On Cringila Hill by Noel Beddoe

man is out and running at Jimmy. There’s the shadow of another at the driver’s side, struggling with a seatbelt. Jimmy hears, ‘Give us your fucken stash ,’ close enough to get the strong, sour smell of beer. He rocks forward on the balls of his feet, links one hand clasped onto the back of the other, smashes forward at the head, feels the shudder all through his arms and shoulders as heavy impact drives nosebone and cartilage backwards and up into the skull, and then the heavy body has crashed into him, falling. Jimmy is bowled backwards and down, he can feel wet asphalt under his elbows and along the backs of his thighs and he rolls to be clear of the falling body. He gets his feet under himself, balances, springs up and kicks clear of the figure beneath him.
    The driver is out and reaching Jimmy, grasps fingers and thumbs around his neck, trying to crush the windpipe. Jimmy struggles for a second, but then the driver grunts as though struck powerfully, releases, and Jimmy sees that Piggy has tackled this man from behind, grasping him with thin arms. For a moment the three are tangled, until the driver smashes back his elbow into Piggy’s chest, twice, three times. Jimmy is loose, sees exposed the artery at the side of the throat, draws back his right fist behind his shoulder, shifts his weight forward, pivots his torso, pushes ahead from his thigh muscles, and releases the punch, straightens his arm with just a little way to travel. He punches as he’s been taught, as though his fist is to emerge on the other side of the target, sees the head bounce, sees the knees buckle, feels the smash all down his right arm, watches the man slide to the bitumen. Jimmy turns. The passenger has raised himself to his knees. Jimmy feels a flush of anger run through his body, explode in his belly, he feels a rage that makes his hands tremble. He wears steelworkers lace-up boots with metal stitched between leathers at the toe. He swings back his right foot, kicks at the mouth, follows through, feels the smash of flesh and teeth, feels his ankle buckle at the weight of the impact, draws back his foot, kicks again into the rib cage, getting up under the ribs aiming for the heart, then turns to see that the driver is sitting with his back against a car door, Jimmy pivots, balances, kicks the driver, head, hip, between ribs, feels the pounding of his own pulse beating in his forehead.
    â€˜Jim,’ he hears.
    Jimmy stops, breathing hard, looks to see Piggy bent over, illuminated in the glow from the headlights. Jimmy sees the fall of rain over the smaller boy, hears the beat of the car’s windscreen wipers.
    â€˜Jim,’ Piggy says, ‘that’s maybe enough.’
    Jimmy watches his companion, hears the wipers swish and growl, rubs the back of a hand across his lips. ‘Go,’ he says, ‘I’ll get the shit.’
    Piggy pulls away from the car bonnet and is still hunched over as he trots along the alley heading west. Jimmy can hear bubbling sounds coming from the mouth of the attacker who is lying against the wall of the convent school. He sees the driver lift a hand a little way, let it fall back, lift it again. Jimmy walks across to a fence beside the alley, swings himself over into a dark backyard. He stoops beside an empty dog kennel, reaches inside for a hessian sack which rustles when he lifts it. He hurries down the driveway onto the footpath beside a residential street, heads west to Cowper Street, crosses, makes for the low wire fence of the primary school.
    He feels the throb and hears the tinny growl of his telephone. He retrieves the phone from a pocket after he’s clambered over the fence.
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Jim?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Feizel.’
    â€˜I can tell.’
    â€˜How’re you doin’?’
    â€˜Not too fucken flash.’
    â€˜Yeah. Scott got hit over by the lake at Berkeley.’
    â€˜Oh, fuck.’
    â€˜Yeah. They