Page 113 of Near Miss

“What advice?”

“How to thwart this guy, Sarge, and keep him from killing me.”

“How?”

“By killing him first.”

“How can I help?”

“Go armed and shoot first.”

“You mean, seriously?”

“You should take him seriously, though I have no reason to think he knows you exist.”

“So I should run from somebody who isn’t chasing me?”

“Sort of like that. I do think you should stay away from me, until this thing is resolved.”

“Youwantme to stay away from you?”

“No, no, that’s certainly not what I want. It’s just that I don’t want to contribute to making your existence worse.”

“You think I have a bad existence?”

“No, but I think it would make your life worse if someone is trying to kill you.”

Carly thought about that. “I was in a similar position once, but I figured out how to resolve it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, when I was about fifteen, there was this little shit named Bobby Haney in my class who thought he would amuse himself by making my life hell. He hit me a couple of times, and it hurt, but I was faster than he was, so I ran. Then I got tired of running.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I got some books from the library on self-defense, read them, and practiced for about a month. I saw a couple of films on the subject, too. I got pretty good at it, I figured, but I still had a problem: my weight deficiency. I knew that if Bobby Haney hit me, he could hurt me so badly that I couldn’t defend myself, so I worked on not getting hit.”

“Did that work?”

“I had to find out using the real thing, not a dummy, so I sort of put myself in harm’s way. I went to the gym after school, when I knew the wrestling team would be working out, and I waited until they had finished and were leaving the mats, then I walked over to where Bobby Haney was toweling himself off and just stood there. He was the last to leave, but then he saw me. He said something like, ‘You little cunt.’ So I spat in his eye. I’m still a pretty good spitter.”

“And what did Haney do?”

“What I knew he would do. He ran at me. I did a little sidestep and tripped him. He fell off the mat, onto the hardwood floor and landed on his chin. I figured that was as good as hitting him there, because he bit his tongue.”

“Okay, tell me why you’re still alive.”

“When Haney got up, I kicked him in the ribs, and he went down again. He kept doing that, and so did I. Pretty soon, he couldn’t get up anymore; he was sort of helpless. So, I walked slowly over to where he sat, pulled his chin up, and hit him in the nose, as hard as I could. I felt the cartilage break. He spouted blood, but he still couldn’t get to his feet. I could hear feet behind me, running toward me, so I turned and dodged a couple of wrestlers, tripped one of them, who fell into a pool of Haney’s blood. The other one stopped, and just stood there, no doubt wondering whose blood he was seeing.”

“What happened then?”

“I just looked at Haney and said to him, ‘I don’t want to see you again, except in class. Anywhere else, and I’ll hurt you.’ ”

“And that was it?”

“I never saw him again, except in class.”

“That’s a good story, Carly, but we’re not dealing with school bullies here. So please don’t try that, if anybody bothers us.”

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