Soul Standard

by Richard Thomas

  “That they squander their lives on rigged games and watered-down booze?”

  She smiles at me. “They’re all rigged, really. Anyway, I think it’s sweet and it keeps me entertained for an evening.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Yeah. Sweet. What about you? Stripping down to your undies and beating the fuck out of people, schlepping to the gym at six in the morning when you should be cuddled up next to your sweetie.”

  “How do you know—”

  She touches my hand. “A ring is a good start.”

  “Boxing is sweet, I think.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “A little.” I look around and realize we’re standing on the train platform. At the far end, a lump of human is curled near the edge, not moving. Rats screech down on the tracks.

  “So why do you do it?”

  “Guess for the same reason you sing.”

  “Because it’s a way out of here?”

  I picture Mona scrubbing our floor to splinters, polishing the counter reflective. “Metaphorically speaking, yes. I enjoy it, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  A blast of stars before me. I stumble back, cup my nose, smell static in the air. When I blink away the spots, she’s shaking her right hand.

  “You’ve got a brick face,” she says.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “I thought you liked getting punched.”

  “That’s not really what I meant.”

  “Good thing I’m a girl then.”

  I feel my nose with the pads of my fingers. Not broken. “Don’t hit like one.”

  The tracks vibrate, brakes squeal and scatter rats as the train arrives. The doors unlock with a pneumatic hiss and I wedge a hand in, pry them apart and let her enter first. We sit in the first row. Our voices echo in the empty carriage.

  “I can control it, in there.” I gesture to an amorphous infinity, at the neighborhoods we dodge through. The houses boarded and lit with kerosene lamps. The tin sheets propped up with charred building remains. The crumbling buildings and neon signs. “In the ring.”

  “The other guy can knock you out, can’t he?”

  I allow a small smile. “He can try.”

  “So you’re good.”

  “You go out there,” I say, pointing out the window, “and who knows what’s waiting. In the ring, I know what happens. I make it happen.”

  “So you’re a control freak.”

  I loosen my collar, square my chest with her. “What happens inside the ring, whether you win or lose, it’s all dependent on yourself. If you’re bloodied, maimed, or if you get killed, it all falls back on you.” I nod at a passing building, smoke tumbling from the roof, the windows. “That’s more than any of them can say.”

  Some fat motherfucker borrowed my stool and apparently has no understanding of the sitting process. The legs are uneven and wobbly. I hook my feet around the bottom rung, cross my arms to get comfortable, falling back into yesterday’s subway ride, tracing the contours of her chin, cheeks, then the damn stool tips forward. Not enough to fall, but it upsets my equilibrium and I end up throwing my arms sideways, gasping in surprise.

  How the fuck am I supposed to bounce a gambling parlor when I look like an epileptic pigeon?

  A guttural laugh shuffles up the street. A handful of bills land next to my feet.

  “I got twenty on the chair.”

  I look up. “Fuck you, Fancy.”

  “Double down if you’re feeling right.”

  “It’s a stool, not a chair.”

  His drainpan forehead wrinkles as his laugh whistles through his collection of teeth. He bends down and snatches up the money, his fingers like sausages, knuckles like chunks of rock.

  Back in the day, he was Fancy Clancy, named on account of his dexterous footwork. He could nearly get a brawler to knock himself out just by dancing around him. His left stunned the other pug, not so much with power but because he was so fast the other guy only saw Fancy’s shoulder twitch, then white dots. Though he could meter it out for days, the man was not built to absorb punishment, as evinced by his disfigured mug. Removing himself from the canvas wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be, and he traded one vice for the next. Now he runs minor errands for Sal in exchange for some walking around money, which he promptly gives back to Sal via Daymo.

  “Got to learn to keep your right up,” he says.

  “Someone broke my stool.”

  “Nah.” He smacks the side of my head and my right eye goes blue with pain. I nearly fall off the stool but he pushes me back up. “Won’t get swole like that if you protect yourself. Lucky you haven’t run into someone like old Ezekiel. He’ll make you learn quick.” He raises his hands, scuffles back and forth in an arthritic version of his former self. His jab is still surprisingly quick and he tags me twice on the opposite side of my head to prove his point.

  “Keep myself covered. I get it, you old bastard.”

  He coughs into the crook of his elbow, chest rattling and eyes threaded through with red lines. He lobs a thick ball of green and brown mucus onto the sidewalk and pounds his fist on his chest. He straightens himself and dips his head when he catches sight of Carissa.

  “Beg your pardon, miss.”

  She arches an eyebrow, unaware, and squints as she sets a bead on my face.

  “I’m not much of a fan, but you’re supposed to stay out of the other guy’s way, yeah? Not jump in front of his glove?”

  Fancy pipes up, “I told him the same thing, miss. Doesn’t listen to me either.”

  I ignore him, tell her it was only sparring. “Maybe you two should be in my corner tomorrow night so I don’t fuck it up. What do you say to that?”

  He looks side to side, down to where his watch would be if he hadn’t already sold it. “Nah, think I got some things planned I’ve got to attend to.”

  She digs into her woven purse, different from the black leather bag she hauled around the other day, and pulls out a small tin. “Grandmother’s secret.”

  I unscrew the lid and am hit by the smell of chamomile and antifreeze with campfire undertones. I press the lid down again and she snatches it from my hands.

  “Come here, you big baby.” She presses her fingertips into the salve and spreads a thin layer over the swollen part of my face. Her touch lingers even after the salve is absorbed. She examines my features, her tan lips pursed, but never looks directly at me. Cataloguing, memorizing. I hope I’m not projecting again. “Bruising is just collected blood. This will disperse that blood, move the fluid away to get rid of the swelling.”

  I say thank you, but it might only be in my head. The spot where she applied the salve burns, hot needles stabbing the skin.

  “There,” she says, her hand traipsing my jaw, fingertips glancing off my chin. “Give it a few minutes to work.”

  I nod, and she enters the Gurney.

  “I don’t know about you, but I got myself a nice hard-on.”

  I’d forgotten Fancy was standing there. I shake my head and tell him to go inside. He opens the door and an old man tumbles out. He lands on his right hand, which folds beneath his torso. He rolls, screams reverberating in the street.

  “Fucking cheaters,” a voice inside yells.

  “Ain’t they all?” Fancy says, stepping through the door.

  The old man sniffs back a few tears and his good hand cups the mangled one, fingers black and red and jutting at assorted angles. The hand itself hangs only by skin, flopping back and forth. I can feel bone grinding against bone, the ball joint mashing against carpals. I broke my wrist on a man’s face once—I’d been in a hurry taping up, and he lowered his head when I swung, compressing all my bones with a single snap—and I know that old man feels knives up and down his arm with every movement.

  I kneel down next to him, scoop my arm under his shoulders. My cheek is now freezing where it had been on fire. In my head I see black frostbite spreading, chunks of my
face falling off and shattering on the street. “Come on, old timer. Got to get moving.”

  Smudged across his face are liver spots like thumbprints dipped in oil. Tears cut lines through dusty cheeks. “What am I going to do?”

  I heft him to his feet. “Don’t know. But I wouldn’t stay here.”

  “They took my money. I’ve got nowhere to go.”

  I nudge his back, moving him along the pavement. “Don’t make bets your bones can’t back.”

  He shuffles toward Mom’s Bar. Mom’s standing in the doorway, butcher’s arms crossed and chewing on a cigarette, and she gives him such a severe look that he veers away, head down. He makes his way down the block, cradling his wrist like a ruined kitten, the showgirls catcalling even so. When he gets to the corner, he disappears into Apollo’s. Poor man’ll be lucky to get out with all his organs. I catch Mom’s eye, say what can you do. She crushes her smoke under her heel and heads inside.

  I climb back onto my school, catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. I press my fingers to my cheek and feel no swelling. The bruise has evaporated.

  Three syringes of Avitene, a perfume bottle of 1:1000, and a knot of gauze go into my bag, along with an extra shirt and two rolls of tape. The last thing I need is a cutman saying he forgot his supplies at home, or being paid to forget. For a moment I waver, then throw in an identification card, my grandfather’s army watch, and a solid gold cross my mother got from her mother who got it from her mother when they immigrated. This man’s right is frightening, and I won’t lie in hospital purgatory with a hematoma blooming inside my head because I don’t have the right things to trade.

  I stand shirtless before our bedroom mirror wearing boots and jeans, throwing slow-motion combinations. Jab-cross-cross. Jab-jab-right hook. He’s wearing down, keep him moving. Jab-jab-cross-left hook-right uppercut. He’s tottering, watch him wobble. Swerving toward you, haymakers flying. Slip right, block left. Jab-jab-left hook-left hook-right overhand and his face is a downward smear, his knees water and ash, his brain stem a twisted mass of nerve endings all firing at once. The crowd screams, bottles flying at his limp form, the ref dragging him by the ankles, pausing, grabbing a cornerman to take an arm and help.

  All the while I stand in the corner, staring. Waiting. Waiting for the envelope of crumpled bills in Tug’s top drawer. Waiting for the next man to fall, and the next, until the final one. Waiting for the shining summer afternoon when I take the train to the Outskirts and thumb a ride to the Plantation. Waiting for the moment when their wrought-iron gates part and Mona strolls down the driveway, cherry blossoms in her chestnut hair, and sets her suitcase next to my feet. Waiting for her to take my collar in her slender sculptor’s hands, pull me forward and whisper, “Thank you for waiting.”

  I pull on my shirt and coat, grab my bag. Even when I’m in the bedroom, I can hear squeaking in the kitchen. I take two long breaths before leaving the dark hallway and stepping into the kitchen.

  Mona’s craned over the counter, wiping and spraying and scouring and sweating. Her elbow seems to rotate like a praying mantis’s head, achieving new levels in cleanliness with every obtuse angle. The rag is a blur of yellow, nearly the same color as when we bought it six months ago. If the ammonia and lemon juice didn’t leave a hint of residue, it would be exactly the same.

  It takes three throat clears for her to acknowledge me. She spins quickly, hands over her chest.

  “You look nice.”

  I assess my jeans and boots, the trench with a slash in the shoulder. I curve my lips upward, say thank you. “Did you do something with your hair?” I step toward her, cupping the inward swooping curve on the left side of her head.

  “I curled it this morning.” The right side lies straight, as if fresh from the shower. There are white streaks in parts, started more than three months ago, but we’re both on the diminishing side of child-bearing age. As if that could even happen again.

  Her hand in mine, I press my lips to her tender knuckles. I can feel her sharp inhalations, the tension in her forearm. “You look beautiful.”

  She bites back a smile, waves the rag as if to say, oh, go on.

  “I’ve got a big fight tonight.” I’m looking down at the scuffed toes of my boots without realizing it. I don’t know if it’s unconsciously bashful or ashamed, don’t know if I want to know. “Think I could show you off?”

  “Oh,” she says, turning back to the counter, hand moving in circles before she’s even there. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s the floor and the fig and—”

  “It’s fine, sweetheart.” I touch her hand and tell her I love her, I’ll see her this evening.

  As I walk out the door, I scuff my boot along the floor so she’ll actually have something to clean.

  A locust pings off the bulb above the ring. The Anvil beats his wrapped fists together, a cloud of powder exploding from the tape. I hope to fuck that’s talcum. Looks too light to be lye, but with the line of tweakers half-mooning his corner, who knows. Might’ve accidentally found a way to reconstitute the dead while trying to get high and dried out the corpse before throwing it on a piece of tinfoil.

  We meet under the light. The ref recites his edict. I tip my head up to get a bead on him.

  “You up, or you in?”

  He grins at me. Five teeth glisten. “The fuck you think?”

  “One can never tell.”

  He leans down, nose a quarter inch from mine. His breath smells of sour cream, old meat, and charcoal. “I’m going to fuck you like your dad used to.”

  I swallow, flex my fingers. “That’s good to know.”

  And I rear back, twist hard through my hip and sink my right into his eye socket. Something squishes against my finger.

  He stumbles back, shakes his head like a dog drying itself, blood flying off. He charges me with pumping arms. I slip the punch, keep moving, distance him with my left, and wait for him to open up before throwing my right. His chest thumps, absorbs the brunt of my punch, and he counters with a left that opens the side of my face.

  I slash at my eye, wiping back blood. I jab twice to back him up and he uncorks a right.

  The crowd whooshes through a tunnel, chasing me. I taste metal and hear a faint clap of thunder. Roll over, see the ref’s hands by my head. Six, he says. Seven. I roll to my belly and press my knuckles into the canvas, do a push up, bring my feet beneath me. My legs bow under the weight of my body, straighten with a snap. He asks if I can go on, and I duck as his face splits, a tooth sent flying across the canvas. Though nigh on deadly, the Anvil’s hook is far from accurate. I step over the fallen ref, dodge two jabs.

  We parry punches for a minute, both trying to get our legs under us. Just before the bell rings, he goes for a kill shot and leaves his jaw hanging open. I connect at the top of his mandible and send him reeling.

  My cutman throws water at me, presses a burlap cloth against my face. I imagine it’s yellow and smells of ammonia. I imagine I can see a rusted outline of my face on our counter. He stings my temple with adrenaline, presses more gauze around it to soak up the moisture before applying Avitene.

  “Might want to stay away from that side,” he says. “Likely to split you, he gets near.”

  “Yeah, like my daddy.”

  The gauze loosens for a second. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  The ref shifts his jaw back and forth then rings the bell. Cutman hoists me up. “Good luck.”

  The Anvil comes to the center, fists resting at his thigh. “Come on. Come on, let’s see it.”

  I keep my fists up, elbows in, hear Fancy goading me. Feint right and he’s slow on the draw. Still, his hands stay. Another feint left. He bucks right and I land a cross on his forehead. Wrist presses into carpal compresses into knuckle. Tingling fingertips. I make a claw and they’re still mobile. His left eye is slightly crossed.

  I close in, lay a jab-right hook-left hook on him, and as he tips forward, I catch the scent of sweetness. Step back, hands mid-ches
t. He smiles and pops a quick combo. His fists slice the light into hundreds of tiny shards. His fists are dwarf stars turned supernova on my face. His fists are covered in sap, dipped in glass.

  Blood curtains. I throw my head back and forth. The ring clears, goes red. Glimpses of him, an electric field of violence more than a visual person. I strafe right, throw a jab to keep him back, keep circling, wanting to stop and concentrate, will the bell to ring. Fling away the blood in time to see his left on a bead toward my face. Arcing away, he still grazes my cheek.

  The Anvil’s hung out, extended, and my right hurtles up past my torso, notching in between his Adam’s apple and jaw. Under the muted shouts of the crowd I hear a pop. His eyes bulge, break red. His knees disappear and he collapses, glass knuckles slicing the canvas as he lands.

  I hurry over to the cutman, who presses towels against my face. “He still down?”

  “For now.”

  When the blood is cleared away, and the Anvil is erecting himself piece by piece, I walk over, stand above him. “Should’ve said you were up.”

  He says something that’s lost in bursts of red. I drop down and unleash a right, splitting the side of his face from temple to nose. His head hits the canvas and bounces, a halo of blood radiating. The crowd erupts. I wipe my face and retreat to the fighters’ quarters.

  “Lord Almighty.” Fancy takes a heavy drag from his cigarillo and exhales into the night air. “I’ve seen some cattle coming out of their house look better than that man.”

  “If he would’ve fought fair, there’d be no problem.”

  “Can’t say you look a whole hell of a lot better, though.” He exhales a smoke ring, pokes a finger through it. “Still. Man isn’t going to eat right for a couple moons.”

  I lean back on my stool. Though I can’t be positive, I think Sal heard me complain about the stool and had one of his lackeys fix it. There’s no rocking, and the wood itself feels smoother.

  Carissa makes her way up the street. She holds the small purse slightly away from her body, trying to minimize the effect of pivoting. I wonder if it’s pride or a safety measure. If those two from the other night were any indication, though, I pray for anyone who decides to fuck with her.