Job Girl (Fight Card)
Page 12
Vicky’s left cross broke Sharp’s jaw.
“Ben.”
Her right-hand uppercut caught him on the point of his scissor-faced chin and sent him backward over the railing.
“Harman!”
She grabbed the railing and watched Sharp tumbled end-over-end, screaming all the way, and spear the center of the Arena Mexico ring face-first. He broke through the canvas and wood and landed, a fleshy sack of shattered bone, on the concrete below.
All the noise and fury in the arena stopped, revealing the whine of sirens drawing near.
Fifty feet above, Vicky slumped against the railing and slid down to sit on the catwalk. She pulled her slingbacks off, one after the other, and tossed them over the rail.
TWO MONTHS LATER
Vicky got back to her feet and flushed her breakfast down the toilet. She wiped her mouth, then rinsed it out and finished getting dressed.
When the police had come to sort out the carnage at Arena Mexico, no one bothered to check the catwalk despite Sharp’s descent. All she’d had to do was wait for the scene below to clear, retrieve her overcoat from the locker room floor, and make her way back to the hotel. The car was right where it was supposed to be, so was the money. It took her three days to get home.
Ten thousand dollars, it turned out, was more than enough for a security deposit and first and last months’ rent on a nice little Chicago apartment.
She’d needed to find out where the more desirable apartments were, as well as a bank with good interest rates and few questions.
Vicky needed to know those things, so she risked a call to Martin.
“Just tell me you’re done with the wrestling, Vee. Just tell me that much.”
She told him no such thing, but he gave her the names of a good bank and a safe, stable Chicago neighborhood anyway.
He brought her first and only housewarming gift, an alarm clock, a month later. She only talked to him once or twice after that and never saw him again.
She didn’t see or talk to Wayne, or stop anywhere in Decatur, on her way to Chicago. Once she checked into the hotel though, she called Wayne.
“It didn’t work,” she said, and hung up.
That was more than Mammoth and Dick deserved from her. Wayne could take it from there if he wanted.
After the apartment came the jobs, two of them. Another book store, this one in her new neighborhood, and another helping manage a small theater closer to the heart of the city. She liked them both.
An apartment, jobs, a bit of money in the bank, and she hadn’t set foot in a wrestling ring since Mexico. She was ready. Or as ready as she could make herself.
A bus, a train, and another bus got her across town to the neighborhood she needed. Vicky stood outside St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys for five minutes before she raised her hand to ring the bell, but didn’t.
She went and sat at the bus stop for twenty minutes. She let two buses go by, then went back to St. Vincent’s doorstep.
“Yes. Can I help you?” asked a little pink cherub of a woman. She was not a nun, perhaps an administrator of some kind, maybe a secretary, definitely friendly and inviting.
Vicky ran her dry tongue around her dry mouth. “My little boy is here.”
“Oh?” The little cherub woman laid a hand near her throat.
Vicky cleared hers. “Yes. My son lives here. His name is George.”
Vicky described George to the cherub woman and the circumstances under which he’d come to be at St. Vincent’s.
The woman’s rosy face brightened for a moment when she mentioned Ben, then went dark.
“Will excuse me, please?”
The woman closed the door and left Vicky standing outside. Minutes or hours went by and, about the time the bus stop started looking good again, the door reopened and a tall older man, a priest, had replaced the cherub. He looked Vicky’s simple yellow dress and white pumps over and favored her with a smile. “You’re here about George?”
“Yes.” She swallowed, her throat arid. “I’m his mother.”
“Pleased to meet you.” The priest stuck out his hand. “My name is Father Tim. I’m one of the priests in charge of the boys here.”
“How do you do?” She shook his hand. “Victoria. Victoria Archer.”
“Miss Archer, I don’t know any other way to say this other than to say it.” Father Tim clasped his hands at his waist. “George has been adopted.”
Vicky leaned against the doorway to keep from collapsing. “What?”
Father Tim’s hands remained clasped, but he gestured with them. “He’s been placed with a lovely family we believe will give him a wonderful, stable home.”
“But…” She faltered, staring at the priest’s shiny black shoes.
“I understand what a shock this must be, Miss Archer, but we didn’t have any reason to think you’d be coming for George.” He shook his head. “Given the circumstance of his arrival, perhaps you can understand.”
She looked up from his shoes to his eyes and managed a little nod. “I understand.”
“Miss Archer, you seem like a nice woman and I absolutely feel for your situation.”
“Thank you.” The world swirled.
“While I can’t promise anything, why don’t you give me your telephone number and let me see if I can arrange something between you and the family who adopted George.” Father Tim opened his clasped hands, palms up. “Would you like that?”
Vicky took a step back and threw up all over St. Vincent’s doorstep.
TEN YEARS LATER
JOLIET, ILLINOIS. 1966.
The kid in the black trunks drove a straight left into the bigger kid’s soft bread basket, then sent him to the canvas with an overhand right to the jaw.
Vicky stood up and cheered as the referee stood over the kid’s fallen opponent and counted him out. The poor, pale palooka was still on his back when the count hit ten.
Vicky, who’d counted the last five along with the ref, threw her arms over her head and whistled from her tenth-row seat through the smoke and heat.
“The winner of the bout, by way of knockout, and still undefeated…George Monster Mannion.”
Vicky stopped cheering.
Monster?
“What’s wrong, mommy?”
Vicky looked down at the seat next to hers. “Nothing, sweetheart, nothing. It’s just that…”
The little boy tugged her jacket. “What?”
“Well, Monster. That’s what they used to call…someone I used to know.” She smiled down at the boy.
The boy stood up on his seat and watched George Mannion take his bows in the ring. “Does he know the monster man you know, too?”
“He did.” Vicky pulled the boy into a tight hug. “For a little while.”
***
Vicky looked up at the big board, then down next to her. “Train doesn’t leave for a while yet. Want to get some ice cream?”
The boy shrugged. “If you want.”
She smiled. “Why, Benjamin Archer, that’s the first time I’ve heard you refuse ice cream.” She got down and put her hand to his forehead. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Mommy!” The boy giggled, pushed her hand away. “We can get ice cream if you want to.”
“I see.” She cocked her head at him. “If I want to?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Alright.” She stood up and offered him her hand. “Let’s go then.”
“Okay, mommy.”
They left the train station and walked toward the ice cream parlor on the adjacent corner at the end of the block. When they got to the crosswalk, Vicky felt a tug on her arm. “Mommy?”
“Yes, Benjamin.”
“Do we have to keep going to all these boxing matches?”
“Well, we don’t have to. I rather enjoy…some of the fighters.” They started across the street. “But we don’t have to go if you don’t like boxing.”
“I like boxing,” he said, as they arrived on the corner outside
the ice cream parlor. The boy laughed. “But I like wrestling way better.”
Vicky looked down at her son’s face, looking up at hers. It wasn’t reddish-brown, like the color of sunburn, but smooth and caramel-colored.
“Your father did too, baby.” She smiled down at him. “But he called it lucha libre.”
THE END
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FIGHT CARD VOLUME 1
FELONY FISTS
THE CUTMAN
SPLIT DECISION
COUNTERPUNCH
HARD ROAD
KING OF THE OUTBACK
A MOUTH FULL OF BLOOD
TOMATO CAN COMEBACK
BLUFF CITY BRAWLER
GOLDEN GATE GLOVES
IRISH DUKES
THE KNOCKOUT
FIGHT CARD VOLUME 2
RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE
AGAINST THE ROPES
THE LAST ROUND OF ARCHIE MANNIS
GET HIT, HIT BACK
BROOKLYN BEATDOWN
CAN’T MISS CONTENDER
BAREFOOT BONES
PUNCHING PARADISE
FRONT PAGE PALOOKA
SWAMP WALLOPER
SHERLOCK HOLMES: WORK CAPITOL
FIGHT CARD VOLUME 3
RISE OF THE LUCHADORE
MONSTER MAN
COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP
ADVENTURES OF SAILOR TOM SHARKEY
BRIDGEPORT BRAWLER
PUSH
BAREKNUCKLE BARBARIAN
GUNS OF NOVEMBER
IRON FISTS OF NED KELLY
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BLOOD FEUD
FIGHTING ALASKA
JOB GIRL
FIGHT CARD MMA
WELCOME TO THE OCTAGON
THE KALAMAZOO KID
ROSIE THE RIPPER
FIST OF AFRICA
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LADIES NIGHT
SUNDAY PUNCH
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