Panthera Spelaea

The subway was crowded with other workers on the way home. I ended up standing after two stops, giving up my seat for an older lady. Svetlana had the bag of food on her lap, and the smell of it was making everyone hungry.

The car started to empty as we moved towards the suburbs, and that’s when the three punks moved in. The woman sitting next to Svetlana got off, and one of the punks sat in her place before I could move over there. His two buddies stood where they blocked the view of the seats from me, and I didn’t follow the words in Russian. They looked to be in their late teens, and from the way the other riders turned away, they had other riders intimidated.

I responded to the scent of fear and the sound of my woman’s voice as she told them no, and they laughed.

I put my hands on the facing shoulders of the punks in front of me, turning them towards me. “нет (no), leave her alone,” I growled as they looked at me in shock.

“Fuck you, Amerikanski,” the guy on the right said. Meanwhile, the punk sitting down had his hand under Svetlana’s shirt, and she was struggling to keep him from groping her breast.

The talkative guy tried to turn back to Lana, but my grip wouldn’t let him. The more he struggled, the harder my hand squeezed him. The sound of his collarbone snapping, followed by his scream, just escalated the situation. He fell to the ground like a pussy.

“Ты мертв (You’re dead),” the man on the left said as he pulled a switchblade out of his pocket. I let go of his right shoulder as his right hand brought the four-inch blade up towards my chest. I caught his wrist with my right hand as I stepped behind him. I felt the bones in his wrist getting crushed, mixed with the loud pop of his shoulder dislocating as I shoved his hand up to the back of his neck. He dropped the blade as he screamed. My left hand grabbed his belt, and I rotated my body right. I slammed his face into the car’s vertical support pole, knocking him out.

The leader of this little group turned to me in time to see his buddies get destroyed in six seconds flat. He started to get up but didn’t get far. My right hand shot to his throat, and I yanked him up and out of the seat before he could do anything to stop me. Once I was holding him a foot in the air, his focus went to breathing. “Svetlana, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, but I could tell she was not. They had harmed what was mine, and for that, they would pay.

“Translate for me. Tell this kid to go home and apologize to his mother for being such a disappointment.”

“Извини, что разочаровал тебя,” she told him. I felt the car slow down and moved toward the doors, still holding him in the air with one hand. When the doors opened, I tossed him onto the platform. He wanted to yell at me, but he was too busy trying to catch his breath. I might have crushed his trachea as he struggled. With prompt medical care, he might survive.

I grabbed the unconscious guy and tossed him out as well. The third kid ran out on his own. The doors closed, and the other passengers broke out into applause. I smiled as I sat back down next to a shaken Svetlana. “Am I in trouble?”

“Not from me,” she said. “Thank you.” Left unsaid was the police, who stopped the train at the next station and made everyone in our car get out so they could investigate the assault reported at the previous stop. I was sitting handcuffed against the wall while the officers took statements from the two dozen witnesses. One of the officers brought the switchblade out in a plastic bag and handed it to his supervisor. Ten minutes later, statements already given, the other riders were allowed to catch the next train home.

Svetlana started to get upset when I was pulled to my feet and led to the exits. “он не говорит по русски (He doesn’t speak Russian),” she pled as she followed behind me.

“Call Marina,” I told her before they stuffed me into the back of a police car. I was taken to a police station, searched, and locked to a table in an interrogation room. They brought in a detective who spoke English, and he tried to get my statement. “Lawyer,” I told him.

“You are in a bad place right now, John Cantwell. You need to cooperate.”

“I’ll wait for my lawyer.” Marina arrived twenty minutes later, and after a brief discussion, she sat in on my questioning. I told the story of the three assaulting my girlfriend and my actions to stop it. The detective left, having verified my statement matched the eyewitnesses and the video recordings. Marina was sure I’d be released soon, but there was one more surprise.

The door opened, and Viktor Kaprisov entered. He looked at me like I’d just deflowered his only daughter, barely holding back his desires for violence. “Mr. Cantwell, it seems trouble seems to find you. Or are you the cause of the trouble?”

“I’m sure you’ve read my statement, Senior Investigator. Trouble found my girlfriend, and I stopped it.”

“Yes, you did. You are stronger than you appear, aren’t you?” I shrugged my shoulders. “The man you nearly killed weighs seventy-five kilos, and you had no trouble holding him up with one hand.”

“I eat my Wheaties,” I replied.

“Enough strength to hold a man up by the neck and stab him until he’s decapitated?”

Marina put her hand on mine. “Don’t answer that,” she said.

“You have my statement from the river. You have my statement from the subway. Are we done here? I’m hungry, and I have a date tonight.”

Viktor sat back in his chair. “Yes, with Miss Sevastyano. She’s a real catch; she’s smart, beautiful, and resourceful. I’m so fortunate our department was able to recruit her. People will say anything to a beautiful nurse, you know.” What? Oh, FUCK. He stood up and walked to the door, leaving it open. “You’re free to go, Mr. Cantwell. We’re keeping an eye on you.”

My mind was reeling as an officer came in and took off my cuffs. “Don’t say anything,” Marina counseled before we left. The cops returned my things before the electronic door opened to the lobby of the station opened. Svetlana got up and ran to me, hugging me tightly, then letting me go when I didn’t hug her back. Marina watched the interaction and put her hand on my shoulder. “My office. Now.”

The drive back was quiet, broken only by my tears and Svetlana’s, both of us wondering what the hell just happened.