– He stole my fucking girlfriend.

That was really all I need, just the sound of his voice, the echo behind it as it bounced off the drain walls and ceiling, that pretty much pins him down for me. Close enough I can jump over anything between us, a few yards maybe, no worry about going down a suck hole. Once I’m on him there won’t be anything at all to worry about.

But my curiosity gets hold of me.

– He stole your girl?

– Yeah. Motherfucker. We’ve been shacked five months. Fucker, that chair, man’s got not just no legs, got no stomach, nothing, fucking pathetic. Sits up on Fifth Ave and just rakes it in. Everyone else going broke, legless motherfucker always has a bottle to wave at the ladies. Asked her, what he’s got I don’t got. Already know what he ain’t got. Got no fucking dick.

– What she say?

I hear his spit hit water.

– Says he got class.

We both think about that for a second. His curiosity gets hold of him.

– Why the fuck do you care? Fuck you run after me? Seen you around, one-eye, never had a beef. Never saw you chum up with the cripple. Why the fuck you chase me down here? Motherfucker, into my drains. Been in the tunnel how long? You know shit down here. Come after me. You’re fucking the crazy one. Come after me in the drains. Why’d you do that?

I check my footing, make sure there’s nothing to slip on under the soles of my boots.

– You got something I want.

He laughs.

– Motherfucker, you got the wrong man, I ain’t got shit. All I had was a girlfriend. Cripple got her. Now all I got is a blade. You want to come and get it?

– No, you can keep that, I got my own.

I jump, push off, arms out, leaving my feet as if to make a tackle in a football game, except leading with a fifteen-inch amputation blade I found in the rusted tangle of an old shopping cart at the mouth of an outlet three months ago. I used a river stone to hone away the rust, losing about two millimeters of the blade’s width in the process, but after wrapping a quarter of a roll of yellow friction tape around the tang to replace the bone handles that had rotted away, I had a serviceable piece of cutlery that could fend off most trouble just through the act of slipping it from the drop sheath I’d rigged inside my jacket with a section of bicycle inner tube and more tape.