Lie on a recently reupholstered couch with a woman you don’t love. Watch Friends and the commercials between Friends while eating rigatoni.
Become a manager, button the top one. Fire people who don’t realize you’re actually pretty cool it’s just that someone has to enforce the rules. Get another tattoo, worse than the third. Buy an insanely expensive bike, stare at the broken lock on the sidewalk. Visit Texas, win a distance-spitting contest. Smoke PCP by mistake, feel irreparably insane for eight days, not so much on the ninth. Bury your parents within six months of each other. Argue with an uncle, shine off an aunt. Decide that no one can be told anything, that the world is a grand bargain, a fraudulent transaction, a complicity of bullshit.
Wake in the middle of the night, sure she’s thinking of you. Buy a ticket, get on a plane. Spend a month with a backpack and a water bottle searching the fertile crescent for the girl no one has ever heard of, the woman no one has ever seen.
Float on your back in the Red Sea. Get tan and then brown. Drink with on-duty women, armed men, dance in small, sweaty clubs until dawn and then noon and then midnight again.
Show Nadezhda’s picture around hotel lobbies, in bars, in spots where the homeless are being fed.
Tear up your visa, which expired anyway. Find an apartment, date a corporal, kill off another year. Turn thirty, something you finally have a diploma for.
Marry Rivka.
Have a child. Then another.
Push a stroller, buy ice creams, laugh with bearded dads in tiny parks, always on the lookout.
Even ten years later, as you drive Doron to school, as you sit through Gideon’s violin recital, as you stand alone in a tiled hallway during intermission, close your eyes and count to three, positive you will turn around and Nadezhda will be there, at the water fountain, chin wet, smiling.
And Now Let’s Have Some Fun
The Old School was packed, rows of hard wooden benches arrayed above a makeshift stage. In the center was a ring, canvas spotted and gray, ropes actually rope. Torches hung from the rafters and smoke obscured the crowd, which swayed and howled in unison, like a single gaping mouth.
Nurse stood in Primo’s corner. She wore tight starched whites, a tiny skirt and heels, ignored the wolf whistles and catcalls.
“C’mon, Champ. Circle left. No, my left. That’s it. Now gimme some combinations.”
Primo punished the air until the Albatross’s handlers led him in. There were cheers and a smattering of bird calls. The Albatross danced, cooed, vinyl wings flapping as the crowd ate it up. Bettors yelled, “Straight Win, Albatross!” (2 – 1) and “Da Champ Choked Out Quick” (5 – 2), while Mr. Fancy recorded wagers and Abe Golem stuffed cash into the canvas bag chained to his waist.
The Albatross stepped in with arms raised, absorbed the cheers like fuel. Sweat rolled from his bald head, soaked his pink leotard. His real name was Darnell. He and Primo had trained together way back, but the Albatross had gone punchy after a tough loss to Kid Spastic and couldn’t really be talked to anymore. Or at least counted on to answer in anything but chirps and whistles.
The mic was lowered. Buddy Vox’s golden age of radio voice boomed. “Welcome, Gentlemen, to the final bout of this evening’s Spectacle. As always, there is to be no stabbing. Souvenir knives are just that. Souvenirs. Also, the pinching of Beverage Girls is forbidden to those who have not paid this month’s Fondling Dues. Ask your nearest server how to get your account in good standing. This is your last chance to wager. Why go home underbet? Also, why not have a steak? Contact your nearest server and tell her ‘Buddy Vox likes it so rare’ and you’ll get an extra 10 percent off. Once again, any stabbing will result in a lifetime ban from the Spectacle. And now let’s have some fun!”
Ding.
The Albatross charged with a combination of kicks and elbows. Primo dodged him easily. The crowd screamed or groaned, depending. Side bets, like “Next Left to Land” (3 – 1), “Slips and Almost Falls But Not Quite” (7 – 2), or “Da Champ Strokes Out, Cannot Be Revived” (40 – 1) got heavy play. The Albatross caught Primo with a few solid kicks, tried to reopen the gash on his cheek. Primo targeted the ribs. They traded jabs up to the bell.
“Breathe,” Nurse urged, squeezed a sponge over his head. Her breath smelled impossibly clean, as always, like cilantro and lime. She rubbed Primo’s shoulders and Vaselined his ears while he leaned back, rested against her chest.
“Who’s ahead?”
“I call it even. So stop effin’ around.”
“Tryin’ to be smart. Guy’s a butcher.”
“And you a pussy. Don’t mean you got to act like one.”
Ding.
The Albatross fluttered over. Primo dropped his guard, baited the Albatross into a wild uppercut before shoving him against the ropes and tearing off his left wing. It sailed into the crowd. A group of brokers went crazy, holding up a ticket for “Both Wings Torn” (46 – 1) until Mr. Fancy explained that “Yes, that sure was a savvy bet, and congratulations! Really. It’s just that the fighter in question is, as you can see, still Partially Winged.” The suits bitched and whined and poked the air with their cigars until Abe Golem loomed over and stood behind them.
“Pay attention!” Nurse yelled, as the Albatross worked free and tried a spinning backhand. Primo ducked and drove his heel into the larger man’s kneecap, shattering it. The Albatross fell, tried to rise, stayed down.
“Winner . . . Da Champeen!” Buddy Vox warbled, over a wash of boos and spilled paregoric.
DOC NOB TWIRLED his mustache. “Will you just look at this piece of shit?”
The Albatross lay on an exam table, blubbering quietly. Primo sat at his locker wearing a towel, too tired to move. Doc Nob broke a hypo off in the Albatross’s thigh, manipulating the kneecap for a while before declaring the whole enchilada medically pointless.
“You concur?”
Nurse stuck out her tongue.
Nob dropped three pills onto it.
“You concur?”
She nodded, signed the form.
Nob pressed the intercom. “Can we get a clean up already?”
“Not a clean up,” Primo said.
“None of your business, Champ.”
An orderly who looked like Veronica Lake in desperate need of a shave kicked open the door, pointed at the Albatross.
“This mess?”
“That mess.”
She wheeled the exam table out into the alley and then threw the bolt. Dogs began to bark and snarl.
“Anything else?”
“Go get Mr. Fancy.”
The orderly blew Doc Nob a kiss, skipped back up the stairs.
“She new?” Nurse asked.
“Of course.”
“Where you find them at?”
“I dunno. Bars. Under bridges.” He turned to Primo. “How’s Gina?”
Primo gingerly pulled on slacks. The answer was dying.
“Same, I guess.”
Nob rooted around his Gladstone for a prescription bottle.
“Give her six reds and ten purples. Before breakfast. No milk.”
“Thanks. What do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yet.”
Mr. Fancy walked in, held up a check. Doc Nob snatched it and disappeared. Nurse picked up a robe with a slit in the back to accommodate wings, dropped it in the trash.
“Yeah, listen, it’s too bad about the Albatross,” Mr. Fancy said, chewing a cocktail straw. He wore a Mao jacket and round glasses and looked almost exactly like John Lennon in pictures where John Lennon is so high he looks almost exactly like a small Chinese man. Behind Fancy, as always, was Abe Golem. “But the beak? The fluttering and cheeping already? Ho-hum.”
“Yeah,” croaked Abe Golem. “Ho-hum.”
“Also, on the news front? I’ve got some bad news.”
Abe Golem nodded. “News.”
“The thing is? I can’t use you again this month, Champeen. That�
�s the thing. That’s it for you. This month.”
Primo pawed at his duffel. He needed a little over twenty thousand more for the big plan. He and Gina would fly back to Tokyo. Already had the tickets and a down payment on an apartment. Top floor. A doorman with brushes on his shoulders. Picture windows and pay cable. Also, there was a doctor. Akashimi. Did experimental shit with a laser or something.
“That’s not gonna work. I got bills.”
“Yeah, well, what I got is a busload of Brazilians. Steaming north this minute. Actually, cannibals. One of my scouts found them. Way out in the jungle. Guy almost didn’t come back, too busy scouting to notice he’d make a nice brisket.”
“Brisket,” said Abe Golem.
“Anyway, I figure I’ll have them go at it for a while, learn the ropes. Who knows how long to cancel each other out? A day? A month? Cannibals? Shit. Anyway, you’re on hiatus, Champeen. The crowd’s getting bored with your shtick. Blah, blah, was at one time considered pound-for-pound the greatest in places they measure greatness by pounds, blah. It’s like, ‘So What’ (1 – 1) at this point.”
Abe Golem opened the canvas bag at his waist. Mr. Fancy reached in and counted out three thousand dollars. “So here’s your cut. Say by August or so? Maybe I’ll have something then. I’ll send Abe over to let you know.”
Primo shook his head. “Not him. Not at the store.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll send Vox. How’s business, anyhow?”
Yesterday they’d had two customers. The day before none at all.
“Booming.”
Mr. Fancy lit a long, thin cigarette, and then immediately put it out.
“Well, stay in shape, Champ. A smart man’s always ready when his time comes.”
PRIMO DROVE HOME with the windows up and a pipe wrench across his lap. Plastic smoldered on every corner. Torn dresses and flat wallets and tiny Crocs littered the street. At night, teenagers took over the recycling plants and held raves. They laughed at people who still used the word rave. They cut up magazines and smashed bottles and sang Boy George. They fired their weapons and fondled their concubines and goaded each other with jagged tuna lids until dawn.
Gina was still awake, on the couch in her favorite lipstick, watching television. Therapy Fred’s Upswing Hour. A bald man in a cheap suit listened patiently as women complained about being left or cheated on or just plain ugly. He had a soothing voice and a southern accent that promised Reasonably Sustained Remedy. Once Therapy Fred found your Road to Remedy, he smiled through his mustache and showed the way. Or went to commercial, depending. To the crying woman on stage he said, “Kick your husband to the curb, sweetheart, and then put on some mascara and go find someone with the life skills to treat you anywhere from 18 to 22 percent better!”
The crowd stood and cheered.
“Hey, babe.”
“Daddy?”
“No, it’s me. Primo.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“Dead.”
“For a long time?”
“Yeah, babe. Twenty years.”
“Oh.”
He kissed her temple. She held his hand and stroked it. Her wedding ring gleamed dully, just a setting, the diamond long since disappeared.
Primo was working late the night Gina guzzled the floor wax. He found her in the hallway, in nothing but a bra, green foam bubbling out her mouth like a science fair volcano. He raced her to the hospital, where they pumped her stomach. After six months she’d recovered enough for therapy. There were speech classes (Pin cushion. Say it. Say it. Pin. Say it. Cushion. Pin cushion. Good.) and life classes (Do we give out our credit card number over the phone? No. Do we leave dirt in the toilet without flushing? No. Do we swallow most of a bottle of floor wax? Probably no.) and coping classes (Sometimes it’s okay to scream. Good. Great! Like an animal. Grrr. Fantastic! But the scratching? No. Ouch. No.).
“Can I have a Popsicle?”
“Sorry, babe. It’s too late for dessert.”
“Then can I have a story?”
Over the television was a picture of Young Primo in a gold frame. It was taken in Tokyo. His arms were raised, in the middle of the ring, the night he beat Bulldog Funches for the belt. It was like two lives ago. Primo stared. The man in the picture stared back, fit, delirious, barely a mark on him. He’d been way too much for Funches that night. The bulbs flashed and reporters clamored and Gina sat in the front row, newly ascendant on the modeling circuit and cashing insane checks, beautiful, serene, wearing the most expensive dress in all of Japan.
“I only got one story, hon. But it’s a good one.”
“Okay,” she said happily.
Primo picked his wife up and carried her into the bedroom. When her bathrobe fell open, he forced himself not to look.
BUDDY VOX STROLLED down the aisle, ran a finger along shelf after shelf of Mack Threes and SnagWire and Flux Drives shaped like tiny assholes that came preloaded with the latest Ha Ha Insert It Here app.
“Nice place you got, Champ.”
“Yeah,” Primo said.
Vox licked his fingers and smoothed his eyebrows, tiny yellow teeth matched by a tiny nose and ears and eyes, all congregated too tightly in the center of his face. “Buddy Vox believes in your small businessman, your family farmer. Do I say that because I have a parent or grandparent who was one? An extended relation who filled those shoes? No, I don’t. Still, you have my full support.”
A group of teenagers stood by the electronics shelf, too thin, too silent, too interested in the new Thumb Rocket X, which allowed you to text without texting. Primo kept an eye on them while he swept the floor.
“Anyway, the Gobbler is 20 and 0,” Buddy Vox said, leaning on a display case in his white tux. “Crazy Brazilian, no one can beat him. Can’t touch him. Too fast. And those pointy teeth? Scary. Oh, man, fumble. Is Buddy Vox scared? No way. But maybe. I have to admit. A little.”
“Watch the glass,” Primo said, wiping Vox’s prints with his cuff.
“Dang, my bad.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, for real, let me make it up to you.”
Vox stuck out his chin, pointed at the point.
“Send me into orbit. Go ahead and ring my cowbell, Champ.”
“You were saying? About the Brazilian?”
“Right. Do the crowds love this Gobbler? It’s blood, blood, blood. Not on my shoes. I’m careful. But everyone else’s? Oh, boy.” Vox looked down at his gleaming wingtips, just to make sure. “The Gobbler’s already gone through his entire tribe, plus half our roster. The Sandman and Ed Abattoir are finished. Der Berliner and Lardy Gaga too. Even Mistah Ka-Ra-Tay is done. Did the Gobbler bite a hole the size of a grapefruit in Anarchy Punk’s back? Yup. Did he sink his molars into Rick Windex? Well, let’s just say that guy’ll never streak a pane again.”
There was a muffled explosion down the street. The teenagers left in a group. Primo walked over to the shelf, where SCREW DAD’S ACQUISITION CULTURE! and BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY BUT STILL WITHIN REASON! were scratched into the plastic. All the Thumb Rocket Xs were gone.
“Oh, and Chiming Wind?” Vox said. “You should have seen him try a takedown defense with that hippie spirit crap. The mentalism? The incense? Did it work? No.”
“He dead?”
“Maybe. But it’s like, what’s dead even mean anymore?”
Primo nodded. Chiming Wind had been a pretty good guy. They’d had a couple of drinks once.
“Shit has gotten drastic. For real. So Mr. Fancy sent me to ask you back, Champeen. Hell, they sent me to beg you back. Am I a pimp? No. Didn’t all of Buddy Vox’s music teachers say Buddy Vox had the best voice they’d ever heard? Yes. Didn’t they swear Buddy Vox would win various competitions and awards and top prizes? You bet. But here I am anyway, on my hands and knees.”
“Bottom line.”
“Fancy’s offering triple fee to start. Plus a cut of all Non-Bite wagers.”
“Ten percent.”
Vox looked both wa
ys, leaned over. He smelled like a rag soaked in bitters.
“I’m authorized to go up to twenty, so you got it. Right off the bat. Would I dicker with you, Champ? No. Would Mr. Fancy be pleased if he knew I was spreading my legs like some loose ring girl? No. But still. Here we are. At 20 percent.”
“Venue?”
“We’re out at the Old Barn now. So much blood at the Old School you couldn’t mop it anymore. The orderlies were threatening strike.”
A wiry kid with a goatee poked his head in the door.
“You sell ammo?”
“No.”
“How about Cutty?”
“No.”
The door closed.
“When?”
“Friday,” Vox said. “But you watch yourself, Champeen. I never announced anything like this Gobbler. Money’s money, sure, but I was you? I might just retire.”
“Tell Fancy I’ll be there.”
“You got it, Champ.”
“Now go.”
“You got it, Champ.”
Primo turned to ring up a woman buying the Peggy Fleminator, a vacuum you wore like skates, one on each foot. You flicked the switch and glided around the house, sucking up all the dog hair and lost buttons and clots of dust that made each waking moment such a singular misery.
“Does this really work?” the woman asked.
“Yes ma’am,” he answered, shoving the Fleminator into a large paper bag.
AT DAWN PRIMO strapped on ankle weights and jogged through the woods behind Safetown. He did six fast miles and then doubled back by the Old College, a group of buildings burned to the ground, bare timbers and scorched brick. The bleachers were still intact though, and he ran up and down the steps, three at a time.
“What, you got a new trainer? Don’t want me no more?”
Nurse sat in the grass, on a car seat burned to the springs. Her hair was cropped close, purple mascara and little white cap, all honey-thighed in a tight starched skirt. She looked like a Vietnamese hit girl. Someone who would make you cry. Someone who would cut your back with a razor, just because razors were made for cutting.
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