The Unstoppable Tony Winters

by P. S. Power

  She nodded, still clearly feeling like he was scolding her. Which he was a bit. Only with the truth, without being angry about it all. His life had been tough. It had let him become strong. Not perfectly, but there was a good result from it, even if it had been bad.

  “So… It looks like you’re getting things around now, too. That’s good. It sounds hard, but…”

  The words got her to sit up a bit and rally.

  “It is, but… Good too. I don’t know if I can describe it. I just make drinks all day. Talk to people. I get to help them have fun. It’s useful, sort of. They like me, just for being there.”

  That was a thing he sort of got. Not totally. He liked to be helpful and thought people thought he was, but that wasn’t the same as really feeling that they wanted him around. A bartender was the person that got you drunk. Plus, Deirdre was attractive, as her interaction with Denny had shown. The guy was his friend, but would totally have dated her if she was interested in him. Which she probably would be. He was good looking and nice, so there was no reason not to.

  So it was probably different that way. Really, he always felt a bit like he was going to lose everything. Almost all the time. As if one step being missed, or one wrong word being said was going to ripped his world apart like it was made of paper. Mainly because it always had been. Six months was as close to being in one place as he’d ever been.

  To his brain, no matter what else, he kind of expected to have to leave. Deidre had come back. It was time for him to lose everything and have to go to a new place. One that would probably be a lot worse than where he was.

  Which wasn’t happening. The chance he had was too good to lose. Even for his mother. The problem there was how to get that done. Only, he didn’t need that. She wasn’t there to ruin everything. At least she was making it seem like that. Like she was getting on track and didn’t mind if he did that too. As if she understood that his life might have been worse, for having her in it.

  “Yeah. I have things to do each day. It is hard, but… I’m actually good at it. This fighting stuff? I think so anyway. Not perfect and I have a lot to learn, but it’s easy.” He paused, shaking his head. “That sounds wrong. I work really hard, each day. It hurts, a lot. Everything does. But I get it. I can see how it fits together. Even for other people. That’s why Dani wants to go over the video with me. I know, you’re probably thinking that it’s all about my good looks, but it isn’t. Just my skills.”

  Deirdre smiled.

  “Oh… I don’t know…” She looked at him and shook her head then. “When I got here earlier, I didn’t recognize you at first. You look so strong now. Tall and like a man. You waved at me and for a minute I thought that…”

  She stopped then and made a silly face.

  “Honestly I thought that you might be Adam. He was so good looking, back when I knew him. Older than me… It was part of why I had to leave. To protect him. I was seventeen, he was ten years older. No one ever said anything, but it was a problem. That’s why I never contacted him. Part of it. After a while… Well, I just wasn’t a very good person by then. So I took it out on you.”

  That sounded about right to Anthony. So he nodded and changed the subject.

  Besides, it seemed like a long time, six months.

  But there wasn’t that much to tell her about.

  Just that, with her being gone, everything had gotten better.

  Chapter thirteen

  The bus ride to Las Vegas felt oddly strained for Tony.

  Everyone was acting well behaved, but it was clear that Steve, Denny and Mark were all concerned about what was going to happen the next night. Oddly enough, even if they weren’t close friends, the only one that Anthony felt unsure of was actually Mark. The man that, due to his raw size, Tony hadn’t been able to work with much at all. He was a good boxer.

  Strong, decently quick and holding good form. Mark also didn’t get easily flustered in the ring, which was a great trait to have for a fighter. Most of the high level pros shared that one though, so it wasn’t exactly a super power, but you didn’t stand in the ring, on television for a title shot if you weren’t able to hang in there pretty well.

  That was his real worry.

  Not Steve, or Denny. They’d worked hard and trained for the matches coming up. Tony had sparred with both of them, many times over the last months, trying his very best to give them a realistic experience as to what they were going to face. Yes, they could still lose. That was the nature of reality, when it came to fighting. Even the best fighter in the ring could lose if luck didn’t go their way for a few moments.

  In an instance the game could go against you and your great plan for the fight could be all for nothing. That was the same in a lot of sports. In a big chunk of life. Everything had an element like that to it, at some point. That didn’t mean that training and practice weren’t worth it. Even if you lost, those things were needed to win, so you had to do it. Studying was like that. If you didn’t prepare for the test, you weren’t going to do well on it. You could study and still panic and not make it, but if you did it right and luck was with you, there was a good chance.

  The best you could get.

  So that was what Tony was thinking about on the long trip. Everyone else had things to do, except for Deirdre. She was just sitting next to him, chatting about things from their life, like they were the good old days.

  “Do you remember that time I went to Vegas with Carleen? That was a trip. I remember that guy I was dating. Frankie? I think he was with the mob. I got a job for a few days at a casino. Just serving drinks, but it let me stay for an extra two weeks and I got a lot of time off. That was fun.” She seemed to mean that.

  For her it probably had been.

  Anthony nodded, hooded his eyes and turned to stare at her for a bit.

  “I do remember that! The twenty bucks you left me ran out after a week and the rent hadn’t been paid, so the hotel guy kicked me out. I slept in an alley for two weeks and begged for enough cash to keep myself fed. I was doing all right, except for the three times I was mugged. Good times… Good times.” He sounded sarcastic, having nailed the feeling he was going for.

  It was snotty and probably mean of him, but she was the one that brought it up.

  His mother went wide eyed.

  “I… didn’t know that.”

  “Really? I told you at the time. Do you mean that you knew, but blocked it out? That seems a bit more likely.”

  From her face, the expression that flashed up, they were about to start fighting. He normally didn’t do that kind of thing, but his nerves were a bit on edge at the moment. A big part of that was the fact that his mother had come back. The rest of it was his training. It was hard. A constant and never ending drain on his energy.

  Even sitting on a bus was kind of pissing him off. It wasn’t really his mother’s fault. The rest of his life was, but not that moment. Instead of going on with it, he just shrugged.

  “That’s the past. We move on, right? I should get to my homework. Back to it. I need to get this book read by tomorrow.” It was Friday. They were staying the night at the hotel, but not two of them. That meant leaving right after the last fight was over.

  For some reason everyone else was fine with his plan, which was just sharing a room with Steve and doing his work. Except for his own mother. She would have been going out and having fun, which meant getting into trouble, so kind of expected him to do the same thing. She even said that. Out loud to everyone on the bus. That got her a whole lot of funny looks for her effort.

  It was funny, especially after Steve started to chuckle a bit.

  “Tony? He’s in training! Now, we might have to watch me, or Denny… But not him. I… No, really, even the idea of that is funny. Sorry…” He broke up a bit and Rick, who was sitting near the front, with Jen, turned around and waved at his little sister.

  “He came to work. I wouldn’t underestimate him Deed. I mean that too. I don’t underestimate Tony. His work ethic i
s… Legendary.”

  If so it was a small legend, but the vote in his favor got him to grin as he read the rather dry book that had been assigned. It was about Prussia and was actually a college text book, not a novel. The whole thing went in depth on that single topic in a way that was hard to believe.

  Still, even if she wasn’t buying his ability to avoid arrest by not breaking any rules, even having lived with him most of his life, she did quiet down. There was no more than small talk after that, even when they got to the hotel. That night they separated at nine, with Steve wanting to get to sleep right away. He was really close to weight, so had to be careful as far as food went, but could drink water and rest until the official weigh in the next day. That would be a few hours before the the match took place.

  Those kinds of things could get wild at times. Fights breaking out and chairs being thrown. If it happened at all, it would be Donaldson losing it. That or Mike Emory. The man that Mark was fighting.

  It probably wouldn’t however. That kind of thing was a risk in the fight business, about forty percent of the time. Placing two men that were going to be hitting each other later with their fists almost in each other’s faces was asking for problems. It got news coverage though, so people did it.

  The next day was kind of interesting for him, since Tony Winters was actually part of the team for the first time. Before he’d gone to events, but this time he was there for everything. His mother wasn’t, but she and Jen had just gone to do tourist stuff. No gambling, since that was for people that wanted to be poor, but there were shows and buffets where they could eat things that people in training probably shouldn’t.

  Thinking about it oddly left him craving coleslaw. Which was strange, since he’d never really had a lot of that in his life. Now though, tangy cabbage sounded really good.

  Rather than dream of things he wasn’t going to be having, Anthony watched as all the fighters weighed in. That was done separately for each fight. Out in the open, so that the five news teams that had shown up would be able to see the men trying to intimidate one another.

  Clyde Sumner just stood there, his face blank, staring at Steve. Being used to that kind of thing he was ready though and nodded, also blank faced.

  “Hey Clyde. See you in the ring later?” It sounded almost friendly. Most fighters probably would have had an issue with that, but Sumner just nodded.

  Then spoke in a very gentle voice.

  “Yes. It should be at about seven-twenty, if the schedule holds.” It was a strange thing to say, but probably about right, getting Steve to make a face that was considering and engaged, even as they stood there and held their fists up for the pictures.

  “That sounds about right. Well, I hope that I don’t hurt you too much.” Again, Steve sounded very bland. It didn’t sound like a threat or anything.

  “Yeah. Me too. I don’t like to hurt people. Sometimes I have to.”

  That got a smile from Steve. Even as the room went quiet.

  “It’s all right. I’ve been training for that, so you can go all out. It won’t hurt me.”

  The other man smiled at that, then moved back, when his trainer said he should, very calmly. Then no one had figured that these two would be the problem. That was correct, given everything. Anthony saw it coming from the body language, so took Steve by that arm to lead him away. That moved them past Sumner and his people. Looking at the older man that seemed to be in charge, Tony shrugged.

  “This is about to get messy. We should probably get out of the way?” He didn’t stop for them, but they followed along and turned at the side of the room just in time to see Donaldson reach out suddenly to slap Denny in the face. Which started a fight, instantly. Both men were ready for it, after all. Denny was in a nice silk shirt and the other man was in a full suit, along with a tie. That was a clip on, it turned out.

  The big mistake there was from Donaldson, who tried to tackle Denny as Rick was pulling him away. Rick, getting what was happening and not wanting his fighter to have a broken knee for his boxing match let go of the man. Which had Donaldson being easily tipped to the side as he tried to awkwardly punch, ending up with his jacket being used to choke him. It was a cross arm choke, which was done rather nicely, all things considered.

  Nothing happened, but the man on the ground was really being rendered unconscious. His team didn’t seem to know what to do and Rick was just standing back for some reason. Glaring at the other team. It wasn’t until Anthony got up to them that he realized why that was.

  Standing there, near the back of the crowd, glaring over at Tony, was a rather upset looking Ralph Simpson. Before Anthony could even say anything to Denny about letting the other fighter have some blood to his brain an attack came.

  Interestingly, the large man, who hadn’t healed up from his broken arm yet if the cast was any indication, had picked up a long metal rod. It was being swung with his good hand, the tip of the thing heading for Anthony’s head.

  Something very interesting happened then. Tony was moving. He knew that. There were impacts from several things even. A pipe to his arm, which made a ringing sound and the rough cast hitting his face. The thing there was that he wasn’t being beaten. Both of those things happened as he stepped in for a hip toss, hurled the huge man to the ground and then, very precisely, as the other man tried to move back, kicked him in the head. Twice.

  That got the large man to stop hitting him.

  Then he just stood there for a bit. Not really moving or doing anything except for waiting. The room was loud, around him, but not really noticed. It wasn’t until the gray haired older man that worked with Sumner touched his arm and spoke that he came back to himself.

  “That was a bit sudden. Why don’t you come over here? Away from that man. Do you know him?”

  Anthony nodded a bit and let himself be led away. Rick had secured Denny and a rather perturbed seeming Donaldson sat on the floor, gasping for air.

  “We’ve met a few times now. He keeps attacking me. I keep stopping him. I guess it’s our thing? Thanks. For getting me to move. I forgot to, for a moment there.”

  That got a nod, from the man. Interestingly, when they stopped, Clyde Sumner moved in front of him. Clearly ready to fight. That wasn’t needed, but it was nice of the blank faced man to think of. When Steve came over he gave the other man a slow nod. Then moved in beside him.

  “Last time the man came back for more. That’s when Tony had to break his arm. We should probably get him out of the room? At least until the police come.”

  That didn’t sound like fun to Anthony, but he knew that one now. He hadn’t done anything wrong. They even had video of it, he was willing to bet. There were news crews there and at least one of them was watching Simpson closely with their cameras. That meant they caught the large, powerfully built man rise up, throwing several people from Donaldson’s fight team off of himself and run toward Anthony.

  Bellowing powerfully. As he rushed a kid.

  One standing between two professional fighters. The thing there was that Tony needed to protect their hands and both looked to be getting ready to hit the man. With their bare fists. Yelling stop wasn’t going to do much, but he tried it. At the same time he moved to the side, along the wall.

  It got Ralph Simpson to reorient on him, moving in like a linebacker, instead of an ex-professional MMA fighter. At least until the man moved in closer, putting his large hands up.

  For the first time since they’d met Simpson seemed different. Like he was actually planning to fight someone, instead of just attacking from behind, without warning. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but Anthony smiled. It wasn’t friendly and got a growl in return.

  “All right. I’m getting tired of this, Simpson. You want to fight me? Really? You weigh in at what? Two-fifty? I’m literally half your size. Three times you’ve come at me without warning. Three times I’ve handed you your behind. If you do it again, I’m going to stop being so nice to you. Do you understand me? There are no fourt
h chances. Figure it out right now, or you will not be happy in a few minutes.” His voice was low. Deadly.

  Angry.

  It also got the large man to stop and blink. He didn’t say anything, but backed up, glowering. Still not really able to understand that he was in danger. Anthony didn’t look like a threat. In a real fight he probably wouldn’t be for the man. There was a reason that they had weight classes in fights. Big men tended to win against smaller ones.

  If they were playing by the rules. Anthony was about to start breaking those really soon, if the other man didn’t learn not to come for him. If that meant gouging eyes… Well, apparently that kind of thing ran in the family.

  The other man, finally acting reasonable, or at least sane, stormed out of the room. Knocking several chairs over as he did it. Throwing a fit in his passing.

  No one came over to him for a bit, but when someone did it wasn’t any of the other fighters. Not even his uncle, though he was working his way around about then. Donaldson was still in the room, but Steve cleverly worked out that Denny would need to leave. That meant a woman in a yellow skirt, holding a microphone, got over to him first.

  “Mr. Winters. Tony… May I have a word?” She sounded professional.

  Like it was a trap, too.

  Then walking up on anyone that was just in a fight and asking them questions was probably both a good way to start problems and get ratings. Anthony had no problem figuring out what the dark haired woman in front of him wanted. Prime time news coverage. She’d probably get it, since she was both pretty and willing to go where other people wouldn’t. Like to boxing weigh-ins.

  “Sure.” He tried to act like a pro himself, even if he’d never done that kind of thing before. So Anthony stood up straight and tried to seem calm and friendly. Engaged with the person asking the questions, without being hostile.