Punching Paradise (Fight Card)

by Jack Tunney

  Fourth round you put him down. Not until the fourth round.

  This is the third round.

  Neckbone looks along the ground, breathing in sawdust and old rubber. He sees the cement-splattered boots of the crowd begin to shift, parting to make a path for a man carrying a nicked and stained axe handle through the drunken bodies, and knows exactly who carries that axe handle.

  Neckbone thrusts himself up to his feet and shoves his way toward the back door. Bill Stokes’s voice rings out behind him, and though Neckbone doesn’t want to leave his gym bag behind, it’s easier for him to replace tape than knuckles.

  He hopes Rollo will grab the bag on his way out because those quarters were supposed to be laundry money. Otherwise, Allison will have to wear some extra perfume.

  ROUND TWO

  The tap spits out water the color of old coffee into the cracked porcelain sink. Neckbone lowers himself onto the toilet seat and sets to cutting the tape from his hands. By the time he’s done, the water has finally turned clear. Neck sticks his face beneath the tap and the water turns a muddy red again.

  Landlord said there wasn’t anything wrong with the pipes, that it was an old building and some creaking and settling was to be expected. Allison countered that it didn’t sound like settling so much as two gangs of rats battling to the death inside their pipes, but the old man just patted her cheek and said she was a good girl.

  Either way, Neck doesn’t want to wake her, so he wrings out a washcloth beneath the tap and wipes off as much of the blood, sweat and sawdust as he can manage.

  When he’s reasonably clean, he tiptoes across the bedroom and into the kitchen. On the table sits a turkey sandwich with a half-moon bite in the center. He sniffs it, then shakes on some Old Bay and dumps Ritz crackers on the plate. As he eats, he can feel his muscles constrict, the blood pooling in the imprint of fists. Times like this, when his body cracks with every movement and fluid swishes beneath the surface, Neckbone is damn glad they have a ground-floor apartment. Makes the whole getting-home thing much easier. He washes the patchwork meal down with two cans of Natty Boh and wipes the counter clean twice to keep the roaches at bay.

  Allison snorts and rolls against him when he slips into bed. Neck takes the script that was on his pillow and sets it on the floor, feels her warm skin on his then closes his eyes and falls into the blackness.

  ***

  Glass shatters.

  Neckbone flings the covers aside and grabs the bat from beneath the bed. His arms turn gooseflesh. Allison says something unintelligible, her voice thick with sleep, but Neck is halfway into the kitchen by then.

  The counter is the same as last night, the single closet door still closed. He squints his eyes to focus his hearing. The apartment is quiet save for Allison’s waking mutters. Neck sets the bat on the table then hears a screech, outside their window this time. It’s longer this time, and familiar now he’s awake.

  Someone is breaking into a car.

  Neckbone slams the front door with a heavy palm and starts yelling as soon as his foot hits the street. Bat reared back, he clocks a boy standing beside his car, no older than thirteen. A brick falls from his hand as he turns and runs.

  The bat clatters on the sidewalk and, though the kid is agile, Neck makes a living with his body. It doesn’t help that the kid yells threats the whole time, robbing him of breath. Before they reach the second block, Neck has his fingers wrapped around the kid’s shirt and yanks him back. The kid falls to the street and protects his face with his forearms, but keeps insulting every woman who shares Neck’s blood.

  “You stop screaming I won’t have to hurt you,” Neck says.

  The kid screams again, throwing his arms out at obscene angles. One right catches Neck in the cheek. He snatches both of the kid’s wrists with one hand.

  “Stop screaming.” He waits for the kid to calm. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The kid’s arms stop thrashing and his screams lower to a speaking voice. “I didn’t do your windshield.”

  “What?”

  “That wasn’t me.” He shakes his head so hard Neck expects to hear his brain rattling.

  Keeping both hands restrained, Neck looks behind him and even from a block away, he can see the axe stuck in his windshield.

  He turns back to the boy. “But you broke off my mirrors and beat the hell out of my car.”

  The boy nods his head.

  “I do something to you?”

  “You got my dad’s hands broke.”

  Neckbone squints, trying to picture the boy twenty years older, cheeks lined from work and eyes reddened by liquor. “If I fought your dad, it could’ve easily been my hands that got broken. If it wasn’t in the ring, I didn’t break them.”

  He loosens his grip on the kid and lets him sit up. Still, Neck keeps a wary eye on him. He can see bones articulate and twist beneath the skin as the boy rubs blood back into his skinny hands.

  “You knocked my dad down too early last night. Mister Stokes broke his hands with a drywall hammer and said he do the same to me if Dad doesn’t repay the money he lost him.”

  “Beating the hell out of my car isn’t going to get you any money.” Neck holds his hand out and pulls the kid to his feet. “That’s a ninety-two Corolla. It was dead even before you had your way with it.”

  “All I could think of to do.” The kid wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, the early morning June sun already making the city sweat.

  “Well, your dad should learn to watch his mouth if he doesn’t want to get knocked out.”

  The kid throws a right that lands on Neck’s shoulder. It’s a wobbly potshot, but there’s enough power behind it to make Neck take a step back. “Don’t talk about him that way.”

  Neck can see the kid’s jaw muscles flex and turn, his fists clench and twitch. The boy can’t be more than ninety pounds carrying two bags of groceries, but he’s ready to throw a haymaker on a go. Neck gives a slight smile.

  “Your dad teach you to punch like that?”

  The boy gives a tentative nod, holding his fists at his waist, ready. “He leaves for a couple days sometimes. He’s different when he comes back. Mean son of a turd.”

  “So you just learned?”

  The boy shrugs, lets his fists fall a bit. “Had to.”

  “It shows,” Neck says. “What’s your name?”

  The boy appraises him for a few blinks, then says, “Henry.”

  “Then, Henry, I’d suggest you learn to write with your left hand because your dad’s never going to hold money for longer than it takes to get to the track.” Neck turns to leave. “You even have to write in school anymore or is it all text messages?”

  Henry spits on the ground. “I don’t care about school, man. How am I supposed to play if one hand is broke? How many one-handed piano players there are?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly. Because there ain’t none. And it’s going to take two hands and eighty-eight keys to get me out of here.” Henry looks ready to swing at Neck again, then flexes his fingers, as if weighing the consequences of a stiff hand versus the reward of tagging Neck in the eye.

  Neck watches the kid move, glances over his shoulder to the street behind them. A woman with a cigarette dangling from her lip shuffles down the sidewalk in house-slippers, two toes sticking out of the side. Two rats the size of footballs scurry along the gutter then run into a condemned row-house. The old man across the street unlocks the metal security gate that covers his mini-mart.

  “Stokes told your dad he was going to break your hands?”

  “Nah,” Henry says. “He told me. Right after he smashed Dad’s in our living room.”

  Neck mutters to himself, low enough so the kid won’t hear his cursing. He flicks his head back toward the apartment. “I need to get some calories in me. We’ll go talk to him afterward.”

  Henry stands on the sidewalk as Neck walks away. Not hearing steps behind him, Neck stops, looks at the kid. “Have you
eaten today?”

  Henry just stares.

  Neck nods. “Come on, then.”

  ***

  Henry pours a third bowl of Colonel Crunchies for himself, stopping when it’s half full to give Neck a look that says, is it okay? Neck nods and pours himself more coffee. An empty plate streaked with yolk and bacon grease sits before him. Allison emerges from their bedroom wearing a t-shirt hanging low on her neck, a bulldog with boxing gloves emblazoned over the front. Henry tilts his eyes up and tries to maneuver them through the holes pocking the stomach area.

  “Eyes on your bowl, son,” Neck says. It’s a little more revealing than he’d like around the boy, but if he hadn’t given her a heads up she’d be wearing even less.

  Allison gives him a kiss on the cheek and smiles at Henry. “I thought you were the only one who could eat like that.”

  Henry shoots her a smile. “I’m in training, building up some muscle. Want to see?”

  “How about you keep eating,” Neck says.

  “Little charmer.” Allison pours a cup of coffee.

  Henry puffs his chest out. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Milk dribbles from the corner of his mouth.

  “Pipe down or I’ll send you to talk to Stokes yourself.” Neck sips at his coffee and pats Ally’s hand. “What time do you need to be at the theatre?”

  “Noon. We’re in full rehearsals though, so I’ll be a while.” She twists her chestnut hair around a finger and tilts her head to the side. “You want to be my hero and bring some dinner? You could finally see the place. Tell me what you think of the scenes.”

  She says it like Neck’s neglecting her, like he makes an active effort not to go as opposed to being busy bloodying men’s faces. She’s only been in a handful of roles in short-run productions anyway, though Neck never managed to get to those either. Still, he figures his moral support should count for something.

  Neck nods at Henry. “We’ve got some business to take care of then I’m going to the gym. I can bring some tacos down later on.”

  “Are you a model,” Henry asks.

  Ally says actress and blushes, trying to play it off.

  Henry clears his throat and extends a hand. “What light through yonder window breaks.”

  Ally and Neck watch him with bemused smiles. “Go on,” Neck says. “Finish it.”

  “That’s all I know. They’re not big on Shakespeare in my school.”

  “You even in high school yet?”

  “School don’t move the keys.” Henry knits his fingers together. “Soul does.”

  “Well, you could be in my play any day,” Allison says.

  “Don’t encourage him, Ally.” Neck shoots Henry a look before the kid can say anything. She kisses Neck on the cheek again then heads back to the bedroom.

  “Break a leg,” Henry shouts at the closing door. He looks back at Neck and raises his hand in the air. “What?”

  Neck has to bite back a smile. Kid has spunk, and then some. He can definitely see Jeff’s blood in him.

  “Are you having a midlife crisis?” Henry says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just asking.” Henry pokes at his cereal with the spoon. “Cause, you know, she’s a lot, um—”

  “There is an age difference between Allison and I, you are correct.”

  “It’s cool if you are. My grandmother had one when I was born. It happens.”

  “I don’t think I’m old enough for one of those yet.” Neck drinks the rest of his coffee but it’s gone cold. “Look, you got some jokes and you can lay on the charm just fine. When we get over there, you sit and shut up, hear?”

  Henry nods.

  “Don’t just nod. Tell me you understand what I’m saying.”

  “I understand. I sit there and shut up.”

  “Good,” Neck says. “Stokes ain’t a man to joke around with. You want to keep all your fingers working, you respect that.”

  “I watched him break my Dad’s hands. I know.”

  “All right then. Eat up and we’ll try to keep you in one piece.”

  ROUND THREE

  “You know how much money you cost me? No, don’t even guess. Guys like you, they don’t understand that kind of money. They think, Hey, what the hell it’s only a couple hundred. He can take the hit. A couple thousand for me is a couple hundred for you, hear? Understand what I’m saying? So, no. It ain’t a couple hundred. Ain’t even a thousand or two, right? And now you come in asking me for favors, even after you pull that stunt last night. If I wasn’t worried I’d see red and cut off your hands, I might actually shake them. So, no, you could say I’m not really open to a proposition.”

  “Bill, how much did you actually lose?” Neck says. The office-trailer isn’t luxurious, but it’s nicer than he’d expected Stokes to have. He wouldn’t have minded one like this.

  “Numbers ain’t important. It’s what it looks like to everyone else that matters.” Stokes bites into a cheeseburger, grease dripping from his fingers onto the invoices that litter his desk. “What is everyone else thinking now? How my odds going to look if people think my fights can flop either way?”

  “I understand your concern.” Neck readjusts in the metal folding chair. He feels like tipping back, plopping his feet on Stokes’ desk and lighting a cigar, even though he doesn’t smoke. But he knows that would really get Stokes’ goat, and much as he doesn’t like to admit it, Neckbone needs a solid from Stokes right now.

  Neck remembers showing Stokes how to use a nail gun, back when Neck was running his own construction crew, back before he lost his temper one too many times. Stokes was so nervous about using the thing safely that Neck half-wanted to shoot his own thumb just to watch Stokes’ tan Carhartts turn wet brown.

  Amazing how quickly things can change. Roles, lives, status, power. His old foreman, this misanthropic Greek bastard named Stamos, had his scythe ready for Neck’s neck, all because Ally’s sister had repeatedly spurned the man’s advances. Neck held suspicion that Stamos knew he was close to leaving the crew and starting his own operation with Ally, a stage-set construction business that would combine Neck’s acumen for building and aesthetic design with Ally’s thespian aspirations.

  Stamos would nail Neck for whatever he could – a few extra minutes at lunch, ordering two extra boxes of nails or one sheet of plywood too many. He laid into Neck one day because a daily worker cut some studs too short, and when Stamos wouldn’t hear that Neck couldn’t speak Spanish and explain it to the man, Neck threw a circular saw through the window, thinking that might put an exclamation on his point. It did, however, it also put a hole through the windshield of the man’s Jaguar, which had been parked beneath the window. Stamos pushed charges as hard as he could, got reckless endangerment pushed up to second-degree assault with a deadly weapon.

  By the time Neck saw the sky without a ring of barbed-wire cyclone fence, the possibility of the stage-set construction had dried up and Stokes, being just the right combination of sycophant and reckless idiot to make him indispensable, was using Stamos’ construction business as a cover for running numbers with one of the neighborhood mopes, and quickly working his way into the fight racket.

  Sometimes it just happens that way, Neck thought. Nothing you can do, but what you can do.

  “Okay, Bill.” Neckbone leans forward and steeples his fingers. “Let me lay it out then.”

  “Please.” He gestures with burger in hand, flinging ketchup and horseradish at Neck. “Enlighten me, Victorian.”

  “The word is valedictorian. And I was salutatorian. That’s second in line.”

  “Whatever, professor.”

  “That boy outside has done nothing wrong. He doesn’t deserve to suffer the sins of his father.”

  “Then his father should pay up. And soon.”

  “Agreed.” Neck takes a sip from his water bottle. “But I was the one who lost my temper, so the boy shouldn’t be the one in danger.”

  Stokes shoves the rest of the burger in his mouth then
smiles. Pink meat is visible in the gap between two of his front teeth. Neck always wished he had knocked out more than one, to move him from character into grotesque. “You want me to break your hands then?”

  “I’ll go one bout on the house to pay Jeff’s share from last night. Minus the cost of replacing my windshield.”

  “Windshield?”

  “Tell FatFace the axe handle was a nice touch. Very poetic. It can’t be this next fight because my rent is due, but the one after you can have if you just leave the kid out of it. For good. This isn’t his fight.”

  “You do got a set on you, boy.” Stokes leans back in his chair, picking at his teeth with the sharp end of a drawing compass. He considers Neck with dull stare. “How good an earner you think you are?”

  “If you’re asking, am I a better pug than those other yahoos you milk? then yeah, I am. I don’t fall and I don’t lose, even if the other guy is straight. Everyone who knows, knows that.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Look, Bill, I don’t get into the business of other men. Those are your numbers and I don’t need to know them. Just do me this solid and we’ll go on like nothing was nothing.”

  Stokes scribbles on a napkin and pushes it through the debris on his desk to Neck. “You that good?”

  Neck wonders if Bill put the decimal place in the wrong spot. “What the hell is this?”

  “What you owe for the boy.”

  “How did Jeff get into you for five thousand?”

  “Five thousand, four hundred seventy-eight.” Stokes works the food from his teeth, examines it on his fingertip then flicks it at Neckbone. “But you don’t get into other men’s business, so your only concern is the number.”

  Neck drinks until the water bottle is empty.

  “So,” Stokes says. “You want to do cash or credit? I don’t take AmEx.”

  “How much for the vig?”

  “One fifty...” Stokes flashes that smile again and Neck wants to break his fist on his face. “Per week.”