The Almost Champion

by Daniel Lawlis

  Her patience had lasted as long as it had because deep down she knew he still loved her. Deep down, she knew he hated what he had become. Deep down, she knew it was the infernal liquor that brought out a meanness that otherwise never existed towards her.

  But she had long ago grown weary of justifying his behavior. She knew it always started when she wouldn’t make love to him. Truth be told, it wasn’t because she didn’t love him. She could even understand why he drank. But that didn’t mean she had to make love with a foul-smelling creature. If he wanted to make love with her, he should have the decency to know that he was going to have to shower every once in a while and keep his distance when he smelled like embalming fluid, as was the case when he returned from the tavern.

  She had never told him that. But why should she? It seemed like so much common sense to her.

  But, she was tired of waiting for a change that was never going to happen. And, at that time, as she stared blankly off into space, the butcher knife still making its SWISH-SWISH-SWISH-SWISH sound on the honing steel, she formed a resolution. If she smelled one drop of liquor on that man’s breath when he came home tonight, it was over.

  She wasn’t sure yet where she would go. To her parents’ house probably, although she wasn’t sure if they would take her. It wasn’t that they had had any falling out. No, they still saw each other regularly. It was just that her parents didn’t currently seem to be in any state of mind as to wish to accelerate their moment of death, and she herself wasn’t quite sure what Richie would be capable of if she left him.

  The way she saw it, The Travesty had led to his drinking, which had led to his meanness. If she took herself and Eddie away to live at her parents’ house, that was likely to compound his feeling of rejection, which would mean more drinking. She was scared enough of Richie when he was drunk now (only last night she had seen him backhand poor little Eddie), and she didn’t like the thought of him getting any drunker or meaner than what she was already accustomed to.

  She continued the SWISH-SWISH-SWISH-SWISH of the knife that was already more than sufficiently sharp to shave with. One thing was certain. Richie wasn’t going to hit little Eddie again.

  SWISH-SWISH-SWISH-SWISH

  Eddie might be a bit dreamy, but she knew he was smart. Janie was a bookworm, and she had never quite understood her attraction to her polar-opposite husband. Her intellectual side had never been so much as caressed by Richie, much less stimulated. But the day when she saw him level a robber with one punch who was threatening an old lady with a knife, something primal had been stirred inside of her. That was a man who could protect her.

  She hadn’t dared approach him, but she attended one of his boxing matches, and as he walked down the aisle from yet another easy victory over a highly skilled opponent, something magical had happened. From no closer than thirty feet away, their eyes had locked, and her heart had nearly burst in her chest. She felt smaller than a rabbit when he then looked aside and felt foolish as well.

  But when he showed up on her doorstep the next night, freshly shaved, showered, and smelling richly of a fine cologne, her heart had walloped about in such a way as to make it seem quite tranquil the night before.

  But that wasn’t all. He showed he was well-mannered, in spite of his savage behavior in the ring—which she loved for reasons she couldn’t explain to herself. He immediately asked if Mr. Rollings was home. She was too stunned for a moment to even respond. They passed what seemed like a full minute in silence with their eyes locked, but she had later calculated it was probably around thirty seconds.

  Her dad had come to the door, and Richie had said, “Mr. Rollings, my name is Richard Simmers. I’m her to ask you for permission to take Janie to the play tonight.” There hadn’t been any need to state the name of the play; everyone in town knew it was Flight of the Eagle, a national favorite that had been written by a local playwright and was going to be performed that night by some of the biggest stars from the capital.

  To this day, she wasn’t quite sure what had gone through her dad’s head, as he had turned away a boy or two before Richie, and Janie knew without any doubt that if she had asked her dad for permission, he would have first asked her about two hundred questions about him—that is to say, unless before two hundred questions Janie revealed he was a boxer, in which case the answer would have been no immediately.

  But she hadn’t asked her dad; Richie had. And that was one brownie point Richie still hadn’t drunk or slapped away. Every other guy who had expressed any interest in her had always asked Janie first, and she admired a man who went straight to Dad. That showed guts.

  An awkward silence had ensued. But it was not like the magical visual embrace she and Richie had shared. It was more like an alpha male gorilla sizing up an intruder. After what seemed like an eternity, Dad had said, “Have her back before 10 p.m., son.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Rollings,” Richie had responded.

  She didn’t know if Richie had noticed, but Janie knew Dad pretty well, and she sensed that what he would have liked to do is tell boxer boy to go take a hike and when that was done to take another, just so long as they were all in a direction away from this house. But, there was a presence about Richie you could sense even without knowing that some people called him Righty and why they called him that.

  Dad hadn’t even learned of Richie’s enthusiasm for the pugilistic arts until later and, to her surprise, had simply stated, “Hmmm,” and went back to his novel—The Battle of Dachwaldendomel, if she remembered correctly. Dad was almost always reading a history book, usually military history.

  What had been magical in their first eye contact, and glorious in the brief moment when Richie first appeared on her porch and time suspended itself, was rendered quite ordinary by what followed. Richie had been the perfect gentleman all night. But that wasn’t what made it magical. Anyone trying to woo a woman could do that if he had so much as a decent upbringing.

  The difference was she felt—no, she knew—it came from Richie’s heart. It had been love at first sight, and she promised herself that night as she lay in her bed dreaming about their wonderful evening together that she would never love another man the way she loved Richie.

  SWISH – “Ow!” Janie exclaimed. The knife had nipped at her finger, drawing a small bead of blood. She wondered how long she had been standing there lost in thought and memories.

  Just then, she heard the door open.

  Chapter 7

  Janie would have run, if not for the fact she was paralyzed with fear. It had been years since Richie had come home early from work. She knew he occasionally was let off early, but she also knew those were the worst nights. The earlier Richie got to the tavern, the meaner he was when he got home. She wondered for a moment if he had killed his foreman and come home to do the same to her.

  She heard the THUMP-THOMP-THUMP of his footsteps.

  Without knowing why, her hand squeezed tightly around the butcher knife.

  She smelled something—it was a bit strong.

  Anger seized her like a lightning bolt, as her brain told her it must be ale. But in less than the speed it takes for lightning to retract its brilliant spider webs from the sky, she realized just how mistaken she was. He was wearing the cologne he had worn on their first evening together.

  Tears stabbed at her eyes as she wondered whether this was all the lead-up to some terrible strategy. She gripped the butcher knife harder.

  In walked a man she wouldn’t have recognized, were it not for the fact she had—as her mother often told her—the memory of an elephant.

  He was dressed in the same spiffy style of suit he had showed up in to her doorstep so many years ago and stolen her heart like a thief in the night. He had gotten a haircut. He was clean-shaven. His hair was combed. He had a bouquet of roses in his hand. He was handsome, clean, and nice-smelling, three descriptors she hadn’t thought she would ever use of him again in the rest of their ma
rriage, much less in the same thought.

  He looked straight at her. It was an intense, but non-threatening look.

  “Janie, I’ve been a selfish, self-pitying, crybaby, monstrous jerk of a husband who deserves a solitary life of misery for what I’ve put you and Eddie through. Twelve years ago, I asked your father’s permission to spend an evening with you. Eleven years ago, I promised before the priest and all present to love you and cherish you till the day that death parted us. I’ve failed miserably as a husband and as a father for nearly all those years.

  “I’m not here to offer excuses. I’m just here to tell you that, as sure as there is one moon in the sky, liquor and I have filed for divorce, and it’s been approved. I’m scared of facing the future sober, but, with you by my side, I’ll do whatever’s in my power to turn my life around and make the most of the rest of our lives together.”

  Janie was stunned. Had a pair of elves, three dancing kangaroos, and a talking chimpanzee just performed the waltz in front of her, she probably would have been less skeptical of what her eyes told her she was seeing and what her ears were telling her they just heard. She gripped the butcher knife even more tightly, perhaps afraid that Richie was dead and a ghost of the Richie she used to know was paying his respects before he passed on to the afterlife.

  But this disbelief lessened slightly after a moment because of the power of his eyes. It was those eyes that had stolen a young bookworm’s heart from thirty feet away with just one look. It was as if the rays streaming from them knew the combination to her heart and opened it as effortlessly as the bank president would the vault.

  Joy mixed with fear mixed and cynicism battled ferociously inside her mind for dominance. Cynicism told her she was about to become one of the Typical Cases. Fear told her not to rule out the specter hypothesis just yet. But Joy told her that the one thing—even if it was the only thing—that made this not one of the Typical Cases was that Richie had never at one point during their entire marriage promised to change.

  Richie was a doer. And while she had not the faintest idea what had caused such a prodigious change of heart, she knew something had because Richie was too proud to promise a change unless he meant it. His eyes spoke truth. Logic no longer mattered. His soul was speaking directly to her. For only the briefest of seconds she wondered about the peculiar diction of her husband, whom she was not accustomed to hear speaking poetically, but Joy told her that if he had gotten some coaching about what to say that mattered little because it was the power of his eyes that had said far more than his words ever could have.

  She let the butcher knife fall CLACK onto the counter, ran around it, and jumped into his arms, kissing him with the ferocity of a teenager.

  For the first time in years they made love.

  Chapter 8

  “Impossible!” cried King Verwil.

  Ambassador Ratenbuhr eyed his king closely, as he was not sure if he was amused or furious.

  “That war had but begun!” continued King Verwil.

  Ratenbuhr was still perplexed but not for lack of perception. King Verwil was of those kings that change from grinning to frowning, laughing to snarling, and from promoting to beheading in the blink of an eye. These mercurial traits were not all that unusual for Metinvurian kings—in fact, some said they were the hallmark thereof.

  Feeling adequately convinced it was now safe to speak, Ratenbuhr humbly added, “It perplexes us all, Your Majesty, for as Your Majesty has so perspicaciously stated, the war was quite short in duration.” And then Ratenbuhr bowed low, hoping to ameliorate any lack of exactitude in his response.

  King Verwil looked up frowning from his game of chess. Across from him sat the Duke of Vurtem, a formidable chess player, who at the present moment was engaged in two games. One we have already mentioned. The second was far more difficult. To beat King Verwil in a game of chess would have been interpreted as an open act of treason and punished in the severest manner. To lose on purpose would have been interpreted as an insult to the king’s impenetrable intelligence and would also have been punished in the severest manner. Thus was the dilemma facing the hapless duke.

  His plight was made all the more precipitous by the fact that his mastery of the august game of strategy was known throughout the kingdom. As carefully as a spider laying its web the duke devised complex attack formations against King Verwil, leaving only the most minute errors in strategy to leave himself open for counterattacks.

  King Verwil looked away dismissively from Ratenbuhr as if he had either forgotten what he intended to say or no longer deigned to impart what must have surely been some sagacious thought to his lowly inferior.

  King Verwil casually took the duke’s rook with a bishop.

  “You overextended yourself,” explained King Verwil kindly to his pupil. “Your mindset was in the right place, which was accomplishing checkmate, but you rushed and left yourself open to a counterattack.”

  As King Verwil gifted the duke with these observations of profound insight, the duke closed his eyes solemnly, lowered his head slightly, and let out a slightly audible exhalation from his nostrils. He hoped this to be the right combination to express comprehension, submission, and self-loathing.

  King Verwil lifted his head back towards the ambassador, who was calmly waiting on one knee, hoping he presented the image of a docile subject ready to await an eternity for whatever instructions his king had to give to him and grateful to be honored to bask in the regal presence of a quasi-deity. Even a top-tier actor would have taken careful notes upon seeing the ambassador’s convincing performance.

  “It’s nearly unheard of in the annals of military history,” instructed King Verwil. “In a space of mere months Dachwald rose from her obscurity to crush a nearly 100,000-man army in a few battles. Then, she boxes her quarry in at the City of Sodorf.”

  The king interrupted the lesson to eye the chessboard. The duke had taken the king’s last rook, hoping against hope that the king would see this left the duke’s queen open. King Verwil took the queen piece and this time did not indulge the duke with any lectures but gave him a mildly stern, rather avuncular look, as if to say, Really? After I just warned you about counterattacks?

  Returning calmly to the subject of the war, the king said, “Then, out of nowhere, Sogolians appear, turn Dachwald’s army into mincemeat, and then, checkmate.” King Verwil showed his audience he intended a double application of this last word by calmly putting the duke into checkmate. The duke raised his eyebrows in admiration at the worthy move, one he had not planned for the king.

  “You see, the Dachwaldians became overconfident. Somehow, they devised a strategy that enabled them to pulverize a much larger army to the point that mere kindling was left. Then, out of the blue, come reinforcements,” he added calmly.

  “The Dachwaldians were so confident of victory they used little or no rear guard or scouts. Then, even upon finding themselves sandwiched between a city with a capable fighting force and a large army of Sogolians—which presumably caught them off guard—do they run? Do they reassess their position and seek superior terrain? No and no.

  “They turn on their attacker like a bear that immediately confronts an invading scavenger without first determining whether it would be wise to engage in open combat with the antagonist. As a result, it gets eaten.” This he punctuated by stuffing a large shrimp into his mouth like a crocodile wolfing down a bird.

  “So, the Dachwaldians are so clever as to devise a strategy with which to use a 40,000-man army to reduce a 100,000-man army to a quivering, cornered huddle of ten thousand helplessly trapped soldiers inside a city, yet they are not clever enough to avoid being blindsided by an army of 35,000 Sogolians and then crushed in a pincer move between said Sogolians and the suddenly emboldened Sodorfians who have theretofore not had much luck even when outnumbering their opponent nearly three to one!” King Verwil exclaimed, and then let out a loud “HA!!” which left the ambassador and the duke
bewildered as to whether it was in anger, disbelief, or good humor.

  “It sounds to me as if a very great number of pieces to this puzzle are missing. My job is to analyze facts and decide whether they are of import to this kingdom, but it is your job to bring me these facts. Does the general of the spies not report directly to you and you to me?” King Verwil exclaimed looking at the ambassador.

  “Your Highness is, as always, most right. As was Your Highness when you said that the ‘war had but begun.’ The facts are coming in so quickly and are contradictory. There are strange reports, Sire. I can only humbly report them and leave their interpretation to your wise mind.”

  “Well, in that case, do speak,” said King Verwil, appearing to calm slightly.

  “There are reports that flying birds—of the pholung species to speak with precision—were seen leaving the battlefield carrying large boxes of some sort and heading north towards Dachwald. It has been suggested by some that perhaps they were working in consort all along with the Sogolians.”

  King Verwil frowned severely at this. A shudder passed through the room. Irkels, the chief of the spy network, was in the anteroom, ready to be beckoned. Unlike the duke, and most assuredly unlike the ambassador, not a trace of fear ran through his veins. Not that he was immune to death. The forty bodyguards armed to the teeth lining all four sides of the room could dispatch him to the great beyond if ordered to do so, although he calculated he could take out half their number in the process.