The Digging Leviathan by James P. Blaylock

Arkansas, throwing an imaginary windmill punch and eyeballing Gill and Jim. It was just the sort of thing Oscar lived for and that Jim feared. Gill, Jim could see, was fading.
    Pinion pressed the issue. “Ever hear of O’Riley the Irish Miller?”
    “Sure,” Oscar lied, “who hasn’t?”
    “Well it was me who taught him to fight. I was in the gym every day, over in east L.A. O’Riley went on to whip Stud Pritchard at the Olympic. Took him apart. I was in O’Riley’s corner, and it was just like I taught him. For three rounds it was N a little of this …” and Pinion threw three quick left jabs.
    “And a little of this …” Pinion whirled his right around in a tight hook.
    “And one of these,” said Oscar, hopping backward ridiculously on one foot and screwing up his face into an appropriate grimace.
    “Then late in the third,” said Pinion, undaunted by Oscar’s performance, “Pritchard made what we fighters call the ‘fatal pause.’”
    “Sure he did,” said Oscar, mimicking what seemed to him to constitute the fatal pause.
    “And I jumped up and yelled, ‘Cut loose, Miller!’ and O’Riley cut loose!”
    At the utterance of this revelation, Oscar could contain himself no longer, and he erupted in a wild howl of laughter, the term “cut loose” having certain slang connotations that Pinion didn’t intend. Oscar immediately acted out Stud Pritchard’s horror at Irish O’Riley’s cutting loose, and then went on to act out the cutting loose process itself with such grim majesty that Jim burst into uncontrollable laughter. Pinion wasn’t half so impressed.
    He stepped back a pace, stiffened up as rigid as he could manage, and tapped himself on the stomach. “Punch me,” he gasped, squinting at Oscar. “Right there. Hard as nails.” And he thumped his stomach again, ready to weather the punch of O’Riley the swinging Irish Miller.
    Oscar huffed himself up and let fly at Pinion’s abdomen, to the horror of both Jim and Gill. Pinion deflated like a sprung balloon. There was a shout from the direction of Pete’s Blue Chip. Pinion doubled over and whistled into the dirt, his lips turning a sudden shade of pale blue and his eyes rolling up into his head.
    For the space of three seconds Jim stood transfixed with honor, but when Oscar, screaming with laughter, broke and ran down Hubbard Road, Jim snatched Giles’ arm and dragged him along in Oscar’s wake. Gill watched over his shoulder for some sign that Pinion wasn’t, as both of them feared, dead. When a half dozen cheeseburger-clutching bystanders emptied out of Pete’s into the street, Giles forgot about Pinion and ran along at Jim’s heels, both of them cutting away down the first available alley, losing Oscar in the process and leaping out onto Stickley Street where they forced themselves to slow up and walk along at a disinterested pace until they reached the safe port of Jim’s house. There they found Uncle Edward, Professor Latzarel, and Roycroft Squires messing with an unlikely looking diving bell perched on the back of a flatbed truck. Jim sailed past as if it weren’t there, still half expecting a mob, perhaps waving hayforks and lit torches, to round the corner with a shout. He worked at convincing himself that he and Gill had merely been bystanders and were in no way responsible for the crippling of Pinion. But then he pictured himself laughing aloud and cheering Oscar on an instant before Pinion’s collapse. They’d find him as guilty as Oscar. Giles they wouldn’t touch. Pinion, after all, wouldn’t press charges—not against Gill. He’d be full of fatherly concern—ifhe was still alive. But he’d chase Jim and Oscar down. There was no doubt about that. Pinion was vicious and obviously jealous of Professor Latzarel and Uncle Edward.
    Jim peered out of the front window at the street. Mrs. Pembly skulked along on the sidewalk, pretending to inspect a little bed of begonias. She was obviously watching the house.