Brawler

by Neil Connelly

  I was surprised when Grunt appeared behind Dominic, smacked the back of his head. Dom shot up, turned to confront his attacker, and stopped dead when he saw who it was. Dressed in his usual black pants, black shirt, black tie and jacket, Grunt seemed especially at home at a funeral. Once he stared down Dominic, he pointed a thick finger my way and then turned.

  “Good luck,” Blalock said.

  I got up to follow and behind me heard Maddox. “You think he’ll come back for this sandwich?”

  Grunt never looked back as he went down a narrow set of stairs in the rear, then through a swinging door with a circular window. The kitchen bustled with clanging pots, flames leaping from grills, chefs topped with white hats. No one turned or made eye contact with us. The waitresses and busboys just slid left or right, making way for Grunt’s thick form, and I drafted him. He stopped outside a wooden door with a sign displaying a series of drawings detailing what to do if someone was choking. I stood in front of it for a moment, blank-faced, then when I went to knock, Grunt just grabbed the doorknob and pushed it open. I stepped inside.

  Sunday sat at a desk at the far end of his windowless office, which had walls lined with bookshelves. When he saw me, he was on the phone, an old-fashioned one with a squiggly cord and everything, but he waved me forward with lifted eyebrows. I closed the door, shutting out the clattering of the kitchen. As I slowly moved inside, I scanned the titles of the books. One was about gardening, another the art of war, a third the history of bridge design. It occurred to me that Sunday had never read any of these, but just purchased them in bulk to use as decoration.

  Near the chairs that faced his desk, a table held an oversize birdcage, and I peeked inside. It was empty. The newspaper lining the bottom was clean, but a couple years old.

  His desk was crowded with piles of papers, a stack of three-ring binders, and an old computer with a huge tan monitor. Directly before him was a cleared-away space occupied by a plate with a half-eaten steak. Holding that phone receiver to his head, he nodded at me and dipped a finger at one of the chairs, so I sat. It was short-legged, or the cushion gave too much, or something, but I ended up so low that I had to lift my head to see over the edge of the huge desk.

  “Fine, fine,” he told whoever he was talking to. “I don’t need to know how the sausage gets made. Just see that what I want happens and tell me when it’s done.” With that, he banged the phone down and turned a smiling face to me. “Why can’t people just honor their commitments? Is that too much to ask in this world?” He reached for a glass of red wine. After taking a long draw, he lifted his knife and fork, began sawing at that hunk of meat. It was rare, bloody, and a pool of red juice gathered on the white plate. As he raised a forkful to his open mouth, he paused and said, “You had something at the buffet, yes?”

  I nodded.

  He asked, “You want something else? I can have Kendall cook up one of these bad boys for you in ten minutes.”

  “I’m good,” I said.

  Sunday seemed distracted by something and for a few minutes, I awkwardly watched him eat. He chowed down on the steak, jabbing with his fork, and made his way through a baked potato, ignoring the bowl of salad. A couple times, he glanced at the computer screen and grimaced. When he finished eating, he snatched the phone, punched in some numbers, and said, “On second thought, Friday morning’s not going to work for me. Thursday night. No excuses.”

  This time when he hung up the phone, it was gentle, and he seemed calmer. There was a smug, satisfied look on his face as he shaved the sweet meat close to the bone. He lifted a red cloth napkin from his lap, dabbed at his white beard, then turned to me, as if he just remembered I was in the room. “All right,” he said. “How are things upstairs?”

  “Upstairs?” I said. “They’re fine.”

  He lifted his wineglass but didn’t drink. “How’s the girl?”

  “Khajee’s upset,” I told him.

  “For good reason. When my old man died, I went a little nuts. Got so drunk the day of the funeral I picked a fight with the cop directing traffic to the cemetery. Can you believe that?”

  “People do weird things when they’re stressed out.”

  He eyed me up and aimed a fork my way, loaded with a thick strip of dripping red meat. “You know Kid, when you put your mind to it, you can be diplomatic. That’s a rare talent. The question now is, can you be pragmatic?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  He chewed, not bothering to keep his mouth shut. After he swallowed he said, “I mean it’s time for you to play ball. I’m setting a rematch with you and Badder. And this time it’s a fight you’re going to lose.”

  I could tell from his tone that this wasn’t a prediction but an explanation. Still, I said, “I beat him before and I’ll do it again.”

  “Actually no you didn’t. Beat him, I mean. The big man laid down on my orders, but only after I promised him he could get his championship back inside a week.”

  I felt a rush of heat on the back of my neck. This didn’t seem possible, but suddenly some tumblers fell into place. That look Badder shared with the kid he wishboned, the way he released me during our match, what he said as we left the bathroom at the funeral home, they all made sense now in a way they hadn’t before. “Why?” I asked. “How come?”

  Sunday put down his utensils, wiped his mouth again with that napkin and tossed it on his desk. “Three reasons: money, money, and money. We play this right, we can milk the rivalry between you two for a while. Don’t get all sanctimonious on me now, Kid. I’m not entirely sure what exactly you want out of life, but I’m betting money can get you a lot of it. Am I right?”

  I thought about the things money could get me, how at one point that meant college and then a better house for my mom, a better life. I still wanted those things, though they seemed further away than ever, beyond a distant horizon.

  “Money is why you got into this and money is what this means. Losing can be very profitable — this is an important life lesson.”

  When I said nothing back to him, Sunday went on. “I’ll double your payday. You ever make twenty thousand in a night before? That’s after Ray’s cut. I’ll even pay you half up front, sign of good faith and all. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know where you live.”

  I stood up, thinking of Khajee and bad karma. “No. I want no part of this. I’m out.” With that, I stomped toward the door.

  I hadn’t taken but a few steps when I heard Sunday rise behind me, the screech of his chair pushed back. “Out is an interesting term. And tell me, once we’re no longer friends, why would I not make an anonymous call to the police? What would prevent me from sending them a copy of the video of you beating poor Leonard in the boxcar?”

  I stopped and turned to see him coming around his desk. He approached me and set a hand on my shoulder. Sunday sucked on something stuck in his teeth, some bit of beef, and said, “Explain to me in clear terms why you think betraying me now wouldn’t come at a cost, that Grunt might not just beat some sense into you, or some horrible accident might not befall dear old Mom?”

  I swatted his arm away. “Don’t threaten my mother again.”

  “Tough words,” he said, motioning for Grunt to stand his ground by the door. “Maybe you could back them up. But all that sounds so unpleasant, retaliation and consequences. I’d rather talk about rewards and gifts. What if I could offer you, as an added incentive, something more than money?”

  His grin was sly. I asked, “What are you getting at?”

  “Not long ago in a certain trailer, I suggested the possibility of a reunion between you and your father. I’ve made those arrangements. Just waiting on a green light from you.”

  Sweat warmed my forehead. My fingers tightened into fists. I smelled mothballs and I heard my mom cry out. I thought about all the fantasies that had come to me in my private moments for nearly a decade, beating my father, taking the pain he’d given me and returning it to him tenfold over. Yet now that the chance was
here, it didn’t feel right. This seemed someone else’s revenge. I felt like I was on the edge of something, a cliff I should be backing away from.

  But Sunday was offering his hand to seal our arrangement, locking his eyes on mine. “Wolves and sheep, Kid. It’s time to pick.”

  I felt almost hypnotized, and I couldn’t find it in myself to refuse him. I saw my hand extend toward Sunday’s grip, pump it once, and I heard my voice say, “You got a deal.”

  It was a mistake to tell Khajee.

  The morning after her uncle’s funeral, she invited me to go for a jog, said she needed to clear her head. So with my bearded face shrouded by my hoodie, together we ran the Camp Hill route, over the bridge, me with one eye out for cops. We ran down through Seibert and along the forest path. Standing at the base of the rock wall, I bent with my hands on my knees and sucked in air.

  She said, “Let’s see if you’re finally worthy of the Tiger Claw secret.” It was the first time I’d heard a smile in her voice in days.

  “Let me catch my breath.”

  “No,” she snapped, shifting into a serious tone. “Now, when your body thinks you’re exhausted. You have to learn you have reserves you haven’t tapped.”

  I knew what she was trying to do, using her coaching voice, disappearing into that role, because she didn’t want to be a mourning niece. But me, I wasn’t ready to play along with that script. My head was in a different space. “Look,” I said as I straightened, “I’ve got something to say, and you’re not going to like it.”

  She listened without speaking, no expression as I told her about my arrangement with Sunday. Flatly, I explained about the fixed fight with Badder. As I went into my end of the bargain, the beatdown I was planning on administering to my father, her eyes — green no more but their true brown, deerlike — grew wide. This part felt like a confession, since I was still waffling between regret for accepting and anticipation of the chance to face him. When I finished talking, Khajee shook her head, took a few steps away from me, and said, “Revenge is all wrong. You aren’t the kind of person who would do this.”

  I thought about all the things that sportswriters had written about me. Out of control. Brute Boy. No good. “Maybe I am that kind of person. Maybe I’ve been that kind of person all along.”

  “Mac,” she said, facing me again. “The kind of person you are, that’s not just one thing set in stone. It’s not something you discover. It’s something you decide.”

  We walked toward each other, and there was a weird vibe in the air, like maybe we were two brawlers squaring off, about to start swinging. I could see her trying to mask her disappointment. Up close now, I said, “Well, this decision’s already been made.”

  She nodded and looked at the rock wall behind me. “Every decision has a consequence Mac. You’d do well to think that through. I’m going to jog home and try and get my head back in the game, get back to school. I need to restart my life, figure out a few things.”

  Khajee, always with a better plan than me. I could tell by the way she said what she did that she was imagining running home alone. “That sounds good,” I told her. “Go do your thing. I’m going to do what I have to do.”

  She winced. “Don’t do that, Mac. Don’t pretend you don’t have a choice when you do. I gotta go.” With that, she started trotting back up the path, and I watched her until she disappeared around a bend.

  I wandered the other way, following the trickling water down to the Conodoguinet. On the banks, I bent for a handful of slim rocks, and for a while I skipped stones just like I did when I was a boy, watching the circles radiate across the water and dissipate. A memory of me and my dad together having a good time floated through my mind, the two of us not far from this place, catching crayfish for fun. I needed two red Solo cups, but he just used his hands, snatching them from the water with a pinch. I let go of these images and everything inside me they brought up. And for a time, I tried to think of nothing.

  At first it felt a lot like what I’d heard at church, just being still and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit. But after a while, all I heard was the buzz of traffic on the bridge overheard. Seems I was equally unskilled at meditation and prayer, and all I was really doing was wasting time chucking rocks in the water.

  And so that night, in the same way Than’s consciousness had traveled on its way to its next form, I found myself taking a trip, but my destination was much more certain: the Fort Indiantown Gap Correctional Facility. I was seated in the front seat of Grunt’s van, and he had managed to drive the whole way from Camp Hill without uttering a sound. On edge and feeling a little crazy, I began playing a game with him. I’d say, “What’s six hundred and eight minus six hundred and eight?” and when he stayed silent, I’d say, “Right! Nothing!” For kicks, I also asked, “What’s Aquaman worth in a fight?” “What can you hear in space?” and “What’s the meaning of life?”

  I couldn’t get a rise out of him, so I retreated to my MP3 player. A little Aerosmith goes a long way.

  Finally we rolled into the parking lot where seven years earlier I’d refused to get out of my mom’s dilapidated Subaru. I saw the high cyclone fence my father had gripped with his fingers, staring my way. Then and now, curling barbed wire lined the top. Grunt drove us toward a guardhouse, and two towers cast spotlights roaming the yard. It was easy to imagine the men in those outposts, holding loaded rifles at the ready, trained to shoot on sight.

  The uniformed woman at the guardhouse seemed to have been expecting us, and as we idled up to her window she turned to a computer screen. The gate before us rolled clear of the road. While it slid out of our way, she pointed and said, “Deliveries are straight ahead, left at the T. You’ll see the incinerator and beneath it, a big red door. That’s you.”

  As we followed her instructions, I found myself trying to imagine my mom in this very place. About a year after his incarceration, not long after he got time added to his sentence for fighting, my father began writing her letters. She had joined a support group, stopped drinking, was volunteering at New Hope. Finally, accompanied by our parish priest, she agreed to visit. A half dozen trips later, she convinced me to go, said it would be good for all of us. “Forgiveness helps you as much as the person who wronged you, Eddie. There’s just no point in staying angry like this.” Once we arrived though, I looked at that barbed wire and remembered my father as he was on the night of the Civil War. I’m not sure what I told her about why I wouldn’t get out of the car, but the real truth is that I was scared, plain and simple.

  But I wasn’t scared tonight. Instead, I was resigned. I didn’t want to accept Sunday’s claim, that I was a wolf at heart, but I couldn’t reject this chance to face my father. So I’d decided before Grunt had picked me up to just smack him around, give him just a slim taste of his old medicine, and call it a night.

  Grunt parked by a stark brick building, one with a huge chimney climbing skyward. Even in the blackness of the night, I could see the white-gray smoke billowing from its top. I wondered what dynamo was inside that structure, buried but burning still.

  We left the van and headed for the red door, and when I pulled it back I was shocked to see Blalock standing there. “Good evening, Edward,” he said. “Always a pleasure.”

  Grunt and I followed him along a cramped hallway lined with overhead pipes and drooping wires. We turned right and then left, passed through a shadowed area where I guess the light bulb had died out. I had the odd impression that we were descending into the guts of some vast mechanical organism. At one point, we crossed over a rickety catwalk and down below us, in a huge open chamber, great furnaces roared. Conveyer belts fed material into open mouths alive with flame, and even from high above, I could feel the waves of heat on my cheeks, the palms of my hands. When I inhaled, the air singed my nostrils. There were a couple men down there on the floor — shirtless with hard hats — but I couldn’t understand how they survived. More than workers, they looked to me like sinners condemned to some unendura
ble penance.

  At the other end of the catwalk, we passed through one more hallway and then entered a large room. Inside were two gigantic metal eggs, each twenty feet around and ringed with dials and valves. They rumbled low and angry. I took these to be boilers and decided we were positioned over the fiery machines below.

  In the open space between the twin boilers, a group of men stood around a rough circle of fold-out chairs. I recognized Sunday, but not the other three. One wore a suit and tie, two were in prison guard uniforms.

  Blalock said, “You should be grateful. Mr. Sunday called in a lot of favors to arrange this. But he’s convinced it’s worth it, giving you this. It represents a significant allocation of resources.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, mostly to shut him up.

  As we neared Sunday, he broke from the others and extended a hand my way. I shook it, and he said, “Here’s the man himself, the star of our show.” I turned to see if the other men wanted to shake, but they kept their hands at their sides. One of the prison guards, a stocky guy, folded his bulging arms and stared at me hard.

  I scanned the room and said, “So where’s he at?”

  “Patience,” Sunday advised. “You’ll live longer and won’t seem so rude.”

  I couldn’t give a crap how I seemed, but I knew there was no point in saying this.

  Sunday slipped a hand over up behind my neck, a power display for the others. “A few rules before we begin. I promised you a chance to reckon with your father and I’m a man of my word. So no one here will intervene unless it’s clear you’re in over your head.”

  “Ain’t likely,” the thicker guard said. He’d been searching my face before, looking for a resemblance. I wonder what else he knew to make him say this.

  “Be that as it may,” Sunday continued, a little annoyed, “it’s important too that you not inflict any damage requiring medical attention. You can rough up your old man all you want. Bloody his face. Give him a good stomping. Anything the infirmary here can handle we can contain, even a few stitches. But if we need an ambulance, the situation gets more complicated. Understood?”