“Yeah, I seem to recall that,” Sneakers said. “You got us both detention for that.”

“That wasn’t even the worst part,” Boots said angrily. “Sensi—what did they call it?”

“Sensitivity and awareness,” Sneakers said with a sneer. “An hour-long video. Plus the counseling. See, Manolo, you gotta pay for all that. It’s not just you being a homo—you were a homo who ratted us out.”

“That’s extra beating.”

“That’s blood. And something broken. And maybe a dead faggot,” Sneakers said.

Manolo cried and tried again to insert the key. Boots grabbed his hand, crushing the keys in his grip. Manolo yanked his hand away, and Boots smashed the fat end of the baseball bat into his solar plexus.

Manolo lost every atom of air in his lungs, clutched his stomach, and sagged into the side of his car.

“That hurt, homo? Did that hurt?” Sneakers gave him a shove with the crowbar, sending Manolo staggering into the other attacker.

“What, you think you eyeball me in the shower and all you get is one beating?” Boots demanded.

“I didn’t . . .” Manolo squeezed the words out but could say no more.

“Are you saying he’s not good-looking enough for you, faggot?”

“I think he’s dissing me,” Boots said, picking up on his companion’s snark. “Except we know better, don’t we? Because I saw him watching me. Yeah. And the more I think about it, one little beating is just not enough.”

“Just let me go . . . My mom . . . Someone will see you,” Manolo said. He had his elbows down to guard his sides and stomach, while keeping his hands up, scrunching down to guard his head.

Sneakers swung the crowbar into the back of Manolo’s legs.

“Ahhh!” Manolo cried. “Ahhh. Ahhhh!”

“Cry, you pussy!” Boots said. He shouldered his bat, just as if he was at home plate waiting for a fastball. He swung at shoulder height, cutting slightly upward, aiming squarely for Manolo’s head.

Manolo ducked. The bat ruffled his hair as it flew past and smashed into Sneakers’s cheek. The sound of breaking bone was as loud as a firecracker, followed by a howl of pain from Sneakers, who dropped his crowbar to grab his face.

“Dude!” Boots yelled.

“Ow ow ow ow!” Sneakers cried as tears filled his eyes.

Manolo tried to run but tripped over Sneakers’s feet and landed hard on the blacktop, elbows and knees.

Boots cursed furiously and aimed a hasty blow that punched into Manolo’s kidney, bringing new cries of pain to join those still pouring from Sneakers.

“I will kill you! Kill you, you—” Boots raised his bat again, but Manolo lashed out desperately and drove a foot against Boot’s knee, and the bully staggered back.

In a flash Manolo had rolled over, powered to his feet, and come up holding the dropped crowbar.

Boots saw it and grew wary. “Oh, you want to throw down, faggot? I was just going to beat you. Now I’m a kill you! You hear me?”

Sneakers rallied and came rushing in a murderous rage to hit Manolo from behind with a flying tackle that drove him into Boots. The three of them went down in a tangle of fists and feet and elbows, all yelling, crying, cursing, and then, somehow Manolo was up again, still holding the crowbar. His breaths came in furious gasps, loud, almost musical, and he swung the crowbar down once, hard, hitting Sneakers and shattering his collarbone.

Boots was trying to get to his feet while still holding the bat, but he was too slow and Manolo caught him with a hard, horizontal blow that broke his elbow. The bat went twirling off across the parking lot.

An adult male voice yelled, “Hey, hey! We’ve called the cops!” I glanced over and saw a youngish married couple next to their car, watching cautiously.

But Manolo was in no condition anymore to hear. He was in a rage. He was pure, distilled fury. He swung the crowbar again, and this time the thick steel bar landed with a horrible crunch on Boots’s head.

Boots stopped trying to stand.

Manolo hit him again, and now blood was pouring down Boots’s face, and Manolo hit him again as the woman from the couple yelled, “Stop it, stop it, you’re killing him!”

And he was.

Manolo hit him three more times, sobbing as he did it, cursing, spitting down into the jellied mass that was his tormentor’s head.

I had no time to prepare or ward off the physical reaction that took hold of me, forcing me to bend over and vomit onto the pavement.

How can I explain that reaction except to say that I had never before witnessed anything as violent before. Samantha Early’s death had been awful beyond anything I had seen up to that moment, but I had known it was coming. I saw it coming. It had about it an air of stateliness, almost, of inevitability. I was prepared.

I had no preparation for the animal frenzy that had erupted before me. I had never heard the sound of steel thudding again and again onto meat and bone. And all of it had happened so very quickly that I had no time to shift my sympathies. For at first I was happy that Manolo had prevailed. Mere seconds passed from that emotion to the physical rejection of the brutality I saw following.

I heard a siren. I saw flashing lights.

Manolo searched the ground for his keys, but his eyes were filled with tears and his mind was deranged by the most desperate feelings of pain and anger, regret and savage triumph, all mixed together.

In the end he just leaned back against the car, panting, spent. I heard the crowbar clatter to the ground. I heard Sneakers whining and saying, “He broke my face, he broke my face,” over and over again.