Undercard

by David Albertyn

  “I’m with you.”

  “Are you pumped?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  Ricky punches Tyron in the shoulder. “Are you jacked?”

  “Don’t punch me.”

  Ricky punches him again. “Marine, are you jacked?”

  “Yeah, I’m jacked.” Tyron can’t help but smile. Ricky could always make him smile.

  “Then answer me this: Stay or hit?”

  “Hit.”

  “Thank you! Hit me, man,” Ricky shouts at the dealer.

  The dealer flips a seven of spades.

  Disdainfully, Ricky tosses his cards. “Twenty-three. Nice call, Tyron.”

  “So, you’re a Marine?” says a bald man with glasses who looks to be in his sixties. Sitting to the right of Ricky, he leans forward to get a better look at Tyron.

  “Yes,” Tyron says. “Actually, not anymore. I suppose I’m a veteran now. I just got out.”

  “Name’s Allen. I’m a retired principal.” The gambler extends his hand.

  Reaching for the handshake, Tyron sees that the cuff of Allen’s sleeve is faded and grimy, overworn and underwashed. He looks in the man’s eyes, and behind the lenses sees dark bags and burst capillaries. A gambling addict, Tyron suspects. Burning through his pension in this place. He won’t be retired for long.

  “And you?” Allen asks of Ricky.

  “What about me?”

  “Are you a veteran?”

  Ricky mulls this question over like he could answer it several ways. “Not in the traditional sense, but I am a veteran of a lot o’ things.”

  Allen looks for help to Tyron, who explains, “That means no.”

  The man shoves a handful of chips over to Ricky’s pile and says, “I want to thank you for your service. What drink can I get you?”

  Tyron nods but declines the drink.

  “I insist,” Allen says.

  Tyron looks at Ricky, who is vibrating with anticipation. “You can buy him the —”

  “You can buy me the drink,” Ricky finishes for him.

  “All right,” Allen says, with a suspicious examination of Ricky. “What’ll it be?”

  Tyron’s cell vibrates in his pocket. A text from Marlon. You thought any more about tomorrow? He asks Ricky what the deal is with the protest, explaining, “Marlon is hassling me to go.”

  Ricky sucks on his teeth. “I wasn’t going to say nothing, but since you brought it up, you shouldn’t have been talking to that guy like that.”

  Tyron’s brow furrows. “I shouldn’t have been talking to who like that?”

  “To that fucking killer. The cop. Who the fuck do you think?”

  Tyron’s shoulders hunch up and his back stiffens. Ricky makes no apology, and the uncharacteristic behaviour in his friend hits home for Tyron just how devastating Keenan’s actions and acquittal have been to the people of this city.

  “People make mistakes,” Tyron says.

  “What?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like when you got a gun in your hands and you’re authorized to use it.”

  “You think it’s okay to —”

  “Did I say it was okay? Shit. All I said was people make mistakes.”

  Allen has motioned a server over and says, “A Jack and Coke for me, and whatever these two want. We got a veteran over here, we got to treat him right.”

  “A veteran, huh?” says a woman’s silky voice.

  Tyron turns to see the mermaid who smiled at him earlier. She has green eyes, which look teasingly into his. Again he feels palpitations in his chest.

  “You guys got a dark ’n’ stormy?” Ricky asks.

  She smiles at Ricky. “Yeah, we got that. And you?” she asks Tyron.

  He shakes his head. “Nothing for me.”

  “Get something,” the gambler says. “It’s Vegas.”

  “And he ain’t just a veteran, he’s a war hero. Tell ’em about your medals, Ty.”

  “A war hero?” The mermaid bites her lower lip. “On behalf of the Reef, we’d like to accommodate you as best we can.”

  “You know what you should do,” Ricky says. “You should give him a kiss. He just got home. How better to welcome him back to America than that? And you, I might add, are the very best America has to offer.”

  The mermaid considers it, raising each hand separately like she is weighing the decision on a scale. The moment Tyron realizes that it might actually happen, he begins shaking his head, but the mermaid is already leaning into him. “Welcome home, soldier.”

  Her lips are soft and full, and she holds them against his a good long time. Tyron opens his eyes. Stares at her. Once, in Iraq, he was half concussed when an IED went off nearby. He feels a bit like that now.

  “So, one Jack and Coke and two dark ’n’ stormys?” she says with a wink.

  “Sure,” he says. It is the answer he would probably give to any question she asked him in that moment.

  After she is gone, he sees that the rest of the table looks just as stunned as he is. “That was hot,” says a woman at the far end. Tyron returns their gazes with a sheepish grin.

  Ricky slaps him on the back and says, “It’s going to be a good night.”

  Tyron suddenly feels like he might be right. No Marines under his responsibility. No civilians under his jurisdiction. And a beautiful woman showing him attention. One night as a baller won’t kill me, he thinks. I might even like it. And all thanks to Antoine. Hard to believe.

  Out of all the people Tyron knew growing up, himself included, he never would’ve thought Antoine would be the one to rise so high. Still, the guy always had something unique about him. Some edge that the rest of them lacked. Tyron remembers it being there the first time they met.

  Antoine had bounced around government programs and foster homes for two years before Tyron’s parents brought him home one day. He barely spoke his first couple of weeks. They were both fourteen, and Tyron was tasked with taking him to school. Even then Antoine would say nothing walking or riding the bus, like he knew the whole thing was temporary. There had been other foster siblings for Tyron before Antoine, boys and girls who had been through hard times and had grown hard themselves, but none as silent as Antoine.

  He only began to speak after the first incident with the police. He was caught one night breaking into a police station, which Tyron at the time thought was about the dumbest thing anyone could do. The cops held Antoine in a juvenile lockup for two days until Tyron’s parents got him released. He hadn’t taken anything or vandalized anything, so he was only charged with trespassing. The cops seemed to think detainment would break the small Hispanic kid, who looked a good few years younger than his age, but Antoine seemed not even to register that he had been punished. For him, it was all part of the natural order of things. When Tyron’s parents asked him if he was okay, he gave them a look that said, Why wouldn’t I be?

  Back home, they sat him down and asked if someone had put him up to the break-in. “The police said you were going through their files and looking in their computers. What were you looking for?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Why did you do it?” He shrugged and stared back at them, waiting for his beating. “We’re not mad, Antoine. We’re not even disappointed. We just want to understand why you would do this thing.”

  Antoine had been sharp on the uptake since he came to live with them, but it took forever for it to dawn on him that Terrence and Viola Shaw were not going to beat him for getting arrested. Tyron would’ve laughed if he hadn’t still been so creeped out by the kid. Though Antoine told the Shaws nothing that night, words slipped out of him in the days that followed.

  And then one day he was just talking, like that’s how he had always been. At least that’s how he was at home with the Shaws. Outside the house was a different story.
<
br />   5:52 p.m.

  On a balcony overlooking the aquarium, Keenan leans on the railing with his cell phone pressed to his ear. The alcohol has worn off and he feels irritable, as he often does after drinking. Not a good headspace to be in when calling the wife, he thinks. But he might not get a chance later, and he is trying. He is trying to be a better husband. Normally he wouldn’t respond to her texts at work, but these aren’t normal times. Listening to the dial tone, he wonders how far the drop to the water is. It would take a good jump to clear the tiled path around the tank. He’s pretty sure he could make it; his hops aren’t bad. After the plunge, what would the sharks make of him? Would his desperation draw them in? Whet their hunger?

  “Keenan. What’s up?”

  He can hear the surprise in her voice. Not radio silence, not a cursory text, not even a long text. An actual phone call. It’s a step in the right direction, he thinks. He hopes.

  “I just wanted to tell you that it’s going well so far.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s good, Keenan. I’m happy for you.”

  “How . . . how are things at home?”

  There is a pause, and again he can sense her surprise. “Home is fine,” she says.

  “Tyron’s here.”

  She doesn’t speak for so long that he wonders if she’s still there.

  “Babe?”

  “You’ve seen him?” she asks.

  “He got back into town yesterday. He’s out of the Marines. He came to see Antoine.”

  “So you did see him.”

  “Yeah. Both of them.”

  “Really? You saw them both?”

  “Crazy, isn’t it? Like old times.” He picks out the motions of a shark below. A fluid shadow in the fading light. “Actually, it wasn’t like old times. It was different. But still, the whole crew back together again; first time in over a decade.”

  “Not the whole crew,” she says.

  He watches the shark catch up to a smaller fish and wonders if it will eat it. He would like to see that. The suffering. “Anyway, I just called to say hey. I’ll be home late. Don’t worry about waiting up for me.”

  “I’m coming down there.”

  The smaller fish darts to the side, but the shark takes no notice and slices on through the water with the same smooth rhythm. Dissatisfied, he asks, “What did you say, baby?”

  “I’m coming down there. I want to see them.”

  “What?”

  “I’m coming down there.”

  “No, babe, come on.”

  “I want to see them, Keenan. They’re my friends too.”

  “So you’ll see them. They’re not going anywhere.”

  “Dammit, Keenan, I don’t want to be left out while the three of you are back together partying.”

  “Jesus, Naomi, no one’s partying. I’m working; Antoine has a fucking fight in a couple hours.”

  “And Tyron?”

  Keenan sighs and hangs his head over the railing. “Okay, you’re right, Tyron is partying. He’s in the casino with his buddy Ricky.”

  “Ha! Ricky. He must’ve asked me out at least a hundred times.”

  “I remember.”

  “So I’ll come down, I’ll hang out with those two. Then after your shift we can all chill. And maybe we’ll even get to celebrate with Antoine after he wins. Oh Keenan, I can’t wait to see those guys.”

  Her excitement grates on him. The fact that other people can ignite such elation when the two of them have been so miserable lately pisses him off. Her voice is normally deep for a woman’s and when she wants it can be sultry, but when she’s excited, like she is now, it goes high. When he was a kid, hearing her voice high like that used to bubble up a fierce joy in him. And now? Now when her voice goes high, it’s just a reminder of how much things have turned. How shut out he is to her heart, and she to his.

  “Naomi, please. I’m working. I don’t want my wife here at my job.”

  “Yeah, seems like you don’t want your wife anywhere.”

  “Ah, I’m so sick of this shit.”

  “You’re sick of it? How the fuck do you think I feel? Those boys are like family to me, Keenan. And I haven’t seen them in years. I won’t bother you while you’re working; I won’t even see you until you’re done.”

  Keenan’s cell beeps with call waiting. It’s his father. He ignores it and says, “All right, whatever, come down.”

  “Why’s everything got to be such a fucking fight with you?”

  “I said come down. Fuck, what more do you want?”

  He expects a tirade; instead he gets cold silence, which he knows is more worrisome. Eventually she says, “You got Tyron’s number?”

  “I’ll text it to you.”

  “Cool. Hope work goes well.”

  And then she hangs up and he thinks, Nice job, Keenan. She really appreciated you taking the time to call. He wonders how it’s possible for his instincts to be so wrong in just about every situation these days. As a kid, it was the opposite. Everything went his way.

  He texts Tyron’s number to Naomi, calls his father, and checks his watch. He really should be getting back to work.

  “Keenan.”

  “Hey Dad. You called?”

  “How’s the job?”

  “It’s good, Dad.”

  “How’s Monk?”

  “Real good. He misses you.”

  His father snorts. “Bullshit. By the way, I’m going to put some money down on your friend.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “A lot. If I’d have known he’d turn out to be such a star, I would’ve let him live with us.”

  “Antoine’s not a star.”

  “Oh, he will be. You seen any of his fights?”

  Keenan takes a deep breath and looks up to the dusky blue-grey sky. First Naomi, now his father. He shakes his head. “No.”

  “He’s no joke, that kid.”

  “I better get back to work, Dad.”

  “See ya, son.”

  A group of young women laugh as they walk around the enclosure of the aquarium, gulping margaritas from long plastic cups, each drink brightly coloured like a mad scientist’s concoction. Another bachelorette party. The bride-to-be wears a white sash across her tight-fitting dress. On the far side of the tank are the resort’s swimming pools — the ones for regular patrons. Beyond the aquarium are the gates to the high-roller mansions, each with its own pool. But these pools here have something the high-roller ones don’t: they are directly adjacent to the aquatic tanks and share a glass divider so that patrons can swim beside creatures of the deep. Not every pool, though — swimming next to a blue shark isn’t for everyone.

  The bachelorettes sip their drinks, peering into the aquarium. One of them looks up and sees Keenan watching them. She smiles. Not an overly flirtatious smile, just a happy one, a content one. He begins to smile back but stops himself and breaks eye contact.

  In the seven years since he married Naomi, he has never had anything regular on the side. Which he knows is not saying much, but it’s still better than some. There are cops who have to lie to their mistresses when they go out, let alone their wives. But no more of that. Nothing on the side, no matter how brief. He is trying to be a good husband. Even if he’s doing a bad job of it, he’s trying.

  That bachelorette is cute, though.

  7

  6:35 p.m.

  Terrence Shaw had believed that boxing was a good skill for a young person to learn, which was ironic because he also believed in non-violence and was opposed to boxing matches. “A person needs their head,” he would say. “Fights will damage it eventually, no matter how good you are.” But the skill itself — the training and discipline it required, the confidence it instilled, and the speed, fitness, and strength it developed �
� he thought was essential to a kid’s upbringing. He liked chess too.

  Antoine reminds himself that now is not the time to think of his foster father. Now that he is in the arena, in his own dressing room, with the undercard fights already begun. Soon he’ll be out there, in front of thousands, with millions more watching around the world. Now is not the time to reminisce.

  Except tonight is for Terrence Shaw too, says that guiding voice within him. Tonight is for all of them. Besides, what else is there to do before the warm-up begins, other than reminisce?

  The waiting is the worst part of fight night. Antoine doesn’t want to waste a thought, a breath, an ounce of strength before the battle begins, and yet he doesn’t want to lose focus either. Too tense and he risks wearing away his stores of concentration; too relaxed and he feels unprepared for the gauntlet that lies ahead. So he must wait, balancing in between.

  It was Terrence Shaw who first introduced him to boxing. The man started taking his own son, Tyron, to the Rising Star Boxing Club when the boy was eleven. Craig Quinn started taking Keenan when he was twelve. Antoine was fourteen when he joined the party, and fashionably late didn’t apply here. Despite Terrence Shaw’s reservations, the boys would fight each other on the days he did not attend their practices, and they would strike the head even though they’d been told not to go high when sparring, regardless of their protective headgear. Antoine got beat down. Again and again and again. Tyron and Keenan were a decent match for each other, with wins going back and forth, but how they adored their guaranteed victories over Antoine. Each sparring session he would summon everything he had. He would call up all the strength he possessed, from the marrow of his bones, from the pit of his stomach, from the furious thumping of his heart. And still he lost.

  Tony “Warrior” Wilks was the owner and head trainer of Rising Star. He used to bring along his daughter, Naomi, as he had done with his sons, who had moved on to professional fighting and running their own gym in Atlanta. Naomi was at the gym almost every day, training, boxing, or doing various jobs for the business. Though the same age as the three boys, she was a good deal more developed than they were. If it weren’t for fear of Tony, the young men in that gym would have circled her like vultures. Even with Tony’s presence, they still took bets on who would be the one to pop her cherry, and they tried to get away with as much leering flirtation as they could without her father noticing. Once a young man was careless, grabbing her ass in view of Warrior Wilks, and then the gym saw the former title contender in action.