Debt, page 7
I see the lights of cars before we arrive, and about thirty or forty people lingering outside. Vera asks something about cops, and Jake only smiles, saying everyone gets a cut at these events, “and Nashville ain’t no different.”
We park on a grassy hill and there’s noise everywhere as we open the car doors, people drinking beers out in the open, uniformed officers leaning back against a cruiser, belts undone. One of them tips his head at Jake. “That’s Martin Hillfanger,” Jake says. “Old friend-a mine.”
The Old Friend Officer gives me and Vera a lecherous look, slides his tongue over his lips and then moves the toothpick in his mouth to the other side.
There are women everywhere, most of them wearing near to nothing, one with a low-cut dress that literally shows off bare ass, another practically bare-chested. Fat guys, thin guys, and then betting. People exchanging cash. “Only thing Martin won’t let happen here is drugs,” Jake says. “Beer, betting and fighting is the good ole American way, ain’t nothin wrong with that. But Martin’s a stickler for drugs from South America or Europe. Ain’t American, he says.”
Vera sniggers.
We walk over muddy ground and the temperature has sunk a bit. I’m wearing a black dress and Vera’s in red, but I think I should have gone with jeans and a sweater. We jump over rocks, clumps of grass, over the road, following the crowd.
And then we’re at a warehouse, old and probably a fire hazard. There’s a line of easily one or two hundred people outside.
Tyrone and the other bodyguard move to the head of the line. Tyrone hands over the invitations and we’re let inside. Jake smiles and shakes hands with men in suits and women in dresses. The inside smells of sweat and dust and gasoline. But it’s freaking packed. Tiers of seats encircle the well-lit cage up front.
Near the front there are chairs and tables. Jake makes his way down to the front, bodyguards in front and behind us. Jake shakes hands with a few more people. A man in a suit gestures for us to take our seats.
We’re ten feet away from the cage.
-2-
And then Mamma Jamma arrives. My heart catches in my throat when I see him scowl in our direction. He storms toward us. His hand stretches out, and I’m certain he’s gonna slap one of us.
Like an idiot, I flinch in Jake’s direction.
“Why I’ll be damned Jakey boy, I knew I stood no chance if you got hold-a these here honeys.”
Honeys.
I open my eyes to see Mamma Jamma’s hand extended toward Jake. Jake stands and pulls the other man into a manly hug, pats him two or three times on the back. “You sumbitch,” Jake says. “I thought you was tired-a these here fights.”
Jamma looks over at me and Vera, his expression hard to read. “Well, as the sayin goes, Jake. You wanna find nice-lookin women, go where the good-lookin men are.” He turns to look at Jake. “But now that your ugly face is here, I might go somewhere else. Although...” He turns to me and Vera. “I see you roped in the two young ladies I had mah eyes on yesterday.” Mah ahhs o-ahn yesserdeh.
Jamma puts his arm around Jake and both men are standing looking down at us, Jake looking a little embarrassed. “Vera. Kyla. This is an old friend of mine from high school. Terrence Willoughby.” Terrence Willoughby.
Terrence Jamma just nods at us, doesn’t say anything else. He turns Jake around and whispers something in the man’s ear. When Jamma looks back at us, he’s smiling widely.
I shift in my seat. Jake sits down next to me. “Don’t worry about Terrence,” Jake says to me. “I took care-a him.”
I’m confused, but Jake gestures for me to look at Jamma walking away. A young girl dressed in almost nothing grabs his arm and sits next to him, then her hand slides up his leg.
I look away.
“Me and Terrence been playin games with women for years. He always loses.”
“Loses?”
Jake smiles, looks over at the cage, doesn’t answer.
He always loses.
Jake hit on us after Jamma had already tried to hit on us. Perhaps Jake been at that bar all along, just to see if he could beat his old friend at a game of which of the two could get me and Vera to swoon first?
The lights in the warehouse flick off and on rapidly. Smoke from cigarettes and cigars fills my vision. An announcer gets inside the cage and the crowd starts to roar. An elegant woman is sitting on the table next to us, long legs stretched in front of her, an Audrey Hepburn cigarette in her hand, her hair styled in a perfect wave to cover one side of her face.
The announcer begins: “Layyyyyyydies an gennelmen... If you’ve come here for clean fighting, you’re in the wrong place. If you’ve come here for love, you’re in the wrong place. If you’ve come here for rules and safety and a sissy-ass boxing match, let me assure you, you are in the wroooooong motherfuckin place.” The crowd roars. “Because this is underground law down here, and the only law in underground law is that we ARE the goddamn law and there are NO holds barred, NO punches barred, NO kicks barred, and no goddamn reason under the heavenly sun to leave two men in this ring who can still walk unassisted at the end of a fight!” The announcer sounds like an evangelist. The crowd explodes. “THIS is the crucible of manhood. THIS is where the men are separated from the pansies and if you find that word offensive or politically incorrect than y’all can just FUCK OFF!” The crowd goes friggin nuts. “Welcome to the SOUTH, motherfuckers. Welcome to Nashville’s annual underground manslaughter. I bring you...Black Sabbath from South Central LA, Lord of the Ring from Colorado, Killah, Bloody Mary, El Muerto”—he speeds up the rattling off of names—“MuckaFucka, Snow Leopard, Mass Attax and a whole lotta other crazy men who might not even leave here alive tonight, but most of all, and the reason I KNOW y’all are really here, I bring you the rematch, the final showdown, the long awaited feud and fury of two men who hate each other’s guts...” The crowd is incontrollable by now. “...the last fight of the night, the fight you’ve all been waiting for for nearly four goddamn years. I bring you...” And the next part he says real slow. “...Juergen—Kaiiiiiiiiser. And—the one—the only—the ostracized, exiled, man-on-a-mission and who listens to nobody, not even the mafia. He pays his debts and he expects others to—the DEBT COLLECTORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
The place explodes. Feet start stomping. Men howl and whistle and cheer and some of them boo, but very few. The elegant woman on my side, so quiet before, so perfect, so pristine, is now catcalling into the cage, hands cupped around her mouth, then pumping her fists in the air.
She looks at me like she’s ready to take her clothes off and bend over for this Debt Collector right here. Maybe she’s his girlfriend.
I’m getting a little curious myself.
I don’t realize Jake’s hand is curled around my thigh until the first fight begins.
~Eight~
Logan
-1-
The place is packed. I never expected such a turnout, and I never knew news of my perceived disrespect of Vito and his crew had traveled so far and wide. Turns out the story of mine and Kaiser’s feud has traveled the underground grapevine for years. They’ve put him in a separate dressing room, if you can call it that, nothing but a hole in the back of the warehouse with a few benches and a shared toilet with a door that doesn’t work. The organizers put champagne out for the big money up front, but the fighters don’t get more than water from the tap.
My fight is up last, me and Kaiser.
I saw the cougar out there, turns out I wasn’t some random piece of meat to her, turns out she knew damn well who I was and what I was doing here. I should have known.
My heart starts to skip beats as I think of the bout. I’m undefeated for two years, and before that rarely defeated, but I’m always scared before I get in the cage. The smell of sweat in the changerooms makes me dizzy, men’s voices make me nervous and tense. I don’t know how the other guys feel, but I think all fighters are a little scared before they head out into a cage they might not come out of. No one has ever died in an underground bout that I know of. Bad for business. But Tyler is good evidence of how bad things can get for a fighter in there. It’s one thing to make money off dudes punching brains out, it’s quite another to become an accessory to manslaughter.
I look up at the clock on the wall, a grimy old thing that somehow keeps ticking on willpower alone. I hear the crowd roaring, the bell ringing, the catcalls as the topless models show the next round.
I don’t have an agent here with me. I think I’m the only guy who organizes his own fights. I lost faith in agents after István. Tyler represented me for a while, but that went badly too, because of a woman.
Another fight finishes. Black Sabbath stumbles into the shared changeroom with a broken nose, holding his ribs. He groans as his back hits the floor, and he looks up at the ceiling. His agent comes in. “Yo, Sab, you OK, homes?”
Sabbath says nothing.
The agent, suited up and cellphone in hand, bends down and slaps Sabbath on the cheek. “You’ll live,” he says. The agent straightens, looks down at me like he wants to stab me, walks out.
Sabbath gurgles and chokes, turns onto his side, coughing.
I bring my water bottle to my lips, hear the man almost drown in his coughs. Damn it. I get up, walk over to him, place the bottle in front of him. He snatches it like it’s the last water on earth, downs all of it. Coughs some more.
I hear Kaiser’s name, I hear the crowd both booing and roaring. Odds are in his favor today, which means if I win, some people will make a lot of money. They want him to lose. They don’t give a shit about the sign he sports on his chest. They just give a shit about their cash, about the gladiators in the cage.
And then I hear the announcer start my buildup. I put my hand on the doorknob. It feels cold, slimy.
I step out into the hallway, down the tunnel, and into the crowd.
Men are stamping their feet and tapping me on the shoulders. Women are blowing me kisses, some pulling their necklines down to show me their tits while holding beers in their other hand. Roaring and pumping and screaming and howling.
I take a deep breath. Lights flash up front. Kaiser is there already, in the ring, looking unbelievably massive and angry. He pumps a lot of steroids. Fortunately, bloated muscle has little to do with winning a fight beyond a little psychological fear.
I jog on the spot, getting warm, getting ready. The cheers and catcalls grow louder. Lights spin around the dark and smoky warehouse.
I think of dad. I think of mom. ALL DEBTS MUST BE PAID. I think of Nate, Ailee, Jenny. I think of the brunette I didn’t find, the empty sex with the cougar last night that left me feeling empty, but which reminded me of where I stand on the food chain: I am nothing. I am nobody. And I will never be anything to anybody.
Except in that cage.
In that cage, I’m a winner.
In that cage, I mean something.
In that cage, nothing else fucking matters.
The announcer calls my name.
I charge down the aisle.
My mind bursts into an almost holy rapture.
My heart is pumping like mad. My muscles are screaming. I’m running, racing for that cage.
I rush through the door and it slams shut behind me. The bell hasn’t even rung yet. And then I’m on him, and he’s on me, and years of rage and vengeance pump through both our fists and feet. Kicking, slamming, hurting, hating each other.
Truth is: We don’t really hate each other. Nothing’s personal in the cage. And Kaiser’s Nazi sign might not even mean shit. Dude probably donates all his winnings to the local synagogue.
He needs me as much as I need him.
It’s all a game, a show. A job.
Underground fighters are nobodies. All of us.
Except in the cage.
And right now, right now, he needs me as much as I need him. This moment, this tiny moment where everyone’s looking at us, where we mean something to these people. Ironically, I’ll get more love and respect from Kaiser than I did from that cougar who wanted nothing but my cock inside her yesterday. It’s a strange sort of bromance in the cage. Filled with fury and raw power that every fighter craves.
Kaiser’s fist lands squarely on my jaw. I spin, blood spouting from my lips. I land against the cage and then his knee is into my ribs. I crumple over, falling, dizzy. His foot comes crashing toward my face, and I roll so that he hits only canvas, and then I grab his ankle and he tumbles to the canvas with a crash. And I’m on him, my elbow colliding with his nose once, twice, three times until there’s blood everywhere—
Hands all over me, pulling me back, the bell going ding ding ding ding...
First round is over.
There are no problems in the world. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Only me, him, and the fight.
-2-
It’s in the third round that I see her.
Up to that point, things had been going well. The fight had been evenly matched. It could go either way, but I was close to winning it. Kaiser has built up tremendous resilience, and the fucker is hard to get down and keep down. But I was wearing him down.
I had him in a necklock, my leg slamming up against his ribs, trying to crack them. But all his muscle made it difficult. He was tired, and I was using that to my advantage. His neck squirmed and writhed as he tried to ease himself from my grip, but I was relentless. He wouldn’t get out of it. This was going to be it. One more hit, and he’d be down.
And then there she was. Goddamnit...
I had seen flashes of her outside the cage throughout the fight, but I couldn’t tell if it was really her. And, really, what the fuck does it matter? I’m in a goddamn cage where a dude can break my neck if I’m not alert.
But my eyes kept darting toward her, idiotically, like a fool.
And still, I wasn’t sure.
Until now—now, with Kaiser’s threat minimized, standing near the edge, the glare of lights softened...there she is. Damn it... I’d recognize that hair anywhere, that strawberry-shaped face. It distracted me for a second. One second would have been OK. But then I saw the hand on her leg, his hand, the guy in the baseball cap and the parka, sliding up, sliding way up...and I saw her push the hand away, and the man’s hand stayed there. She fought it off again, and he kept it there.
I lost focus.
My grip loosened just a fraction from Kaiser’s neck.
It was a fraction too much.
The blow which hit me was a freight train.
There was a moment when I thought I had reached Nirvana. The cage spun around me, sounds went hazy, my vision blurred.
It felt like I was in a dream. I knew I had been hit, but I didn’t realize I was in the cage anymore. It felt like a mountain had tumbled onto me. I was somewhere else, at home, in London, and the guy in front of me was Morty.
And then the pain began, even before I hit the canvas.
I don’t remember going down. I don’t remember hitting the floor.
But I remember waking up. I remember a headache like a meteorite hit me. I remember people standing above me. Someone counting. Three fingers in front of my face. Or is it two...?
And here she is, above me, inside the cage, slapping my face, eyes so goddamn blue I could freaking drown in them. She’s screaming at me, but I hear nothing, nothing at all. Wake up. Is that what she’s saying? Her hair’s a mess. Fuck me, it looks like she and I have just tumbled in the hay. Is that what she looks like after sex? Slapping my face, slapping...
A tremendous feeling of warmth swallows me...
I remember...
Nothing.
Whiteness.
Blank.
Empty.
When I wake up, I’m in a hospital.
And she’s here.
-3-
She’s still wearing that skimpy black dress she was wearing at the fight. At least I know I’m not paralyzed, because I feel my cock twitching the second I see her. Her dark hair’s still a mess, her make-up ruined. This disheveled look does nothing to ease my arousal.
My head is pounding, aching. But if she straddled me now, I wouldn’t say no. Although, she’d need to be on top, because every muscle in my body is aching. What the fuck happened?
She stands there, arms folded over a chest I’d love to see naked, looking down at me like an old friend. Almost scowling with worry. “Hey,” she says.
I try and answer, but I can’t. I manage a grunt.
“I hope you don’t mind me being here. I...”
I shake my head, try and gesture for her to come closer. I guess I manage it, because she takes a step closer to the bed. My eyes land on the slight bulge of her tummy. Damn that’s sexy.
I feel myself grinning despite myself. “What...what...are you...doing...here?”
“I, uhm, yeah, good question, uhm...I...I just wanted to make sure you’re...OK...and...maybe I should go.” She turns.
“No. No.” My head almost explodes saying those two words.
She faces me again.
“Stay. Please.” I swallow hard. “Stay.”
She stands there a second, just looking down at me, still frowning. She pulls up a chair, and my eyes drift to her cleavage as she sits down on it. “I’m Kyla,” she says.
Kyla. “Lo—Lo—Logan.”
“Uhm, yeah, I know. Pleased to meet you...”
I almost chuckle at how this is playing out. When I had thought of this chick in my mind, our conversations had gone a little different. Actually, my thoughts of her had involved no conversation at all.
But this...fuck me. Right now, nothing could be better than this. Nothing. Not sex, not anything. Just a girl, a girl who, for whatever reason...gives a shit...about how I’m doing. And she’s here, right now, in this hospital.
I feel myself drifting again, the room fading, spinning.
Before I pass out, I manage to get two words out: “Don’t—go.”
