Blood-drenched Beard

He glances around and sees faces hungry for violence. Beta is sitting between him and the local, tired and confused, hungry and strangled, oblivious to the nature of the dispute. The animal his father loved more than anything. On his left, in the distance, a delicate veil of daylight glimmers on the horizon over the ocean. More or less here, on this same stretch of beach, his grandfather sank into the night sea and never returned, after rising up from a pool of blood as a whole town looked on, riddled with a hundred stab wounds, the living-dead going home. Right there where the waves are now breaking, grinning white smiles in the darkness. In the icy-cold water that helped Beta walk again. Beta, the old dog that everyone had given up on. Maybe that was what his father had feared. Not dying easily. Not dying ever.

The dog’s mine, and everyone here knows it. You’ve all seen me with her ever since I arrived. I’m taking her back, and I’ll be off now.

He bends over to start undoing the knot and receives a kick in the side of the face. There is a crack, and he feels tooth fragments on his tongue. Beta barks desperately. He and his attacker quickly end up on the sidewalk, and the group of locals starts in on him, from all sides. He manages to land a couple of punches, but he can no longer see a thing. Someone grabs him by the hair. His head is smashed a single time against the hood of a car, and blood stops up his nose and fills his mouth. A flying kick in the back brings him down in the middle of the road. He pulls his knees toward his chest as they continue to attack him, unable to react now. He hears Beta barking until it is over.

A car stops in the middle of the street, and its headlights reveal the silhouettes of those who have been watching from a safe distance. More and more people arrive. He manages to sit on the curb and realizes that he has been kicked right across the street to the beach promenade. He keeps his mouth closed and is afraid to open it, as if something vital might leak out.

Get him out of here, someone says.

Take him down to the sand.

Several hands pick him up by the arms and legs. He is carried for a time and then gently placed on the cold, hard sand, as if they now want to be careful not to hurt him. He lies there, his breathing heavy and bubbling with blood.

Sit him up.

Someone helps him sit, and he wavers like a gymnast making a concerted effort to keep his balance.

Can you make it home?

I need to get my dog.

Go home.

They leave, and his sight slowly returns. He is sitting facing the sea with the wall of the promenade at his back. Two men come down the nearest set of steps and approach him.

How are you?

Need some help?

He needs to go to a hospital.

Do you want to go to a hospital?

Where do you live?

He’s having trouble talking.

I’m going to call the police.

Stay here with him.

One of the men crouches down next to him and asks him the occasional question, but he isn’t listening. All he can hear is Beta’s tireless, surreal barking. She managed to make it back. Starving. Limping. She made it all the way back through the hills.

He starts to get up. It takes him a while, but he manages. He stands there for a few minutes, coughing and steadying his feet on the ground. The man looking after him holds his arm and tells him to stay still, but he pulls his arm away and looks at him with an expression that makes words unnecessary, because the man doesn’t touch him again. He takes a few tentative steps. He can walk.

He stumbles across the sand to the steps, climbs them, walks a little way along the promenade, and starts back across the street toward the bar and Beta’s barking. He wipes the blood from his eyes with his sleeves and has another little fit of coughing. Those who are still standing around talking about the fight stop talking and stare at him. Someone in the bar points across the street, and everyone else turns to look. He stops two paces away from the sidewalk.

Five men are sitting at one of the tables. The mustached bartender is behind the counter drying cups with a white tea towel. Everyone stares, and no one says a thing. He has already forgotten what they look like and glances from one to another, feeling the blood running into his eyes, blinking without stopping, and frowning with his swollen face. Four of the five are wearing baseball caps, three are blond, and he can’t take in any more than that. He places his hand around his chin and runs it all the way down to the tip of his blood-drenched beard, which drips into a small puddle on the white paving stones.

Which one of you was it that took my dog?

You’re kidding.

He’s in a state of shock.

He takes a step closer and runs his tongue over his teeth, feeling two crushed molars and a loose canine.

I forget people’s faces. Now, who was it?

It was me.

Ah, right.

Still not happy, jerk?

Can I take my dog now?

Give him the dog, for Christ’s sake, says the bartender with the mustache. The dog’s mine, says the local.