“Look, I asked you nice once. That’s my car and I don’t want you guys sitting on it.”

“This piece of shit!” one says.

“Yeah, but it’s my piece a shit! Now, get off of it or I’ma have to go call the police, ’cause it’s my personal fucking property and I don’t want your drunk asses on it!”

“Fuck you!”

The next thing I know, one of ’em picks up a jack and is running towards me with it, but before I can even do anything, two of the other dudes are pulling my arms behind my back and I feel that hot steel hit my head and see blood gushing down my face, in my eyes, but because I got so much malt liquor in my system, the full extent of the pain ain’t registering. It’s this fucking alcohol that gave me all this goddamn courage to come storming out to this parking lot when I heard these motherfuckers out here partying, drinking beer, and blasting their loud-ass Mexican music.

But now that jack is landing in my chest and, fuck, I can’t breathe. Somebody else is kicking me in my back and on my side, and when I fall forward my face hits this pavement. When I roll over I see some guy swing that fucking jack like a golf club and I feel it slice the skin over my right eye off. I know it’s supposed to hurt more than it is, but all I see is blood and more blood. Blood and more blood. That’s all.

When I open my eyes, I can’t believe I’m in a hospital. I know these dudes didn’t hit me this bad. But I feel like 165 pounds of crushed ice and hot coals all at the same time. I can’t wait to find the motherfuckers when I get outta here. I remember exactly what they look like. I think.

“Hi, Lewis,” I hear Janelle say.

“What are you doing here?”

“That’s a stupid thing for you to ask under the circumstances.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“You almost died, Lewis.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Janelle? Some dudes jumped me. I was trying to protect my property, and . . .”

“Lewis, you were so drunk when the paramedics got there that, in addition to your head injuries, your nose wouldn’t stop bleeding.”

“They hit me in the head with a goddamn jack and I fell face-flat on the concrete!”

“I know they did.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they were caught.”

“Really? How?”

“Don’t worry about it right now. Listen to me, Lewis, this is serious.”

“I know it is.”

“No, I’m talking about your health. You didn’t just bleed where they hit you. You bled from your eyes and ears, and take a look at your goddamn fingernails.”

I’m almost too scared to, because Janelle is too shook up and I have never heard her swear. But she’s right, ’cause when I look down I see dried blood around my cracked cuticles. “What the hell do you mean, I bled from my eyes and ears? And how does a person bleed from their fingernails?”