From the street, Ed Scherer’s house stands unassuming, unimpressive; it’s a split-level three-bedroom, waterfront, with little to distinguish it from any other modest suburban home in the area, nothing conspicuous, except perhaps that the grass needs cutting and the hedge needs trimming. Who’d have thought this real estate would’ve doubled in resale value within the dozen years he’s lived there? His salary certainly hasn’t doubled, hasn’t kept up with cost-of-living increases, and the union (of which Ed is an active member) continues to be none too happy about that.
The tenured professor had earlier returned home at about nine o’clock, only to discover his live-in lover asleep, so he’d gone back out for a recreational drive in his drop-top. Now, though, Ed’s ready for bed, and that ugly business with Alan Polk a few hours previous is a faded annoyance. Opening the garage door by remote, Ed’s convertible cruises in, its driver unaware that he’s being hunted.
Alan kills his Geo’s headlights, negotiates into Ed’s driveway, parks quickly, and throws open the car-door. Nimbly, the adjunct slips in under the garage door as it lowers, and he’s within striking distance of Ed in an instant. “Consequences, Edwin,” Alan snarls to the man’s back. “Didn’t you understand the consequences?”
When Ed pivots and turns, instinctively lifting his hands to protect his face, Alan swings hard and low, the barrel of the bat cracking against and dislocating the man’s left knee-cap, the sound of the blow crisp, clean, something like a woodsman’s ax biting into a tree. Ed spins, reels, but doesn’t fall, so Alan swings low again, chopping down in a compact stroke, shattering Ed’s ankle . . . now, with the man down, Alan rains blows to Ed’s head and shoulders, the wood on flesh making thud-sounds mostly, not so crisp anymore, several nauseating thumps.
Zachary Burks, a native of Tennessee, teaches literature and composition in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.