Read Online Brutal by Kevin Weeks - Free Book Online Page B

say a word. He just slowly and painfully staggered away.
    I looked at Jimmy and said, “You told me not to kick him.”
    â€œThis was different,” he said. “He made it personal.”
    As I walked back into the bar, all I could think of was the old saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Everybody else, except for Yogi and his friends, walked back into the bar. I cleaned up a bit, changed my shirt, and went back to work at the door.
    The next day, it was all over town that the Triple O’s gang had beat up Yogi. He looked so bad that no one could believe one person could have done all that to him. A girl who worked as a waitress at Triple O’s was at her bowling league when Yogi’s friends started telling everyone that the bouncers at Triple O’s had jumped Yogi. “It was a fair fight,” the waitress told them all. “Just him and Kevin Weeks.” When a couple of people from Andrew Square who had been there also told the truth about what happened the night before, Yogi’s friends shut up.
    There was no doubt Yogi was a tough guy who wouldn’t quit, and I knew if we fought again I’d have to pack a lunch, ’cause I’d be there for awhile. A week later, Jimmy and I were at Lechmere’s in Cambridge looking at TVs when we spotted Yogi. “Here we go again,” I said to Jimmy, but Yogi walked up to me and stuck out his hand. His face was still swollen and discolored, and he had a child with him. When I shook his hand, he said, “Fair fight,” and that was the end.
    The fight turned out to be one more thing to enhance my reputation at the door. But I was glad that Jimmy had stopped me from booting Yogi. If he hadn’t screamed at me to stop, I would have hurt Yogi bad and probably been pinched for using a shod foot.
    But that was far from the last time that Jimmy tried to tone down my punches. One summer night, Jimmy and I were driving from Castle Island on East Broadway past the South Boston Vietnam Memorial. As Jimmy took a right onto M Street, we found a car double-parked in the middle of the street. Jimmy stopped and the two of us were waiting while the kid in the double-parked car talked to someone leaning into his window. Jimmy strongly dislikes beeping horns because they draw the attention he shuns, but he gave his horn a light toot, which was a big deal for him. When the kid waved to him, Jimmy said, “Pull over.”
    â€œGo around me,” the kid in the car said.
    â€œI can’t,” Jimmy said. “You’ve got the street blocked.”
    When the kid ignored him, Jimmy touched the horn again, a little bit heavier than before. “Go around me,” the kid repeated.
    â€œI’ll go through you,” Jimmy said.
    The kid gave him the finger and said, “Go fuck yourself.”
    Jimmy got out of the car and, naturally, I got out, too. He went over to the driver’s side of the car and started arguing with the kid to move his car. The kid gave him another finger, opened his door, and started coming toward Jimmy, swearing all the while. He was maybe five-ten, regular-sized, and probably in his early twenties. And pretty damn stupid. Jimmy looked at me and said, “Kevin, hit him.”
    I hit him a left jab in the mouth, and when the kid went down, Itossed him into the back seat of his car. His friend took one look at the kid and one look at me, and quickly moved the car out of the way and all the way down the street. I didn’t think it had been a hard jab, but the kid had gone down quickly. The next thing we knew, a bunch of his friends came running over from the park on M Street. When Jimmy and I turned around and started going after them, they all came to an abrupt stop and took off in the opposite direction.
    An hour later, Jimmy and I pulled up to Triple O’s and found Kevin O’Neil outside. He told us that a motorcycle cop named Luongo had been down there looking for Whitey and