At ten after, a powder blue Chevrolet with the back windows blacked out pulled up, and Titus stepped out of the driver’s side.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against the hood. He had a bandage on his forehead, and his chin was scraped up. One elbow of his suit was torn. I faced him, forcing a grin I didn’t feel.
“Lookin’ pretty rough, Titus,” I said. “I guess you can’t win a bout against a road, can you?”
“Funny,” he said. “Funny guy you are.”
“And I see you have a back-up automobile.”
“The other one’s a bit, you know, smashed up. But go ahead and smirk, Riley. Enjoy yourself, while you can.”
I nodded, struggling to keep the grin on my face and failing. He’d deflated me more than a little. I said, “Okay. I’m here, you’re here. Where’s Lucy?”
“You didn’t think we’d bring her, did you? Lucy is… elsewhere. But we did bring along a couple guests.”
He rapped on the blacked-out window of the Chevrolet, and the door opened. Al slid out, motioning with his head to someone inside the vehicle. The someone got out, and any lingering stupid hope I may have been clinging to disappeared.
It was Clarence. And right behind him, Big Earl. Clarence had a cut above his left eyebrow. Both of them looked chagrined.
Titus said, “Found these two clowns a couple minutes ago, loitering around about a block from here. Thought you were told, Riley, to come alone.”
Earl said, “I done told you, boy, Tom didn’t know nothing about us following. We—“
“Shut it, fat boy,” Al said. He shoved Earl forward. “Into the gym.”
I said, “Look, they don’t have anything to do with this. Let them go, okay?”
Al said, “They made their choice. They live with the consequences. That’s life.”
Clarence said, “What are you going to do with us?”
Al sneered at him. “You say something to me, boy? You opening your mouth to me?”
“I just want to know—“
Al backhanded Clarence across the face. “Don’t talk to me, boy,” he said. Then, to Earl, “Now move, fat man. Open up the gym.”
I could see the raw anger burning in Earl’s eyes, but he fought it down and headed for the door. Clarence’s face was stone. He stared straight ahead, not even wiping the blood from his mouth. Earl fumbled around with his key chain, got the door open, and made a stiff gesture inside.
“After you,” he said.
“Move your fat ass,” Al said.
Again, the anger flared and vanished, and Big Earl went in. Clarence followed, then me. Al and Titus came in last, and Al locked the door behind.
ROUND 16
Titus flipped on the overhead lights, showing a gym that had been evacuated quickly earlier that day. The mats were still on the floor. The gym hadn’t been swept or mopped, and the stale smell of sweat hung in the still air.
Al pulled his gun out from his coat pocket.
I said, “Listen. Titus, Al. You have me, okay? I’m not going to give you any trouble. Just, please… whatever you’re planning on doing, leave them out of it. Let them go, call whoever has Lucy, and let’s just… let’s just be civilized about it. Please.”
“Civilized?” Titus said. “What do you know about civilized, you little punk? You’re a washed-up has-been. No, worse than that. You’re a never-ran.”
I was too consumed with anxiety for my friends for his words to anger me. I said, “Yeah, okay. I’m a never-ran. You’re right. You’ve got nothing to prove by hurting them.”
Al said, “Hurting them?” He laughed and touched the gun barrel to Clarence’s head. “We aren’t here to hurt them, Riley. We’re here to blow their stupid brains out.”
His finger started to squeeze the trigger and Clarence didn’t close his eyes, only looked straight ahead with that stoic, stony face of his.
“Coward,” I said. “You stinking yellow coward!”
Al paused long enough to look at me, eyebrow arched. “You talking about me, Riley?”
“I’m talking about both of you. Yellow-bellied, lousy vermin, that’s what you are. The Stavros brothers. Ha! You think that name means something? You think people respect the name ‘Stavros’? Not a chance. Back in Detroit, you know what people used to say about Stavros? They used to say, ‘Stavros, must be Greek for sleazy, rat-faced scum’, that’s what they used to say.”
I’d never heard anyone ever say anything even remotely like that back in Detroit, but given the circumstances I wasn’t above making things up on the fly.
“Is that right?” Titus said, sneering.
“That’s right. They used to say that scrawny little Alkandros here couldn’t face a man unless he had a gun in his hand. And you, Titus… everyone knows you’ve never won a match fair-and-square in your whole career.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Always a low-blow, or a head-butt. Always looking for a way to cheat, because you don’t know the first thing about how to have a real fight.”
“That’s a lie!” Titus snarled.
Earl and Clarence were looking at me now, apparently thinking I’d lost my mind, and maybe they were right. Why on earth would I want to make the Stavros boys mad, when we were already a hair’s breadth from being murdered? But I couldn’t stop now that I was rolling.
I said, “I’ve fought a lot of punks, Titus, but you really take the cake. Any other fighter, if he realized he wasn’t good enough to make the cut, he’d learn more, train harder, or just get out of the game. But you? You don’t have the stamina. Or the guts.”
I spit on the floor between us.
“You,” I said. “You, Titus… you’re just a two-bit hood pretending to be a fighter.”
Titus took a step toward me, his face twisted with rage. He raised his fist.
I said, “Yeah, hit me. Since your brother has a gun ready, there’s no danger, right? Go ahead, hit me, big man.”
He stopped in his tracks, steam practically coming out of his ears.
Al said, “He’s trying to get your goat, Titus. Let it go.”
I leaned in closer, taking away the space between us, daring him. “Listen to big brother, Titus. He’s trying to save you some embarrassment.”
“You lousy Mick bastard.”
Big Earl laughed, surprising all of us. We looked at him, and Titus said, “Something funny, fatso?”
“Yeah, a little,” Earl said. “It’s just… well… ha… Tom here is trying to goad you into a real fight, sure. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to see that. But you, pretty boy, you’re just too chicken to do it, aren’t you?”
Al said, “Titus, don’t—“
“That cuts it,” Titus said. He looked at me. “Get in the ring, Riley. I’m going to knock your teeth out, and I’m going to do it by the rules.”
“Give me a break,” I said. “You ain’t fighter enough.”
“Get in the goddamn ring! I’ll show you who’s fighter enough!”
Al said, “We don’t have time for this nonsense.”
“Oh, we’ll make time. Mr. K wants Riley alive, but he never said the Mick has to be in perfect condition. Now get in the ring, Riley!”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why should I?”
“What?”
“Why else should I give you the satisfaction, Titus?”
Al said, “Brother, I’m telling you, blow this off. He’s only—“
“Shut up, Al!” Titus grabbed the gun from his brother’s hand and started waving it around. He said, “Get in that goddamn ring right now or I’ll put matching holes in both of your friend’s heads. You hear me?”
I shook my head. “You clowns are going to kill them, anyway. No deal.”
Titus’ face turned red and for long seconds he stammered and made weird angry sounds. He pointed the gun at Clarence, then at Earl, then at me. Finally he said, “Fine. Fine, that’s the way you want it.”
Al said, “Damnit.”
Titus
ejected the clip from the gun, threw it across the gym. “There!” he said. “No gun. How’s that?” He tossed the unloaded weapon away. “Now get your ass in that ring, Riley.”
Al stood there, shaking his head. Clarence and Earl looked at me.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re on, Titus.”
ROUND 17
Big Earl was strapping on my gloves, and I noticed his hands were trembling a little. He kept fumbling with the laces, sweating, cursing under his breath.
“Relax, boss,” I said.
“Relax? Ha. That ain’t gonna happen. I ain’t feeling too good about this situation.”
“Nothing to worry about,” I said. “I’ve fought him before. I know the way he operates. It’ll be a cakewalk.”
But I wasn’t feeling near as confident as I sounded. Maybe I could beat Titus in a fair match, maybe—if I was in fighting prime. But it had been too long since I’d been in the ring. I was out of practice, out of shape. And I kept thinking about our scuffle in the alley. He manhandled me like I was an amateur there, moving fast and barely breaking a sweat.
That was in the alley, though. Not in the ring. In the ring, I could take him.
Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
We’d both stripped down to bare chests. On the other side of the ring, Al was helping Titus with his gloves, muttering to him the entire time—probably berating him for doing this in the first place—and I couldn’t help but notice that Titus looked leaner and meaner than he did the last time I fought him in Detroit.
And I realized, out of nowhere, something significant.
I was scared.
He could beat me. He really could. He could do it fair and square, without head-butts or low-blows or any other kind of chicanery.
Why was I even doing this? The end result would be the same, even if by some miracle I beat him. They would take me to wherever Kardinsky was, and they would kill me. And unless Clarence and Earl beat a hasty retreat, they would wind up dead as well.
And Lucy. What would they do with her? Christ, I didn’t even know if she was still alive, and here I was, playing around in the ring as if this stupid point of pride somehow mattered.
Yeah, I was scared, and I wondered how old Hugh would have felt to see me now, all the cockiness gone, all the bravado a thing of the past. Was this what he had in mind for me?
Back at St. Vincent’s, when I was a kid, Father Tim always said the same thing that Hugh would echo, years later—Keep your head in the game, Tom.
Instinct, and clear thinking.
Bob and weave and look for your opening.
Look for your opening, yeah. That was it. I had to wait for it, be patient. And keep my head in the game. The opening—in the fight and in the effort to save all our lives-- would show itself.
It had to.
Clarence, standing outside the ring, said, “Who’s gonna ref this thing?”
Titus said, “No ref. We don’t need one.”
“Gotta have a ref, if we’re gonna do it right.”
Al finished lacing Titus’ gloves and said, “Fine. I’ll ref it.”
Earl said, “No. No way. You’re biased here. There’s no way you’re gonna—“
I cut him off. “Let him do it, Earl. It doesn’t matter. Titus isn’t going to cheat.”
Titus punched his gloves together a few times, nodded at me. “I don’t need to,” he said.
Earl sighed and shook his head and finished up with my gloves. He muttered to me, “I don’t feel too good about this situation.”
“Yeah. You already said that.”
“Did I? Well, I reckon it bears repeating.”
Titus said, “Are we going to do this, Riley? Come on.”
Earl slapped me on the shoulder, said, “Luck,” and climbed out of the ring.
Al stood off in a corner, looking none-too-pleased, and said, “We’ll skip the formalities, yeah? Well, what are you two waiting for? Fight.”
And it started, just as simply as that.
ROUND 18
We went at each other like a couple of bulls at first, without finesse, meeting in the exact middle of the ring. There was no dancing around, no fake-outs. Titus came in with a right swing for the head and I got my gloves up just in time to catch it.
I bounced to the left, going with the momentum of his swing, and shot a quick jab at his exposed mid-section. He grunted, moved back, then forward again quick, going for the left side of my face.
I ducked under the swing, came back up with an upper-cut that brushed against his gloves. We circled each other warily.
He had his gloves up, but I could see the smile on his face. I realized I was grimacing, looking worried, but I couldn’t summon the will to return his confident grin. Stay focused, I told myself. Keep your head in the game.
I aimed a jab at his face, poorly timed, and he stepped away from it and then his right glove nailed me in the temple and black stars twinkled and I staggered back. I put my gloves up, too high, and he pounded me two, three times in the ribs and bounced away.
My ribs were already aching from our fight earlier, and the power jabs didn’t help them any. Struggling to draw breath, I retreated to the ropes and he followed.
I couldn’t go down, not like this, not on the ropes. Almost blindly, I swung with my right, missed.
And he got me with that devastating right hook of his.
I reeled back on my heels, and the world sounded like a tidal wave crashing against the shore. I was vaguely aware of him hitting me again, a left jab that connected with my jaw.
I fell back against the ropes, and only instinct brought my gloves up to cover my face. He crowded in, pistoned his fists into my aching ribs, four or five times.
I think he was amazed his famous right hook hadn’t laid me out. I was surprised, too.
There was less than two inches of space between us, but I managed to get a glove in and popped him solid on the chin. It didn’t shake him much, but it did make him move back and cover up.
It wasn’t an advantage worth talking about, but I had to take what I could get. And I knew I had to get away from the ropes.
To clear space, I started swinging like a madman, pushing forward with each step. Titus clearly wasn’t expecting me to do something so undignified—he bounced away, his grin gone, wary of one of my fists actually connecting by accident.
He was the only thing I could see. Even the ring around him had sort of shrunk down into a warped tunnel centered around Titus. I kept swinging, forcing him back, not giving him a chance to exploit my openness. It was sloppy as hell, what I was doing, and if he’d been expecting this sort of thing, no doubt he would’ve shut me down but good.
I looked like a palooka, I knew, but at that point it was pure instinct. I just had to get him back, away from me. Long enough to get my head clear.
After a few seconds of me chasing him around the ring like a punch-drunk madman, Titus started to smile again, realizing I was operating on pure desperation. He danced around to my left, let loose with a flurry of jabs meant to keep me dizzy.
Only the first one of them got me, but I barely felt it. I ducked under the second, sidestepped the third, countered with a wild combo at his torso. Both punches hit home. He huffed, tried to move away from me, but I crowded him, leaving myself open and putting everything I had into a left hook.
It smashed flush into his temple, and he reeled away. The smile was gone from his face again.
I pushed in, still dizzy, throwing combos without even thinking about them. He had his gloves up, had gone totally defensive, and I pounded away at him until he was up against the ropes.
Most of my shots were to his midsection, since I couldn’t get through his gloves. But I made the most of it, giving him a taste of his own medicine.
He clinched with me then, holding my arms down, and dug his chin painfully into my shoulder. While he was at it, he slammed his right into my ribs a few more times. I was vaguely aware of Al saying something, pull
ing us apart.
I moved away from him. Not fast enough.
Titus’ right hook veered into my peripheral vision again, and before I could react, it slammed into my left eye.
I felt my head snapping right, felt gravity fail as my mind seemed to float out of my body for an instant. And then his left glove, zooming out of a gray fog, right into my right cheekbone.
I seemed to be falling for a long time. The world rushed away from me in a mad roar and I thought, No no no, I can’t lose this, I can’t, but I was. The overhead lights shimmered above me and I was toppling backwards and then I felt the cold mat under my back.
I couldn’t see anything but the lights. From far away, someone was counting, his voice sardonic and clipped.
“One… two… three…”
Get up, I told myself. Come on, get up, Tom, get the hell off the canvas…
“Four… five…”
I forced my arms to move. I forced them to push me up to a sitting position. The world spun wildly.
“Six…”
I went forward, made it onto my hands and knees.
“Seven…”
And tried to stand up, stumbled, fell to my knees.
“Eight…”
The bell rang.
Bell? What bell?
Blearily, I looked to ringside. There was Clarence, with a stopwatch and the bell hammer, grinning.
“To your corners, gentlemen,” he said.
ROUND 19
Titus said, “What? What the hell is this? No one said anything about time,” and Clarence said, “No, sir, no one did, but this is a by-the-rules bout, ain’t it? Since your brother has the pleasure of being the ref, I took it upon myself to be the time-keeper. That’s the rules. You don’t have no problem with the rules, do you?”
Titus cursed and stomped around the ring. Big Earl laughed, and Al stood in the corner of the ring, shaking his head and frowning at his brother.
No one helped me up. Without using the ropes, I got to my feet, pretended like my head wasn’t spinning, and went back to my corner, where Earl was waiting.
Bluff City Brawler (Fight Card) Page 7