Incense and Peppermints

by Constantine, Cathrina

  “You have to remove your shirt and shoes,” coached the announcer. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Kevin Mank.”

  “Go to that corner.” Practicing air punches, Kevin sprang up and down on tippy-toes, and then toed off his shoes and disrobed his shirt.

  “In this corner, we have the challenger, Kevin the Punisher,” said the announcer, “and in this corner, we have Tank.” With a flamboyant sweep of his arm, the announcer indicated our doorman.

  The beefy guy stepped over the cord and clomped his bare feet in a puddle of blood.

  Awed and faintly speechless, I couldn’t take my eyes off Tank’s muscular girth. The throng howled in admiration and ribbed Kevin, who was breaking out in a sweat. People dashed to place their bets—Monty, Raven, Phoenix, and Stevie included.

  “Aren’t you going to bet?” I asked Michael.

  “I spent my last dime filling the gas tank, and betting on human flesh seems unethical.”

  We waited through a lull in the event while money was exchanged. A man in a black tuxedo spoke to Tank. Tank nodded. Meanwhile, poor Kevin was receiving a pep talk from his buddies.

  “Shit, man,” Steve said, coming from the betting booths. “That dude will slaughter Kevin.”

  The affray commenced with Kevin dancing around Tank for a full minute. So whoever purchased the minute bet had already won some money. It looked more like a dance recital instead of a scuffle which prompted boos and jeering.

  Kevin punched Tank’s mid-section, but his knuckles bounced off his flubber. The impact didn’t appear to bother the beefy guy one bit. Then, swiftly, Tank clipped the side of Kevin’s head. He crumpled, unconscious. There was an audible gasp from the audience, then just as quickly, roaring esteem for Tank.

  Kevin’s friends peeled him off the cement and carried him to the benches. The announcer again claimed center ring. “Kevin lasted two minutes and five seconds. Not bad. Not bad,” he commended. “Do we have another challenger? Tank’s got at least another minute or two left in him. Don’t ya, Tank?”

  Tank broke into a sinister smile. The audience laughed.

  Stevie was again gearing up to open his fat mouth. I stabbed my heel into the top of his foot.

  “Owwww… Why’d you do that?” He hopped on one foot.

  “To shut you up.”

  A second man parted the mob and high-stepped over the cord and into the arena. Wearing a self-assured, fixed grin, it was the twinge of his eyes that gave him away. I wagered the guy wasn’t resilient and figured he was chopped liver. Momentary bets were exchanged, and after the bell rang, Tank tormented the man named Phil. I couldn’t stomach the pummeling, so I watched Michael instead. His eyes tapered monitoring the fighters’ every move. Phil endured his turmoil for less than two minutes.

  “Got any more of the whiskey,” Michael asked Stevie.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to need it.” Michael held out his cup for a refill and belted down the whiskey.

  Again, the announcer sought challengers. “One more, gentlemen. And, this time, to make it interesting, we’ll award an extra hundred dollars to anyone who can drop Tank to his knees. Now, that’s not hard to do, is it guys?” he taunted the spectators.

  Michael unbuttoned his shirt and bent over to pull off his boots.

  “Whatcha doing?” Tom asked.

  “No, Michael,” I said. “You’re not going through with this. Are you?”

  “I’m praying I last two, possibly three minutes.” Michael pulled off his socks and stuffed them into his boots. “Bet on that.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Don’t. Please don’t do this.” My voice quavered.

  “We need the money. Besides,” he said sheepishly, “Tank’s getting tired.”

  “Hey, man, keep away from his right arm, got that?” Monty cautioned. “And what do you want written on your tombstone?”

  “That’s not cool.” Raven bashed him in the belly.

  Michael was in the process of unzipping his pants. His friends looked at him queerly.

  “Hey, they’re new. I’m not getting blood on them.” He gauged the guys’ legs and said, “Gimme your jeans, Steve. You can wear mine.”

  “You’re kidding me.” But he hurriedly stripped out of his jeans and handed them over. “You got balls, man.” He slipped on Michael’s pants, and they dusted the ground. “I can always say I got into your pants. Make the girls jealous.” Stevie snickered, zippering the fly.

  “Real funny,” said Michael “I’ll need a ride to the hospital, or if I’m lucky, someone will be driving me home.”

  “We got your back, man,” Stevie said. “Hey, remember the right arm.”

  Michael climbed into Stevie’s jeans, the hem reaching his ankles. After he slipped off his shirt, he handed it to me. My eyes roamed over his naked chest to see patchy discoloration on his lower quadrant of his ribs.

  “Stevie, mind if I give your sister a kiss?” He wasn’t looking at me, but at my brother, “For luck.”

  Stevie’s one eyebrow shot up, then he raised his shoulders, and said, “Go for it.”

  Regardless of asking for my permission, Michael smoothed his large hands on either side of my face, and lacking provocation, he captured my lips. It was a desperate kiss filled with unspent emotion. He just as quickly released me, saying, “Take her home, Steve.” Gazing into my eyes he brushed his lips across my forehead. “I don’t want her to see me get annihilated.”

  “I can’t leave now, bro. Mary can handle it, can’t you?”

  With them gawping at me, my tongue tied into a knot, and I think I nodded.

  Exhaling a growling grunt, Michael veered toward the ring.

  Why do they call it a ring when it’s a square?

  As soon as he’d turned, I detected whitish, irregular lines stripping his back. I wondered who or what could’ve caused that. It almost looked as if he’d been whipped.

  “All right, all right, all right. We have us another challenger. What’s your name, son?”

  “Michael,” he said point-blank, “and I’m not your son.”

  “Whoaaa!” the announcer said. “We got us a feisty one here, ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps Michael will last more than a minute. What’d you think, ladies? He’s a pretty boy.” The announcer was riling up the audience to place their wagers. “Strut around, Michael. Show the audience what you got.”

  Michael remained inflexible, glaring caustically at the announcer.

  I held the velvet rope for support, then popped my hands off, repulsed by the moisture. Flipping them over, I saw wet crimson smudges. Ugh. Disgusting. I scoured them on my jeans.

  “Hey,” Monty said, “did you see the scars? What’s up with that?”

  The spectators had also noticed because they blatantly gestured to the marks. Certain people rushed away and appeared to be amending their bets. I wondered why? Perhaps his scaring indicated he had the stamina to withstand a beating? Tank was an experienced fighter, yet, he was getting the old man bloat, and he was haggard. Michael’s body was firm and defined, ropy muscles twined the length of his arms. He padded to the corner and turned, his face chiseled in granite.

  “In this corner, the challenger, Pretty Boy Michael!”

  The crowd went wild.

  Tank’s body excreted sweat by the buckets, steeping him from head to toe. He’d previously removed his sweats and now wore a pair of boxer shorts. The man in the black tux hovered behind Tank and handed him a towel to mop his face, all the while whispering in his ear. Tank’s thickset body seemed to quiver in anticipation, his eyes boring holes into Michael.

  I estimated they were of the same height. Though Tank had an extra fifty pounds of bulk to contend with. A ding of a bell began the match, and Tank waddled to the middle of the ring. It appeared as if Michael was scared, frozen on the spot. The spectators�
� first reaction was to express amusement. Tank’s unsightly frown adjusted to an egotistic grimace, and throwing his arms upward, he provoked the crowd, signaling Michael’s ineptness.

  “Dead man walking,” Tom murmured. His fingers caged his mouth, and his eyes bugged out from behind his glasses.

  My muttering was for my ears alone. “C’mon, Michael. Don’t get killed.”

  Michael dug his toes into the solid cement and vaulted. He rammed Tank like a missile into his unprotected left side, unbalancing the buffoon to topple and taking Michael with him. Tank looked startled and opening his mouth he gasped. Pouncing on the hefty man, Michael grabbed Tank’s slimy head and slammed it to the ground.

  “You got him,” Tom hollered. “Get up. Dance around more. Time is ticking.”

  The hardcore spectacle curled a thread of trepidation around my throat, cutting off my breath. This wasn’t going to end well. I just knew it.

  It didn’t take long for a dazed Tank to gain his senses. For such a big man it surprised me as he leapt and hooked his massive arm around Michael’s waist. As if Michael was a lightweight, he flung him to the ground. Michael spooled away and leaped to his feet.

  “Keep moving, man. Keep moving.”

  The intensity of Monty’s voice worried me.

  “Go for the glass jaw.”

  “What’s a glass jaw?” I asked.

  Without taking his eyes from the scene, Monty said, “It’ll break easy. The guy’s weak spot.”

  “Punch him in the jaw!” I shouted.

  They collided, bodies barreled across the bloody floor. The two of them separated. Tank staggered upward, and Michael had a break to get Tank in a headlock. He towed the big man downward until his forehead scraped cement. Tank’s arm rose, ringing Michael’s neck before tossing him over his shoulders. Michael’s spine crashed to the ground.

  When Tank stretched his hands and performed a knee bend, it appeared as if he was getting ready to dive into a pool.

  “Get up, Michael.” Stevie screamed. “You’re doomed if that lard ass gets on top of you.”

  Tank executed an airborne belly flop for a full-fledged pulverization of Michael’s flesh. Michael twisted sideways, just enough to thwart him. Though, Tank squashed the right side of Michael’s right side, and his slimy head landed between Michael’s legs. Tank chomped on his inner thigh, gnashing. Gritting his teeth, Michael gurgled a groan.

  Sprawled in a bed of blood, Michael wrenched Tank off him. The man whirled around and sent a knuckled fist into Michael’s face. He’d jerked his head in the nick of time, foiling Tank’s destructive aim. His knuckles sheared off Michael’s cheekbone, spinning him backward.

  Tank’s burly arms hugged Michael’s shoulders, tumbling them into a convoluted muddle. Grappling, each man was struggling to overwhelm the other.

  Frenzied shrieks spliced the interior of the arena. Spectators were in ecstasy over their good fortune of watching the grueling exhibition.

  A distressed Tom groused out of the side of his mouth. “He’s getting slaughtered.”

  “Yeah.” Steve agreed. “But he’ll get the hundred dollars for knocking Tank off his feet.”

  “I’d rather have my face.”

  I looked for Phoenix. Is this part of her vision? Her face was buried into Stevie’s chest, and her hands covered her ears.

  “You got this, Michael,” Raven wailed while air boxing as if she was the one wrestling. “Get ‘em, Michael. Get up! Get up!”

  “O-Oh, he’s fucked, man.” Stevie winced.

  Michael was in trouble. Tank had him pinned, jabbing rock-hard balled hands into his ribs. Michael counter attacked, shaving a fist over Tank’s presumed glass jaw.

  Domineering in muscle and bulk, Tank earned his nickname well. He flogged his arm and brutally punched Michael in the nose, then caught him in the temple, and then his chin.

  Michael’s face erupted in a geyser of blood.

  Michael kneed upward, catching Tank in the groin. Tank’s face screwed up in a painful grimace. Tank recoiled somewhat, giving Michael the advantage to knock him down.

  How much more can he take?

  Slouching and breathing heavily, Michael wrapped his one arm over his ribs and mopped at the blood spilling into his eyes and out of his mouth with the other.

  Tank, setting his jaw in a strong-willed jut, stumbled to his knees.

  We watched with bated breath as Michael advanced. He initiated two running steps, and using the heel of his bare foot, clobbered Tank in the jaw. Tank’s head snapped to the right. His beefy body collapsed, looking like a beached whale.

  Michael’s knees buckled, his face tangled in agony. He had nothing left.

  The referee paced to Tank, and bending on his hands and knees, checked his vitals. Lifting Tank’s hand, he let it drop, then looked to the sidelines where the man in the black tux was standing. The man nodded.

  The announcer and the referee hustled to either side of Michael. They clasped him under his armpits and assisted him to his feet.

  “Our amateur champion of the night,” the announcer tried shouting over the noise. “Pretty Boy Michael!”

  They raised Michael’s limp arms.

  CHAPTER 17

  Tossing in bed to lie on my side, my eyes fleetingly opened. The break of day had condensed the shadows, and as in a dream, Stevie’s body smeared by my bedroom door. And I fell asleep.

  Sequences of indelible images of Michael’s broken body and his ballooning face gushing blood were more than I could handle. After the mind-numbing illusions had caused mayhem with my psyche, I forced myself to get out of bed.

  I sat on the edge of my mattress with my head in the palm of my hands, reflecting on the past three or four hours. With Michael’s arms crutched over the guys’ shoulders, they’d gotten him into his truck, and Tom had driven. The van had dropped Stevie and me at home around four in the morning. As providence would have it, we made it into the house without getting nabbed by our parents.

  I’d fallen into a drowsy stupor on the ride, and Phoenix had woken me up.

  “Mary, we’re here.”

  Rubbing my eyes, I’d whispered, “Why’d you trick me into coming?” My voice had sounded groggy and callous. “Was this part of your vision?”

  Following an earnest inhalation, she’d answered, “I saw Steve. Unconscious. Lines of tubes sticking out of him.” She’d snuffled and dabbed her pinkie in the crook of her eye. “He was breathing with the help of a respirator. It was…terrible…. I couldn’t take the chance of it happening.”

  A shiver had started in the cavity of my gut, radiating its way out. “But…but…why’d I have to come?”

  “Don’t you see, Mary? You stopped your brother from getting into that ring. The boys would’ve egged him on. You changed the vision.”

  “You could’ve stopped him,” I’d said.

  “No. It had to be you.”

  Thank God it was Sunday.

  By late afternoon, I was raking leaves in the back yard, creating a mound for Lucy when Stevie schlepped outside. He guffawed at our little sisters antics, and it seemed like old times. He scooped her in his arms. Spinning in circles, he gently pitched her into the leaves. Her infectious, falsetto giggling had us in stitches.

  For no specific reasoning, Stevie asked, “Has Jesse called you lately?”

  “Jesse?” He didn’t bring up last night, and I wasn’t going to. It’s funny how we let certain situations pass by because it’d cause awkwardness.

  “Just wondering. I know he likes you,” he said offhandedly. “No one’s heard from him in a while, and he’s been getting some heavy duty drugs.”

  Didn’t he remember Michael’s kiss before he’d gotten pulverized? My big brother didn’t approve of Michael and me.

  Lucy scooted by Stevie in a squealing frenzy. He snatched her in his
arms and rolled her into the leaves again.

  “By the way, I called Candy,” he said, plucking leaves from our sister’s tufts of strawberry blonde hair. “I thought you’d like to know. I talked to her, but we’re officially through. She’s meeting Dee at the park today.”

  I cringed. That meant the previous night’s debacle would be circulating.

  “I’m going over to Covington’s. He’s working on the van. Wanna come?”

  Whoa. Whatever happened to our ridiculing and belittling? He’s actually asking me to join him? He does approve? What will Michael think when he sees me getting out of the car? That I’m leeching onto him? Then there’s Dee to contend with.

  I regrettably declined the offer, and asked, “Are you still planning to go to Washington?”

  “I think so.”

  He squatted, shoveled a handful of leaves into his hands, and sprinkled them over an ecstatic Lucy. Her pudgy arms rose and her stubby legs hopped up and down.

  “If Covington can get the parts to fix their van, we’ll be leaving soon.”

  Suddenly my feet were in the air. Ferrying me in his arms, Stevie twirled in circles.

  I screeched with glee as he tumbled me to the musky smelling leaves. Before I had a chance to gain my feet, he was getting into his car.

  Monday. Another week of relentless, repetitive education. Hunched over the desk with my palm bracing my chin, I stared at Mr. Simpson in World History class. It had been minutes since his droning voice had faded into the nether region of my brain.

  I thought of Stevie, still asleep. The single, advantageous thing about him quitting school was that I didn’t have to compete with him hogging the bathroom in the morning.

  After World History, I bypassed the customary lavatory meeting place, deciding to wait until lunchtime to hear the coveted, and not so coveted, account of Dee and Michael’s date. When I walked into the cafeteria, I was surprised to see lanky Tom sitting next to Gwen and Candy at the table, gabbing with enhanced arm movements.