Big Swiss(94)

The other guy snorted. “Let me guess—it was an Opinel.”

“What?”

“Those fancy French pocket knives.”

“No, this was like a hunting knife. I thought it was a cleaver at first, but the blade wasn’t broad enough.”

“Shit,” the other guy said. “Jesus.”

“Yeah. And he didn’t just brandish the knife—he started thrusting and parrying like he was in West Side Story. It was so over-the-top, I almost started laughing.”

“Was the townie laughing?”

“Oh no. He was stony as hell. He just watched the kid slice at the air. But then he suddenly came to life—he put up his dukes and started bobbing and weaving. For a minute I thought it was all a performance, and I actually looked around for the film crew, like were they shooting from a rooftop?”

“Yeah, I’m surprised more movies aren’t filmed here,” the other guy said. “Like at the Basilica—”

“Hold on. The townie—I don’t know how he did it, but he moved in really fast and somehow maneuvered the knife away from the city guy. It looked like a magic trick. Now the townie was holding the knife. I thought that’d be the end of it, that he’d just walk away, but—” Onions looked pale and sweaty. Greta watched him mop his forehead with a wrinkled bandana. “He fucking stabbed the kid in the stomach, like eight or nine times.”

“What?” the other one said. “He did not!”

Greta’s heart fluttered, though she didn’t know why—it wasn’t the first stabbing she’d heard about in Hudson.

“It happened so fast I thought I was hallucinating. The city guy probably thought he was hallucinating, too. The look on his face? I’ve never seen such disbelief.”

“Holy shit, the poor guy was probably up here for the weekend, staying in an Airbnb, hiking the Catskills—”

“Right, never in a million years thinking he’d get stabbed. I mean, you come here to get away.”

“Then what?”

“The townie wasn’t even winded. It was like he’d just chopped up some chicken for a salad or something.”

“What’d you do?” the other one said. “Did you call the cops?”

“I was in shock, dude. People were streaming out of both places, and there was blood fucking everywhere. The city guy was completely covered, and there was blood all over the ground in, like, puddles.”

“It’s easy to forget how much blood we have inside us,” said the other one.

Greta’s stomach gurgled.

“The kid was in the fetal position, clutching his stomach, and blood was still pouring out of him, like a tap had been opened. I’m not ashamed to admit—I started crying. Like, hard. Like a tap had been opened in me, too.”

“What was the townie doing?”

“Just standing there. He finally dropped the knife when he heard sirens. All the Deb’s people were going berserk, crying, screaming, and a couple of them were comforting the kid, covering him with towels, holding his hand, asking him questions, but the kid just—I mean, he was weeping. In the movies, a guy gets stabbed and he’s in shock, right, just lying there, blinking at the sky. Not this guy. He was wide awake and, like, fully there. It was fucking intense, dude. But I think he lost consciousness before the ambulance arrived.”

“What about the Cousin’s people? What were they doing?”

“Just standing around, shaking their heads, acting like tourists got stabbed in their alley every day. Then about sixteen cops showed up and arrested the townie, and the poor kid was taken away in the ambulance, but there was still blood everywhere, and some folks were throwing up. Literally vomiting all over the place. I was so traumatized, I couldn’t work the next day. I felt like I’d been stabbed. I mean, the way he was crying? Like he hadn’t cried in years, and it was all coming out, and I remembered reacting like that once when my dad told me he hated my paintings. I was making nude self-portraits at the time and he said that my body—”

“But what do you think they were fighting about?”

Thank you, Greta thought.

“No clue,” Onions said.

“I bet it was a turf thing,” said the other one. “The city guy probably wandered in there and asked for a mojito, and the townie was like, ‘Get the fuck out of here, son’—”

“Yeah, well, the townie seemed like a sociopath. Like my dad—”

“But imagine getting stabbed with your own knife, man. I mean, is there anything more humiliating?”

“No,” Onions said, and sniffed.

“I wonder if he’s even alive,” the other one said. “If you lose that much blood, you can’t just add it back. It’s, like, a whole process. Takes weeks, I think. Not to mention the damage to his organs.”

They were quiet for a full minute. Greta noticed she was five minutes late.

“Have you tried the ceviche at Lil’ Deb’s?” Onions said.

“I usually get the Plato Tropical,” the other one said. “With avocado.”



* * *



UPSTAIRS, Om led her into his office and asked why she was limping. Greta told him she’d stepped on glass and that it was still lodged in her foot. He asked that she take off her shoes, and she reluctantly removed her sandals and sat on the pink love seat. Om sat opposite her, gazing at her bare feet. She thought he might examine her foot, or at least comment on the fact that her feet didn’t match. Instead, he got right to it and asked Greta where she’d been on the day her mother killed herself.