You've Got Something Coming

by Starke, Jonathan;

  THE CALLING DARKNESS

  A right hook caught him off guard and sent him to the ropes. Trucks covered and dipped down. The kid threw everything stiff. It wasn’t just his jabs.

  The shots landed harsh on his body. He could feel the ricochets off his gloves and forearms as he covered up. The taut coil of the ropes against his back. He was trying to survive. Seeing blinks of light like electric shocks. Pop-pop. The thud of the oncoming punches. The vibrations all over his body.

  It was nothing but survival. Make the bell. Let the round be over.

  But Trucks dug deep. He was guts and grit and hard-beaten man. He pushed the kid away and came off the ropes. Caught him in the center of the ring with a jumping hook to the temple. The kid shook it off and plodded forward. Trucks tied him up in the clinch to stall. Blood from a cut above his eye waved down the kid’s back. Trucks watched the little trail of blood. He held on tight.

  The ref stepped in and broke up the clinch. On the exit, the kid hit a nice uppercut and wobbled Trucks just before the bell.

  Trucks staggered toward his corner. When he started going the wrong way, the ref righted him. The volunteer corner man put the stool down from the outside. Then he came through the ropes with his bucket of supplies and met Trucks in the corner.

  Trucks sat on the stool. He was two rounds deep and feeling every second of it. The third was coming on like a wildfire. He was weary and wobbly. His head was spinning. The room was quaking. He blinked rapidly and shook his head hard to clear his eyes of sweat and blood.

  The corner man pulled his mouthpiece out and threw it in the bucket. Fed water to him. Then he capped the water bottle and rolled a thick cotton swab across the cut over Trucks’s eye. He pressed hard with his thumb. Then he switched to the eye iron and pressed it on a hematoma forming on Trucks’s right temple.

  “What’s happening out there?” the corner man said. “You look god-awful. You okay to go back out? You look like you’re on Dream Street.”

  Trucks nodded.

  “You keep eating shots like that, I’m calling it.”

  Trucks nodded again.

  “Keep away from his jab. Find a better range and slip under. Pop him with that left hook you’re supposed to have.”

  The corner man sealed the gash with salve mixed with epinephrine. Then he popped the mouthpiece back in. Trucks stood. The corner man snatched the stool and hopped out of the ring.

  Ding.

  Trucks turned with a new urgency. He rushed forward. Took the center of the ring. He feinted on some jabs, then started throwing wild power combinations. Hooks, uppercuts, haymakers. It wasn’t technical.

  The kid backed off. Surprised. But he patiently pedaled the outside. Kept working that jab to create space.

  “Come on, you fuck,” Trucks said through all the throbbing. “That all you brought from Kasper?”

  Trucks could feel the beast inside him rising. He edged closer. He pulled the kid into a clinch and started throwing to the body. Pah-pah-pah. The kid didn’t like it. This knowing burned in Trucks’s guts. Told him: chase the beacon of weakness.

  The ref stepped in and split them apart.

  Trucks pursued with all the bull heat he had left. He backed the kid up with his wild combinations, whiffing many, catching the kid’s gloves on a few. But soon he had the kid in the corner and was throwing all he had left into his shots. Head to body and back. Pah-pah-pah-pah. They were stiff and hard and angry. Like he wanted to end this kid.

  But the kid was young and tough. Resilient. And Trucks was exhausted. He barely had any wind coming into the fight. He was frail and tired and blowing out all his fuses.

  The kid was smart. He had energy. He absorbed the punches like a patient sparrow. Waited for the second when Trucks let up, then the kid spun off the ropes with a shove. Instead of retreating, the kid stepped back into the pocket. Threw two quick, stiff jabs followed by a wicked uppercut. So harsh and fast and powerful, like he’d pulled it up from his toes.

  Trucks’s head snapped back. He saw a shock of white. Then he buckled and dropped to a knee. Grasped the rope with that trusty left. But nothing could hold him then, and everything gave in that moment.

  The ref moved the kid into a neutral corner and came over to work the standing eight-count. But it was clear Trucks was done. He was wobbly even on a knee and wouldn’t be getting up. His eyes were glazed over, his head drooping. The ref waved off the fight.

  Trucks slid to the ground. He laid there for a while, watching the tiny air particles float against the hot lights above. The dull roar of the crowd. Trucks stared into the calling darkness behind all that harsh light. Stared and stared. Like a madman. Or someone who’d lost something from the deepest part of the soul.

  The next thing he knew he was sitting up, the ref waving smelling salts under his nose. A few men clutching him under the armpits and dragging him out of the ring and down the steel steps. On instinct, Trucks babbled, “Take me to my girl, my girl,” but they didn’t know what that meant.

  They sat him down in a chair at the back of the room. A doctor shined a light in his eyes and asked him questions about his consciousness. Ran fingers through his field of vision.

  Count it like a kid.

  How many? How many? How many?

  Five. Three. One. Three. Four.

  A person from the medical staff came. She sewed the cut above his eye. Quick pulls and snips. And soon he was alone.

  They’d given him a bottle of water. It rolled at his feet. His black wrestling shoes askew. He knew he’d needed to remember something, but he couldn’t recall what. To think anything was hard. To collect himself, nearly impossible. The room shifted. They’d stripped him of the gloves and cut the knuckle tape from his hands. But when had they done that? His hands were red. This time not from the cold. Red from the sweat. The heat. The pounding. The brutal bashing of knuckles under leather. Pah-pah.

  His girl. It hit him. He stood to reach for her. Then the thought was gone.

  He swayed under the lights. An announcer roared over a tinny PA system.

  Trucks sat down. He leaned back in the steel chair and closed his eyes. Just to sleep. Just a little bit. Not too long. Only a while. Just to sleep. Only to sleep. Only.

  UNDER A FLURRY

  Trucks woke in the mummy bag. He was drenched in sweat. Claudia tight against him. They were bundled in their winter clothes. It felt like they were steaming in the bag. His head was killing him. He didn’t remember anything after falling asleep in the chair after the fight.

  Trucks looked through the face hole. It was dark out. The gazebo arches whined above. Trucks unzipped the bag and started to get out. He tried to do it gently to avoid waking her. Claudia shifted as he slid out from under her. She mumbled in her sleep.

  “I’ll be back, Clarinda,” he whispered.

  Trucks got out of the bag and zipped it up. He put on his boots and walked through the night to the bathroom hut. He turned on the light and went to the sink. Trucks looked in the mirror. His face was all kinds of fucked up. His eyes red. The right temple swollen and purple and aching. He touched the stitched cut on his forehead. The skin itched around where she’d done the sewing. It always did. He wanted to tear out the stitches.

  Trucks turned on the faucet and leaned down to splash water on his face. His back hurt from the bending, the muscles sore from all the punches he’d thrown.

  He put his hands under the running water. Watched them fill up and tried desperately to remember something from after the fight as he looked into the small pool in his palms. How had he found Claudia? How did they get back to the gazebo? Did he feed her? Was she okay? What did they talk about, if anything, on the way back?

  Endless questions ran through his mind. He watched the water run over his swollen hands. He threw more water on his face, then dried himself with paper towels.

  Trucks gripped the sink and stared into the mirror. He looked so hard and long that he eventually didn’t recognize who was looking back at him
. Staring at a ghost of himself. Some alternate-universe version. He was old. Beat up. Out of energy. Out of place. Out of time.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  No answer.

  “The world is brutal,” he said.

  No answer.

  That wasn’t him in the mirror.

  Trucks closed his eyes. He rubbed them hard. He saw bright sparks shoot across his closed-eyed darkness.

  He opened his eyes. The sparks flew for a while against the light, then it was all normal again. As normal as his life could be now.

  He wondered then if he’d ever kill himself. Not with his girl around. Never then. But he wondered still. And if he was going to die, he’d want to die in the ring under a flurry of punches. It had happened before. To other men. It could happen again. It was the weight of that risk that drew people like him into the ring. Always walking out on some kind of jagged ledge. Never knowing how long the earth of the cliff could hold.

  He had an urge to check his pockets. There were bloody tissues in his coat. He threw them in the trash. In his back pocket he found a few bills. He unfolded them. There was less money now than when he’d gone to the fight. Had he been robbed?

  Trucks folded the bills and put them in his back pocket. He was woozy and confused.

  The overhead light flickered. Trucks was brought back to the pulsing pain in his body. His head throbbed. He rubbed his temples. Nothing helped.

  Trucks shut the light off and left the bathroom hut. He made his way to the gazebo. He looked at the mummy bag on the table under the arches. Like his girl was coffined in that sleek pouch. It twisted his stomach. Like he could vomit. The thought of her dead. Gone.

  He looked up at the night sky. The moon was hidden. Stolen under clouds or simply tucked behind a dark universe he’d never comprehend.

  Trucks smelled his hands. The scent of dirty money.

  He felt a rush of panic. He didn’t know why. Trucks ran over to the tote bag he must have tied to the loop on the outside of the mummy bag. He dug through the bags until he found his sachet of antibacterial wipes. He sat on the bench and scrubbed his hands. Then he threw the wipe on the ground. Grabbed another. He took off his coat and rolled up his sweatshirt sleeves. Scrubbed up and down his arms. Two. Three. Four wipes. He threw them on the ground. Then he took off his sweatshirt. It was so cold. He ached as he grabbed wipe after wipe. Gritted his teeth against the frigid night and fiercely brushed his body. He felt the burn of the scrubbing and the alcohol. The chill of the wind. Soon he was down to nothing. Naked and freezing. A pile of wipes at his feet as he jumped in the cold. Rubbing his numb skin so hard that it felt like he was scraping it off. The whipping wind. The wipes like sandpaper. Himself disappearing with each harsh scrub.

  When he was numb and red, he put on his clothes and got in the bag. Trucks held Claudia and zipped them in. He was a shivering mess. Was he even a man anymore? A boxer? A father? He wasn’t sure he could recognize himself. He didn’t know if he ever would again.

  Outside the mummy bag, he thought he heard a howling in the distance. Trucks could barely hear it over his chattering teeth. The noises a man makes at the bow of his breaking.

  He felt one of Claudia’s hearing aids claw against his cheek. He only held her tighter. Shut his eyes. Felt the warm sting of this rough life he’d carved as the litter of wipes outside were picked from the ground and scattered by the wind.

  LIVING OFF INSTINCT

  They were down to eighteen dollars. Trucks didn’t know where the money had gone. He should have had over a hundred dollars after the fight. He’d probably been robbed in his delirium. He couldn’t figure it any other way. He was pissed beyond belief. But he had to keep it buried to not upset Claudia any further. His head was no better. Everything in his mind was foggy. He was living off instinct.

  He’d gotten her gas station pancakes. They sat at their usual table. Claudia hadn’t said anything to him that morning. She was upset. He didn’t know why.

  “They good?” he asked about the pancakes.

  Claudia chewed. She had anger in her eyes. He’d seen it before. He carried it too.

  Trucks rubbed his temples. He pushed his fingers hard against them and released. It was punishing, but so was the pain.

  “I was out of it last night. I’m sorry I don’t remember anything.”

  Silence.

  “Can you tell me what I did?”

  Claudia cut her pancakes into the tiniest pieces.

  “Please? I took some real heavy shots. You maybe saw it.”

  Trucks reached out, but Claudia pulled back. He looked out the finger-printed window. Still not cleaned. Probably never would be.

  “You keep calling me Cluhrinna,” she said.

  Trucks turned to her. His back was so sore.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I hate that name. I hate it. I told you don’t call me that.”

  “I’m really sorry. I was blacked out. I didn’t even know.”

  “Your brains,” she said. And then she went silent.

  “My brains,” he said.

  They didn’t talk for a while. Claudia ate more of her pancakes. She did it slow. Like it was a painful thing.

  Trucks felt incapable. Weak. Like no part of him was sound. He’d never felt so inadequate. So unable to provide.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. He just didn’t know what to say anymore. Like he had no words.

  Claudia was a wreck too. Tired eyes. Sallow skin. Her once-curly hair now frizzy and rough.

  He’d failed her. There was nothing more to say than that. So he did.

  “I failed you.”

  Claudia didn’t say anything.

  Trucks wavered between a sound and afflicted mind. The head trauma and despair pushing him ever closer to that faulty edge.

  He looked out the window again. The blonde from days before pulled her red jeep up near the glass. She parked and walked in to buy cigarettes. She looked so much like June that it twisted his stomach. Trucks was transfixed on her. His head pounding. Then the smallest of ideas came to him in a flash. Or maybe it wasn’t so small. Maybe it would utterly change their life.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  Trucks stood. He swayed for a moment. Then he righted himself and walked along the small aisles. The cashier was distracted chatting with the pretty blonde. Probably lost in those glacier blue eyes. Trucks swiped a bottle of nighttime cold medicine and walked back to the table.

  “I know you’re mad at me,” he said, sitting down, “but I’ve got something to make up for last night.”

  Claudia looked up from her plate. She tapped her plastic fork on the table.

  “It’s a new purp—” A bolt of pain shot through his head. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. “A new purple drink for kids. Supposed to give you lots of energy and make you run faster and jump higher and things. I read about it in a magazine.”

  Trucks opened his eyes. He tore apart the packaging under the table and hid the remains in his coat pocket. Then he pulled off the plastic covering. Unscrewed the lid. Tore off the safety seal. He worked swiftly with his hands.

  “Drink your water down a bit,” he said. “Get it about half.”

  Claudia looked suspicious.

  “Go on,” he said. “Trust me.”

  Claudia picked up her water cup and drank it down to half. Trucks saw movement at the window. The pretty blonde got into her car with the pack of cigarettes tight in her fist. She backed out and took off.

  Trucks put the bottle on the table, the grip of his hand covering the label.

  He poured a little syrup into the water. It changed to a soft purple.

  “See the color?” he said.

  She grabbed for the cup.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  Claudia sat back, annoyed. She crossed her arms.

  “It’s sweet and tastes really good. They just came out with it, so most kids never tried it before. You’re one of the
first. Isn’t that neat?” His head was pounding. He breathed in deep to handle it. “Okay, so here’s the thing. You’ve gotta drink it all and drink it fast for it to work right. So you get all the vitamins.”

  Trucks poured a good portion of the bottle into the cup.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Claudia picked up the cup. She smelled it.

  “I like how it smells,” she said.

  He was going to right everything. He’d do it this time. It would work. No matter what he had to do or how he had to do it. It was time.

  Claudia took a drink. Then another. She breathed between each one. After several attempts, she’d finished it.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  She sat back and held her stomach.

  “It kinda hurts,” she said.

  “It’s just the vitamins. Your stomach isn’t used to it yet, but you’ll see. You’ll be so powerful. Not like me. You won’t have these bruised brains falling out.”

  “Bruiseity brains,” she said. “It’s bruiseity.”

  “Right,” he said. “It is.”

  AN OPENING

  She slept so hard she almost seemed dead. That pale skin. Her soft eyelids.

  An hour had passed. The headaches came and went. Sharper. Duller. More painful. Less painful. Always present. Trucks had stolen a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, bottles of water, and another bottle of nighttime cold medicine, just in case. He had the tote bag packed and ready. He’d cleaned up their table. A new cashier had swapped out for the old one.

  Finally, he saw what he was looking for. A guy had topped up his tires at the air hose, then filled his gas tank, then driven up to the side of the building. He parked away from the main windows and left his little car running.

  This was it.

  Trucks hooked the tote bag on one arm. He stood and picked Claudia out of her chair. It hurt his back, but he gritted his teeth. She had her sleepy head on his shoulder.

  The guy came in and walked over to the cooler. Trucks made his way out the door and along the side of the gas station. The hum of the small running car, like the sound of liberation.