happens to Nate a lot whether or not he intends it. Good work boy-o.
Bahahaha! Stupid douche bag has had a good beating coming for a long long time!
You sound like a shitty human being who just got effed by other shitty human beings. Your attitude is dumb. Change it along with everything else…
Be a kind/nice person and stay away from shady areas/people and this will likely never happen to you buddy. No sympathy.