The crowd are going fucking wild now. The sweaty fucker in the string vest doesn’t seem very happy. I’m guessing he wants the white guy to win, but just about everyone else is egging the half-caste on and baying for blood.
The white guy isn’t down yet, but he doesn’t look like he’s far from it. He staggers to one side and lashes out with his uninjured fist, but none of his blows land with any real impact. There’s blood pouring from his mouth, down his chin and onto his chest. Unless he pulls something out of the hat soon it’s only a matter of time now. The half-caste knows it too. He grins as he dodges back and forth, lashing out with those huge fists of his. But he’s getting too confident. He’s going all out on the attack and leaving his defences wide open. I see several opportunities where you could take advantage of that, but the white guy just stands there like a fucking punch-bag. He doesn’t even bother fighting back, just staggers backwards with each blow.
“Get under his fucking arms,” I yell, pointing through the bars of the cage. “Go for his fucking knees, you useless fucking cunt.”
The sweaty fucker in the string vest turns and grins at me, like he’s found an Aryan sister or something. I scowl back to put him right. It’s not about fucking colour, it’s about fighting back. You don’t just give in when someone’s got the upper hand. You look for a weakness in their attack and take advantage of it, and the half-caste is certainly leaving himself wide open for that. If I was in there I know what I’d do in that position, it’s just textbook street fighting. Duck down under his fists and yank his knee forward, he’ll soon crumple to the ground. Then you can stick the boot in and finish the bastard off.
But fuck knows where this guy learnt his fighting from because he doesn’t do any of that. He backs away, tries to get himself a bit of breathing space, but the half-caste won’t let him. He closes the gap, jabs out with his fists, and backs him up against the bars. Face, then chest, then side of the head, then face again. The white guy stands there taking it, holding his hands up in surrender.
I expect that to be the end of the fight, game over for the white guy, but the crowd are still roaring for more. The half-caste leans back and launches a kung-fu kick at his opponent’s stomach. The white guy doubles over in agony, and gets a knee in the face. His head flies back and cracks against the bars, and his legs give way beneath him. The half-caste kicks him in the head, knocks him onto his side, and grabs his feet. He rolls him onto his back and drags him to the centre of the cage. The white guy doesn’t struggle, he just lies there staring up the camera mounted on top of the cage. The half-caste puts his foot on the man’s chest and raises both hands above his head. He roars in victory.
But still the crowd aren’t satisfied. They cry out for the victor to finish it. Anyone can see he’s already won, so what the fuck is there left to finish? The crowd stamp their feet in rhythm. It sounds like an army marching across a bridge in hobnail boots. Fuck knows what they’re expecting the half-caste to do, but when he just spits in the white guy’s face and walks up to the cage door they all groan in disappointment. The half-caste bangs on the door with his fist, and it’s opened. He walks through, and an old man in spectacles makes his way toward the man lying in the centre of the cage.
The crush around me begins to ease as people shuffle away, talking excitedly to each other. I stay to see what happens next. The old man prises the white guy’s eyelids open and shines a torch into them. He feels along his arms and legs, presses down on his chest with the palms of his hands.
“Fucking smart, eh?” Dave says in my ear. His arms curl round my waist from behind. His hands slide up to my tits and he squeezes them together.
I squirm myself around to face him and smile. “Yeah, fucking brilliant.”
* * *
The last fight of the night is the only women’s bout of the evening, and they’re even more vicious than the men. Not as vicious as me, of course, but their ferocity takes me by surprise. I was expecting it to be more about light relief and titillation for the men in the audience than anything else. But the way the women lay into each other they definitely mean fucking business. Mind you, that doesn’t stop the charmer in the string vest from getting a hard-on and touching himself while he watches them slug each other. Or maybe that’s because he’s pressed up against me? Dirty fucking bastard, he’s older than my dad.
After the fight’s over and the crowd around the cage thins out, Dave asks me if I’ve made my mind up about whether I want to fight or not. He reminds me about the three hundred quid on offer, even if I lose. After seeing the mistakes the men were making I’d already pretty much made my mind up. But it was the women’s fight that sealed it for me. The mindless way they went about slamming into each other, the obvious targets they went for to cause maximum pain for their opoponent. A bit of extra protection in the right places and they wouldn’t have a fucking clue where to hit me. I’d be walking out of that cage without a fucking scratch, the easiest money I ever made.
“Yeah, I’m in. Where do I sign up?”
Dave grins at me. “We’ll hold back until everyone’s fucked off, then I’ll introduce you to Lonnie. He’s the main man.”
Sweat’s dripping off me, and I wipe my hand over my forehead and neck. Dave leans forward and gently blows on my face. That’s the fucking sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me, yeah? I smile and raise my arms above my head for him to blow on my armpits. He buries his face in one instead and I close my arm around his neck and hold him tight. Steve and Josh point and laugh, but fuck it. It feels good. It feels right.
“We fucking off then or what?” Steve asks, spoiling the moment. “You can do your kissy kissy shit when we get home. I’ve got some DVDs to watch.”
Dave pulls away and I reluctantly let him go. “Yeah, I just need to do something first. Ten minutes, yeah? Here’s the keys, I’ll meet you back at the car.” He tosses a bunch of keys to Josh, who catches it one-handed.
“Ten minutes, eh? Last of the great fucking lovers,” Josh says, winking at me.
I watch them walk out through the barn door and reach out for Dave, but he sidesteps me and heads toward the tables in the corner. I follow him and he buys two cans of lager, passes one to me. The can feels hot in my hand, so fuck knows what the lager will taste like. I crack it open and take a long drink, replacing some of the fluids I’ve lost. It tastes even worse than I expected it to, but fuck it. It’s better than nothing.
Dave moves over to the other table, and looks at some DVDs in plastic wallets. They each have two names and a date written on the labels in black marker pen. He buys one that says Buxom Bitch and Scunny Skank with last month’s date on it, it costs him a tenner. I look at the others, there’s a couple of names I recognise from tonight’s fights, but mostly I’ve never heard of any of them. Dave cradles his DVD to his chest as if it’s something precious.
Outside it’s fucking freezing and I can’t stop shivering. Dave puts his arm around me and leads me toward the farm house. The two gorillas with the baseball bats, Johnno and Baz, stand sentry either side of the front door, glaring at us as we approach.
“What do you want, Davie-boy?” one asks, tapping the bat in the palm of his hand. The other stares at us, unblinking.
“Got someone for Lonnie to see,” Dave says.
“Oh yeah? Fresh meat, is she?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait there, I’ll see if he’s got time to see her.”
He slips inside, and the other gorilla positions himself in front of the door just in case we had any plans to follow.
“Fresh fucking meat?” I say to Dave.
He grins. “Yeah, that’s what they call the fighters. Nothing personal.”
“Yeah well it better fucking not be or I’ll deck the bastard.”
The gorilla comes back and beckons us inside the house. “Lonnie says he’ll give you three minutes.”
He leads us through the hallway into a large room with lots of computer monitors. Five of them show different views of
the cage, and I can see someone mopping the floorboards in there. Other monitors show the interior of the now deserted barn from different angles, the field where the cars used to be, and the outside of the house from every viewpoint you could think of. I can see the front door in one of them, with either Baz or Johnno, whichever one it is, standing outside. I wonder where the camera is hidden, I didn’t notice any when we were walking toward the house.
“All right, Lonnie,” Dave says.
Lonnie turns out to be a fat bald bloke in his mid-thirties. He sits behind a large oak desk that’s covered in piles and piles of money. There must be fucking thousands and thousands on that desk, lying there in neatly stacked rows. Behind him, lounging on a plush leopard-skin settee, is a young man with the smoothest complexion I ever saw. Not a fucking blemish, yeah? He looks like he’s just stepped out of an airbrushed magazine photo or something. He’s wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt and lycra shorts that show off his physique to perfection. He looks at me with a bored, laid-back expression, then frowns and crosses his legs when he catches me checking out his crotch bulge.
“Who’s this you’ve brought for me then, Davie-boy?” Lonnie says. His voice is soft, much softer than I expected it to be, and slightly nasal. In fact nothing about this Lonnie geezer is anything like what I expected the boss of an underground fight club to be. I thought he’d be some sort of gangland thug, all knife scars and an evil stare, maybe even a fucking cat to stroke and a moustache to twirl. He looks more like someone you’d see in your granny’s slippers and cardigans catalogue. As for his mate on the couch behind him, well fuck knows where you’d see someone like that outside of a porn movie.
“This is Abby,” Dave says, gesturing at me.
Lonnie looks me up and down and shrugs. “She any good?” Dave nods. “And you can vouch for her?”
“Yeah, she’s sound.” Dave glances in my direction and winks.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” Lonnie says. He folds his arms and leans forward on the desk. “I’ll give her a try out in two weeks, just to see how she does. Can’t say fairer than that.”
“Cheers Lonnie,” Dave says. “She won’t let you down.”
Lonnie smiles. “Oh, I don’t doubt it, Davie-boy.”
“When do I get paid?” I ask.
Lonnie glances at me, but directs his reply to Dave. “Let’s see how she performs first, dear. Tell her to leave her number with Johnno on the way out.”
7
Dad’s still asleep when I get up for work, but I’m in a good mood so I don’t have the TV on too loud while I have my breakfast. I eat my yoghurt thinking about how gentle Dave was, that first time when he took me back to his bedsit after the meeting with Lonnie. I’d been expecting to get jack-hammered, so it was a bit of a surprise. He had a poster of these bald guys on the wall sneering down at me with their fists raised, and when I asked who they were he said they were the best fucking band ever and put on one of their CDs for me to listen to. The bald guys shouted violent songs at us while Dave licked all the stale sweat off every inch of my body. Even when we got down to fucking he kept all his weight off me and took it really slow. Pretty fucking weird it was, but in a nice way.
When I left the next day I thought that’d be the end of it, he got what he wanted so I’d never hear from him again. That’s what usually happens anyway. But fuck me if he didn’t phone up last night asking if I wanted to go to Shefferham to see some band that’s playing there on Saturday. It sounded like a laugh, so I said yeah. It was only after I put the phone down that I remembered I’d promised Shaz I would go to The Zone with her this week. Oh well, fuck it. She could always come along with us, I could fix her up with one of Dave’s mates. We’re going on our regular Friday night pub crawl tonight, so I’ll ask her then.
I make some cheese sandwiches for dad and wrap them up in cling film, put them on the arm of his chair so he’ll see them when he gets up, then get the bus into town.
* * *
Blunt the Cunt looks at his watch when I get to work but doesn’t say anything. I’m only a couple of minutes late, and it doesn’t look like they’ve started the weekly team-building meeting yet anyway. That’s some new bollocks they’ve come up with at head office. Apparently it’s supposed to make us feel like we’re part of one big happy family instead of just minimum wage burger monkeys who can either do as we’re told or fuck off onto the dole like everyone else our age. Yeah, right.
So every Friday morning we have to fill in a stupid questionnaire about what new skills we’ve learnt and what we’ve done to help a fellow team member fulfil their objectives in the last seven days. Then there’s a blank page for us to write down our suggestions on how we can improve our customers’ happiness index, whatever the fuck that means. There’s a weekly prize of five pounds for the best idea, and a hundred pounds if the idea actually gets used nationwide, but nobody from my branch has ever won anything. This week I write “Free blow-job with every burger” and hope for the best. If the idea does get taken up nationally we can always get Colin to do it.
Blunt scoops up the completed forms and reads through them to make sure nobody’s said anything bad about him, and sends us off to our designated work areas. Colin heats up last night’s leftover burgers and onions on the griddle, Sally spreads the grease around the tables with a dirty cloth, and I take up my usual position by the till. Blunt fucks off into his office to play solitaire or whatever it is he does in there all day.
“Dave phoned last night,” I tell Sally. “He’s taking me to see some band in Shefferham tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah?” Sally looks up from her work, but carries on wiping the tables in a half-hearted way.
“Yeah. He took me to a fight last weekend, it were fucking brilliant.”
“Is Dave that skinhead you were going on about last week?”
“Yeah.”
Sally scowls. “Rather you than me. I’ve heard about skinheads from my dad.”
“Nah, he might look a bit rough but he’s sweet as fuck.”
Sally smiles. “Proper fucking gentleman, eh?”
I smile back, remembering what happened when we got back to his bedsit. “Yeah. Yeah, he was.”
“So when you gonna bring him here and introduce him to me then?”
“What, so you can throw your knickers at him?”
“Fuck off,” she says, grinning, and throws a dirty cloth at me. I duck down and it sails over my head, lands with a squelch on the floor behind me.
The door opens, and the first fat cunt of the day waddles through. This time I don’t need to paint the smile on my face, it’s already there and it’s fucking genuine for a change.
* * *
It’s dinner time when my phone rings, the busiest time of day at the burger joint, and the place is full of hungry fat bastards all demanding to be fed. The one at the front of the queue scowls at me when I take out my phone and look at the screen to see who it is. It’s Shaz, and I swipe my finger across the screen to answer it.
“Hi Shaz, what’s up?”
“Abby, it’s Shaz. Just checking you’re still on for The Meat Market this week and you haven’t found something better to do instead, like you did last week.”
Oh fuck. She’s not going to like what I’ve got to tell her.
“Cheeseburger and large fries,” the man at the counter says, and I yell the order through to Colin.
“Shaz, I can’t make it this Saturday. I’m going to see a band in Shefferham with Dave and his mates, but you can tag along to that if you want?”
“And how are we supposed to make any money doing that?”
“Well… we won’t, it’s just a night out isn’t it? You know, fun and stuff, yeah?”
I can hear Shaz sigh, a distorted crackle like when someone blows onto a microphone.
“Look, Abby, I don’t think you’re taking this job seriously enough. I can’t afford to lose two weeks’ pay, even if you can.”
Job? Since when was it a fucking job? It’s jus
t a bit of a laugh, not a job. Sure, the money is a nice bonus when we get some, but it’s not as if that’s the whole point of doing it. Most of the time we’re lucky if we make enough to pay for another night out on the piss.
“It’s all right for you,” Shaz continues, as if she can read my mind, “you’ve got a proper job. But what about me? I need that money, I can’t live without it.”
Colin dumps the cheeseburger and fries down on the hatch and I take them to the lard-arse standing by the counter.
“Sorry Shaz, but I already told Dave I’d go.”
I hold my hand out for the money, the fat man fumbles in his pocket for his wallet.
“Yeah well,” Shaz says. “You need to get your fucking priorities right. I’m not happy about being blown out again just because you’ve got yourself some fucking cock to rub up against. Sort yourself out, Abby. Otherwise when he fucks off, which we both know he will sooner or later, I won’t be here any more.”
I ring the order up in the till and hand the fatty his change. He munches into his burger and tomato sauce drips down his shirt. I tell him to have a nice day.
“But we’re still on for the piss up tonight, yeah?” I say into the phone.
There’s that sigh again. “I suppose,” and the line goes dead. Call terminated, the screen says when I look at it.
I put my phone away and look at the next customer. “Yes sir, how may I serve you this fine day?”
Punk and Skinhead Novels Box Set Page 23