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with my free fist. I was choking him, but not very well, and he was
glaze-eyedly trying to fight free. I hit him as hard as I could on the side of
the head, but he rolled with it, and then he dug his hand into my mouth,
catching the soft flesh of my check, and he literally pried my head back. I
lost my hold on his throat, and he jacked his knee up into my stomach. All the
air went out of me and I flopped back, gasping like a heart case. Then, before
I
could defend myself, Luis was running through the anteroom, out the door, and
was kicking me. His feet were big, and I saw each ripple-soled shoe descend,
first right, then left, and he was stomping on my face as if I were a bug. I
tried to grab his leg, and caught one pants cuff. I
file:///F|/rah/Harlan%20Ellison/Ellison,%20Harlan%20-%20Love%20Ain't%20Nothing
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.txt pulled him across and tumbled him, and managed to crawl up his front and
hit him once before someone grabbed me from behind, locked his hands around my
face and yanked me forcibly back against a knee. My back cracked like an
arthritic knuckle and everything bobbled, weaved, swam, dipped in front of me.
I started to gray out, and stayed with it just long enough to see Luis and the
older man and the rickets case bending down to work me over good.
I was lying on my back, my right hand was loose in a puddle of mud, and I was
staring up at a wall that held a bullfight poster. I saw the colors, and the
word ARRUZA, and then read the sign very carefully three times before I
fainted again.
When I came up the second time, someone was going through my pockets. I didn't
stop him. Not even when he pulled my watch off my wrist. I went under again,
and when I came back the third time I
was very cold, and shivering. I tried to get up, let my legs slide down the
wall, where they rose above my head lying in the dirt, and tried to gain
purchase on the brick wall. It turned to rubber and peanut butter.
I kept at it, and finally got to my feet.
The world was nowhere to be seen.
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Then I realized both my eyes had swollen almost completely shut. I stumbled
forward, my hands out before me like a blind man, and came out of the alley
into the street. It was noisy and full of people. The lights hurt my eyes. I
stared up, and caught a vista of the town, and it was an eye-
numbing horizon of neon. I groaned.
A pair of overweight Mexican girls swinging huge purses went by, and tittered
to each other, saying something gutty but soft in Spanish. I called them
whores, putas!
I walked the streets for hours, seeing nothing, only feeling a pain far worse
than the ache that threatened to split my head open. I must have looked
hideous, because I came around a corner suddenly, and came face to face with a
heavyset Mexican whose eyes opened wide in amazement. He got a sick look and
walked around me. I didn't turn to see if he was still watching.
My pockets were empty, of course. All I knew was that I had to have a drink.
My mouth was sandy and my stomach ached. Not entirely from the stomping I'd
gotten. Oh, Jenny, oh, Fran!
I wandered into the Blue Fox, and there was a naked girl doing a nautch dance
on the bar. Sailors in civvies were trying to grab her crotch. She kept
twisting away from them. Then someone announced dinner was served and three
broads came out, undressed, and lay down on the bar. Hors d'oeuvres. Three
sickies jumped off their bar stools and went to fall down on the goodies. A
bouncer tapped me on the shoulder and I left. I was sick.
I went into an alley and puked. Twice. When I was as empty as I was ever going
to be, I tried to straighten myself up. I brushed off my clothes, raked my
hair back out of my face with a hand, and went in search of a job.
There was a hustler looking for handbill boys at the Rancho Grande, a spieler
for one nightclub told me, and I went over there. Three dollars and fifty
cents for two hours' work handing out handbills, putting them under the
windshield wipers of parked cars. I asked for a half dollar advance and was
handed a stack of handbills instead. I went off down the street like a trained
monkey, handing pieces of paper to people, pressing them into the hands of
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