The Fighting O'Keegans

by Aaron Kennedy

  A second more and O’Keegan smiled at Cesare, reaching out with a calloused hand to enclose Cesare’s in his own. They shook on it, all the while evaluating the strength and resolve in each other’s eyes, both men saw something they hadn’t seen often, for the first time both wondering if they had found what could be an equal. The beginning of something good or a script of tears, neither man knew but each individually coming to the conclusion that it would likely be one or the other.

  Cesare stepped back. ‘Good luck tonight O’Keegan but more importantly, good luck tomorrow. Your probably going to need it…I’m not sure this is the war you think it is, it’s probably just the first battle, win or lose.’

  O’Keegan paused, thinking on Cesare’s insight, then shrugged, he could only focus on the next hour or so, after would arrive like an unstoppable steam train soon enough.

  ‘And you too Cesare, we’ll try not to upset the apple cart too much but I can’t make too many promises until Meehan is part of Boston history.’

  ‘It’s all inevitable O’Keegan. Everything in our business is.’

  The game ended and like long lost brothers, they swung their arms around each other, a mutual bear-hug as if they had know each other since childhood. Quick friends, sometimes quicker enemies. Both O’Keegan and Cesare waited a moment then began to step back, sensing something, they looking up together seeing Meehan across the room, standing in the doorway, an obviously pissed off Meehan that had noticed every move O’Keegan and Cesare had made over the last few minutes. If looks could murder, they would both have been blue and breathless a few minutes ago.

  Meehan shrugged off his thick coat, wordlessly and without organised thought passing it instinctively backwards to a waiting flunky who always seemed positioned for just such occasions. Seeing his two main threats together, Meehan had felt the world turn knowing impactfully that he either needed to stop it spinning tonight or he would be the one getting off and soon.

  O’Keegan and Cesare looked at each other and broke into near hysterical laughter, the joke was on Meehan and only they saw the funny side. After a few more moments of turning the screwdriver in Meehan’s ass, they broke from their brotherly embrace and the moment was allowed to pass. Cesare stepped back and took hold of the blonde that hadn’t moved from her orbit and went back to whispering what must have been the funniest thing since the founding fathers had set out to create a country without corruption or too much authority over the rights of the individual.

  O’Keegan, back on his own, took one last look over at Meehan and seeing him after his initial hesitation, begin to make his own rounds of hand shakes and back patting, O’Keegan strolled over to the side of the warehouse towards where he knew his men were waiting. Brushing aside the curtain which kept interested eyes from the soon to be combatants, he entered his own enclosed domain. Flannery was already there and had missed the last few minutes of fun and games. O’Keegan took instant control.

  ‘Only a few more minutes to go guys. Who’s up first?’

  Tony ‘the Priest’ and Alteri ‘the Enforcer’ both raised their hands, sitting at the back of the group on some makeshift planks Shorty had previously set up as rudimentary benches.

  ‘You both ready?’

  They looked at each other, seeing each other differently for the first time, shrugging, they both nodded, beginning to looked a little apprehensive.

  O’Keegan could see that it wasn’t the thought of scrapping that bothered all these guys, it was the thought of fighting each other. They had all grown up with few real friends, you couldn’t afford the exposure when you came from a tough neighbourhood and most of these guys had grown up in the toughest.

  O’Keegan knew it was inbred, in those self same neighbourhoods, when you made a real friend, you looked out for them and they for you through all the blood and the shit. The idea of kicking that same guy when he was down was almost beyond their personal religions. O’Keegan looked at the Enforcer, then at the Priest, he could see the dollar had dropped and they were now starkly aware that they were moments away from having to do something that went against their core. Fight with a stranger, OK. Steal from the flamboyant, fine. Shove a knife into an enemy’s ribcage, no problem. Smack around a buddy, you’re kidding right? I got some morals! Before they could get too worked up over it, O’Keegan decided to get the show on the road.

  ‘OK Tony, Alteri. Let’s get you out there.’

  O’Keegan turned and pulling the curtain aside just a few inches, he peered through and raised his hand, making a signal to one of the doormen. Receiving it, the doorman nodded in recognition and closed the warehouse door with a bang. The crowd as one, looked around as the door thumped closed, knowing the time they had waited for had arrived. As one beast, they stopped their schmoozing and their verbal past times.

  Mid-sentences died on people’s lips like forgotten used up old women, sitting amongst the memorabilia of lives lived and past. Lips stopped moving, falling back to nature’s intended position, not quiet closed, not quiet open. Eyes lit up as the lights fell halfway, focusing all their bodily attentions to flick their looks between two places, the crudely drawn circle and the curtain which hid the fighters from their looks. The group breath was held. Waiting.

  Most of Boston was here, pulled along a spindly network of whispers and voices to arrive at this one place and one time, to stand around this geometric shape. A shape that had been recreated so many times for just this purpose, one against another, an arena with the onlookers experiencing the adrenaline without the risk.

  O’Keegan stepped through the curtain and walked to the centre of the circle. Standing completely still, he let the moment build, the silence piling up, layer upon cough shrapnelled layer. As if some silent bell had struck in his own mind, O’Keegan raised his arms, a crucifix sacrifice waiting for absolute noisy silence before started them all on the next part of the journey.

  As O’Keegan waited, he couldn’t help but think ahead, wondering if it would all end where he had aimed it or if it would all go wrong, minus his own ability for sight and sound and perhaps one Father. He let his last thought be for his Father then began.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to O’Keegan’s.’

  The whole crowd cheered, they had no choice, the moment demanded it.

  ‘Just in case there are a few of you out there that haven’t heard, we’re new to Boston.’ O’Keegan heard a few rings of laughter and chuckles mingled with a new cheer, ‘Thanks for the welcome, there isn’t another city like this anywhere else in the world. God bless Boston!’

  More cheers strung together as one, rebounded around the warehouse. Looking around at the people’s faces, O’Keegan managed to single out Meehan’s angry grimace towards the middle of the crowd, pressed tightly on all sides. O’Keegan smiled before saying what was next on his mind.

  ‘…and we all like it so much, we’ve decided to make this our home. I hope you’ll continue to make us feel at home here. I’m sure you all will. Okay, onto business…We hope you enjoy our entertainment, tonight will be the start of something different for Boston, I’m sure of it and perhaps we’ll see you at O’Keegan’s again.’

  Flannery stood some ways back, smiling and nodding as O’Keegan spoke. He turned to Tony the Priest and whispered,

  ‘I think O’Keegan’s trying to run for fucking Mayor and by the looks of things, he might actually get a couple of votes from these guys.’ He turned his face back to concentrating on O’Keegan who had taken that moment to look over at Flannery and smile, they were both enjoying this. O’Keegan got back to the plot.

  ‘Tonight will be something different. I promise you that. We have some entertainment planned for all of you which I know you won’t soon forget it. So right here and now, let me introduce the first people to enter O’Keegan’s circle.’

  He pitched his voice up in volume,

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, our Boston Bookmakers have seen fit to rechristen my boys with a few new names, so, without more delay, let
me introduce you to Tony ‘The Priest’ and Alteri ‘The Enforcer’. A Bostonian welcome, if you please’.

  Nearly five hundred sets of palms smacked together over and over as the crowd clapped both men into the circle. Each person focused on Tony and Alteri as the Curtain was invisibly pulled aside by someone on the other side of the divide, Tony then Alteri began to make their way through.

  There had been no nods or tugged caps to the profession of boxing, this wasn’t to be a boxing match and these guys weren’t dressed as if it was. They had the sense to take off their shirts and top clothing, their old style braces left flapping around their mottled and greying near baggy trousers.

  The crowd took in the size and breadth of ‘the Priest’ and the shorter, bulkier ‘Enforcer’ as they walked forward, realizing as one that they had both been well named by their Bostonian streets. The Priest looked like speed and agility packed up in the body of a blonde saint. The Enforcer like someone had taken a giant clown’s hammer to his head as a kid, hammering him down a few feet until his body had seen fit to spread out in the form of muscles and sideways mass.

  They could have been a comedy double act on Broadway, the tall and thin, the short and bulky, but the only lights they would ever see were pointing down at them in O’Keegan’s coliseum. But life had its sense of humour, the career these guys would have would mean pain rather than laughter, death rather than popcorn. Life was an S&M junky and these guys would be it’s whips and chains.

  The Priest and the Enforcer walked side by side. No trumpets sounded, no lights flashed to pepper their walk to the circle, no sounds were heard at all, the crowd watched each person’s step as they walked towards their arena. As they crossed the circle’s line, O’Keegan pulled both the Priest’s and the Enforcer’s hands skywards,

  ‘Meet the first men that will do battle. Meet your own PRIEST and ENFORCER.’ With that O’Keegan took a few steps back until he was clear of the circle circumference, suddenly forgotten by all but Meehan who hadn’t managed to take his drilling eyes away from O’Keegan since he had first started the event.

  Everyone but Meehan watched as the Priest and the Enforcer began to walk around the edge of the circle, the Priest the most obviously uncomfortable in this situation. Without warning, Alteri came straight at him more quickly than should be possible for such a squat, bulky man. With a roar, he had planted both of his feet apart a few feet to Tony’s side, swinging the biggest fist this side of the abominable snowman’s lair.

  With the shock of a tram, he crashed his joined up knuckles into the side of the Priest’s head. The Priest rocked backwards, a supernova of Fourth of July fireworks exploding in his ear. Before he could pull together any conscious thought, the instincts of a bullied boy combined with the temper of an adolescent youth took over.

  Without any consideration or rationale the Priest brought up a hard bony knee into the Enforcer’s groin, the Enforcer whoomping as his breath shot out, the bystanders went nuts. Everyone knew in that sharp moment that if either of these guys had knives or guns then by now they would have been drawn and seconds away from being used. The game was on and no one had any doubt that this was the real thing.

  The Priest followed his knee down with a balled up fist straight down into the top of the Enforcer’s head. But before it could fully connect, the Enforcer had allowed himself to crumble and as his body travelled down towards the hard floor, he brought his two muscular legs together around the Priests shins.

  Carrying on the momentum the Enforcer twisted, ratcheting the Priest legs together and to the side so that the Priest had nothing left to do but tumble like a giant redwood tree finding its new home on the earth. Leaning up on one elbow the Enforcer brought a fist around to the Priests nose.

  The crowd watched as the cartilage of the Priest’s nose split, making a mushing smacking noise like water melons falling four flights to land on a sidewalk below. Blood began to pour and the priests’ saintly good looks turned into the face of a red devil.

  But even before anyone had a chance to consider this fight over, the Priest managed to bring an elbow out of his armoury and distantly watched as it made its way toward the Enforcer’s own nose. A split second later, a noise like the not so distant cousin of the Priest’s nose breaking was introduced to the world as yet more cartilage was ground like meat beneath the pulverizing blow of bone meeting flesh. The next few minutes ceased to exist for both the Priest and the Enforcer as the inner animals that were fighting for survival were let out of their cages.

  They stood quickly, ignoring the pain and blood, swinging, kicking, punching and tearing at each other, no part of their brain connecting with their need to avoid the hurt, just mindlessly focused on delivering as much retribution as they could. The white circle began to look like someone had slaughtered a calf in its middle as they bled from noses, from mouths, from ears, from gashes. The cleansing release of mindlessness leaving them with nothing but the need to take out all the hurt they had ever experienced on the ghoul standing here and now.

  Most of the watchers had never seen anything like it. Even Meehan and Cesare’s boys watched on with some respect at the ferocity of both the Priest and the Enforcer as they took them all into their bloody realm. Watching the relentless ripping apart of skin and muscle, the pounding of fist and bone on flesh gave them chills in appreciation of the expertise of the slicing dismemberment as two street trained soldiers went beyond rational thought, lost in the crimson haze of pure clean hatred and anger.

  The crowd were whipped up, cresting on the ecstasy of the battle. Too many long lost hormones travelled at light speeds around their bodies, ricocheting throughout their frames like a cluster of pinball’s gone mad. O’Keegan and Flannery saw the signs at the same time, seeing the froth of insanity in everyone’s eyes, multiplied and intensified across the visage of both the Priest and the Enforcer, spreading out like a vicious virus throughout the crowd. If they went any further into the darkness then they were all just biding time until the rocket exploded. Then, just as quickly as it all began, peace arrived.

  An almost unseen, almost disregarded hand came between both blood drenched men. The Priest and the Enforcer saw it through their tunnels of rage, their eyes focused on the hand, seeing that is wasn’t threatening, it was just there, between them both.

  Their eyes travelled the line up, seeing Flannery smiling at both of them. In that moment they knew their final bell had quietly tolled, sanity had arrived and it was sweet. Even the crowd understood. These two men had given everything they had. They would have kept on going mindlessly, pushed past the edge. Then it would have been metal beating against metal, will against will until one man swallowed his last breath held like the Church’s last dime.

  Flannery put his arms around both men, pulling them together, an embrace to remind them of their friendship. Looking into each other’s mashed faces, devil clown faces, they both began to laugh. They had started as friends but would now be bound together by absolute respect. A double act forged in blood, tempered through pain. There would be nothing to separate these guys, they had seen and done the worst, and had walked through it to stand together.

  O’Keegan spoke,

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the Priest and the Enforcer.’

  The explosion of the crowd’s appreciation was spontaneous, nearly sucking the breaths out of the Priest and the Enforcer. The clapping became rhythmic, underscored by the beating of foot stamps in time to their steps as they turned their backs on the Boston Romans, exiting the arena. Never had their feet felt so light, their movements so smooth as they walked through the euphoria of appreciation. Velvet passing through a brass ring.

  All too soon, they were back behind the gladiator’s curtain, given a few moments of respite before they were slapped hard by their body’s sensors for the viciousness that had been done to them. Tony looked at Alteri and they knew they were both about to drop. Without thought for themselves, each grabbed the other. They held themselves up as their bodies toyed wi
th unconsciousness, but somehow pulling some strength from the others near embrace they stood, like two drunken brothers, meeting the eyes of the other men who were waiting for their numbers to be called. Two halves now making more than a whole.

  Flannery had followed silently as the Enforcer and the Priest had left the circle, allowed to shed their personas and becoming just Tony and Alteri again. But Flannery knew that now there would be some truth to those names, these guys had earned them and Boston would never think of them in any other way.

  The Priest and the Enforcer had been christened in their own blood, gaining their names, they had lost their drab life anonymity. The Boston streets would herald them, but the streets would also fear them. Tony and Alteri had just crossed over. They had come across the Atlantic as just average guys, average and poor.

  But even in their poverty they had choices. Jobs they could do, lives they could have had. Multiple paths from each point of life. Now there would be nothing for them in this city but the life which O’Keegan and Flannery had both been born too but had never chosen. Flannery wanted these guys on his and O’Keegan’s side. These were men worth having.

  But something small in Flannery ached for Tony and Alteri had made the easy step from being just average, to becoming the Priest and the Enforcer until death do they part and beyond. Something in Flannery ached for himself.

  Flannery stood taking in their cuts and the body smears of blood, he heard O’Keegan announce the next two combatants from behind the curtain, and the crowd was off again. There was no respite form the entertainment at O’Keegan’s.

  Flannery put his arms around the Enforcer and the Priest and guided them to the benches, sitting them down before they fell down.

  They sat, looking up gratefully and with a degree of euphoria at Flannery. They deserved their good will. Their night was over aside from lapping up the congratulations of their buddies, they had made everyone proud and stiffened the resolve of those whose turn was yet to come.