“We never doubted that, not for one single sec, fellows.” Robert, our leader—being the natural platinum blond—now got pressed back against a storefront grate. He asked the gangboss (the one with the gun), “What you need, man? Like some pretty flowers?—No. Say you want all my money I got?—Spent it. Back there. Fuckin’ clip joint. Cover charges, two-drink minimum. No fair to us, is it? I mean, you guys go out. You know the clubs.”

They told him he looked rich. “Give us it. Don’t, we pop you.”

“Fellows? If I had it, you’d be spending it by now. Trust me. Can’t give you cash I should have. Check my pockets. We are walking home, right? It is four a.m., whatever. We did liberate the centerpiece. You figure we’d risk a stroll if we had a subway token or anything to hide?”

Shifting magnolias into one hand, his other strained to pull one pocket free of his velvet pants. Soon as I saw my friend’s back tense, preparing, I knew this would be a bad move. It might seem sudden. It did. Robert’s confidence always inspired him to rush things to their next theatrical level, then the next.

The outturned pocket showed white as a truce flag. But the second it appeared, one boy came at me and placed something into my side. I saw his eyes choosing just where it should go. It felt like one of the long hatpins my grandmother used to secure her black hats. Having placed a long pin in me, the kid stepped back.

Then the gun swung down on Robert. It cracked a new sound loose. The word SEWER seemed to appear overhead. Magnolias did one clownish roll into the gutter. Robbie’s arms flew way way out. Next phrase I got was “MANNED FLIGHT.” The pistol whipping was, in memory, just a single heavy curving blow. But it had these filmy strips spoked within it, like big feathers comprising a single silver beating wing.

I was left standing untouched except for the hatpin burning my entire left sector. Had I been less rich-looking, not an apparent leader? Robert was down. The kids ran, cursing, hurling back at us the insult word beginning F-, a description of gay men that I cannot bring myself to write here even now. How had they known? Were the velvet and magnolias a magnet tip-off? But that year everyone was wearing velvet!

Robert waited on his back, palms up and opened alongside his head. The street had grown far darker. I saw his arms and legs now moving like a swimmer’s. “Back stroke,” I thought. I heard a bubbling sound. It seemed I’d have a long way to bend down in order to help him. Just as I commenced stooping, a pain the likes of which I’d never inhabited (seemed I was in it, not the other way round) that pain and a gush of crackling adrenaline struck me at the back of either knee. I fell half on top of him. “Here’s another fine mess we’ve gotten us into.” I tried “wit.” My left hand clutched my left side and I knew what the warmth was but remained fixed upon the one hurt worse.