Basement Brawl

by Robert Evans

  The O’Quinn Fights: Basement Brawl

  By Robert Evans

  Copyright 2010 by Robert Evans

  Cover Copyright 2010 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  The O’Quinn Fights: Basement Brawl

  By Robert Evans

  I knew I was in trouble when I stepped out of the Humvee and the crowded street went quiet. It wasn’t unusual for the Iraqis to look at soldiers when they arrived in their part of town, but it was another thing for all sound to end. A suicide bomber wasn’t the problem, and wasn’t the reason for my uneasiness; these people wouldn’t have been on the street if one of those crack head idiots were set to blow themselves up for Allah. Something else had these locals out and about in the midafternoon heat, watching and waiting.

  “Where we heading to?” I asked, as the crazy Iraqi, Haziq, greeted us at the storefront with a beaming smile.

  “Right this way Sergeant O’Quinn,” said Haziq as he retreated back into the unlit store.

  “O’Quinn, if these bastards start anything unusual,” whispered my young inexperienced lieutenant Campos, “we’ll take care of the locals, you just keep fighting, we can handle things if it gets too rowdy.”

  “Easy, Sir,” I said, “don’t get trigger happy. It’s bound to get ugly in there once they see their fighter start to fall. This is the first time I’ve ever fought against a local, just keep on guard for some trap.”

  “I’ll handle my end, you keep your mind in the fight, and on this guy Barak Ali. I heard from Captain Mills that limey “Howling” Henry Hollingsworth went down when they were still going toe-to-toe in a stand-up bout. This guy knocked ’em out with one punch and light gloves.”

  “Howling Hollingsworth is a chump,” I said. “I knocked him out too.”

  “The Cap’n also told me they like to distract the opponent with firecrackers. Big firecrackers. Really loud.”

  “Let ’em. I’ll put the guy down no matter what they do.” Lieutenant Campos patted me on the shoulder as we wormed our way through the narrow corridors made up of old plywood and brick, deep into the warren of shops, offices and apartments. The fetid smell of sweat and unwashed clothes was enough to take your breath away. It didn’t faze me, just proof I’d been in this country too long.

  “So what did you find out from the Brit Cap’n about this guy’s fighting style?”

  “Not a thing, I don’t know if he’s a boxer, brawler or grappler. I couldn’t get a lot of information on him. I even had our interpreter try to dig up some dirt on him from the locals. And all he got was a curt response.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Stop asking questions or you’ll get your head cut off,” said the Lieutenant with a flourish of his hand slicing across his neck from ear to ear.

  I laughed at the Lieutenant’s theatrics. “So what, they tell him that every time he snoops around.”

  “I know. But this time it really scared him.”

  This was my third tour in Iraq and this sort of thing didn’t bother me anymore. When I first arrived I would have been banging on the Commander’s door with the info that our interpreter’s life was threatened. Now it was just a normal occurrence, and after I started fighting in unsanctioned and completely underground fighting, other things took precedence.

  It was the fights that kept me sane over here, and it was something I had come to excel in. I’d gained a reputation with the Services here in-country as a champion heavyweight brawler. Mixed Martial Arts, Ultimate Fighting; whatever you wanted to call it, it was what I did.

  My platoon leader, Lieutenant Campos, had been on the wrestling team at West Point. He was a real scrapper. Even at five foot four and a hundred and twenty pounds he could give guys twice his size a beating. But when he got over here, took over command of my platoon, and saw me fight, he turned into the biggest pimp on this side of the world and whored me out into fights every chance he got. I didn’t mind. I’d handed out more beatings than I took, but a couple of them were pretty bad. The worst was the time I went against “Backbone” McMillan. This guy was a bad dude from the Navy that put me in an arm bar that nearly broke it. If it hadn’t been for the bell he would’ve, since at that time in my career I hadn’t learned the better part of valor, and wasn’t going to tap out. Even with the brief reprieve, in the next round he put me in a choke hold and I went unconscious. After the fight I had a cauliflower ear, cuts above both ears, and lost yet another tooth. I don’t feel bad about that loss. Backbone had been thrown out of SEAL training when he beat the crap out of two of his instructors. They busted him down and sent him to Iraq.

  Kanoa ‘Akamu, the Mad Marine from the 3rd recon battalion up in Falluja took me out in six rounds, but Mack “Truck” Pauly knocked Kanoa out in four rounds and I beat Mack in two. Just goes to show nothing is a sure thing on this side of the world in the hidden and little-known sport of all-out fighting.

  We walked through the narrow corridors and down a flight of rickety stairs to a makeshift octagon, set up on the sandy floor of the basement. There in a cloud of hazy blue grey smoke stood the cage made of an odd assortment of chain link fence and cargo nets. The lights over the ring throbbed with the uneven pulse of electricity coming from the generator rumbling behind the building. I loved it. This was my type of ring; down and dirty.

  “Listen Haziq,” the Lieutenant said rudely to the wannabe fight promoter, “the referee had better speak English, and the fight had better be fair, or I’m stopping it.” The Lieutenant patted his rifle giving a flourish to his last statement. I wished he wouldn’t do stuff like that; it just pissed off the Iraqis. He was a young lieutenant, and like most he did stupid things that needed correcting. But in the present circumstances I just didn’t feel like doing any lieutenant training. I had a fight to concentrate on.

  “The fight will be fair Mr. Campos,” said Haziq with a yellowed-tooth smile. “The referee is an Italian who speaks English, and Arabic.”

  “Where’s your fighter anyway? I don’t see anyone taking up residence opposite us,” I said, jumping into the conversation and diffuse it before it got out of hand.

  “Sheik Barak Ali will arrive shortly, I assure you.”

  “A Sheik? I’m going to fight a Sheik?” I felt as if I had just walked into a fancy restaurant wearing shorts and a dirty shirt. “Isn’t this sort of thing below a Sheik?”

  Haziq only smiled and bobbed his head before letting himself be carried away by the crowd jabbering in Arabic and busy placing bets.

  I started stripping off my body armor and uniform. The small pile was diligently guarded by Sergeant Freeman and Private First Class Sanchez. Six others of the platoon stood in two-man teams around the area, keeping their eyes open for trouble.

  I stood in my fighting shorts and pulled on my shoes. Lieutenant Campos helped me tape up my hands and pushed on my gloves. “If this guy doesn’t show up soon I’m gonna call the fight,” said the Lie
utenant in a composed voice. “I don’t like being down here at all; we’re out numbered ten to one. They would just as easily slit our throats as smile at us.”

  “Don’t get nervous. We’ve been in nastier spots than this, Lieutenant.” I hopped from toe-to-toe to warm up. “The team knows how to handle themselves, and any situation that might come up.”

  “I don’t like having to wait on ’em. They should be here now.”

  The crowd of Iraqis started clapping as a group of men entered the arena.

  “He looks like a Sheik,” said Lieutenant Campos with surprise in his voice.

  “He looks like a chump,” I said.

  “Everybody, looks like a chump to you.”

  “Everybody is.”

  The Sheik walked into the ring and held his hands up like he was a visiting demigod. In sunglasses that belonged on a movie star and a flowing white robe, the guy fit every caricature of a Sheik I grew up with.

  I immediately didn’t like him.

  He looked to be a few inches taller than me and had me by twenty pounds. I stood a solid six foot, and kept my weight at a hundred and ninety-five pounds. The Sheik took off his clothes to reveal a well-muscled body. The guy was big. In fact he looked like a hairless gorilla; big upper body and small legs. I started to chuckle to myself at the thought of the guy with a big gorilla head and a dumb look. When the Sheik saw me laughing, fury flared in his eyes. His black puffy mustache twitched an instant before he started yelling at one of the poor saps near him.

  Haziq quickly hustled over to our side of the cage.

  “Sheik Ali is very upset by your obvious disrespect, and demands an apology before the contest begins.”

  If I didn’t like the Sheik before, his demand didn’t help my attitude any. “Who does he think he is? Tell the Sheik he can forfeit the match, or step in the ring,”

  “Sheik Ali will be most upset,” pleaded Haziq, a doe-eyed stare imploring me to submit to the Sheik’s demand.

  “I don’t care. Tell him to shut up and fight. He’ll be really upset after I beat him into the ground.” It may not have been the most diplomatic of ways to handle the situation, but I didn’t care. I had spent more time in this God-blasted country than I ever wanted, and the people here had not endeared themselves to me in any way. If this bum thought I was going to bow to his whims just because he was a Sheik, he was mistaken. “We don’t dip our flag and Sergeant O’Quinn don’t bow.” Some people don’t like that about us American soldiers, but it’s how we’re made.

  A short, spry Italian jumped into the ring, and bellowed to the crowd in Arabic and English. “This bout will consist of five-minute rounds, with one minute between rounds for rest. The bout will continue until one fighter is victorious, either by knockout or tap out. In this corner is the American Sergeant Mickey O’Quinn, and in this corner is Sheik Barak Ali.”

  The dingy basement fight club erupted in a cacophony of cheers for the Sheik at the mention of his name. The guy had a reputation with the locals that was obvious. I just wish I knew more about him than I did.

  The bell sounded and the Sheik came into the center of the cage like a charging bull. I was caught off-guard and sidestepped at the last minute, but his long arm caught the side of my waist. He used my body like a pole, and whipped around me and cut my legs out from under me with his body rolling on the hard-packed sandy floor. I went flat on my back, and the Sheik dropped onto me, both knees between my legs. He had me in a bad spot and immediately started pounding me with fist and elbow blows. I felt a cut open up below my eye.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist and locked my feet, and covered up and felt the blows pound the sides of my forearms. I looked out between my wrists and saw the Sheik throwing wild punches. As his face was coming down I jabbed quick and hard with my right, catching his nose square. I felt it mush under my fist, but not break. Damn the luck, it should’ve been a flattened piece of puffy flesh.

  The stunned Sheik relaxed for a moment, and I followed up with a right, left, right, square dab on the bleeding button of his nose. I pushed the Sheik off me and got to my feet. This was how it started, and I knew I was in for a long afternoon.

  He stood up like a boxer and bounced, before lunging in and catching me with a right to the side of the head that sent a burst of stars streaking across the screen of my mind. After only a few seconds I already found out why Hollingsworth had gone down in the first round; this guy had a right that was loaded with knockout power.

  A flurry of rabbit punches peppered my arms. I covered up and protected against another blast from that right hand of his. Those insignificant little rabbit punches did little but to annoy the crap out of me and keep me from fighting the fight I wanted. However; if I let him keep up with those, in no time at all I wouldn’t be able to lift my arms to save myself.

  I barreled into the Sheik like a runaway truck, and wrapped my arms around him. In close I was in the position I favored most and could use my grappling skills. But Ali was nervous and pushed me away in a frantic attempt to put distance between us.

  He threw a haymaker punch as I was falling away and knocked me high on the side of my head. For a second time stars streaked my vision.

  I blocked the next few blows with my forearms—protecting myself but taking a lot of punishment in the exchange.

  I stepped back when he slowed the onslaught, and I could tell he was tired from throwing so many punches at such a fast pace. I watched him more critically. He threw a jab with his left then followed up with a right. I hooked the blow away from me and followed it with a right upper cut, but he beat me to a clinch and locked my head with both of his arms on each side of my neck and his fingers interlocked at the base of my skull. His arms tucked in nice and tight and his forehead pressed against mine, he slammed my head down on his up-thrusting bony knee. My face took it, and I felt a flow of blood coming down over my eye.

  He yanked my head from side to side, trying to throw me, but it takes a lot more than what this guy was putting into it to throw me to the ground.

  The bell sounded and we broke, but not before Ali took a cheap shot at the back of my head. The place erupted in cheers and laughter, and Lieutenant Campos was in the cage. I was afraid he was going to lock and load and start shooting up the place, but he just yelled at the ref. I came to the conclusion then and there that the ref might be able to speak English but he didn’t understand a word.

  At the beginning of round two we settled into an easier feeling-out process. Sheik stared at me with dark intense eyes that had lost their bloodlust and fury, only to be replaced with calculated, premeditated death. There was more behind those eyes than just a fighter wanting to mix it up in the ring. Never before had I met an opponent who looked at me from a foundation of hate.

  I stunned him with a low kick that nearly knocked him off his feet. He should have spent more time working on those spindly legs of his. I launched a spinning-back kick that missed, but forced him to retreat across the cage.

  I dropped to a knee trying to bait him, but he didn’t take it. I jumped up dodging and connected with a right. He hadn’t come up with a plan so I came in hard with a make or break jumping knee and floored him. The crowd was calling for blood, but it was my blood they were calling for. I backed him up to the cage with a hard right, and went for his knees and a takedown, when the bell sounded.

  It was the beginning of round three and all I knew about this guy was that he had a right that could take me out, and danced around danger any other time. I showed a karate stance and transitioned directly into a hardcore boxing position. I clipped him with a right and he dove for my leg, but didn’t get it. I landed a low hard kick and he dove for two more takedowns but I easily stepped away. The guy was really starting to piss me off. In the first round he came out like a bulldog ready to rip my head off and now that fight was out of him.

  I put my arms down. “Come on and fight,” I yelled. I stood still, ready to walk out of the cage. The crowd was getting angry and that r
age was directed at me. I kicked Ali’s feet out from under him and he went flat on his back as the bell rang.

  “What’s this guy trying to do?” I asked Lieutenant Campos, completely puzzled by the Sheik’s actions in the ring. The LT started to work on me, squeezing out a sponge full of water over my head, fanning me with a towel to cool down my muscles and touching up the cut on my face with petroleum jelly.

  “I don’t know,” he said as he gave me a gulp of water that I spit out on the dirt floor. He shook his head, and looked around the dingy room with a wary eye, “but I have a bad feeling.”

  “Do you think we should call the fight and get out of here?” I asked, worried about the safety of our troops spread out in the crowd.

  The LT finished getting me ready for the next round. “The only problem with that, Sergeant, is that I don’t think they would just let us out of here.”

  “Do you think it will be easier after I knock this guy out?” I asked sarcastically. “He isn’t fighting. He isn’t doing anything. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but he’s waiting for something.”

  “I’m watching the fight Sergeant, and see what’s going on. But don’t underestimate him, he’s up to something, and if you don’t watch it he’s going to hurt you bad. Just take him out as fast as you can, I’ll get us out of here.”

  “Sergeant Freeman, PFC Sanchez,” shouted the Lieutenant, calling over the two soldiers who were keeping watch over our little section. “PFC, ask the other teams if they’ve seen anything unusual, and report back to me.”

  The bell rung and we started round four. A quick jab to the nose and the Sheik was bleeding. I followed up with kicks to his body, and then a hard right that connected square with the bloody nose. The chump still wasn’t doing anything and the crowd was getting louder.

  I started kicking at his legs and body, leaving myself open most of the time, and he didn’t do anything to take advantage.

  Blows to the head and body made it in undefended. He stopped one of my shots and missed with a lazy left hook, then immediately swept for my leg and missed badly. The bell rang. I think it came early, but I wasn’t sure.