The restaurant was located in a small three-block area teeming with businesses designed for couples and groups of friends to kick back and have fun on the weekend. Every weekend the district would be swarming with people, the shop fronts consisting mainly of restaurants and bars with a few stores and a porn shop boasting twenty-five cent peep shows thrown in for good measure for those who really wanted to spice up their weekend or were a little lonely. There was even a small arthouse cinema that served beer. Coupled with the lax open container laws for the district, it gave the area a Bourbon Street feel.
The walk to the restaurant was eerily quiet for a Friday evening with the exception of one car that raced by, blaring its horn as it went. I assumed the sirens were the police and emergency personnel attending a traffic accident and must have blocked the roads into downtown. We didn’t see anyone out walking for the few blocks between our apartment and the busy nightlife district, which struck me as odd, since even on the deadest day you’d pass at least a few people. Callie and I rounded a corner to find the area a lot less busy than normal. As we continued down the street toward the restaurant my gut told me there was something off about the few people milling about. Not that I didn’t expect to see a homeless person, it was inevitable living downtown, but this street was usually clear of vagrants. I was never sure if the police kept a close eye on the area or if the business owners scared them off. To me it seemed the perfect area for them to collect change from generous drunks looking to spend their money. There would always be at least one or two asking for change or a cigarette on a Friday night, hidden among the groups of merrymakers. Today the street was teeming with them. Or what appeared to be displaced people.
Everyone had that slow confused shamble about them the homeless population had. But with the exception of one disheveled man approaching us, fumbling with a bent and unlit cigarette, the other people were dressed in what I would’ve described as ‘regular’ clothing, carrying their usual bottle or cup of beer.
The disheveled man called, “Hey! Pretty ladies! Got a light?!” as he approached us.
Callie gripped my hand tighter and said under her breath, “Son,” which she pronounced as the shortened version of my name.
The man had almost reached us but I kept a determined pace to pass him and head toward the restaurant. I figured the best strategy was to ignore him as his facial expression was gleeful and spacey and I didn’t think the interaction was going to go well. But he was persistent.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, waving the cigarette at me. “Got a light?”
As we passed him I said, “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”
We picked up our pace. The restaurant was only a block and a half away. I was anxious to be seated with Callie, all the troubles of the outside world muted by the intimacy of our date.
“Really?” he called. “’Cause you’re smoking right now. Smoking hot! I could light my cigarette on that ass!”
“What the fuck?” Callie snorted a laugh.
I bit back my own laugh until a beefy fraternity guy began to cross the street, heading toward us. He wore a university team shirt, cut off sweat shorts, and leather sandals. The man waved a bottle of Bud Light at us and said, “Hey, babe, I’m studying to be an astronaut. Can I look at Uranus?”
“What?!” Callie exclaimed.
She stumbled over her heels and I grabbed her forearm to catch her from falling. The man kept coming toward us and another person on the street yelled, “Are those space pants?! ’Cause your ass is out of this world!”
“Come on,” I said to Callie. “We’re almost there.”
“Hey!” the frat guy yelled.
We passed him before he’d managed to cross the street. He followed us. Callie limped slightly and I assumed she might have twisted her ankle. I was forever giving her a hard time and calling her high heels ‘ankle breakers’. I felt terrible dragging her down the sidewalk but the frat guy was obviously drunk and I wanted to get Callie into the safety of the restaurant.
The frat guy was closer than I thought. “Are you two bitches dykes or something?”
A man across the street wearing a button down shirt and khaki pants said, “Are you Japanese? ’Cause I’m about to get in japanties!” He held his pointer and middle fingers in the shape of a V and wagged his tongue between them.
Callie made a disgusted sound as we reached the door for the restaurant. I noticed several other men further down the street walking toward us. Each of them was shouting at us but they were too far away for me to comprehend what they were saying. But by what was being said to us from the other men I could only imagine.
What happened next proceeded swifter than my mind could process. I reached for the handle of the glass door leading to the restaurant to open it for Callie. The frat guy slammed into her and pressed her up against the brick exterior of the building between the door and a bench with a metal cigarette extinguishing pole situated by it. She screamed as he ran his hand under her skirt. I grabbed the man’s upper arm and tried to pull him away but he was much bigger than me and Callie combined.
“Get off my girlfriend!” I shouted and jerked the guy’s arm.
He shook me off effortlessly and pressed his lips to Callie’s ear and said, “That bitch doesn’t have a dick. She can’t satisfy you. I know you want my fat cock in your pussy.” He began to fumble with the front of his shorts.
Callie screamed my name and clawed at the brick wall. I saw red. I lunged for the overflowing cigarette extinguisher. I picked it up and almost fell. The contents in the bottom were heavier than I imagined. I swung it blindly, not thinking about Callie’s safety, only wanting to stop the man from defiling her. The pole struck the man hard across his lower back. He yelled. Callie yelped. I lost my grip on the extinguisher and it rattled noisily on the sidewalk. The man stumbled backward. His shorts and underwear dropped to his ankles. Callie scrambled toward the door of the restaurant, sobbing. She managed to open the door with shaking hands and held it for me. She cried my name frantically but the man was now between me and the door.
He turned his attention to me. His penis was erect. He lifted his arms as if he wanted to grope my breasts and shuffled toward me.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “Wanna fuck?”
The man in the khaki pants was halfway across the street now. He called, “Do you work at Subway? Because you just gave me a foot-long!”
Callie shrieked, “Sonya!” in the open doorway of the restaurant.
I knew I couldn’t wield the cigarette extinguisher again in time so I resorted to the oldest trick in the book. I braced my feet to steady myself, took a couple of steps toward the frat guy, swung my right leg back, and delivered a hard kick to his exposed scrotum. He did not yell or grasp at his nuts. He immediately fell slack and dropped forward. I jumped to the side in time for him to fall full-force on his face. When his head hit the sidewalk it made the same sound I remembered from my childhood when my brother and I smashed a pumpkin on the sidewalk after Halloween. The man didn’t move.
“Sonya!” Callie screamed. “Watch out!”
I turned to find the other man in the khaki pants stepping on the curb. I hurdled the frat guy on the ground and rushed into the restaurant. Callie pulled the door shut behind me and held the handle to keep it closed. I grabbed the handle also and pulled it along with her before I noticed the spinning lever lock and flipped it. Callie and I stared wide-eyed at the khaki pants man as he continued toward us. The frat guy was still face down with his shorts around his ankles, unmoving, and I wondered if he’d knocked himself unconscious or was possibly dead. I wasn’t sure what the effects of smacking your head against concrete were but I was content knowing whatever they may be the man deserved them. Maybe he’d received some brain damage. Although it appeared he might have already been brain damaged before our encounter.