The Good Samaritan

“Go to hell,” he shouted, spit flying from his mouth.

“Do you think I’m afraid of you now, you bastard?”

The second man moved closer. Both raised their fists.

A third man came to the gate.

“Stop fighting. Stop now. Someone will get hurt.”

Both men turned.

“What the hell has this got to do with you?” the first man said.

“Nothing. I’m just saying there’s no need for this.”

“Yeah?” said the other man, moving towards the gate. “You got any money?”

“What’s going on?”

He heard movement behind him. Too late. Two arms locked around his chest.

“Get him, Jackie.”

“I have him.”

Jackie tightened his grip.

“Let go of me.”

A hand went into the back pocket of his trousers.

“Stop.”

His wallet was gone. The other man took his phone. Jackie let him go and punched him in the mouth. He fell beside the gate. Billy kicked him in the head.

“Stop now,” Jackie said.

“Why?”

“You don’t have to kill him, for God’s sake.”

Billy kicked him again.

The two men ran across the field. The third man wasn’t moving. Cars passed on the road. One slowed, but then drove on.

The man opened his eyes. One of his shoes lay a few feet away. He tried to move. A sharp pain shot through his face. He closed his eyes again.

When he opened his eyes again, a woman was kneeling beside him.

“Can you hear me?”

He tried to speak, but nothing came out.

“Don’t move.”

She had one hand on his shoulder and a phone in the other.

“An ambulance is on its way.”

A child was crying nearby. The woman looked over her shoulder at the child.

“It’s okay, love. Get in the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She turned back to the man.

“Stay where you are. Help will be here soon.”

***

The Garda sitting beside his hospital bed looked younger than his son. He had a notebook open on one knee.

“So you knew neither of them?”

“No.”

“You’d never seen them before?”

“No.”

The Garda wrote something down. The man’s jaw hurt when he spoke. One side of his face was swollen. There were stitches above his eyebrow and inside his mouth.

The doctor had told him he was lucky. People always told you that when something bad happened.

The Garda closed the notebook.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why did you stick your nose in?”

“I didn’t stick my nose in.”

The Garda said nothing.

“I didn’t think, that’s all,” the man said.

The Garda looked at him for a moment.

“The whole thing was a setup.”

“What are you saying, Garda?”

“Jackie and Billy Doyle. Brothers. They’ve pulled this trick before.”

“Pretending to fight?”

“Yes. Hoping a good Samaritan like you would come along.”

“But they looked like they hated each other.”

“They probably do.”

The man turned towards the window. Rain ran down the pane.

***

His wife came in carrying clean clothes. She kissed him carefully on the forehead.

“You look terrible.”

“I feel terrific.”

“That’s good to hear.”

She sat on the edge of the bed.

“I cancelled the credit cards and reported your licence stolen.”

“Good.”

“I wiped your phone remotely too.”

He nodded.

For a while neither of them spoke.

Then she said, “What were you thinking, interfering like that?”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“That much is obvious.”

“I thought they were going to fight.”

“They could have killed you, you fool.”

“I know.”

She looked at his face.

“Promise me you won’t do anything like that again.”

He said nothing.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

***

Six months later he was driving home in the rain. It was almost dark.

Ahead, a car stood at the side of the road with its hazard lights flashing. A woman was waving at him.

He slowed. A man lay on the road.

The woman walked out into the road.

“Please stop!”

There was blood on her face.

He drove around her.

In the rear-view mirror she was still waving.

He drove on around the bend.

Then he stopped.

For a moment he sat with his hands on the wheel.

The car turned around.