by Tom Sheridan
The Mustang groaned past Newark Airport. Planes full of people coming and going, living lives all over the planet. While the Newark-born boy once again boomeranged back to Newark. A trip that had become all too familiar as a part of The Frog’s familia. The Frog and his offer to cut Young Franco in all the way. With both the docks and the accompanying extracurriculars. The Dealer was offering Young Franco an alluring 11. A no-brainer double down. But Young Franco thought twice. Wasn’t feeling it. Instead, he hit. Wanted to take the temperature of being a temp. All the years since and all Franco had to show for them was a four from The Dealer. Sitting at 15 total with The Frog. Hit? Stand? Surrender?
Franco pulled the Mustang off the Pike and into downtown. His mind refocused on the more important hand at hand. The hand that caused Franco to dock his Stang not at the docks but in front of The Vault. America Bank’s new arena. Home to pro sports. Events of all sorts. Like Franco’s upcoming fight. Franco put a quarter in the quarter-hour meter. That’s all he’d need. To lean against the hood of his Stang, stare at The Vault, and figure if he was up for the heist.
When he had gotten the call back on Bunns, Lama had let Franco know the news. The Prince’s dance partner for the main event had suffered a torn tendon.
Fuckin Lama. Franco asked if she was kidding. She who, upon taking the inked agreements from Franco at her office in ’01, said, “You do understand that you owe me 10 percent of everything, yes? Fight earnings. Promotional earnings. Dock earnings.” Franco’s speckled hazels grilled her singular blue-meets-gray-meets-green Middle Eastern eyes. Whatever the color, it was as solid as her expression. The 26-year-old fighter stood up and had his arms going like he was Joey Yo—talkin about how he had to feed his family with the dock money and what the hell’s that money gotta do with her—before Lama finally bust out laughing. “I’m kidding. I don’t want your dock money. In fact, let’s beat The Prince and you won’t have to worry about it either.” Franco sat back in her guest chair. Padded. Leather. Arm rests. Franco in his prime and primed for big things. Man was that chair comfortable. And the view out the tenth story of the Jersey City office. Fuckin A. The Statue of Liberty. Right there. Franco had half a mind to reach out the window and give Lady Liberty a fuckin high five. His other half a mind wanted to pick up Lama’s fifty-button phone and call in for a straight-edge shave. Yeah, just sit back and stare just past Lady Liberty. To those two behemoths rising so high, Franco couldn’t even see their tops. Yeah. Get that straight edge and calm his nerves over his new manager. His manager who, after just the first episode of that hot HBO show about Hollywood, would go on to earn a new nickname around the fight game. Lama Drama. But on that day in ’01, it was all good for the kid from The Wood. Franco sat back in that padded leather chair. Twenty-six and sittin on top of the world. Soakin in those towers sun-kissed. Feelin as Juicy as Sunkist. About to get paid. Blow up like—
Boom. Seven years. Seven fuckin years. The first year rehabbing. The physical therapy in the mornings. The docks despite doc’s warnings. The second year getting back to fighting shape. Franco reassembled his team like it was an Ocean’s Eleven prequel. Franco’s Five. Wait. Nah. More like the Wu’s 36 Chambers “Intermission.” Cuz Franco was on a mission. Fuck a career-ending injury. It was only intermission.
His comeback sent him back to regional fights in his third year. He wasn’t a new jack no more, but the Jersey boy walked like a man and fought like a man in front of hollering crowds happy to have him back in AC. Franco was once again believing in the city’s song as the Stang sailed away with each win. Didn’t last long, though. He won three in a row. And was back in The Show.
In the fourth and fifth years, the 30-year-old with the reattached ankle was to serve as a warm-up for new fighters. And he was for the first two. But the next two. They turned out to be warm-ups for him. If he could take a third in a row, Lama could parlay it into a three-fight contender contract.
In that final match of the fifth year, Franco was chompin at the bit. Gnawin in Nawlins. Up against Shui Ming. Out of rural Beijing. Ming was a cagey veteran known for studying his opponents to the T. And it was no different for the father of T. Ming went after Franco’s reattached ankle like a Goonie on the hunt for One-Eyed Willie. But The Bunns Lane Brawler was looking like his old self as he clocked Ming all over the octagon. Then cornered him in a vertex, dropped him with a suplex, and put the crowd’s cheers at an apex.
In the land of Johnny B Goode, Franco be so good that he knocked Ming down late in the second. Went in for the kill. But Ming got saved by the ding.
No sweat, thought the fighter who barely broke a sweat. Franco would finish him in the third. Bury him like he was Chuck Berry. Buryin a guitar riff. Franco strutted to his corner, looking like a lean machine way down in New Orleans. The soulful crowd so-full of love for the Jersey fighter. Kid was bomb. Like Marty McFly at the prom. When he rocked out to “Johnny B. Goode.” Yeah, Franco be feelin good. As fly as McFly. Like he was back in his prime. Like he and his team had flown DeLoreans down to New Orleans.
Franco’s fight team rubbed him down, talked him up, and wished him luck. But all he heard was Chuck. Singin about Johnny B Goode. Risin from the hood. How he came so far. And became a star.
The bell rang for round three. The ten thousand in attendance cheered for Franco like he was born on the bayou. Cuz he was. The northern bayou. The fuckin swamps of Jersey.
Franco came out swinging. Franco’s relentlessness swept the crowd right off its feet. Till Shui Ming swept Franco off his. Ming tied Franco up with the skill of Brazil. They sat interlocked like they were on a seesaw as the momentum seesawed.
Ming applied an Achilles lock.
“Roll it! Roll it!” barked Brazil.
Franco rolled to his side. Shoved Shui’s controlling knee out of position. Then shooed Shui with a kick.
Brazil raised his fist. Roared, “Yes!” His fighter was at his best.
Save for the now-aggravated fuckin ankle. Franco hobbled around the octagon. Clocking the clock for the first time in his life. Begging it to tick down to the decision he’d take handily. All he had to do was keep shooing Shui.
Shui shot and shot to no avail. Then shot his load on one last shot. Franco backed up the bad ankle. But Shui clamped onto the good one. Franco shifted his weight to the bad one and went down. While Shui had used psychology reverse, Franco had Nelly and rolled a reverse. Then used a Brazil move to take the purse. Franco finished Ming with a rear naked choke. His Jiu-Jitsu no longer a joke.
The Nawlins crowd hooted and hollered over the gutsy performance. But while the ref raised Franco’s arm, he could barely put down his foot.
The next day, Joey and Nelly had to help Franco hop through the hotel parking lot. Brazil and Taz hustled ahead and grabbed the car doors. They opened sideways. Same way they always did. No DeLoreans down in New Orleans.
Year six of the comeback. Sure, Franco’s new three-fight contract was for The Show minimum but still. They’d be fights against actual contenders. A ladder to the top. A ladder Franco was game to climb. One win at a time.
Franco figured the first in Denver to be right up his alley. A Chechen bruiser named Umar Basayev. But as the bell rang for round one, Franco’s tweaked ankle was ailing. He lumbered around the octagon in round one like he was in the championship rounds of a barn burner. Worse, Basayev was the same height as Franco but bigger. They had both weighed in at 170 the day before. Franco’s rehydrated, re-fed 180-pound fight night weight was usually an advantage. Even 185 now in Franco’s advanced years if he was bein honest. Yet Basayev was even bigger. And the hothead had the exact same style as Franco. Came right at him. Rather than go to the ground with a bad ankle, Franco went toe to toe, blow for blow with Basayev. The bum-rushing Russian was a walking contradiction. Twenty-five yet bald like he was 35. Twenty-five yet acne like he was 15. Though Franco split both the guy’s eyes, it was Basayev who took the split decision. As Basayev’s hand shot up, Franco looked down
to his ailing ankle. The Brawler shook his head. He’d never been outbrawled. Still. The Denver crowd tipped their hats to Franco. Battered like he was in a car crash and still standing. So impressive was the loss (although Franco would beg to differ—a loss was a fuckin loss) that The Bull, the fight commentator who conducted the post-fight interviews, wanted a word with Franco.
Joey helped Franco across the octagon. Past Basayev and his boorish camp. “Fuckin steroid fuck. Could kill someone with that edge. Fucker should be in jail,” jeered Joey.
The battered Franco leaned on Joey and leaned into The Bull’s mic amid cheers for the tortured martial artist. “Nah nah. Thank yous. I didn’t get it done. Next time. Thank yous.” Franco made a fighter’s fist then hopped past the hopped-up Basayev, busy celebrating with his fight team. All of them chanting in Chechen as Basayev raised his homeland’s flag.
Joey made a fist behind the flamboyant fighter. “Should crack him in his bacne…”
Franco’s arm around his bro tightened. “Let’s get dafuckouttahere.”
Yo begrudgingly let it go. Threw an arm around his bro. Helped him hobble away.
Franco and his fight team hopped in the Stang the next day. Two time zones from home with only two fights left. The fivesome sat in silence all day.
The driver tried to forget the decision in Denver. Flipped his CD case to John Denver. The driver’s face as rocked as the Rockies. As puffed and blue as the partly cloudy skies above. And as fuckin hot as the helio ahead. He just wanted ta listen ta country. As he drove through his country. On a stretch of God’s Country. But that fuckin Basayev big as a fuckin country. Like he was Bryant Reeves Big Country. On substances dirty as a cunt tree. The two sluggin in the trenches like soldiers in a foreign country. The winner raising the flag of his country. The loser feelin like a man without a country. While his ex single-mommed across the country. Like she was the star of North Country. While Franco lost and let em all down. From Julie n T. To God and Country.
Hours after the sun dipped below the surrounding mountains, the pony continued its ride through the valley of the shadow of death. The driver with the same name as Julio flipped through CDs—anything but Coolio. As Colorado ran to Nebraska, as dusk turned to dark, as his guys shut their eyes, the rider continued to turn the page. Finally ceased on Seger. “Turn the Page.” The driver stuck in his rolling cage. Commiserating with the song. As his engine groaned along. How many times? How many times had Franco looked in that rearview from left to right? Coach Nelson. Husband. Father. Pillar of the community. The 40-year-old AD. Stuffed in Franco’s horse carriage like it was 40 AD. Taz sittin bitch even though he could bitch out all of Woodbridge. Spiked-out hair hitting the roof. Style cramped along with his legs. Brazil’s bald dome bobbing against the bantam rear window. Another 40-year-old. With an academy full of 4-year-olds. Yet there he was, miles away as his mile-long legs pushed up against Joey Yo’s seat. Joey Yo. Two bills and sittin shotgun in the crowded car like he was the captain of a clown car. Co-captain. With good ole Franco. And the whole team in tow. For another loss in The Show.
Franco checked the Mustang’s headlight setting. Already set to bright despite their dimness. The pony’s eyes had gone south slowly but surely over the years. Franco peered into the desolate road ahead. Like Columbus looking out at the Atlantic. Wondering if there was a New World he’d ever arrive at. Or was Franco’s Earth…flat?
The setback made Franco’s second fight of the three-fight set a make-or-break. Against the tenth-ranked fighter, Thiago Alves. A win against a top-ten contender and The Show would have to follow it up with another. A loss and the third fight of his contract would be a rumble at the bottom of the barrel. A nobody on his way out. Making scraps for one last scrap.
To avoid that scenario, Franco would have to take down Thiago, a Jiu-Jitsu technician, in Tulsa. A fighter straight outta Brazil and backed by a well-heeled team. In matching warmups of yellow and green. Franco had leaned on Bobby Brazil a lot leading up to the fight. They rolled on the mats so much, they might as well have rolled down Main Street. Still, Jiu-Jitsu wasn’t The Bunns Lane Brawler’s strong point. Jiu-Jitsu was meant for the long and strong. He was compact and jacked. His heft and tight tendons that helped him pack an extra punch and score an extra takedown were the same ones that hampered him in Jiu-Jitsu. With its need to stretch. To slip. To grip. To tweak.
So there Franco was in SE Hinton’s hometown. Feeling like an outsider. A Pony Boy who rode in on his pony ready to sock a soc. A soc well-backed and fighting from his back. A Venus flytrap begging The Bunns Lane Brawler to come on in. But Franco, thanks to the extra work with Brazil and the lesson learned in his pop at The Prince, avoided the homerun ground and pound. Just patiently waited like his boy 50. Danced around the flytrap and picked it off trichome by trichome for tri rounds. Nothing fancy. Nothing flashy. No bells. No whistles. No bullshit. Franco emerged unscathed yet found the fight one of his most brutal due to its test of technique and patience.
As Franco, his outsiders, and their pony galloped across the map, their careers had gotten back on it. Still, Joey was all shifty in shotgun. “Man that was some fuckin fight. Fuckin slow burn. I’m still all stressed out about it,” said Joey as he filled the carcass of a Phillies. “The fuckin…Ulsa in Tulsa.”
“What’s that?” Franco said with an edge.
“I’ll cut it out when we start camp,” said Joey, blunt, as he rolled his blunt.
“Not that. The Ulsa in Tulsa. Like, as in ulcer?”
“Yeah. It’s a fuckin joke.”
“Like you’re from fuckin Boston?”
In the backseat, Nelly, Taz, and Brazil shared looks. “Here we go,” sighed Brazil.
“Ding. Ding. Ding.” declared Taz with three taps of his finger.
“I don’t know—it rhymes,” said Joey with his hands out. “And what’s your beef with Boston? Like Good Will Hunting ain’t your favorite movie.”
Franco cracked his neck as the Stang cracked a hundred. “I got love for Boston, but…their fuckin World Serieses all the sudden. Their fuckin Super Bowls. Their fuckin million movies. Where are we at?”
“The Godfathers. Your no-goods in Goodfellas. A Bronx Tale,” noted Nelly.
“When you factor in music. It’s game over. Biggie. Jay. Nas. Shit, I could go on till we get home,” boasted Brazil.
Franco looked out at the passing plains alongside the single-lane highway. “All good. No doubt. But… Where’s Jersey at?”
“New York New Jersey. So what?” said Joey as he sparked his blunt. “We live right across the river from the Wu. You could take a canoe to the Wu!”
“The Fugees are Jersey,” fed Brazil to the starved fighter. “Redman and Naughty. First rap hit ever was the Sugar Hill Gang.”
“Iced Tea,” teased Taz. “Dee one you look like.”
“Ever heard of Bon Jovi? The Boss?” noted Nelly.
“Don’t be sleepin on Whitney Houston,” reminded Brazil.
“Damn right. Greatest National Anthem of all time. Belted out by a black woman,” noted Nelly. “Unimaginable when it was keyed by Francis Scott Key.”
“Never forget that night. Watching in the barracks with my brothers,” reminisced Brazil. “I was deployed the next day.”
“Fuckin back in the day, son!” waxed Joey.
“Exactly. I’m talkin recently. Where’s Jersey at recently?” clarified Franco.
“G-Men are lookin good,” replied Joey. “They’re Jersey ta me.”
“Dee Sopranos just ended,” tallied Taz.
“Yeah. The Sopranos was good,” replied the driver, eager to pass a car he was stuck behind. “Then it all went black.” It was a green Cadillac.
Joey puffed. “Damn homie. All I said was the Ulsa in Tulsa. Now you’re givin me a whole other one.” Joey exhaled. “How bout I put an r at the end of it? Like a real Jersey Joe. Straight outta Newark. The Ulser in Tulser. Like your nigga The Fr—”
“Why
you gotta bring him up!”
“Dee truck! Dee truck!” yelled Taz like he was Tattoo. About to get tattooed.
Franco cut the wheel—the Stang cut away from the Mack. And back. Behind that fuckin Cadillac.
“I don’t know what to tell ya, Franco,” adjourned Joey with his hands out. “You wanna call it da fuhkin Ulsuh in Tulsuhhh?”
“Why you gotta say it like you got an eighty IQ?”
“Nigga whateva,” puffed Joey.
“Enough with the niggas already. Nigga,” spit Brazil.
“You don’t think Puerto Ricans got African blood? Shit. Same for my Sicilian side. You ever see True Romance?”
“Man you ain’t no nigga. You a guido.”
Nelly looked out at the passing farmland. “I have to say. Growing up in the ’70s, I never thought I’d hear two guys arguing over who’s a bigger N-word.”
The band of brothers cracked up.
“True Romance? Don’t Boyz N The Hood cover it all in like the first five minutes?” floated Franco.
“What do they say?” inquired Joey. The blunt hanging from his mouth like a professor’s pipe.
“I don’t remember. Haven’t seen it in like twenty years.”
Joey looked to the back. “Can you believe this fuckin guy? He knows exactly what the fuck it says. But nah, ole Franco’s gotta be all cryptic n shit. Gotta make me go huntin for this fuckin movie. Like I’m Davy Crockett. Anyone got a coonskin cap I can borrow? So I can go find this fuckin movie? Is it on HBO On Demand? One of the eight million other on demands? Is it on TBS this Tuesday night? Do I gotta fuckin circle my calendar? Do I gotta go to fuckin ShopRite and rummage through the old movie rack like I’m a fuckin bum? Do I gotta rent it from the box out front? Barter my old baseball cards at the fuckin flea market? Anybody interested in Donruss? Walk all over the mall like I’m Where’s Waldo? Bang on the door of Blockbuster? My breath all foggin up the glass. ‘Hello? Are you guys just closed? Or shut the fuck down forever?’ Do I gotta send away for the shit? Do I gotta write Santa? Dear Santa, my fuckin friend Franco is all pretendin like he don’t remember the first five fuckin minutes of Boyz N The Hood. So if you could stuff it in my stocking… Any of you guys back there got a copy I could borrow? I don’t even need the whole DVD. Just a piece of it. That has the first five fuckin minutes. All becuza the Austin Powers International Man of Mystery over here. The fuckin X-Man Xavier McDaniel over here. Fuckin Rey Mysterio over here. The Da Vinci Code over here.” Joey took his biggest puff yet. “That’s it…” Joey exhaled. “That’s what Franco is! I just figured it out. He’s fuckin Austin Powers, Xavier McDaniel, Rey Mysterio, and the Da Vinci Code all rolled into one. Everything those guys are, that’s what he is. I did it! After all these years, I fuckin did it. I cracked Franco’s Da Vinci code. Like I’m Tom Hanks!” exclaimed Joey as he smacked the driver’s shoulder.