I try to make it to the street, but Cuddles yanks me back. He hands me a knife and I hold it, looking meaner than I am. You ain’t never had a chance, I’m thinking and realizing it’s for Metro, not for me. Cuddles finishes and pulls out of Metro’s dripping mouth. His fist lands against Metro’s jaw, slamming it shut. I hear the crack of bone and a weak cry. The next thing I know, Maxie, still pumping Metro’s ass and slapping the cheeks with the blade broadside, draws blood, and once he finishes he shoots the blade in, then gets up quick, pulling the knife after him. Lou’s hand follows. Then a flash of metal and fists.

“Shit, man. Hold it,” I yell. “I thought we was only gonna fuck him. What the hell you guys doing?”

“Fucking him good,” says Lou.

“Stop. For God’s sake, stop.”

But they don’t stop.

“Oh my God. Oh my fucking God.” It’s all I can say, damn it. And I hear my name.

“Lonny?”

“Oh my God.”

“Lonny?” Metro’s voice is weak, his words slurring on wet red leaves. “Help me.”

Lou and Maxie jump together. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“Yeah,” says Cuddles. He kicks Metro back to the ground where his arms and legs spread like the gray limbs of a tree.

“Oh my fucking God.” I keep saying it, crying it. But it’s too late. The guys scatter into the street like roaches surprised by light. Running. They’re running. I look back at Metro and he rolls toward me. His still eyes cut me like a blade. “Never touched you,” the eyes say. “Never touched you.”

I hold my breath until my ears start to pound. I hold my head. I run, stop, run again. The knife drops somewhere. I run again. Don’t know where the fuck I’m going, just getting the hell out of there. Don’t see anybody on the street and not for the rest of the night. Not Lou, not Cuddles. Not anybody else at all.

October is red, man. Mean and red. Nobody came back there but me, see. And Metro was gone by then. Somebody had raked the leaves into a clean pile. I ran through it and scattered the leaves again. Once you get leaves and shit sticking all on you, you can never get them off. And when you start hearing the scratchy, hurt voices coming from them, the leaves I mean, not patches of skin or a body cut with knives, or a palm of broken fingers, you’ll start talking back, like I do. You stop hanging out at the meat-packing warehouses on West 12th or walking the loading platform mushy with animal fat and slime where your sneaks slip—not Adidas, but cheaper ones just as good.