HIT me. Those two exact words and it's always been like this. Same place every week, same tune, again and again; hit me. I fucking dare you. Hit me, a fist like a train. Hit me, a face like nothing you've ever seen, all mashed and pink with scars. Hit me, I'm waiting for that fist to push my teeth into my mouth, for the sweet, sweet taste of red and the colour of blood on a white ring floor, like roses thrown on a stage.
This one's not as clever as the rest. His eyes are too close together, and he seems more involved in the charade of a fight rather than the actual white flash, red taste, thump down feel of it. Shame, mind, 'cos he's in good shape. I mean, if I were a normal person and I met him at the end of a long dark alley, then I'd probably shit myself.
WOOSH! A fist flies by. Not a hair on my head quivers. I don't bat an eyelid. Come on, you useless bastard, do some damage. Do some damage and hit me. Don't think, don't compute, let that shoddy wee fist fall into orbit and take its natural course.
The crowds screams blue murder; they want a piece of this guy, too. Ragged faces, polished old fighters, big men in wee suits, the relics that get wheeled out once every now and again for the old exhilaration game. Too much of this and they'd conk out, wee hearts would just stop and never get back to it. Girls, be them plastic wives, or wooden girlfriends, usually big tits and thick waves of blonde hair, hang off the old bastards like jewellery. Not to say all of them are taken, mind.
Loads of girls just come for the buzz. Hundreds of them. Even if you lose, you're sure of your hole. Small consolation. So that's the first thing you smell when you walk into rooms like this; women. Perfume, clouds of the stuff, swirlin' around the place getting everyone high but it doesn't last long 'cos then it's the sweat in the air. The reek of adrenaline, of wet fur and bared teeth. Smells like that don't sting the nostrils, they strip them bare so it's someone else's stink, all the salt and that, and it's on your nerves. It's in your pores.
Fuck, all this nonsense and I lose the ball for a moment. He just about has me, so I make a quick recovery, let him know I'm back on form. Snap to the solar plexus, then dart in for a jaw shot. The bastard dodges it and I'm below his arm and the stink gets worse and the crowd hums like a thousand bumblebees and then his eyes swing round to mine before anything else.
Hit me. Hit me now.
He does. The fist comes round on circular trajectory, like a comet around Saturn, and all I do is relax everything ready for the hit. Still, the old body focuses all energies on the ribcage; protect the heart and all that. But it's ok 'cos that's not where he's headed. It's uptown he's after and he can have it. Flesh on flesh, but the sound doesn't arrive yet. Jaw shudders, clicks, and then cracks out of place, eyes wave in their sockets, everything stops. The crowd lets out a rasping rolling sound of disappointed hysteria. My legs give way, the traumatized flesh still shaking around my bones. Sometimes you drool with the jaw shot, sometimes you don't. I taste blood. There'll be more of that. The sound catches up, the CLAP of flesh then the sounds of my jaw breaking, and finally the crowd jeering and booing.
People ask why someone would do this. Fight, I mean. They think it's so you can prove what a tough guy you are. For the girls. Sometimes people say it's for the feeling of cold night air on their skin once they've left the ring. Me? I think that's a lot of shit. I like getting battered. I like looking in the mirror and seeing a mess. I like the look of triumph on a man's face when he's just planted a killer blow. The crowds are the same. It's about putting on a good show. You tell yourself that the next will be the last, just one more venture out there to see all the tiny faces smiling and crying and hooting and screaming and laughing and dying right in front of you for God's sake. One more and I'm done.
Down, then slap, one?two?fucking get over it, I'm not getting up. Things get worse fairly quickly. I've not seen a reaction like this in ages. The guys at the front start clambering out of the seats, pushing their broads off them, broads who scream and cry murder in this dire sort of death rattle. The old guys, suited and slicked, here they come to take a piece of the young bastard with his hands in the air standing over me. Following behind them, the men in the audience are scrabbling over the chairs, falling and lumbering as the women grab at their coats and sleeves. Him, the one up there with the red-raw fist, he winks at me. Can you believe that shit? He fucking winks at me. Then he's down, all these tubby guys crawling over him tearing chunks out of him. The guy is quiet through all this, mind. Silent as stone, and there's bits of him everywhere, red all over the old bastards' coats. The women bury their heads in their hands and sob, some of them beat fists on the ground.
I get up and crawl over to the poor guy and push the crowd off.
"Are ye alright?"
"Are ye ok?"
No answer. Yellowing teeth snap at him again.
"Fuck off!" I shout.
No interest is shown in me. A hand on my shoulder, the skin on the knuckles gone, he pats me and chuckles, but his throat's a mess of white and black and red so it comes out all "GLURGLURGLAAAAARG!"
So there's nothing left to do but sit and watch as the rest of them catch up and start nibbling on my ankles. And my shins. And everything. And even when there's some old git, who I used to come and watch here when I was a kid, pulling chords of chest muscle out of me through my stomach, even then I still take the time to look all these fuckers in the face and say, "Hit me."
11. BLACKENED FIREWORKS
Troy H. Gardner, United States
13 Tales To Give You Night Terrors Page 10