THE EYEMAN

The three Marines walked abreast with Marco to the right, Stinza on the left and Royce in the middle. Royce required some support. Stinza, amazingly, still had his superhuman strength even after ten beers.

“We gotta stop.” Royce looked from side-to-side at his comrades. “I gotta puke or pee. Maybe both.” They were halfway to the Bamboo Loo.

“I definitely haffta take a leak.” Stinza looked around for a private spot. The triad entered a dark alley smelling of urine and garbage.

“This must be the place.” Stinza gratefully acknowledged the darkened space. He unzipped and began urinating on a wall.

Royce did the same but had to place both hands on the wall to remain erect. He vomited mostly beer but with some definite solid residues from the evening meal. Marco looked on with disgust. He and Leon would never debase the Marine Corps with such physical weakness.

Out of the darkness, from the depths of the alley three figures rapidly set upon them. Royce had his legs whacked out from under him and fell backwards away from his emesis. Stinza turned his head directly into the descending arc of a pipe. Marco caught his assailant by the upraised right arm wielding a 2-foot pipe and hit its owner rapidly in the chest, the kidney and then back-chopped his hand into the Adams-apple. Marco tackled the figure about to kick Royce and slapped his rigid palms over both of the attacker’s ears. His motion from the slap went quickly to a firm grip on the Vietnamese chin with his left hand. Marco’s right hand went to the back of the man’s head. One fast clockwise motion and a loud snap announced the disconnection of the brain from the spinal cord. Stinza was staggering from the blow he received but was holding the non-descript mugger by both wrists. Marco came behind the Vietnamese and delivered two simultaneous lateral chops to each rib cage. He reached in front and pulled the chin back toward him with his left arm and hand, allowing Stinza to let go. This action was punctuated with his right hand directing the tip of his boot knife to reach the victim’s heart inside the chest, filleting open the right ventricle.

Stinza shrunk down to a sitting position breathing heavily. Royce was laying on his right side turning to look at the three bodies of their attackers. Marco moved over each body before attending to his comrades. He didn’t want the muggers to return back to life–ever. Royce watched in horror as the enucleation of six eyes proceeded with swift surgical precision. He and Stinza would owe Marco.