The Third Step

by William Lobb

  He started to think about Eddie for the first time. Melancholy was a word, but not the word to use here. It was a deeper, more complex sadness. Sadness, mixed with anger, with the need for revenge, with deeply missing a really good friend. They had been friends a long time. Eddie was like a big brother, always level-headed and smart; the perfect foil to Frankie’s stupidity and madness. He recalled Eddie bailing him out of jail, paying his bond, Eddie talking to the cops, promising to take “the little moron” home. He was older, wiser, and calmer than Frankie, a cool head.

  Frankie was constantly in fights at school. Eddie was the one who took him to the “Y” for the first time and taught him to box. Frankie had always been a terrible fighter. No one could understand why he loved it so much. No one was even sure if he had an actual win in the ring. He certainly didn’t fight to impress the girls; he was a better, dirtier street fighter than a boxer. His street fighting career ended abruptly, about age fourteen, when juvenile probation warned him for the last time. Actually, they called Eddie. He was away on a trip and he came home to find Frankie locked up. It took some serious talking to the judge to get him out of lockup and under Eddie’s care.

  Eddie had been in his life so long that neither one really recalled how they had met; they were just there, together, somehow. Frankie always argued with Eddie, but always listened to him. They were a team—Frankie, was fearless. He dove head first into anything. Eddie was the pragmatic thinker, the planner. By the time Frankie was in his late teens, he was fighting often. Usually as a sparring partner for the guys who had some potential, but it was funny—for a guy who almost never won, a lot of people respected him. They said no one could take a shot like Frankie. Another fighter could all but beat him to death and Frankie wouldn’t even change his facial expression. By the time he hit his early twenties, his body was pretty well beaten up: a lot of broken ribs, his nose broken three or four times.

  There was only one really memorable fight. Eddie was opposed to it, seriously opposed, but Frankie took it anyway. One of his best friends from childhood was a kid named Sammy, a fairly small, compact black kid. Frankie and Sammy were friends from first grade on. The two were constantly in trouble; not serious trouble, just hilarious stupidity that seemed to come naturally when they were together. You never saw one of them get in a fight without the other around.

  One time, maybe seventh or eighth grade, Sammy was surrounded by a bunch of kids from another school, mixed race, drunk, stoned, and violent kids. It was about ten on one and Sammy was sure he was about to be seriously hurt, if not killed. Suddenly, from what looked like was a mile away comes Frankie, screaming and running as fast as he could possibly move his legs. He launched his body into the crowd and came down swinging. It was a bloodbath. Sammy and Frankie were both seriously beaten, but in the flash of blood and spit, and mud and chaos, and flailing bodies and hands and faces, sweat, and screaming and swearing, the gravel and dirt and grass flying, with clothes tearing and being covered in more blood, a bond was formed between them that would never be broken.

  The side of the building at the site of the battle was bright white aluminum, the sun’s reflection off it almost blinding. As they were trapped in the maze of other bodies Frankie recalled seeing the blue of the sky, the green of the grass and the blinding white light of the side of the building. For a few seconds, he thought the blinding light was the light at the end the old lady had told him about. He felt like he might die there. He was relieved, but a little disappointed to find, when the conflict was over, that it was, in fact, just the side of an ugly old building.

  The fight may have been ten on two, but both of them did their share of damage. When the cops arrived, they had to call for an ambulance. Frankie and Sammy walked out of the pile together. It may have been the only time either was happy to see a cop. Both Sammy and Frankie had a unique ability to compartmentalize physical pain: to feel it, recognize it, sit with it, almost in a meditative state, as if it were some other place, where all things connected and the pain of the day’s fight was nothing more than another element of their existence. To spend just enough time on it to acknowledge it existed, but never to dwell on it. Like taking something off a shelf and examining it, playing with it, looking at it closely, feeling its texture and warmth and seeing it’s colors, tasting it, smelling it, then putting it back in the box and back on the shelf, aware of the pain until it faintly faded to nothing, but never letting it have any more place than any other object on any other shelf.

  For two muddy, dirt-poor street thugs, Sammy and Frankie had some bizarre conversations about the mystery. That’s all they would call it, as if everything that had ever been, ever existed, was all tied into one place: “the mystery.” Astral planes of interconnectedness and ethereal planes of monsters and demons, they both found a place among the broken bones in the mystery. Sammy was convinced they were destined to be friends from birth and together they possessed a deepened understanding of the world. Frankie said it simply came from smoking so much weed. even when Frankie got lost in his street poetry, he gave all the credit to the weed.

  Time and years went by. Sammy grew into a strong and smart athlete, an excellent fighter and football player. The two of them grew apart. By the time they saw each other again, six years had passed. Sammy was gaining respectably in the area as a fighter; strictly amateur, but he had a local following. Frankie was a punching bag and something of a masochist. Neither one had any idea who was fighting that night. Sammy was promised an easy night. They met in the locker room. There was a small crowd of trainers, hangers-on, and friends.

  They stood at opposite ends of the room, each with his back to the old, worn out and broken gray lockers. The room smelled like mold and old sweat and dirty feet. It was cold and wet; the concrete was pitted, dirty. Two small windows cut out of the concrete blocks and covered in a wire mesh let in just enough light to keep it dim and depressing. One had to wonder if the mesh was to keep people in or out. They both stared at each other for a few seconds. Then both men slowly ran to each other and hugged hard and deeply. They pushed back and looked at each other, then looked around. Both men had a look of excitement and horror in their faces. This could not be; this had to be some kind of mistake. They should get dressed and go get a few beers, many beers, not fight each other like this. There was no crowd to speak of, only maybe thirty people at best, collected in the small gym.

  Sammy said it first, “What do we do?”

  Frankie smiled and said, “We’ve fought everyone else; it’s time to fight us. I guess it’s just part of the mystery.”

  Sammy smiled back and said, “Yeah, the mystery.” And with that, they walked side by side up the narrow staircase to the ring level. Probably half the people in attendance knew the two of them and knew well the friendship. Suddenly, the entire building took on a surreal air.

  Frankie smiled and said, “This is kind of fitting, in a way,” as he climbed into the ring.

  Sammy followed him through the ropes and walked to the far side. Both sat down. They put in their mouth pieces—Frankie fought the urge to gag, he hated those things—and attendants and handlers hovered around. Sammy and Frankie stared at each other, not sure if they could do this. They stood up, touched gloves, and went back to their corners. The bell rang and they came at each other with a vengeance. Sammy was the first to connect, a brutal right to the left side of Frankie’s face. The way his head jerked to the right, it almost looked like that first shot had broken Frankie’s neck. Up until that second, they had been simply dancing; Frankie was the one who said, “Let’s get this fucking party started.”

  A shower of sweat exploded off his head as the punch landed. The crowd collectively gasped at the violence and power of the blow. Frankie’s eyes rolled back in his head and he saw the lights of the gym, bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling, swirl in a circle above his head. He staggered, tried to find his legs; reeling from the hit, he felt his knees buckle and start to col
lapse under him. He felt the urge to puke and held it in. Frankie felt that collapse of consciousness. He was falling hard off a cliff into blackness, vision shutting down.

  Somehow he held on, right at the edge; his body shook as he fought to stay awake, or alive; he wasn’t sure which. His gloves found his thighs. He stayed upright. Slowly, he rolled back to his feet and stood, swayed, and staggered. What seemed like hours had only been seconds on the mat. He didn’t see any blood on the canvas—always a good sign. He got his hands up and was going right back into Sammy, just as the bell rang. Round one to Sammy.

  The tone of the night suddenly changed; the people watching could feel it. This was no longer best friends awkwardly trying to put on a show, this had now become war. Sammy saw it in Frankie’s face; he’d seen those eyes before. Many people said he had the old woman’s sweet Irish eyes, but not when they turned like this. There was nothing sweet or consoling in these eyes, just an empty, heartless, cold blank stare.

  The Round Two bell rang and he exploded toward Sammy; this was going to be a full-on street fight now. Sammy knew this was his friend’s element. He’d seen Frankie fight this way many times, too many times. Frankie came at him with a wall of body shots, in a flurry of blows so fast that all Sammy could do was defend and cover. Frankie pulled back and Sammy came across with a hard right to the ribcage. Breaking a man’s rib by hand is a distinct two-step process: the initial contact pushes into muscle and flesh and maybe a little fat, then it sinks in deeper, to the bone. Pushing past the bone, a fighter feels a very real and distinct snap, like a branch breaking underfoot in the silent woods, loud enough to echo in both fighters’ ears.

  Frankie pushed away and didn’t even flinch; he retaliated with another barrage to Sammy’s midsection. Finally, Frankie’s right connected and again they both heard the noise, that sickening snap, and Sammy bolted backward. Sammy was never one to take a shot as well as Frankie. Onlookers could see him gasp in pain, reaching around with his right hand to cover the broken ribs. Walking backward now, Frankie began to pummel him hard and fast. With each blow, he felt faster and stronger, completely ignoring the pain of his own rib, compartmentalizing his own pain, his mastery. Frankie hit Sammy in the same spot over and over again until Sammy was pushed back into the ropes and he pulled himself into Frankie to stop the assault. Both men just clung to each other as the sweat of the attacks ran from them like the rain of a fast-moving summer thunderstorm. The bell rang and Round Two had come to a close.

  Sammy looked at Frankie with an unspoken, “Are you kidding me?” Frankie’s stare was his ice cold reply. Sammy wondered if the head shot was to blame; maybe they should stop the fight. He motioned for the referee, who walked over to Sammy and listened to his concern. He walked over to Frankie, gave him the standard tests and looked him over, decided he was fit to carry on, and signaled to both fighters that the fight would continue.

  The bell rang and this time Frankie came out even more crazed. Sammy did all he could to ignore the pain of his ribs; Frankie felt nothing. Sammy landed another staggering blow to the head; Frankie wobbled and shook it off. Sammy looked perplexed; that shot should have taken him down. Again, Frankie came at his core with another barrage, repeatedly hitting the side where the ribs were broken. Sammy instinctively dropped his hands to protect his collapsing rib cage and Frankie took a half step back, put up his left arm to block, reeled back and came above Sammy’s body with a shot to the head that was so hard and so strong that Frankie was literally off his feet as the blow landed. He looked in Sammy’s eyes as they went dark. Something disconnected. His eyes were open and on Frankie as he collapsed to the side.

  The force of the blow hurt Frankie’s entire arm; he watched coldly as his best friend collapsed and hit the canvas. He could see blood running out of Sammy’s ear and nose. He thought that strange, he hadn’t even touched his nose with that shot. The small crowd stood on their feet as Frankie stood over Sammy, expecting the decision. The referee, instead, knelt down over Sammy and rose his head, yelling, “Someone get an ambulance; this guy isn’t breathing.”

  Frankie stood there, cold and disconnected, partially in denial. He, looked down at Sammy’s blood pooled on the canvas; it had stopped running out of Sammy when his heart stopped. The rush of people around Frankie seemed to awaken him to the fact that something was tragically wrong here. One of the guys from the gym came up to Frankie and put his robe around his shoulders and led him to his corner. Frankie sat down while the guy took off his gloves. Frankie stood up and stared at Sammy. It looked like he was hoping he was just knocked out and any minute now he’d wake up.

  An ambulance arrived; two men came in, rolling a stretcher through the swinging wooden doors that were the entry to the ring. Frankie looked over and watched the doors, still swinging as they rolled the stretcher up to the ring. He watched the paramedics load Sammy’s lifeless body in silence. It was like he was deaf and watching some really sad movie. Everything moved in half time, just way too slowly.

  Frankie felt heavy, deflated, and confused. Some cops approached him. He turned and started to walk to the lockers; the cops followed him, then came alongside him and walked with him. He knew these cops; they knew him. No love lost. They walked down the narrow staircase and down the dark hallway to the locker room. The cops knew Sammy too. They asked some questions; Frankie mumbled it was an accident. He said, “Thirty fucking people were watching; go ask them.” It seemed the cops were really not that interested.

  Both Frankie and Sammy had been a pain in their asses for years. These fights were legal, and the officers agreed that it was a sad freak accident. They asked how it happened and suddenly Frankie was back and enraged like a switch had been flipped. “How the fuck did it happen? What the fuck? I took this hand,” he said, raising his right hand, “and I punched him in the side of his head so motherfucking hard that when I connected I felt his brain come loose in his fucking skull and I knew I fucking killed him—my best fucking friend since first fucking grade—when I saw the blood come shooting out of his ear as his body dropped to the mat. That is exactly what fucking happened and how I fucking killed him. Ask anyone here; thirty fucking witnesses. Ask them! Do you have any more questions? Am I under fucking arrest?”

  The cops looked around the dingy locker room and at each other and Frankie. They said the standard stuff: be available for more questions, don’t leave town. As they turned to leave, one cop, the younger one, just looked back and said, “I’m sorry, Frankie. I know you two were good friends,” and they left the room.

  Frankie sat there now in his shorts, alone in the silent, dingy room. The only sound was his breathing and the water drip from the showers. He needed to cry, but he couldn’t. He felt the enormity of what had just happened. A weight was coming down on him to crush him—stones, stones and dead souls. As he had stood there looking at Sammy’s body, he swore that he could see something, feel something: a wisp, a touch of a breeze fly by him. Frankie felt a horrible weight and fear at that moment. Deep inside his own mind, he heard a wailing, a mournful scream. It had to be the final death release of his friend’s soul, now off to some place Sammy knew Frankie would never see or comprehend.

  His hands began to tremble and shake. Frankie began to feel a sadness that seemed to start at his head and run down through his entire body: an overwhelming aching sadness, an emptiness. He was overwhelmed by the complete sense of emptiness; for the first time in his life he thought about killing himself. He could sit in silence, stop the shaking for a few minutes, but the wholeness of what he’d done just came creeping back. Impossible to describe, this sense of complete emptiness was the stuff of pure terror, the realization of the fragility of one’s sanity, of the illusion that we are all okay. It’s a razor’s edge.

  He realized it didn’t take killing his best friend to walk up to that edge; life was a cheaply constructed facade. It only took a second to step back and outside the screaming noise in his head to see it and
get in touch with that feeling of complete and total nothing. This was the moment, the first time; he touched that place he’d seek for the rest of his life, to touch and comprehend absolute nothing: no light, no dark, no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste. It was the realm of the silent scream. It was a place, a thought Frankie could not shake.

  Showering, dressing, and finally walking out of the gym, hours after the ambulance took his friend’s lifeless body away, Frankie felt like he was dragging a 10,000-pound sled. He walked out the door and saw Pam sitting in his car, smoking a joint, and listening to the radio. He opened the door, sat down behind the wheel, took the joint and inhaled deeply, then passed the joint back to Pam.

  A very old and spooky-looking woman walked up to the car from behind and handed him a bag. She just looked in his eyes and said “Angelica Root: it will purify you, ward off evil, break the spell.” She then turned and walked away. He sat there baffled. Who the fuck was this woman? It had come to this: witches, spells, and a bag of weeds?

  He yelled back at her, “There is no spell, you crazy old bitch! What you sense is my anger. My anger sustains me; it keeps me alive, and without it I’m nothing. It keeps me from falling back into her, this one right here!” He pointed at Pam, who, laughing, took another hit off the joint as it burned down close to her fingers.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Back To The World

  Frankie pulled off Route 17 and headed back toward Middletown. It had been over nine months since he’d last been home. He drove down the road heading into town. Every time he left here and came back, he was always overwhelmed with a sense of hometown. No matter how broken, dirty, full of lies, memories and pain, this was home.