“Argh!” Paige burst through the door shoulder first, crashing into Mohawk, pushing him into the flannel stoner, and finally into Barrett, who’s brand new shit kickers slipped on pigeon shit, and sent his shoulder straight into Malcolm’s lowered head.
Weightlessness held him in the air as he tumbled in a spin over the edge. Swirls of brick and cloud spun as his heart thudded blood into his ears. And Malcolm uttered his last words as gravity hooked and yanked him down.
“Stupidstupidstupid.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE MUDDY DREAM of moonlit back alleys and long, white legs in dagger heels popped with the thunder of knocks at Milkwood’s door. He gasped, grateful the dream died when it did. He stayed very still, feeling the ache in his heart from a how hard it had beat while he slept, belly full. Now it was calm but the dream had made it bristle. He’d have woken up in a cold sweat if he still sweated.
The door sat, waiting…but nothing. No more knocks. The angle of sunlight on the wall meant it was afternoon. Still some hours of shuteye before the kid came back from the Iron Horse. Shit, Milkwood thought. If he comes back. Maybe he’ll just sell the circuit breaker and split…Nah, the kid wasn’t like that. Or was he? Or maybe the Judge will feed his parts to Samson for tossing a freakshow into his high and mighty tournament. Sayers was a prick, but maybe he’d see the novelty value. Hell, to refuse a circuit breaker was dangerous business, especially if word got out to Jackson Lord. Even on the Fringe, the lord of the circuit had friends.
Fatigue flooded his mind. Maybe I should have gone with the kid? Maybe given him some back up? Nah, he’s better off without me glaring over his shoulder, looking as threatening as a teddy bear stuffed with cream of wheat.
Bang, bang, bang!
Yup. It was Milkwood’s door.
The kid? Too early. The cops? Possible. Dead bodies in the Heights were not exactly news to Kingston’s finest, and two dead assclowns working for Judge Sayers could not be top priority…unless the Judge had the cops on his payroll and wanted answers.
Bang, bang, bang!
Faaaantastic.
Milkwood pushed off the pamphlet on his chest, then rolled to the far side of the bed. Sunlight prickled his arm like an Indian burn. Damn, I would have thought eating that idiot in the alley would have been enough to keep me rolling for days. Should have eaten those two thugs…
A key turned in the door.
Shit.
Sun at his back, there was only one way forward. The door opened and he prepared to pounce. All right, time for business—
Cindy walked in, mouth full of chips, and screamed.
“Easy!” Milkwood said, hands open and up. “It’s me.”
“Jesus, Francis. You scared me to hell and back. I thought you checked out at eleven?”
He walked around the bed, cracks of sunlight burning into his neck with a hideous itch, but dead nerves cooling as he passed. “I booked this room for the weekend.”
“Right, right, man, I forgot.” She pulled in a cleaning cart. “God, late shifts are murder for the mind, you know, and doing a double sends me on auto pilot. But this is great. Brody! Honey, come in here.”
For a happy moment, Milkwood thought of jumping out the window. Then, a kid peeked out behind the cart before running and latching on to Cindy’s leg. He wore a long-sleeve shirt with a masked wrestler on it that Milkwood had never heard of. “He’s my little helper monkey today. Normal lady called in sick so I got the gig.”
Milkwood wondered what things the little helper monkey had seen in these rooms. “I’m sorry.”
“Phew, you kidding? This place is so filthy no one knows a good cleaning from a bad one. And I get her paycheck.” She wheezed a laugh. “But I’ll make up yours nice. Okay, Brode Dog, I have to clean the bathroom while you sit and talk to Francis. It’s okay. He isn’t a stranger. He’s a friend of Mommy’s. Okay?” It took more soothing words and Cindy’s callused hands to pry the kid off her. “This is the guy I told you about, the one who gave you the autograph. He’s a wrestler.”
Oh this is a fucking wonderful wake up call, Milkwood thought and threw the kid a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
The kid’s hands finally came off and Cindy smiled as she went to work in the bathroom Milkwood had used. Thankfully, the thing was so filthy there was no telling where his blood ended and someone else’s began.
The kid had big eyes and stared at his hands, which were dirty but not filthy. “So, Brody. Cool name. Like Bruiser Brody, right?” Milkwood was glad he’d eaten, giving a semblance of human colour to his skin, but even that wasn’t making the kid take in his big ugly form with any ease. As bad as Milkwood’s childhood had been—retreating into shitty paperbacks for days and days while Mom bitched about dad being on the road and vanishing in the night and leaving Milkwood just enough in the fridge to make Wonder Bread and sugar sandwiches for dinner and sometimes breakfast—Milkwood was rarely surrounded by the desperate stains of life that swam through the motels he used. TV was likely the kid’s getaway car to parts unknown, heroes and villains of the squared circle filling up the hours while Mom was working the motel graveyard shift. Poor kid. He could commiserate. Once upon a time, in a lifetime far, far away, he’d also enjoyed watching Dad selling the match with the anabolic warriors.
Brody crossed his arms, shoving his sticky fingers into the pits. “You’re a real wrestler?”
Milkwood sat down on the bed. God, I feel sick even saying this stuff but…“Yeah, that’s right. Your Mom said you were a big rasslin fan?”
He showed no sign of acknowledgement, just a sharp glare.
“So,” Milkwood said, hoping to hell Cindy was almost done. “Who’s your favourite?”
“Los Bandito. Do you know him?”
“No, sorry. Never worked in Mexico.”
“He’s from Texas.”
“Well, I never worked there, either.”
Brody squinted, as if he’d caught Santa halfway up the chimney. “What league are you in?”
“Western Stampede.”
“No you’re not. They died a long time ago.”
Damn. The kid actually knows his shit. “Sorry, I meant Stampede Nation Wrestling.”
“SNL is gone now, too.” The kid’s eyes went wide. “Where do you wrestle?”
Milkwood had survived more savage attacks to brain and body than most street fighters and mixed martial artists combined, but he actually shivered looking at the grilling eyes of Brody, who obviously took his wrestling very, very seriously. Milkwood raised his hand in submission. “Okay. I tap, I tap. I’m not supposed to say anything, but I’ve signed a contract with Ragnarock Wrestling Association.”
The doe eyes flashed like cartoon dishes in the sockets of one Brode Dog. “The RWA? Really?”
“Shh!” Milkwood put his finger to his lip. “I said it was a secret, man. You have to swear not to tell anyone.”
“I swear!”
“Okay, good. You’re Cindy’s kid, so I know I can trust you.”
“Are you going to be a jobber?”
Milkwood blinked. Jobber. “A what?”
“A jobber. The guys that lose. Like your dad.” The kid was all smiles and Milkwood’s dead heart was thumping low. “I looked him up online. He was the best jobber in the world, right? They called him a name, back stage, what was it? I wrote it down—” he tore into his back pocket and tore out the paper Milkwood had autographed. “It smudged!” He brought the dirty paper to his face, Milkwood’s phony autography staring back at him.
“Punching Bag.”
The kid dropped the paper from his eyes.
“They called him Joe Punching Bag.”
“Yeah. Wikipedia called him king of the heel jobbers.”
Heel? Jobbers? The kid had more lingo than some wrestlers. What was next, a conversation on the fine art of doing three-move spots or getting heat from the crowd or blading your own forehead with a sliver of razor tapped to your wrist? These were the magician’s secrets to the backstage world of wr
estling. It was supposed to be cosmic top secret, kept hidden from the marks, as if knowing the truth destroyed the illusion of kayfabe, the bullshit of wrestling they pretended was true. God, he could hear Dad talking with the booker on the phone, planning the spots for an up-coming tour, or the rare times he dragged Milkwood backstage to the locker room, the whole place stinking like a zillion dirty sweat socks, rough floors covered in foul brown towels, and Dad and the Booker ignoring him until they were done. Then Dad and the booker exhorted him to keep his mouth shut as the fans filled the seats.
Milkwood shook away the memory as the kid yanked at his jeans. “Are you?”
“What?” Milkwood said.
“Are you a jobber, too?”
He thought of his Dad, taking the hard bumps, slinging off the ropes into the clotheslines of a zillion giants, his thin but muscular form seeming to crack under every blow. All the kids at school calling Dad a loser. That loser, Joe Punching Bag.
Vision’s of Kudor, the Maxims, and every two-bit fighter in the circuit who had left their knuckle prints and tread marks across Milkwood’s hide danced in the room, smiling, getting in line to take their shot at the freakshow Milkwood.
“Well, are you?”
Cindy pushed the cart from the bathroom. “There you go, Francis. Fresh and piney. C’mon, champ, we don’t want to take up any more of his time. Come help Mommy with the door.”
The kid protested but she ushered him out, throwing a smile over her shoulder. “Thanks for talking with him and the autograph. Let me know when you’re champion of the world, okay?” She laughed.
He smiled. “Will do.”
The door closed and through the thin walls he heard Brody’s protests that he hadn’t answered the question. Milkwood stared at the imitation brass doorknob.
An itch grew on the palm of his hands and burned. He pulled his hand back from the edge of the bed where sunlight had cut across the sheets. The pain and itch vanished, as did the wound, while he rubbed the wounded abrasion.
“Christ on a cross. Who the hell am I?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SOUR BLACKNESS STUCK to Malcolm’s face like tar. He breathed, but there was nothing but a gag to suck on. Terrified, his arms scrambled for purchase and tore into wet mounds of mush. Swimming against solid stuff he gripped something heavy that would not budge, and pulled. He forced his other hand to the same spot, pulled harder, and his whole carcass began to move. The blackness slid away and grey light blinded him as he pulled hard on the edge of a dumpster, the trash bags pulsing out their skins where he had landed.
Tremors bit his nerves as he yanked himself out of the mess with muscles burning and arms shaking. Hooking a sneaker into a dent, he tried to get over the lip while the trash bags fell into the space he vacated, the same ones that had nearly suffocated Balancing on the lip of the dumpster, he felt helpless. A baby tossed in the trash. His muscles ached for him to let go. Crash back into soft garbage and waste instead of feeling the horror of gravity again. Hard ground or go awaited him.
A stirring bled into his bones. He shook on the edge, hands clasping cold metal with rusty edges, snot dribbling off his mouth as he huffed breath into his eager lungs. Hiding in the pain of the moment were images of him balling like a baby, of punching like a rookie, of falling like a chump where even Milkwood wouldn’t go—
Slowly, a single surge of strength bled from his bones into his muscle. He gulped. It hurt. He tipped forward, flexing his arms out with a hideous scream before falling to the asphalt face first.
Malcolm rolled over to see heaven break through the grey clouds. Slivers of golden light cut the misery of the boring sky like ninja shurikans. He took in a deep breath, and exhaled hard and painfully while every fibre of his body shivered. He stank. He was probably stained worse than a bus station washroom. But he was breathing. Nothing seemed broken. Yet he still felt like ten pounds of shit stuffed in a five-pound bag.
“Moe?” Paige ran from around the corner of the building. “Holy shit!” She ran to his limp body. “I’ll call 911.”
“Don’t!” He forced himself to sit up like the Frankenstein monster and on cue she screeched. “Relax, I’m…fine.”
“But you…you fell.”
He thumbed behind him. “Trash. Broke my fall.”
She kneeled down. “So you’re okay?”
“Nothing hurt but my pride.” He’d heard Haggerty say that, after getting his face waltzed on by Jax Spank’s ten-pound hands.
“God, I’m sorry. I thought they were going to—” Paige’s eyes misted behind her glasses.
“Yeah, and you lead me right into them.” Tears ran and guilt flooded him. She wasn’t in on the scam. She wasn’t one of them. “Okay, sorry, my bad. You didn’t know those apes would be there. I’m okay, okay? You were trying to help.”
“And I almost got you killed.”
“Almost nothing. Those shitheads were the ones that dragged me up there.” He winced before a chuckle bloomed in his belly.
“Moe?”
Laughter ran through his head and bones like machine gun fire. “Pathetic.” He clenched his hand. “God, I’ve seen dead men fight better matches.” Then he cackled as he grabbed his stinking head. “God, what a mess I’m making of everything.”
He dropped one hand, the one the busted mug had bitten into, to his knee. Warmth ran over it.
“Here. Let me clean that.”
Her hand was over his. Paige took some packages from her back pocket. “I steal these from the Copper Penny every time I go for coffee. Regular soap sucks at getting the stink of the library off my hands.” She tore the package apart and took out a wet, white square that she unfolded into a napkin. “Let me know if this stings.”
Like hell I will, Malcolm thought.
Slowly, she wiped his hands clean. The wipes offered a chemical smell that eased his nerves some. Soon, both hands looked clean. Rough, and covered in scrapes, but clean. He flexed them. Not even sticky. “Shit. I see why you steal them.”
She nodded, tossing the naps in the trash. “Are you sure you’re…”
“Yeah. I’m feeling fine. For a guy who got his ass handed to him and tossed off a building.”
“Barrett’s an asshole. I don’t know who takes his chains off, but they should be arrested.”
Even chained, I didn’t have a chance. “It’s fine. I’ve been hurt by worse.” Malcolm smiled.
“I guess I should cancel the ambulance.”
He stood, wincing with starchy pain through his limbs. “Ambulance?”
“I…had to call 911. I thought they’d—”
“Oh shit.” His mind scrambled. “I have work to do…got be somewhere.”
“Maybe you have a concussion?”
“What time is it?”
“One o’clock.”
No time for a concussion, then. He had a date with a Judge. “I have to bolt.” He looked around, feeling dizzy. “Which way to the Heights?”
She pointed.
He started to shuffle-jog through the parking lot. “Thanks for the help.”
“Wait, Moe, why the hell are you going there?”
He wanted a witty comeback. Something that would sum every burning feeling nestled in his marrow. But all he could mutter was. “To get in a fight.” One he would not lose.
He left her hanging, wanting to go back, wanting her to come with him so he wouldn’t do what he had to do alone. But he liked Paige, and that was enough to keep him hustling. Where he was going, there would be blood. He didn’t want any of it to be hers.
* * *
Malcolm had walked in zigzags through the Heights, ducking cop cars and gangs of kids with worse attitudes than Barrett and company, the kids with free time to burn by giving your face a curb smile. Finally, he found the massive Iron Horse and, to his amazement, just walked in. No locked door. No bouncer. Just a ghost town shell of its former trashy glory. Then again, it was only four in the afternoon.
Empty of Canadian cowboys an
d white-trash queens, the main floor of the Iron Horse Saloon was like three empty school gyms with no windows. Lamps hung low and spread white lights in pockets, giving the western junk on the walls, like wagon wheels and muskets, long shadows. An empty stage had a hokey western town backdrop that was as empty as the place was silent.
The big wagon wheel above the bar held a bunch of little lights made to look like candles. In the dimness, the bar looked devoid of any life.
“Hello?”
A bald head popped up from the bar. “Useless girls never lock the door. Samson! Get back on duty!” The man’s eyes were on him. “Better run home to cartoons and jerking off, kid. Samson hasn’t ate yet today. And, good God, you smell like you bathed in hot dogs this morning.”
Malcolm stayed frosty and showed his circuit pass. “I need to see Judge Sayers.”
The bartender tossed a lemon in the air and giggled before he caught it. “Oh, right, you’re the little shit from last night that got past security. Serves us right, hiring morons with tattoos and less brains than god gave a dead maggot.” Fear of Rip’s encounter rippled through him. The man’s eyes were clear and seemed to hook on to Malcolm. “Saw you make some good scratch at the exhibition. Looks like you did a few rounds yourself on the street. You win?”
“You should see the other guy.”
He tossed the lemon, caught it again. “Right. Achilles Junior in a black hoodie.” The barkeep cackled. “Okay, I’m betting on you for the fringe tourney. Samson! Get to the goddamn door!” He focused on Malcolm. “Better park here, kid. Judge will be up soon.”
Malcolm took a stool and the bartender got him a soda and he drank it slow. Last thing he wanted was to upchuck the biscuits that had lodged in his guts. “So, why you need to see the Judge?”
“Top secret.”
“Don’t worry, kid. I’m the Judge’s ear.”
“Then tell him it’s top secret.”
He poured himself a bloody red drink in a tall, dirty glass. “Brass pair, kid. Thinking of entering the tourney yourself? Bet you’d be a fan favourite before they tore you’re head off and drank your marrow. Samson! Get over here, now!”
Blood and Sawdust Page 10