Sucker Punch

by Ray Banks

  So I watch the city dissolve again, feel my hands tighten in my lap. Streets become freeways, billboards proclaiming the latest hot movie.

  I'm constantly surprised by the space in this country. Back in Manchester, there's no such thing as this much space. The city centre's become a shrine to high-rise buildings, people shunted into tiny apartments, paying over the odds to enjoy wooden floors and sky-high urban living. Students and young professionals everywhere, multiplying like a hostile virus. But here a man can live without seeing another individual if he wants to. It's a comforting thought, that kind of isolation. I've lived too long under people's feet, or with people under mine. Might be good to get away from it all out here.

  It's a fantasy. A ridiculous fucking dream, but that's what this country's all about.

  Liam's still staring out of the window, caught up in dreams of his own. He's stopped smacking the gum in his mouth. I wonder if he's thinking the same thing. Wonder what the hell he is thinking. Because I haven't seen the lad lose it once yet. If I'd gone through his last couple of days, I'd be a wreck. I just put it down to his sedation at the hospital, but now there's no reason for his mood. No tears, no recrimination. He's accepted Nelson's death with the blink of an eye, like it was most normal, logical thing in the world. Can't say I've had the same attitude. I wanted Nelson caught, tried, in jail. Or else shot down by the police. I wanted something dramatic for his death, but all I got was a whimper in the desert.

  I turn away from Liam, concentrate on the scenery.

  There's something not right about that lad.

  ****

  When I come back with the tickets, Liam's standing by the bags looking bored.

  “Bulk heads,” I say. “Got some leg room.”

  He nods. Shapiro's long gone. Dropped us off at the terminal and we said our goodbyes quickly and without sentiment. I was glad of it. I didn't want to be around Shapiro any longer than necessary and Liam looked like he wanted to be far away.

  I pick up our carry-on luggage, head through to the waiting area. Liam picks up a boxing magazine from a newspaper kiosk, sits down a seat away from me and starts leafing through it. I half think about getting something to read myself, but realise there'll be plenty of movies to sit through on the plane. Besides, we need to talk.

  “How you feeling?” I say.

  He doesn't answer me.

  “Liam.”

  “You keep asking me that,” he says.

  “I'm interested.”

  “You asked us at the hospital. You asked us when I got out the hospital. And you've been asking us pretty much on the hour until now. You going to ask us on the plane, too?”

  “If I get a straight answer out of you, no.”

  “How am I supposed to be feeling?”

  “I don't know.” I rub my nose. Could do with a cigarette, should've had one before we got in the car. “I'm sorry.”

  Liam stops reading. “For what?”

  “For Nelson.”

  “You didn't know.”

  There's a pause as Liam turns the page.

  “They give you any medication?” I say.

  “No.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  I reach into my jacket, wrestle with the lid on my pills. The noise bothers Liam. I smile at him. “I can never get these things open on the first try.” I pop the lid. Shake out two pills and swallow them. “I would've thought they'd give you something.”

  Liam watches me, then turns back to his magazine. “I'm not in any pain.”

  “Not physical, no,” I say.

  “Not any,” he says.

  Silence between us. Goes on so long, I can't stand it.

  “I'd be pissed off,” I say.

  “Course you would.”

  “Fuck's sake, Liam.”

  “What?”

  “Do something, mate. Take a fuckin' swing at me, anything. I got you in that position with Nelson, the least you can do is vent or something. You want to take a free swing? You'll probably kill me, but it's the least I can do.”

  “The least you can do is leave me alone, Cal.”

  “What's the matter with you?” And I'm honestly interested. Sick of this silent shite he's been playing since he came out of the hospital, the stoic wee prick. He thinks he's what? Above a little emotion? He's got every reason to be raging right now, tearing the place apart with his bare hands and me with it. Just had his dreams stamped on because of me, just had the light snapped off on his golden fucking future. So I've been expecting the cracks to show, but there's nothing. If anything, the lad's stonier than ever.

  Liam closes his magazine carefully. “There's nothing the matter with me, Cal. I just got out the hospital. Feeling fine.”

  “Well, you look like a psycho.”

  He narrows his eyes when he looks at me. “The fuck you want us to do?”

  “Anything you want. But don't bottle it up.”

  “If I go nuts, Cal, what does that accomplish? If I get out of this seat and I knock you out for putting us in the hands of a guy who drugged us and fucked my chances at ever turning pro, what does that accomplish?”

  “It makes you feel better, Liam.”

  “No, it doesn't make me feel better. Because I do that, and nothing's changed except I've made the world a messier place. Fucked up some airport cleaner's day because she has to scrub you off the seat. It doesn't change the fact that I lost something without getting a chance to hang onto it. Doesn't change the fact that when we get back to Manchester, I'm going to have to explain what happened to Paulo.”

  “I'll explain it to Paulo—”

  “You'll explain nowt, Cal. You'll get a few drinks down you to pluck up the courage and by that time it'll be too late for you to slur out the truth. Fact is, I said that I'd walk if I wasn't confident with Nelson. You remember that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't have done it. I'm my own man. I make my own decisions. You want to keep treating us like a fuckin' kid, I got no choice but to remind you I'm not.”

  Yeah, this big man, eh? “You're not a kid, why'd I have to come with you?”

  “Because you needed a holiday. Everyone says you've been mental since you got back, y'know. Like you're sick, you need all those fuckin' pills.”

  “It wasn't so long ago you were mugging grannies,” I say.

  “Bad things happen to good people,” he says. He looks at the cover of his magazine. “Bad things happen, you can't stop them. Best you can do is get up and battle on.”

  “Shapiro tell you that?”

  “I told him that.”

  “When?”

  “When he checked up on us.” Liam opens the magazine. “That first night I was in. Which is more than you ever did.”

  “I checked up on you,” I say.

  “When you thought it was safe, Cal. You can guilt trip yourself all you want. I don't blame you for what happened, and I'm not going to swing for you, either.”

  That's the last thing he says to me. It boils my piss. I keep trying at him, but he's put a wall up. We get on the plane, the first thing he does is bury his nose in that magazine. When the plane's up, he fiddles with the armrest, brings out the wee TV screen and pulls it up so it's a barricade between us. Then he starts messing with the remote, trying to find something to watch.

  I give up on him. Let him be a lairy little fucker if he wants to be. Fuck him if he doesn't want to talk this through like an adult. Bad things happen to good people. Too much time around Shapiro, he's gone all spiritual. You battle on. Doesn't sound like too much battling to me. Sounds like you take your punches and don't throw any back. Turn the other fucking cheek. And if he thinks that's the secret to the way the world works, he's dead wrong. Someone hits you, you hit back. Christ, that's the backbone of boxing. A hundred tiny revenges in two minutes. Then it's back to your corner to figure out how to score a hundred more. You keep going until one of you wins. That's the way it is. It's hardly
fucking rocket science.

  Battle on. Yeah, that's about right. But there's got to be a moment when the battles are over and the war is won.

  I press the button in the side of my seat, recline and pull my own TV screen out. Nothing decent showing, so I listen to piped Yanni until sleep catches up with me.

  Battle on.

  40

  Liam and I take separate cabs from the airport. It wasn't my choice. I wanted to go back to the club first, get the explanation out of the way, but Liam darted for the first black cab he saw before I got a chance to stop him. Then the taxi took off into a typical Manchester summer landscape, drizzle slow-soaking everything in sight.

  Looks like I'll have to explain the last week to Paulo myself. I hoist my bag to my shoulder, slide into the back seat of a cab and tell the driver to head for Salford. He grinds the car into gear and we head off.

  I'd like to say it's good to be home, but the smell of plane sweat and damp clothes takes the shine off my arrival. Besides, there's still too much to do before I get to the flat. Trying to piece together the past couple of days, weave it into some kind of story I can tell Paulo that doesn't make me look like a complete arsehole. The usual struggle, trying to figure out where it all went wrong, then flipping back, branching out. What did I do right? Replay it until the image degrades and realise there's no way of telling the truth without accepting it myself.

  “Can I smoke in here?” I say.

  “Nah, mate.”

  Figures. No reason to cut me a break now.

  Bloody hell.

  Not even a week and I'm talking like an American.

  ****

  The cab drops me off on Regent Road. That's as far as my limited pounds sterling will get me. I pull my bag from the back seat, turn up the collar on my jacket and start trudging up towards Gloucester Street. Flanked on either side of the road by industrial parks with no industry. A hotel and a Sainsbury's. A casino and a couple of fast food places. If it wasn't for the signs, you'd swear they were all the same buildings housing exactly the same things. I cross, stare up the road at Paulo's club. The doors are closed.

  As I get closer, I notice the large steel bar across the doors to the club, a brand new padlock securing it in place. Along with the rain, there's a smell of stale smoke in the air. I drop my bag on the ground, notice the blackened edges of the double doors, some of the paint blistered and chipped.

  I head round to the back of the club, where what used to be my office overlooked the bins. The back window's boarded up, but someone's chipped away at the wood. I peer through the gap. The office is charred. Squint a little, and I can just about see the door to the office is open. Other than that, it's black. Someone gutted the entire building. The stench is overwhelming, carried out on a stiff breeze.

  I take out a cigarette, light it. I couldn't bring a lighter on the plane going over there, but they weren't so bothered when I was coming back. Pull my jacket tighter and look around, cross back to the front of the club. Up the street, there's a gang of kids on mountain bikes coming this way. Shouting and whooping at each other. As they get nearer, I recognise Ewan. He's on a stolen bike. I say stolen, because his ride's too short for him and it's pink with a white plastic basket on the front. The way he's riding the bike, though, he obviously thinks it's a monster hog.

  “Ewan,” I say.

  The fat kid grins, rides towards me. Starts circling, then comes to a scraping halt in front of the Lad's Club.

  “Where you been?” he says.

  “Where's Paulo?”

  “Tell you what, give us a ciggie, eh?”

  “I'll give you a smack instead. How about that?”

  The rest of Ewan's gang stop their bikes. One of them I know. He's a bruiser from the club. The other two look like scally cousins. They can get to fuck. Ewan straddles the bar of his bike and looks hard at me.

  “What happened to your ear?” he says.

  “What happened to your hairline?”

  Even his gang laugh at that one. Ewan's no leader.

  “Where you been, smartarse?”

  “I've been away,” I say. “Where's Paulo, Ewan?”

  Ewan looks at his cronies, sticks his tongue under his bottom lip. He always was a wee prick, this one. “You missed all the fun, man. Paulo's back on the fuckin' sauce.”

  “Commercial,” says the bruiser.

  I jerk my head at the doors. “What about the club?”

  “Ask Paulo about that, man,” says Ewan. “He's the one fucked with the wrong people.”

  “Cheers.” I pick up my bag, walk away from them.

  “Go pick up your fuckin' boyfriend,” shouts Ewan.

  There are some cat calls, smooching noises. The fat balding bastard is still jeering when I hit Regent Road.

  ****

  The Commercial's a pub pushing into Castlefield. There are plenty of pubs down there, catering for the off city centre drinkers, the new wave of yuppies residing in the canalside apartments, but the Commercial's the only place that looks like a proper pub. It's also decorated with boxing photos, the landlord being in the circuit in his younger days. Back when Paulo used to drink, he was a regular. So regular that he started getting chucked out on a nightly basis. I don't like the idea of Paulo drinking again, especially when I hear it from a scally like Ewan. Because if it's got to Ewan, it means it's out of control. Paulo's been the kind of ex-drunk who'll enjoy a couple of pints now and then, but that's his limit. And he's been good about observing that limit until now.

  When I see him in the corner of the pub, I already know the two-pint limit's been thrown out a long time back. Check my watch and it's knocking on six o'clock. There are four empty pint glasses on the table in front of him. And it looks like Paulo's made a sizable dent in his fifth pint. He looks up as the door squeaks closed.

  “Cal,” he says. He tries to smile, but it doesn't quite take.

  I pull up a chair, drop my bag on the floor. “What happened, mate?”

  “No,” he says. “No, you first. I haven't heard from you.”

  “Paulo—”

  “What happened in the States?” There's a slight sway to his head; he uses his mouth too much when he talks. “Tell me what happened in America. Our boy do good?”

  “I tried to call,” I say. “You change the number?”

  “Nah, the phone's off. What happened with Liam, man? C'mon, don't keep me in suspense.”

  I shake my head.

  “He fuck it up?”

  “I did.”

  Paulo lets out air, gazes into his pint. “I should've gone myself. No offence, Cal, I love you like a son, but I should've gone myself.” He runs his hand over his mouth, his eyes widening. “The kind of shite that's been going on round here, mate … He lost?”

  “I'll tell you some other time. It's a long story. What kind of shite?”

  “You been to the club?”

  “There's a padlock on the doors.”

  “Well, y'know, can't leave it open. All kinds of mess in there. Don't want kids looting the place, either …”

  “What happened?”

  Paulo pushes his pint to one side, leans both elbows on the table. He has to prop his chin up on his hands as he looks at the frosted glass window next to him. “Someone like Mo Tiernan, Cal … Something needs to be done about that lad. He's a mess. Y'know, I thought he was a scally dealer, but he's … just … messed up inside. Twisted. Time was, there'd be his dad to keep him in check. But now …”

  “Now what?”

  “Now he can go burning whatever the fuck he likes,” says Paulo.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “What'm I going to tell them, Cal? I don't have nowt in the way of proof. I barely got my club. Shit, the damage, man …”

  He looks like he's about to start crying. His eyes are red. It could just be the drink, though.

  “Go home,” I say.

  “I can't go—”

  “Go home. I'll deal with it.”

  41


  Paulo's not the only one drinking. When I get to the Harvester, that skinny bastard Mo's at the back of the pub with his boyfriends. They're sharing some joke, something that makes Rossie look like he's about to piss himself laughing. Baz, the man-child fat lad, is having trouble holding his drink. Literally. His pint in both mitts like a fucking baby, his right hand a mass of bandages.

  Because Baz is the type of daft cunt who thinks it's the petrol in a petrol bomb that burns, not the fumes. Probably stood there holding it with a pained look on his flabby features before he found the nous to hurl it into Paulo's club. He's lucky he didn't fry himself.

  On the way over here, I could picture it. It didn't take much imagination. Had to be Mo's idea. A cheap burn like that, Mo was the only one who could've come up with it. It didn't take a mastermind, just the brain of a petty fucking vandal. It was a cowardly scally trick.

  “It might not've been Mo,” Paulo said to me before he went home.

  But who else was it going to be? Nobody had any grudge against Paulo. Paulo was an institution. He was hard, he was fair, and he was a fucking pillar of the community compared to the Tiernans.

  Seeing Baz's hand is the only evidence I need.

  I walk over to Mo's table. He doesn’t see me until I reach forward, grab him by the Berghaus and haul him through a forest of empty pint glasses. He's a skinny fucker, but he's still heavier than he looks — it takes three good pulls to drag him over the table and onto the floor. Course, when that happens, Rossie's on his feet with his hand in his jacket. Baz doesn't know what to do. His hand's a mess; he's not going to start throwing punches.

  Mo blows beer from his nostrils. It becomes bloody with a well-aimed knock to the face. Still hanging onto his jacket, Mo swaying under, I plant my fist against his nose again. And again. Hitting the same spot, feeling my knuckles ache. Keep at it, push my knee into Mo's chest to make him stay put on the floor. Blood spilling from his nose now, running in a sheet across his shattered left cheek, mingling with the beer, piss and sweat in the carpet. He hasn't had a chance to scream. Makes these yelping sounds, getting quieter as I grind my hand against what's left of the cartilage in his nose, wanting to push it up, into the brain. Kill the fucker. Make sure he doesn't ever get up again.