by Jeremy Brown
I turned my back in case he read lips.
Gil watched Jairo with a furrowed brow. He had his giant coffee poised below his mouth, but he did not drink. At his Vegas gym, Gil’s coffee was our threat level indicator.
A full mug actively being slurped meant all good, everybody’s green and happy.
An empty mug was condition yellow, tipping into orange. Top it off fast before it all spirals.
Spilled? Red alert, hunker down and let the mushroom cloud pass.
But a full mug not being sipped or gulped—the only word I could think of was dire.
I told Gil, “Somebody has to get him up and moving. He’s tight, locked in his head right now.”
“What about you?”
“I gotta shake these cobwebs. Hit the pads or do some rolling. Groundwork with Jairo would be perfect. Prep me for Aviso and calm him down.”
I also needed to talk to Marcela. Touch her, hear her voice, and make sure she was staying after Jairo’s fight.
I unzipped the gear bag and started dumping gloves and pads. “Come on Jairo. Let’s work some drills.”
Antonio turned to face me. “I said don’t talk to him. You have brought shame upon him and our family. He is scared now, a coward, because of the place you took him. For his whole life, he knows only victory. Even in his sleep, he dreams of domination.”
Antonio took a step toward me.
“But last night, he dreams of you. He is broken, covered in blood from his fight. His teeth are gone. And you walk right past him, like he is a ghost. Because he is one.”
The image of Jairo sitting in the hallway counting his teeth doused me with ice water. Antonio moved a step closer. Behind him, a ring of short white candles burned on the table in front of Jairo.
I pointed. “What the hell is that?”
“Not your concern. We are done.”
Gil said, “Antonio—”
Antonio didn’t look at him. “You and I will speak when this is over.”
I said, “Are those candles for Exu?”
Antonio turned away.
I stepped over the couch and around him. Got to the table before anyone could stop me and slapped the candles out with my palm. Black smoke drifted from the glowing wicks.
“Those are votive candles,” Marcela said. “For Jesus.”
“Oh. Were they working?”
An iron hand clamped onto my shoulder.
Pulled me around.
It wouldn’t be my first fight against a senior citizen.
But I will admit: it was the first time I was nervous about it.
A flat-screen TV on a rolling cart stood against the center of the back wall. It ran a loop of promo footage for the Warrior event and would switch over once the live feed started.
It would also make a great bludgeon if I could get to it before Antonio got his arms around my neck.
We stood a few inches apart, breathing each other’s air. His eyes were flat and bored. So that’s where Jairo learned it.
“I don’t want to fight you in front of your son and niece.”
“She is a daughter to me.”
“I don’t want to fight you in front of your kids, then.”
“Maybe Jairo got his cowardice from you.”
“I said I don’t want to. Not that I won’t.”
Marcela said, “Woody, calm down.”
“Both of you,” Gil said. “Knock it off.”
Antonio cocked an eyebrow. “Your student needs to be put in his place.”
“You touch him,” Gil said, “you’ll be fighting both of us.”
Antonio blinked twice, the only indication of the shock he must have felt. He turned to face Gil. “You would challenge me?”
Gil stood frozen. His coffee mug was on the table, far from his hand and mouth—dire indeed.
Very few people can make trouble while unconscious, and this was a perfect opportunity. Antonio’s left ear and the angle of his jaw were right there. One short hook with a little hip behind it and he’d go down. Roll him off to the hospital with smelling salts and ice cubes, tell him to check tomorrow’s paper for how Jairo did.
Gil took a deep breath. “If you try to hurt Woody, I’ll stop you.”
I eased my right hand into a fist. Too quick and the tendons would pop, give him fair warning. I slid my weight to my right foot so I could push off and shift it across at impact.
Antonio snorted. “So it seems you and I are done as well.”
His head turned back toward me.
Even better—combine his movement with the punch, let him jump right into it.
I braced my core and started to swing.
My right arm would not move.
Jairo’s hand was wrapped around my wrist. It felt like someone had poured a concrete foundation over my hand. His fingers were freezing and his face was blotched, waxy. He stared straight ahead, shivering and watching something only he could see.
“Help me,” he said.
Marcela moved closer. “What is happening to him?”
“Nerves,” I said. “Pre-fight jitters.”
She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “You were like this for your first fight?”
“Sure,” I lied.
Jairo’s hand dropped away from my wrist. I felt my fingers again.
Antonio said, “Arcoverde blood does not allow jitters. You have infected him. Step away. Now. Or I will end your fighting career. Maybe your life.”
I’ve heard a lot of threats. Usually as an if/then statement:
You don’t step off I’ma bust yo head, son.
You ever come back here, I’ll shoot you.
Look at her again, go ahead. I get my boys and we see what’s up.
Most cases, it’s because they don’t want to progress to actual violence. Otherwise they’d shut up and get to it. Doesn’t mean they should be tested or challenged, forced to make good on the threat. Just means they’re puffed up, showing danger colors, time to move along before it goes sideways.
Antonio was different.
He didn’t care if it progressed.
He was fine either way.
Just like me.
Gil push-kicked the empty couch out of his way and grabbed the front of my shirt, hauled me away from the Arcoverdes.
Because I’m an idiot and didn’t want to be the one to break the stare-down with Antonio, I didn’t see the couch in our corner. Gil dragged me over the back of it and dumped me onto the cushions. I stayed there, legs draped, while he pushed down on my chest and swung his glare between me and Antonio.
“Enough! You stay over there, we’ll stay over here. Now everybody just calm the fuck down and get ready to fight.”
It made sense at the time.
A rap on the door made us all turn. Eddie poked his blue hair and damned face in.
“Sounds intense in here.” He surveyed the room. “And it looks . . . weird.”
He came all the way in.
“I’m making the rounds, checking on my fighters. How you guys feeling? Ready to blow the doors off this bitch?”
“Yup,” I said from the couch, wearing my Gil scarf.
Eddie frowned at the Arcoverdes and sidled to our corner, sat on a sliver of cushion near my hip and kept his voice low. “The hell’s wrong with Jairo?”
“Nothing,” Gil said.
I creaked the couch leather with a shrug.
Eddie said, “He looks like complete shit. This have anything do to with the meltdown at the academy? Antonio’s bullshit strategy?”
I whispered, “You know it’s bad too?”
“Please. It’s gonna get Jairo killed.”
“Then fucking say something.”
Eddie put his hands up. “I don’t get between fighters and coaches. Especially when it’s going to make a spectacle. Preston crushing the Arcoverde legend in Brazil? Brah, this is gold.”
My right hand made a fist again. I’d punched three people on couches before, two of them while lying on my back
. All of them wished it hadn’t happened.
Eddie said, “Plus the footage we’re running of you and Antonio almost throwing down at the academy? Everybody outside Brazil is going to hate the Arcoverdes, and everybody here is going to be rabid for revenge. I couldn’t manufacture a better situation, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna prevent it.”
He patted my stomach and stood up, straightened his blue silk tie. “Good luck out there, boys. The world is watching . . .”
He shot his arm out and checked the heavy platinum manacle hanging from his wrist, then pointed at the TV. The loop cut to a live shot of the arena, about seventy-five percent full with fans being herded to seats.
“Now.”
Compartments.
Seeing the live feed of the cage flipped a switch. I dumped all the tension and drama with Antonio into a bucket and slapped a lid on it. Kept the rage and adrenaline handy—some things shouldn’t be contained. I used the bathroom to change into my fight gear.
Checked my phone and found a text from Rubin: Source says Coluna tonight. Carrasco wants you worn out, maybe injured from fight with Aviso.
I sent back: His mistake. Aviso is a warm-up.
Marcela is staying with you?
Don’t know yet.
Keep her there. Safest place.
I dumped the phone into my bag and ran through my options if Marcela wanted to leave the arena after Jairo’s fight. Maybe to console him after a loss, mediate between him and Antonio, or ride along in the ambulance.
I beg her to stay and watch me fight, stretching her between me and her family.
But Marcela doesn’t stretch.
She goes with Jairo and resents me for trying to make her choose.
Or I tell her I’m still doing the Coluna, working with Rubin to shut Carrasco and Exu and the Axila da Serpente down so she’ll never have to worry about it again.
She punches me in the neck for lying and I never see her again.
I shook my head, hoping another option would tumble forward and all the noise would sift back into the damned compartments where it belonged.
Neither one happened.
“Well, shit.”
I pulled a sweatshirt on and met Gil on the mats. He held focus mitts and my training gloves and wore his battered rib guard that made him look like a homeless umpire.
“Good news,” I said. “I’m not sleepy anymore.”
“Being an asshole wakes me up too.”
“Hey.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.” He held the mitts up.
I strapped the gloves on. Jairo was on the mats across the room, sprawled in a loose push-up position. Antonio walked around him, stopping to move Jairo’s ankle an inch to the right, his shoulder two inches down. Jairo looked like he was going to vomit.
Marcela paced between the couches, arms crossed.
I waited for her to see me, gave her a look: You okay?
She shook her head once and kept pacing.
I took one step toward her.
She held a hand up, shutting me down. Crossing into Arcoverde territory would only make it worse.
Gil smacked me in the face with one of the mitts. “You look like you wanna hit something.”
“Good lord yes.”
“These’ll have to do until those fools out there put Aviso in front of you. We’ll warm up, then go through the plans. A, B, C. You remember them?”
“Yeah.”
He tried to smack me again. I ducked.
“Forget ’em,” he said. “Right now, just hit.”
Fucking genius.
I had a good sweat going when Javier and Edson came in with cloth grocery bags bulging with fruit and vegetables. They didn’t acknowledge me—not even a scowl—and dumped the bags on Jairo’s table. Oranges, apples, bananas, and clumps of greens I didn’t recognize tumbled across the surface. Javier and Edson sorted them into seemingly random piles. The room took on the smell of wet cut grass and fresh garlic.
“On me,” Gil said. He kept the mitts below his shoulders and flared his elbows so I could work the abdomen. It had been our plan from the day we’d signed the fight deal: Do not attack Aviso’s face and head.
I’d fought Gil on it at first, standing in the Fight House cage and going over the strategy. “But this guy hates getting hit in the face.”
“Right.”
“And I’m really good at it.”
“Yes,” Gil said, “but when it happens, he goes for the takedown and the armbar. And he’s better at that than you are at face punching.”
His blasphemy was stunning. “Uhh, that can’t be true.”
“Uhh, it is.”
“One solid shot to his jaw, his night is over.”
Gil nodded. “One miss, your career might be over. This guy pulls arms apart like they’re kindling.”
“Yeah, but he’s gonna give me a warning, right? The countdown thing he does.”
“Right before he breaks an arm. You think those other guys just sat there and let it happen? They were fighting like wild animals and he still got ’em.”
“But I really want to punch this guy in the face.”
“Compromise. He shoots in, you can punch him anywhere you want to keep him away.”
“Deal.”
“But you keep him off and go back to squared up, walking each other down, the head’s off limits again.”
“Ah, piss.”
But Gil was right. As much as I wanted to knock that jaw crooked, going high would make it easier for him to shoot low and take me down. So I smacked Gil’s padding in the ribs, liver, belly, sternum, and kept my hips back.
He stuck a focus mitt out toward my waist. It was Aviso’s head, driving in for a double-leg. I sidestepped and cracked a short hook into it, visualized it landing just behind his ear.
“Nice,” Gil said. “Feel good? On to Plan B.”
I shook my arms out and glanced at Jairo. He was picking through the produce on the table. Antonio stood with his back to us and pointed at pieces for Javier and Edson to cut up and stuff into a miniature blender they’d brought. Marcela rubbed Jairo’s back and spoke in soft Portuguese.
I’d counted on being able to roll with him, put myself in the bad spots Aviso would look for and try our strategies to get out. Jairo wasn’t as slick as Aviso, but he was stronger. Idea was, if I could yank myself out of his deathlock, I could slip out of Aviso’s. We’d also wanted Javier to work the corner with Gil, dump water on me and rub an icepack wherever I needed it.
Sampling the mood in the room, I wasn’t about to let any Arcoverde get his hands on me. Maybe Marcela, but the others might take the opportunity to pile on.
Two thumps on the door, then Hollywood Andersen stuck his salt-and-pepper head in. “You decent?”
“Ridiculous question,” Gil said.
Hollywood was one of the top two cutmen in the fight game. When he came through the door I heard the thumping music in the arena and the white noise of the crowd cheering. The TV showed a Brazilian fighter taking his opponent’s back, wrapping his legs around the guy’s waist and locking him in so he could drop bombs with both fists.
The camera changed and I saw the pummeled fighter was Kuthe, the guy cutting weight on the treadmill. The round ended and the Brazilian pushed off Kuthe's back to get up. Kuthe got to his hands and knees and let blood run from his lacerated scalp onto the canvas.
The crowd screamed for more.
“That kid needs me,” Hollywood said. “My man Vern’ll take care of him though. I taught him right.”
He dropped his tackle box on the corner of Jairo’s table and patted one of the cushions, grinned at Jairo.
“Your wrap awaits, sir.”
Jairo held the fruit and veggie smoothie, untouched.
“Drink it all,” Antonio said.
Jairo swallowed once, then chugged the concoction. His throat bulged and fought to get it all down. Edson took the cup from him and wiped his mouth with a damp towel. Jairo shuffled to th
e couch, sat down and held his left hand out.
Hollywood dropped to one knee and pulled rolls of gauze and tape out of his box. “Which wrap you want? Tap-out or knockout?”
Jairo’s lips were pressed together. “The tap.”
“Yeah, keep it loose. Lets you grab him, keep him close, huh? You got it.”
Hollywood shot a look at Gil. He’d been eye-to-eye with thousands of boxers and MMA fighters moments before they made the walk to the ring or cage. He knew what terror looked like in the prep room, and he knew what it ended up looking like in the emergency room.
He wove a tapestry of gauze around Jairo’s hand and wrist, through his fingers, sealed it with a sculpture of tape, and smacked the knuckles.
“Feel good?”
Jairo closed and opened his fist, stared at his palm.
Hollywood said, “Something wrong?”
Jairo didn’t say anything. I wondered if he was picturing his teeth cupped there in his hand in a puddle of blood.
“It’s fine,” Antonio said.
Hollywood kept his face blank and went to work on the other hand.
“Come on,” Gil said to me. “He’ll be fine. It’s Jairo. Soon as he gets in the cage he’ll puff up, pound his chest, and then pound Preston. Don’t worry about him. Let’s go.”
Gil dropped and rolled to his back. I knelt by his feet and leaned into his full guard, a terrible spot against Aviso. Gil grabbed my right arm and pulled it close, got ready to swing his hips out and go for an armbar.
“Now what?”
Then Jairo vomited across the table.
Edson propped open the door to the hallway to let some fresh air in. Antonio and Javier were in the bathroom with Jairo, the sound of splashing water coming through the door.
Hollywood had made quick work of the right hand—one eye on Jairo’s gray face so he could avoid a second volley if need be—then packed his tackle box and scooted, mumbling to Gil, “That boy’s in trouble.”
Marcela used one last handful of paper towels to wipe the table.
I squatted down next to her. “You doing okay?”
“Go find Eddie. Tell him Jairo cannot fight.”
“I don’t know if that’s the best option.”
She used the hand that wasn’t holding the paper towel to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Woody, he’s like a dead man. He’s going to be killed out there.”