Sledge

by Jessie Cooke

  “Okay then,” Wolf said as the music suddenly began to scream out of the speakers that surrounded them and people hurried to their seats. “Let’s sit down and watch us a fight.”

  9

  Sledge stared straight ahead at the cage in front of him. He didn’t know what to think about Daria, or how to feel. He felt Mack’s warm hand on his arm and he looked up at her. Leaning in so he could hear her over the loud music she said, “You okay?”

  He smiled and nodded. “I’m good.”

  “You lying?”

  Sledge laughed. When they were kids and Mack found him sulking after some asshole had hurt his feelings he’d always tell her he was good, and she’d always ask if he was lying. His response to that was:

  “Yeah, but fuck ’em.”

  She smiled. “Fuck ’ em.”

  The crowd around them was erupting in cheers as the bass drummed overhead. A fighter, dressed in red satin shorts and a red cape that said “El Chapo” across the back of it, appeared in the long, carpeted aisle between the seats. People got on their feet and some of the cheers were drowned out with boos and hisses. El Chapo was a relatively new fighter himself. He was part of an MMA club out of Arizona that Wolf, Dax, and Jacob had recently brought into the mix. The agreement between them was that both MMA clubs would provide fights for up-and-coming fighters who hadn’t yet reached professional fighter status but wanted to get the experience of real matches under their belts.

  The fights would be unsanctioned, but Jacob insisted from the start that the rules of MMA would be followed, start to finish. That meant hiring a doctor for pre-fight physicals, sending blood work to labs to test for steroids and illegal drugs, hiring officials who had been through sanctioned training, having EMTs standing by, weight limits on both ends…and the fighters would be free to use aliases if they chose to, in order to avoid being blacklisted by the fighting commission, and being kept from moving on to sanctioned matches and fighting for titles later on in life.

  Wolf had his attorney draw up contracts and look into the local laws. He forbade any betting on the matches in his gym. That wasn’t to say none of that went on outside the gym, and maybe within the club…but it wasn’t allowed within the limits of the gym, and he offered an open invitation to local law enforcement for every match, just so they could make sure. Again, Sledge was more than impressed with Wolf’s business savvy. The club was going places thanks to Wolf’s leadership.

  The music stopped when El Chapo got to his corner and a few silent beats later, another song ripped through the speakers, this one hard rock…something by Axl Rose, Sledge thought. The crowd’s low rumble became a loud roar and Fred “The Walking Dead” Santos came down the aisle with Jacob “The Lion” Wright in front and Brock bringing up the rear.

  Once Freddie reached the cage, everyone took their seats. Sledge forced himself to stay focused on what was happening in front of him, but his face burned under the scrutiny of Daria’s eyes nonetheless. The official called the fighters to the center of the ring, ran down the basic rules, told them he wanted a fair fight, and they were sent back each to his own side of the cage. Seconds later, the bell rang and the fight started.

  El Chapo came out like a hurricane, stalking Freddie around the cage…not really throwing punches, but just pushing at the young fighter enough to keep him moving. Jacob watched quietly from the side, but the crowd was yelling at Freddie to throw a punch. El Chapo had his hands held up high, however, and any punch Freddie threw would be more like poking a tiger than inflicting damage. He wasn’t throwing punches either, however…it was like neither of them wanted to commit.

  The crowd got louder and more restless as the men continued to simply chase and follow. It seemed they drove El Chapo into throwing out an impatient jab. It missed its mark, but he threw out another and another. Freddie was still on the move, but now instead of moving away, he moved forward. He threw out a left cross…and then a right. The left missed, but the right landed against El Chapo’s jaw and his head snapped back. Freddie backed off, slightly. The look on El Chapo’s face was murder as he went toward him. When he got close enough, Freddie started moving his legs, like he was getting ready to fire off a kick. That distracted El Chapo just for half a second, but it was long enough for Freddie to fire off a right jab that caught his opponent on the left side of his head. He looked too dazed to react when Freddie finally did spin around, bring up his leg, and let it slam into the other man’s side. El Chapo flew at least two feet back, landing on the mat with a loud grunt and a thud. The crowd was on its feet, going wild.

  Freddie moved toward him with what looked like the intention of dropping in for a ground and pound, but before he reached his opponent, El Chapo rolled to the side and was on his feet. He was as fast as lightning and instantly went toward Freddie, coming in strong. His right hook caught Freddie on the chin and before his head finished snapping, El Chapo’s left was striking him in the ribs. Those two blows were enough to set Freddie off balance and as the bikers and fighters in the audience yelled, El Chapo rained down a beating on the new, young fighter. Sledge felt bad for Freddie…and he was glad he’d been too busy and distracted lately to lay a bet. He would have never bet against one of Jacob’s fighters, but it looked like Freddie might be on his way to losing this fight.

  He watched, almost holding his breath while punch after punch slammed into Freddie’s flesh and bones. Even with the crowd making noise, Sledge was close enough to hear it…it was a painful sound. El Chapo slammed his fist into Freddie’s temple, sending the kid sideways and hurtling toward the floor. Freddie landed with a thud. The other fighter began to go after him, but the official stopped him to make sure that Freddie wasn’t out cold. Freddie sat up, looking dazed, but nodded at the official to indicate that he was okay to continue. He was able to get back up on his feet, and did a good job of dodging the punches until the round was over…but he didn’t land any punches of his own and he looked on the verge of passing out.

  Jacob’s team rushed in, and Freddie was massaged and given water and patched up. The entire time, Jacob was talking to him. As usual, The Lion looked calm and together. Sledge wished he could hear what he was saying. While they waited for the next round to begin, he stole another glance in Daria’s direction. She wasn’t looking at him any longer; instead, she seemed to be writing things down in her notepad. Probably her “research.” Sledge studied her profile, confused about why making amends to him was suddenly so important…after all this time.

  The bell rang for the second round and Freddie came out beaten up, but looking determined. He started throwing punches right away, so fast and hard that El Chapo was unable to dodge most of them. Freddie landed one, a lucky one, Sledge thought, against the left side of his opponent’s face, and El Chapo went down on his butt. As soon as he hit the mat, he began to scoot backwards, trying to get out of Freddie’s range. Freddie moved quickly and suddenly he was on top of the other fighter, straddling him and throwing one punch after the other. It was called a “ground and pound,” and Sledge could see the blood flying from the nose and mouth of the man on the ground. El Chapo looked on the verge of giving up…but he was sneaky. The second Freddie slowed his assault, El Chapo pulled his legs up and used the strength of the muscles in his thighs to buck off the other fighter and send him scrambling as soon as he hit the mat. The two men both ended back up on their feet, but for the rest of the round, the punches of both looked almost weak with exhaustion. The look on Freddie’s face when the bell rang was relief.

  The energy in the crowd was almost electric when the bell rang for the third and final round to begin. At this point, if Sledge had to pick a winner, he couldn’t. The two fighters seemed to be even, with El Chapo taking the first round and Freddie the second. As soon as the bell rang, they both came out fighting again. They were trading punches and kicks as the crowd cheered and screamed. Everyone was on their feet again, egging on whoever their fighter of the night was, and the fighters in the cage both looked exhausted.
Sledge wondered what was going through Freddie’s head…but he didn’t have to wonder long.

  Freddie suddenly spun his body around in a 360 so fast that the dark green color of his shorts was almost a blur. His right leg came up, kicking El Chapo so hard in the upper thigh that Sledge swore he saw it bend. But the most amazing part was, El Chapo stayed on his feet…or his foot. He was standing on his left foot, favoring his right leg, and when Freddie came at him with another kick, he hopped backward, ending up with his back against the mesh. He looked ready to collapse as Freddie came at him, but again, he was sneaky. As soon as Freddie was close enough, El Chapo wrapped him up in his arms and the young fighter went down hard on his back, taking the other fighter with him. They wrestled and grappled across the floor, leaving trails of blood and sweat until at last, Freddie got the upper hand.

  Once again, he was on top of the other fighter. El Chapo had his head turned to the right and Freddie didn’t have control of his hands, so they were up too. He covered his ears with his hands and Freddie hit him in the face. He covered his face, and Freddie hit him on the side of his head, but when Freddie raised his fist a third time, El Chapo reached up and slammed his hands into the young man’s chest. Freddie flinched hard, but didn’t fall off. El Chapo got his arms up again, this time getting his hands on Freddie’s shoulders and in one wild, strong move, he rolled the young fighter off of him and suddenly he was sitting on Freddie’s chest. In a move that caused the crowd to go completely wild, Freddie managed to roll El Chapo off him and he was back on top. He threw two hard punches before the bell sounded. El Chapo sprang up with his hands raised over his head, jumping up and down, celebrating a victory he hadn’t yet been given. Freddie rolled onto his stomach and pushed up off the floor and in a move no one expected, El Chapo turned toward him and pushed him in the chest. Freddie was surprised, but as soon as he stumbled back, he was in motion, forward, toward the other fighter.

  The two men were once again rolling in the floor, this time with the officials moving in to pull them apart. Neither of them was letting go however, so Jacob moved in, and then Brock, and El Chapo’s trainers. It took two big men to pull each of the fighters off the other one and as soon as they were separated, the judges…impartial people that had been hired by Jacob and flown in from Vegas for the fight…had their decision. El Chapo was the winner. Freddie looked like he wanted to go after the smug other fighter again, but Jacob and Brock physically removed the boy from the cage. It was obvious that most of the crowd had been rooting for Freddie. El Chapo was booed more than he was lauded as his trainers surrounded him and led him away from the cage as well. When it was over, and the crowd had begun to settle down, Wolf said:

  “I guess I’d better go back and see to things in the locker room. I’ll see y’all at the after party at the club.” He turned to Sledge before walking away and said, “You can invite the writer, or not. Up to you.” He left Sledge standing there with a choice he didn’t want to make, weighing on his shoulders.

  “It’s okay,” Daria said, somehow hearing what Wolf had said over the steady roaring of voices around them. “I’m going to head back to my hotel.” She looked at Ash and Mack and said, “It was good seeing you two again.” Ash smiled at her, Mack glared, and Sledge thought he might have seen Mack throw an almost subtle elbow into her old man’s ribs. Daria was looking at him when he looked up again. “Thank you, Sledge. I hope you have a good night.” She gave Ash and Mack another nod of her head and turned toward the door. For a second, Sledge watched her before he felt Mack’s eyes on his face. He looked down at her and sadly she said:

  “You’re not falling for it, are you?”

  “Baby…you of all people…” Ash realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth that he’d just started the fight they were going to have that evening. Mack glared at him, he shut up, and Sledge said:

  “I’m not a kid anymore, Mack. I’ll see you two back at the club.”

  He could feel Mack watching him as he left. He knew she was worried about him and he wished he could tell himself it was unnecessary. The truth was, he was already thinking about “falling for it,” as Mack had so delicately put it.

  10

  Daria wasn’t a big believer in fate, or karma, or kismet, or any of that other bullshit…but she got the feeling after thinking about Steve, and then running into him in the bar, that something was up. She’d tracked down the club’s gym that same night, formulated a plan, and set it into motion. What she wanted in the end, she wasn’t sure. All she really knew was that she wanted Steve…and in order for there to even be a chance of that happening, she had to be on his radar.

  He’d been so cold to her at the gym, however. She did appreciate that he hadn’t told his president to throw her out right away, but he had definitely seemed completely disinterested in her after that. Then there was Asher Bennett, and Mackenzie Foster. It was just her luck that those two were there. After the homecoming debacle, she and Mack had nearly gotten into a fistfight. Mack confronted her in the girls’ locker room at school the following Monday. She told her she was “evil” and a “bitch.” Daria couldn’t deny it and she’d actually braced herself for the blows that she was sure Mack was about to throw. But then Mrs. Hunsicker had walked in. She was the P.E. teacher at the school, a retired tennis pro. The woman was big, as muscular as any man that Daria had ever seen, and she had a deep, gravelly voice that scared almost every girl at the school into strict obedience. Mack wasn’t about to throw a punch in front of her but when she leaned in close to Daria’s shaking body she whispered:

  “If you ever go near him again, I’ll whip your prissy ass.” Daria didn’t doubt that Mack could or would do it. She was a petite girl, but she was athletic, and muscular. But beyond that, she and Steve and Ash seemed to have an unbreakable bond…a much stronger connection than Daria ever had with any of her friends. So, throughout the rest of the year, if the idea of apologizing and trying to make amends with Steve struck her, she recalled Mack’s words…and she left it alone.

  But…they weren’t little girls any longer, and Steve was definitely no bullied, scared young boy any longer, so even as Daria left the gym, she was plotting in her head again for the next time she came face to face with him…and how she might get closer. She was still trying to figure something out when she got about two miles from the gym and felt the right front tire of the car slam hard into a pothole. She hit the brakes automatically and the car pulled to the left. Trying not to hit the divider on the side of the road, she again pulled her wheel…this time, to the right…and she felt the tire hit something again, hard. She cursed loudly and as the car began to slow down, she pulled it to the left side of the road. A shot of adrenaline had flooded her system as soon as she’d hit the pothole and by the time she stopped, her heart was racing, and she was breathing hard. She’d felt like it was hard to steer as she pulled over. The gym was off the beaten track and on a road where there didn’t seem to be much traffic at all. There were agricultural fields on both sides of her and a small canal running along one side as well. It was an eerie spot to be alone at night. She said a little prayer that the rental car would still be drivable as she left it running and got out.

  Daria walked around to the front of the rental car. The glow of the headlights allowed her to see the front end well enough to see there was no damage there. She was about to move to the side of the car when her attention was drawn toward a single headlight coming down the road toward her. The sound of the Harley drowned out the sound of the engine of the little car running in front of her, and she wasn’t sure whether to shade her eyes from the bright light, or cover her ears against the noise. When the bike got closer and she saw who was driving, she was too shocked and maybe relieved to do either. Suddenly she believed that karma, fate, kismet…or just dumb luck…had caused her to hit that pothole…she was sure of it.

  Sledge slowed as he approached the car, but she could have sworn he accelerated again when he saw her. It was only for a second, tho
ugh, and just as he got past her, he slowed down again and pulled his bike to the side of the road and turned off the engine. She watched as his big body got off the bike, causing the hog with the ape-hangers to seem to stand a little taller without his weight. Her eyes landed on his face and she couldn’t tell if the look was annoyance, anger, or just plain old disinterest, as he said, “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I just hit a pothole, but then hit something hard, and the steering, or the tires, felt weird after that.” She poked her head around the side of the car and grimaced, and then cussed. Sledge didn’t ask what she was cussing about; instead, he walked around and took a look himself. The wheel was sitting at an odd angle and the tire wasn’t flat, but somehow lifted off the ground a few inches. Daria wondered if it was how she’d parked as Sledge said, “Your rim is bent…was it making any noises after you hit the pothole?”

  “A scraping noise…I think.”

  Sledge got closer and she watched as he put a hand on the car and squatted down next to the tire that was obviously sitting at a weird angle. He pulled something out of his pocket and she was surprised when he switched on a little penlight and almost lay down on the pavement to look under the car. “Looks like you broke a ball joint.”

  “What’s that mean?” she asked.

  “Means you’re not driving this car back to wherever you’re staying tonight.”

  “Shit. It’s a rental. I can’t leave it here. I guess maybe there’s an emergency number or something on the contracts.” She headed back around the other side of the car, got inside, turned off the engine, and opened the glove compartment. She pulled out the contract, flipped on the interior light of the car, and looked for a number. Once she found it, Sledge stood quietly next to the car as she called the rental agency emergency number. It took a good thirty minutes on the phone, getting transferred from one person to the next, before the rental company assured her that a tow truck was on its way. During that time, she watched as a group of bikes came by, a few of them stopping to check on Sledge. She saw two different cars stop with men in them, bikers or fighters, friends of his, checking on him. Daria got a warm feeling in her heart when it dawned on her that the lonely young, bullied boy had grown up into a man with friends who seemed to adore him. If nothing ever happened between the two of them, she would leave the West Coast at least knowing that the bullying hadn’t broken him. When she ended the call, Sledge said: