“From where?”
“The forest or whatever.”
“He was hiding in the trees?”
“I don’t know.He just walked out and came right up to me.Abig guy, like, probably over six feet.”
“Taller than you?”
“Yeah, definitely.And he had this bottle in one hand, and he asked if I had a light, and I said no, and he kept walking straight at me, and I told him again I didn’t have a light, and then he was right there in front of me.And he hit me in the face with the bottle.”Tip dragged his gaze back to me and licked his lips.“And that’s the last thing I remember.”
“What’d he look like?”
“He was big.”
“You said that.”
“I don’t know.Oh, he had a beard.”He gestured to show that the beard had been long.
“Race?”
“Huh?”
“Was he white?Black?Latino?”
“Definitely white.”
“Age?”
“I don’t know, man.Maybe, like, forty?”
“What kind of clothes was he wearing?”
“Just, you know, jeans and a shirt.Oh!And one of those leather vests bikers wear, you know?”
“Yeah, I’m getting a pretty good picture.What about anything distinctive?A birthmark, a mole, a scar?”
Tip frowned as though thinking.“Yeah.Yeah, he had a tattoo of—of a swastika.On his neck.”
I nodded.
“That’s why Jordan said it was, you know, gay-bashing.”
“Are you gay?”
“What?Yeah.”He didn’t sayobviouslyout loud, but it was there.
“And that’s all that happened?He walked out of the woods, asked you for a light, and hit you in the face with the bottle?”
“That’s all.”
“What do you remember after that?”
“I told you: nothing.I think it was, like, shock.Because of the trauma.”
“Right,” I said.I gave the arm of my chair another jiggle, just to see if it might pop off.
Tip was still staring at me.
