Blood and Sawdust

by Jason S Ridler

  “Barely.”

  “Okay.” He smacked it down. “I’ll barely have a coffee.”

  Silence hung until Milkwood whistled. “So, got a name?”

  “Malcolm M. Tanner.”

  “You say that like I’m supposed to be impressed, or keeping track.”

  Malcolm shrugged. His rep wasn’t worth a wet fart in the fringe.

  “So, Malcolm M. Tanner, the world’s tiniest circuit player, how the hell did you see that match in New York? Costs money to travel from Kingston to the Rotten Apple, and you don’t look like a high roller.”

  “I’m from the rotten apple, not this second rate fringe bingo hall.” Hell, if he didn’t know who he was, why couldn’t he be from Big Bad New York and not the tiny wasteland of Troy?

  “Ah, traveling man. Who is your honey pot?”

  “My brother. He bank rolls. I like the fights.” He flexed and unflexed his hands in his jeans. “Everyone said that the Maxim’s couldn’t be beat, so I bet my money on you. My brother’s dough was on the Maxims. You didn’t win, but you held out to the end that time.”

  “Yeah, handicap matches usually suck balls, but that was a fun one. But that mask was murder on my vision.” Milkwood grabbed a handful of sugar packets, stray beads of pink water running down his pudgy face. “Wait. You got a long hard look at me and threw your money behind my no-account jackass name? You a necro-fiend or something?”

  “Nah. I always bet on the underdog.” He wanted to cross his arms, to stay warm, but his hands were still shaking and the last thing he wanted was to look weak. “Rob just wants sure things.”

  Milkwood snorted. “Your bro’s a smart man, picking winners.”

  “He doesn’t pick shit, I do.” And his knack for it had gotten tighter. It had to. When he did miss the boat, he had to hand over whatever he’d scrounged in his secret cut. But the more he watched the fighters in quicksand time, saw how they moved, learned their reps and style, the easier it became. And not too soon. When he came home after the last Tourney was raided—with all his money lost just like everyone else’s, when the Notebook men ran for the hills before being slapped with silver bracelets—Rob was so mad Malcolm was pissing blood for a day. Fucking kidney punches, he thought, then shook the old pain from his head by moving his sore jaw. “Rob wouldn’t know a wrist lock from a wrist watch. He even thought Kudor was Cougar Skeetch, and everyone knows Cougar can’t cross the border because his record hasn’t been wiped yet, so he was shit out of luck after the raid and the tourney headed to the fringe.”

  Milkwood’s jaw dropped. “Hold up. You were there, when Sheriff Howard Roberts rode in like the freaking Lone Ranger and crippled the NY circuit with a SWAT team and…you saw that go down?”

  Malcolm squirmed. “Yeah.”

  “What the hell was that like?”

  He stared at the table, then the ceiling fan, until he got dizzy. “Everything was gonzo. Cops tasing fighters. Fighters tearing at the betters. Betters grabbing any Notebook Man they could. Notebook men tearing out of there, crank heads grabbing arm candy from big players, players trying to make names for themselves as cop killers before the smoke cleared. Goddamn anarchy.” For once, Malcolm had been glad he was too small potatoes for anyone to give a shit compared to the heavies in the room. He was still lucky he got out before a fist or stray bullet did him in for good.

  The coffees arrived, steaming slow and wavy and inviting. Malcolm worked the nerve to pull his hands out of his pockets, but kept them under the table. “So you’re the brains of the outfit?” said Milkwood.

  “Someone had to be.”

  “Take it you’re not too worried about school.”

  “I’d rather have dead presidents than learn about dead presidents.” Rob’s binges were so bad now that without the prize money they’d be eating out of bins.

  Milkwood chortled. “Clever, if stupid.”

  “Nothing stupid about getting paid.” Especially paid well, not the loser’s cut. Milkwood was starting to annoy him.

  “Never said there was. But running bets is hardly a career.”

  “Could say the same thing about a being a glorified punching bag.” Shit, what am I doing? Shut the hell up! He grimaced, and the pain in his face froze him still.

  Milkwood tapped his dirty white coffee mug with a filthy index finger, sniffed hard, like he was dislodging a boulder from his sinuses. “Touché.”

  The waitress hag showed up with a steaming plate that made every inch of Malcolm’s stomach ache. “Damn,” Milkwood said. “That is a carb bomb. Love that smell, too.” He tapped the plate and it shot across the surface. Malcolm gripped the overflowing plate before it crashed on his lap. “Enjoy.”

  His guts screamed for food but he clamped his jaws. “I said I was no charity case. I don’t need a free hand out.”

  “Actually, you do. Or else there would have been rat bait in that dumpster. Eat. I’m already full.”

  And the chains on Malcolm’s resolve snapped as he grimaced and dove in with an angry fork. Syrup covered every bite and even if the diner looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the dark ages, the food was the kind they served in heaven for special people. As Malcolm gorged, Milkwood downed three packets of sugar, swishing it in his cheek until a wad formed, then sucked at it like blood-coated candy. “So you like the underdogs but pick the winners. Big brother likes the winners and can’t even name them. You guys are a real odd couple. Strange he sends you into the lion’s den all alone, and far away, though”

  Malcolm ate, letting the question hang and hopefully die.

  Milkwood smiled with a closed mouth, underbite jutting out like an invitation to be hit with a right cross. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened in the alley. You’re not hurt or anything, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hey, you might want to slow down some. Don’t want to be sick.”

  Malcolm growled, hating the friendly and concerned tone, then finished off his mission. The plate was nothing but stray crumbs drowning in thin syrup. He exhaled hard and slow. Full and tired, his hands eased as he held the mug of oily looking coffee, the warmth filling his hands as he worked up his courage to ask what he wanted to know. “Why’d you do it?”

  Milkwood’s face froze in mid-slurp. “I don’t like bullies. Especially drunk ones.”

  “No, not that.”

  “Fine, I figured you were hungry.”

  “I’m not talking about these stupid pancakes, man. You…didn’t even raise a hair against Kudor. You could have mashed his face into hamburger without sweating, like you mangled that tattooed shit heel in the alley. You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen, and I saw Jacksaw take that car apart in Detroit last summer. But he was juiced and died a week later when his heart burst. But you? You chose to lose.” His teeth ground down hard enough to crush marbles. “Why?”

  For a long minute they sat there, Malcolm watching the oily swirls in his coffee, and Milkwood gazing out the window at the big dark nothing outside. Finally, Milkwood ran his hands through his oily hair, tied his ponytail tight, and spoke.

  “I’m good at losing, kid. It’s what’s expected of me. Now, before you explode, understand I won’t throw a match for anything. I am no palooka or fucking wrestler. If they can’t beat me down they don’t deserve it. And I will not fake a fight. I do get the winner’s purse now and then from a pretty harsh rope-a-dope match. But most guys are more killer than fighter. You know the type that end up in the circuit. UFC thinks they’re lawsuits waiting to happen and the Marines think they’re psychos. Trained in a dozen ball-breaking martial arts that wouldn’t know a Buddhist principle if it chewed a hole in their ass, juiced to the point their balls become raisins, living downtime in gyms or on Vicodin…these animals don’t give up much. So I take the hard bumps. Not like I know any fancy moves or anything.”

  “But you gave that tool in the alley a one armed-hammerlock.”

  Milkwood shrugged.

  Malcolm’s hands flailed. “
You’d be a circuit champ in less than a year, especially if you won this tourney. Everything is in flux now. By the time Jackson Lord has the NYC tourney back in action, you’d have more victories than you’d know what to do with, you could march into the NYC circuit like a tank. But why’d you sit there and take a beating for no damn reason? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Milkwood chuckled. “That’s funny.”

  “What is?” Malcolm demanded, gripping the coffee, warmth finally setting into him.

  Milkwood sucked back some sugar and blood. “I don’t know. Maybe that you cared that I lost. Maybe because I never had a fan before. Maybe ’cause I think you’re the only circuit player I’ve met that I didn’t want to take out back and gut until—” Milkwood pursed his lips, sucked back the wad in his cheek with a slurp, then continued. “ ’Kay. You win, kid. I’ll give you the answer, but you are not going to like it. Listen close, no interruptions, because I’m pulling back the veil a bit here and you need to hear it out start to finish. And it goes without saying that this stuff is cosmic top secret. I find out you spilled this, I spill you. Deal?” His brown eyes burrowed into Malcolm’s skull.

  Malcolm nodded. “Shoot.”

  “Okay. Who stood a chance in that fight, just by looking at us?”

  “Kudor.”

  “Said that a little fast but, yeah, right. Smart money’s on the shaved gorilla. Now, say I do as you ask and crack him in a heartbeat, because that’s all I need. Do you see any muscles here?” He flexed his pudgy arms like Charles Atlas: they looked like two tubes of cookie dough encased in sausage skin, veins and all. Milkwood dropped them, shook away the sad look on his face. He spoke low, not really looking at Malcolm, but almost scowling at the big nothing of rotting houses outside. “They don’t tell you in the books and movies that once you…get like this, your body’s frozen where it is, warts and all. You don’t wake up and look like Brad Pitt. And you can’t change a damn thing. Can’t lose weight, can’t gain it, and you’re stuck with the hair you were left with. It’s all frozen, despite what’s changed inside. I’m just glad I didn’t have the flu when she…”

  Milkwood shook his head like he was trying to lose a scorpion locked on his nose, then he started again. “Forget reality. Like it or lump it, looks matter in the circuit. If I tore into that moron with a third of what I got, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to make hash. And then you know what happens? One person in the crowd says ‘fixed’ and the gig is up. That’s all it takes. The evidence is as plain as the man tits I got here,” he said, pointing at his fleshy chest. “And you damn well know ‘fixed’ is a branding iron on the circuit. People get killed for throwing matches. Happened to Jet Shazar, happened to Shaw Jones.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “So what? You’d kick anyone’s ass if they got near you.”

  “Right. And then the crowds vanish. And the jobs stop. And I’m poorer than a leper in a ghost town. No one wants a fat fuck champion, kid. Not the biggest gore porn fanatics, not the biggest necro-fiends. I upset that balance, move out of the freak show to the main tent, and I’ll never work again. Then I’m back being a first class gutter ball. So I’m kinda the odd man out, know what I mean?” He crossed his thin arms, teeth clean of blood.

  Malcolm’s mouth was like dust. “You’re really a—”

  “Don’t get your balls in a pretzel. I told you, I’m full. Have to gorge before a big match, else it takes weeks to heal. Fucking learned that the hard way. The Maxim bout rolled me up for months.” He sighed. “So that’s the story, kid. A lie believed is tougher than the fat truth. Don’t look so flustered. I get good scratch this way. And unlike the champs, I’ll be speaking in clear sentences and breathing without a respirator when I choose to leave the circuit. Well, I don’t need to breathe anyway, just for show and speaking, but you get the hang of it.”

  Milkwood looked out the window again. “I think I’ll head west now. Circuit’s small, except those big shots in LA, but I can make enough for shit and giggles for a stretch. Hopefully the NYC circuit will have regenerated by then. If not, maybe take my chances in the south. They love themselves some freaks in Texas.”

  Malcolm got up slowly, anger cramping his bursting stomach, but he didn’t care. “Thanks for breakfast. And kicking that guy’s ass. I gotta bolt.” He walked out the diner, fists clenched, Milkwood’s dumbfounded face behind him. Anger chugged in his blood so hard he was almost sick, but he couldn’t worry about that now, about an autograph from a blood-sucking freak or whatever the fuck he was. Malcolm took a watch from his front pocket, busted strap dangling over his dirty knuckles. Time to check in.

  He went to the payphone. He punched in the free long distance code he’d gotten from Hesher, his go-to guy for such things at the library, then Rob’s cell. It rang and he prayed for it to go to voicemail. One beep, two—

  Click. “What?” Thrumming club music wailed behind him.

  Shit. He’s at a club. “It’s Malcolm.”

  “What?”

  “Malcolm,” he said louder. “You said to call after the fight.”

  “Hurry the fuck up! What happened? What’s the rate?”

  Shivers bit his nerves. Rob was high. “You…you won the exhibition match. Made a double.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Tourney starts tomorrow night. Think Kudor’s a strong favorite going in. He barely got touched—”

  “Good, fine, whatever. Look, make this bet crazy good. It cost me a week’s pay to get you out there.”

  No it didn’t. It cost me a week betting on garage matches. “I will.”

  “Do not fuck this up.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Or I swear I’ll dump you back in the amusement park where she left us and you can see just how hard it is on your own. You got me?”

  “I got you.”

  “Go to bed.”

  He hung up the slimy receiver and felt disconnected from any and everything, the food in his belly a lead brick that made him think of all that happened in a handful of hours. The fight, the alley, Milkwood’s screaming cowardice.

  Acid tickled the back of his throat. And everything clenched before he stumbled out of the booth and bent over. A locomotive of chewed pancake and meat and yellow slush chugged through and out of him, pounding the earth hard, splattering into a starburst patter and on his shoes. Sick yellow liquid dripped out of his nose. Breath like fire, bones feeling hollow and thin, he stumbled over the mess and saw Milkwood, hands in pockets.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “YOU LEFT THESE.” Milkwood lifted a pen and notepad above the mound of gory pancakes and sausages. “You should really chew your food.”

  “Whatever.” Malcolm wiped the sick from his mouth, grabbed pad and pen, and hustled toward the heart of the city. Milkwood’s secret in him. And given the stinkface he’d worn when he’d left, it was likely the kid didn’t think he owed Milkwood any favours.

  If that’s true, Milkwood thought. I’m going to have to—

  Milkwood’s saggy steps trailed the kid. “Thought you wanted an autograph.” C’mon, kid, give me a reason not to—

  “Not anymore.” Malcolm coughed and spat, moving faster toward Princess St.

  “Saving your life wasn’t enough?”

  “Shut up.” He shoved the pen in his pocket and flipped to his map. Malcolm picked up the pace, glaring at the map and the dark road ahead, feet crunching gravel and sand on the cracked sidewalk.

  “Well, don’t come crying to me again when that goon wakes up, you ungrateful ankle biter.”

  “I won’t, you chicken-shit loser.”

  The word. It cut through him like hot piss through snow. In a dead heartbeat he raced forward and faced the kid. There was no sugar left in his mouth. Just the shitty taste of old blood. “Big mouth, kid. But that’s from the fat lip he gave you. Can you back it up?”

  The kid was rail thin, spit hanging from his lip, but his eyes were clear. “You don’t scare me, asshole. I root for the underdogs, but I�
�ll never root for a sack of chicken shit that could beat the hell out of half the guys in the circuit in one night. How can you take all the shit they throw at you without lifting a finger and want to live with yourself? How can you stay a loser if you can win big?”

  He poked Malcolm. “Watch that mouth.”

  The kid stumbled but then stepped forward. “You say no one would believe it, but I don’t think you believe it. I’ve seen it in the faces of rookies a hundred times. You got guts made of glass. Yeah, you look like a computer nerd who’d suck his own dick if he could, and for all I know that’s what you are. Born a loser and stayed a loser and even if you got the goods, you’ll never get it because you’ll always be a loser!”

  Milkwood’s hand clenched the kid’s small neck and thrust it against the window of an ancient Chevy. He was getting louder. Talking shit he had no business doing. This is the thanks he got for saving the kid's life? Being treated like garbage from some asshole American kid? Glass cracked like a mad spider web across the car window. “Button that lip,” Milkwood said. “I’m warning you. Keep this shit up and no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

  Malcolm dropped his pen, then his paper. A whispery hiss came out jagged from his mouth. “You…can thrash a kid on the street for nothing but your fat-assed ego, but you’d rather have your respect beat out of you for the loser’s purse every week ’stead of winning. Got more respect for a goddamned . . wrestler.” A volt of tension flexed through those iron fingers and cinders burned in Milkwood’s eyes. The distorted red image reflected on the shattered glass.

  And the lights went out of the kid’s eyes.

  “Fuck.”

  He released his grip and the tiny shit-kicker hit the concrete ass first. His shirt had caught on the broken glass, tearing some. The kid fell over on his chest.

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  His back was a map of agony. A collection of welts and bruises. Not the kind you see in circuit fights. The kind you see in shelters, or on the street. Someone had been using the kid as his own private punching bag for a long, long time.