The second one she hurled—by the central table she had raked half a dozen pint cans into her lap—missed; but she wasn’t screaming anymore. She turned in the seat and hurled the third one at Hogg. It hit his shoulder, and I don’t know if it was pain or surprise, but it stopped him.

“Hey, now, little lady—” the nigger said, hefting chain.

She whirled her chair to face him.

“Hey, now—” the wop repeated.

Her hands reversed directions on the wheels and she swung back; because the wop was a lot closer.

The wop said, “Maybe we can have ourselves some real fun with you!”

“Fuck you …!” she hissed. “Fuck you, you bastards—!” Another can came up, back, then forward.

The wop ducked left; which was a mistake, because she’d figured that was the way he was going. It hit him full in the face, and from pushing around in that chair, I guess, she had a pretty good arm.

The wop held his cheek. Rubbing it and squinting, he took a step forward.

“You leave her alone!” the woman shouted. “Don’t you touch her! Jimmy don’t have any argument with her! You bastards keep your hands off—” which is when the nigger, chains in both hands, threw them around her neck and yanked her against him.

The girl darted the wheelchair forward, swiveled again, then backed away. The cans rolled from her lap. One landed upright. Two rolled across the floor boards.

Then Denny and the wop rushed her.

Denny went around one side of the center table. The wop pushed over the grinning man in bib overalls (cardboard) unreeling a spool of green rubber garden hose (the hose on its metal spool was real), and came around the other.

Her chair swiveled again, then backed toward me.

When it was about to run into me, I grabbed one handle and leaped aside, tugging. The chair went up on one wheel—the girl shouted and so did the woman—spun on its wheel, and crashed to its side.

The girl’s shout just cut. She slid across the floor, her arms crossing over her pink sweater and her head going down and one knee buckling up, the other leg dragging. She had on funny shoes, laced high, almost like Hogg’s workshoe; and the foot that dragged was leaning in the wrong direction. The wheelchair crashed on top of her ankle, tilted further, then back, the big wheel with its two-inch smaller rim spinning.

With Denny just behind him, the wop stopped. He put his hand in his pocket. I saw it moving but I couldn’t tell on what.

The girl pushed herself up on her hands, tried to drag herself away, but she couldn’t get her foot loose from under the chair.