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. recommended

94 replies on “Jumped”

  4. “Neumos security staff told officers that Finnan and Quiroga had been removed from the club and had repeatedly tried to reenter. Each time, the report says, Finnan and Quiroga had been turned away until security staff were forced to “physically restrain them” from entering the venue.

    When things got physical, the report says Finnan and Quiroga took one of the bouncers to the ground and began hitting him with their fists and elbows, gashing the security guard’s left cheek.”

  10. Live by the sword, die by the sword. I would have to believe that Bukowski would be pretty saddened to be cited as so much as an influence to this flowery, overly dramatic prose-masturbation.
    “I have a habit of becoming involved in violent confrontations. Last week I punched a dude in the face, this week I took a beating. I will take it out on someone else once my nose heals.”

  15. He should just turn this into a song and leave it at that. His words sound less pretentious as lyrics than they do as a story. I want the last 8 minutes of my life back, Stranger.

  17. Um…..I REALLY don’t need more reasons to stop going to clubs……

    @1 suddenlyorcas: Spot on!! Sounds exactly like the pattern of a typical abuser, doesn’t it? He starts fights, cheerfully sends the game into extra innings, then suddenly cries to his mommy, some nurse in the ER, or anyone willing to listen that HE’S the “victim” once he starts to lose.
    Boo hoo.

  19. Hmmm… quite the colorful account. Although it should be noted, this:

    “No one even knows why they did it. But my guess is they each have a giant hole in their soul…”

    is just a wee bit at odds with his own account to Crimestoppers TV right afterward.

  22. Cool story bro. You like to knock out random strangers AND you have a black friend? You win at everything and you are certain to have a happy and successful life.

  24. Everyone has something to say, including myself. So shut the fuck up if you can’t appreciate the romantic collapse of your own society or read into the nuances of daily life. ACT like you know what’s going on around you. ACT like you’ve never said anything stupid, or thought of beating some assholes teeth through his head cause we’re all just fucking animals with developed brains and “consciences”.
    We all want to pretend like nothing’s amazing cause it’s been done before by someone else, or because it’s not what’s in the trend for today or because it’s not being blogged about, and most of the musicians suffer in this city cause no one wants to say “HOLY SHIT. THAT WAS FUCKING AMAZING”. You all just stand around with your fucking hands in your pockets.
    So fuck all of you who only have shit to say about this, like you’re all glimmering pieces on Gods semen, blaming everyone else for what’s wrong. These things happen all the time and you should be paying attention to what’s going on, and maybe give a helping hand, cause we ARE all sinking further into piles of our own shit, and you’re prepackaged life isn’t going to hold out for much longer.

    And @18, since your not so good at reading past lines of type, this isn’t about victims, it’s about life. Fucking trolls.

  26. @25, seems to me it’s about this guy’s inability to see that he’s the sole common element of all the fights he gets in, and to figure out just what that implies.

    It’s a self-absorbed piece but the writing’s pretty good.

  27. I’ve seen this guy Nate / Buffalo literally going from to girl to girl at a party hitting on them and trying to go home with them. He didn’t succeed. Then I found out he lives with his girlfriend in a committed relationship. Funny. He comes off having all this honor and strength, but that kind of thing is incredibly week to me.

  28. @25 thank you, that honestly needed to be said.

    and “Eel River”…I spent many a summer there as well.

    Nathan is a gift to our community, he gives everything of himself, day in and day out.

    Haters will always hate, because they are pathetic humans…they aren’t good for much else

  30. “No one even knows why they did it. But my guess is they each have a giant hole in their soul…”

    And yet this guy is describing girls as someone he wouldn’t take home, and finds some need to describe the CT scan nurse as ‘fat’? Yeah, sorry, little sympathy for jackasses. I haven’t even finished the story yet, and I already want to kick his ass myself!

  31. Yeah, watch out for those loud mouthed girls who will get you into fights. I find the writing pretty pretentious. I would much prefer to hear a news story as to what why and where this happened so I can decide to avoid this area or not.

  32. What 31 said. I honestly regret liking his music now. I used to see him around and thought maybe he was cool, or “real”. Not at all. Instead he comes off as racist, pretentious, sexist, and obviously needs some anger management. Way to go, Stranger for the shitty “news”!

  36. Pretty lame to get a whoopin then cry about it to the public ya cream puff. Must have been that pussy ass Freddie Mercury stache you got there that pissed em off there cupcake.

  38. It’s strange to me that people think this is a cry for sympathy. Or that it’s someone trying to sound like a badass because they get into fights. It just sounds like a well written, honest account of some real life events. Pretentious? Try honest. I think most people are just scared to express their true feelings. And the finger wasn’t pointed at the shit-starters alone for having a hole in their soul’s….it was pretty clearly written that we ALL have a hole in our soul that we are trying to fill. Well said.

  39. A hole in our soul? really? I thought that was a stupid metaphore when it was trotted out in my 7th grade Sunday school class. We’re all grown up and can use grown up words that have actual meaning.

    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 peson narration is honest insight into motivations and personal failures…without that there is only pretense and hubris.

  42. @25 DoofusFred3 How well said by a true Troll King.
    Since you’re not so good at comprehending others’ posts, I’ll clue you in:
    Learn to use grammar and spelling correctly in a sentence, pull your head out of your ignorant ass, and maybe I’ll take your meaningless rants more seriously.

    I’m with @1 suddenlyorcas, @31 cattycat, and @32 rp.

  45. #39 wrote:

    “it was pretty clearly written that we ALL have a hole in our soul that we are trying to fill. Well said.”

    Oh geez lady you’ve clearly got a crush on yer little boy Mr.Quiroga. And well said? Shit woman that crap has done been said a thousand times already in a thousand books and a thousand songs.

    The Mama’s boy who wrote this ought to save what’s left of his dignity and remove that “well written” crap and write the world an apology for being such a weak ass pussy.

    And shave that hideous stache before it incites another beatin. Then we’d all have to hear his pussy ass cry cry cry some more. Fucking grow a pair boy.

  47. sympathies you got beat down but your story read like some kind of weird gay love story. i couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. corny writing bro. don’t try so hard. relax. just tell what happened.

  48. Oh, I love the comments in the Stranger. The harsh, unrelenting words thrown on every writer’s efforts is hilarious.
    “Freddie Mercury” hipster, Seattle in Manhattan, Bukowski wannabe, etc. were all great.
    But yes, after talking about fighting while drunk, and then getting beat down himself hardly endeared him or his story to me. Shit DOES come around, sometimes.

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