Celebrate FMA

For any music lover spending Saturday indulging in the night life, it would be hard to fathom that two people were fighting for their lives in the alley beside one of Central City’s best Jazz Clubs. If a passerby took in the rich tones of a well-tuned trumpet performing a fine rendition of Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia ringing out and around the joyous roaring crowd inside The Dew Drop, nothing as serious as homicide would cross their mind. Yet two people fighting for their life and an attempted double homicide was exactly what was happening. Ed and Russell had stepped out the side door of the downtown pub in a futile attempt to hear each other once the conversation between them grew serious. Ed had gotten no further than asking Russell to repeat his last sentence before the shorter blonde man with the golden eyes had all but crumpled like a ragdoll at his companion’s feet. 

Before Russell could rush to Ed’s side or process what was going on, a masked and hooded man had lunged at him with a knife that was still dripping with Ed’s blood. A mixture of panic and honed reflexes saved him from ending up in a heap beside Ed in the dimly lit alleyway, but that left Russell about sixty seconds to come up with a plan because that stroke of luck wasn’t going to do anything but delay the inevitable. Yes, his forearm and the heel of his left hand had prevented the knife from striking it’s intended target - his throat - but with the way his assailant's right hand pushed in on his windpipe as his other hand continued to press forward with the knife, still left Russell a dead man if he didn’t act soon. 

Headlights from a vehicle turning into the mouth of the alley startled their attacker and Russell wasted no time bringing his leg up, planting his foot in the man’s stomach and kicking his attacker away from him. As soon as he could take in a decent breath of air he screamed. Russell had no idea what word or sound he made and it didn’t matter. All he knew was that he made it as loud as he possibly could. Spooked and no longer feeling so confident, the hooded man took off further down the alley and disappeared into the waiting darkness. By the time Russell dropped to his knees to check on Ed people were coming at him from several directions. They were shouting questions at him but he was so focused on the too still body in front of him that he couldn’t reply. When Ed finally coughed up blood and let out a pained groan relief flooded through Russell’s body. Ed was still alive which meant Russell could let the rest of the world trickle back into existence and haphazard focus.

The remainder of the incident faded into broken memories of people gathering around them, emergency vehicles, flashing lights and pain.

They had stepped out of The Dew Drop at 12:07AM by 12:41AM both of them were in surgery. 

A wise man once said that nothing good ever happened after midnight. He was right - and if they lived to see dawn they would forever keep that in mind.