Punching Paradise (Fight Card)

by Jack Tunney

  FIGHT CARD NOW:

  PUNCHING PARADISE

  ANOTHER TWO-FISTED

  FIGHT CARD STORY

  JACK TUNNEY

  FIGHT CARD NOW: PUNCHING PARADISE

  e-Book Edition – First Published November 2013

  Copyright © 2013 Nik Korpon

  Cover by David Foster

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organizations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher.

  Fight Card, Fight Card Now, Fight Card MMA, Fight Card Romance, Fight Card Luchadores, Fight Card Sherlock Holmes, and the Fight Card logo © 2010 Paul Bishop and Mel Odom

  Without the following people,

  I’d be nothing but a pile of meat on the canvas ...

  Paul Bishop and Mel Odom,

  Pound-for-pound, the best fight trainers out there.

  Eric Beetner, thank you for the introductions.

  Terrence McCauley, the Don King of Twitter.

  Brian Lindenmuth and Gabino Iglesias,

  my two favorite cutmen.

  Amanda and Donovan,

  the whole reason I fight.

  ROUND ONE

  BALTIMORE, 2012

  As Neckbone sets his gym bag beside the row of empty kegs and plops on a bucket of drained grease, he can hear the smack of men beating each other to near death in the larger room next door. The basement air tastes of moldy sawdust and fermented beer. The crowd’s pretty small tonight, so The Garnet Hearts, the rockabilly band playing in the Paradise City bar upstairs, won’t have to turn up the amps too much to mask the sound of men beating one another into bloody knots.

  Neckbone pulls out a roll of athletic tape and flexes his fingers, then starts wrapping a sponge into his grip. Gus said the man he’s fighting is a gambler or something. He also said he’s a royal prick, but as honest a prick as you can expect here, so Neckbone leaves the roll of coins in his bag tonight. He hopes the man remembers it’s lights out in the fourth, so he won’t regret not bringing out the quarters.

  The door swings open, pushed by a thick-bodied black man with Dirt Road tattooed across ragged knuckles. There was the look of a survivor about him. He’d been beat up in life, but the beatings he handed back had been far worse.

  “Evening, beautiful.” The big man nods and smiles.

  Neckbone nods back. “Hey, Rollo.” Then he slaps tape tight around his left wrist, tearing the end with his teeth. He holds the taped fist up to Rollo, who smacks it five times with his palm. The bright white of Rollo’s teeth flash against his chocolate skin.

  “How’s Ally’s thing going,” Rollo asks.

  “You fixing to come watch?”

  “I get enough theatrics here.”

  “She’s in her element, I think.”

  When Allison turned legal two years ago, some of the boys had thrown in together and bought eight cases of Beast for her birthday. Seven-and-a-half cases still sat on the back stoop of their apartment, the cardboard puckered and flaking from weather.

  Neckbone points at his ear, indicating the chunk missing from Rollo’s. “If you’re shaving your ears, might want to hit up your neck, too. I can’t tell where your pubes stop and face starts.”

  “Does the joke circuit get real quiet when you’re fighting?”

  Neckbone starts taping his other wrist as Rollo hangs his bag on the handle of the keg refrigerator.

  “Sorry,” Neckbone says. “I’ve got some stuff going on. Can I bend your ear a minute?”

  “Are you funny on purpose or does it just happen naturally?” Rollo snatches the tape from Neckbone.

  “I’m not done with that.” He grabs for it, but the big man’s hand slaps Neck’s ear before he can react.

  “Told you you’re dropping your left.”

  The door pops open again. A squat man with the ridged forehead of a pug who used his face as a speed bag ducks inside for a second and tugs on Neckbone’s arm. “He’s wobbling a fierce one. Get to your getting.”

  “Relax, Gus. I’m coming.” Neckbone just holds his palm out. Rollo drops the tape in it.

  He wraps the tape quickly, the layers doubling up instead of edging past the underlying one like they should. The padding is lumpy across his knuckles, but he doesn’t have time to care.

  Rollo strips off his shirt. In the dim lighting, the sharpened chicken bone scars on his chest have faded from purple to some shade resembling skin, but the fire-breathing dragon attacking a prison watchtower tattooed from armpit to armpit is impossible to conceal, or cut away.

  His knuckles fared better, but then they weren’t done with a modified Walkman by a lieutenant in the Black Guerilla Family. BGF would’ve gotten their mitts on Neck’s hands too, brought him into their fold whether he’d wanted it or not, if it wasn’t for Rollo protecting him.

  First time they met, three Aryans had just claimed rights to Neckbone in the cafeteria. Rollo, recognizing Neck from around the neighborhood, held a tray before the leader’s face and punched it, flattening the man’s features. He broke the second’s jaw with a well-placed overhead shot and, though the third one backed off, shattered his nose to send a message. Rollo then sat down and ate all three of the injured men’s meals.

  Rollo’s old lady had been an artist, and he could imagine her in the cell with them when Neck described paintings to him. As thanks for getting her man through some long nights, she painted the picture now hanging over Neck and Ally’s bed.

  Rollo hung the Neckbone moniker on him, thinking Christopher wasn’t the name of a man who made it through a stretch unscathed, however short the stretch was.

  “So, how did you get all van Goghed?” Neck says.

  “You know the deal. Beigler says the money’s due Tuesday morning, I get there Tuesday night, Otis takes exception on his behalf.”

  Neckbone folds his shirt over the edge of an empty box. “Otis took part of your ear because you were a couple hours late paying?”

  “In my defense, I’d just worked a double and fell asleep.”

  “Hell of a late fee.”

  “Could be worse. Could’ve given me your face.”

  “Maybe there is a god,” Neck says. “So, that’s why you’re fighting for Stokes?”

  “I thought some breathing room might ease the tension for a little bit. The bills don’t care much about tension.”

  “Good theory.” Neckbone takes a few tentative shots at his shadow-head, swinging his arms in circles and feeling his shoulders slowly loosen. “But you better hope Beigler doesn’t hear. He’ll shatter your knees with a ball-peen if the finds you cheating on him.”

  “What, you going to tell him?”

  Neck swings, pulls his fist an inch before Rollo’s jaw. Rollo smirks, blows a puff of air on his knuckles and unpacks his bag.

  “I work for Dewey Hutchins,” Neck says. “Not Paul Beigler.”

  “Dewey works for Beigler, so you work for Beigler. Hell,” Rollo snorts. “Stokes should be the one who’s worried, sidling into Beigler’s fight territory. Imagine Beigler be mighty displeased if he found out.”

  “Make hay while there’s sun, right?” Neckbone relaxes his eyes, staring into the blank space behind the cinder block wall shedding paint, imagining his opponent’s ribs, watching them open as he rears back with a hook, watching his left hand drop before he throws a right cross. Imagining everyone who’s talked ba
d about Allison, any small way he lapsed in protecting her, Neckbone uncorks a flurry of hooks to the imaginary man’s ribs, denting his body like a soda can lying in the gutter.

  He hears his name and blinks a few times, coming out of his reverie.

  “They’re calling for you.”

  Neckbone takes a deep breath, spins on his heels and heads out.

  “Hey,” Rollo calls. Neckbone pauses. “If you need anything I’m ear for you.”

  Neck says, “Love you, too,” then leaves. As he weaves through the bodies swollen with 50-cent Natty Bohs, all he can think is he hopes his man knows which round is the fourth.

  Red Fabian, the man tapped as referee for the night, stands above a lump of meat sprawled over the floor, holding up Dwaine’s arm as the victor. Long slashes of blood striate the concrete around them. Neckbone squints and he’s pretty sure the shiny little dot on the floor is a canine tooth.

  Two lugs in flannel hunker down and sling the prone man’s arms over their shoulders, drag him out of the room. Dwaine gives Neckbone a gapped and bloody smile. Neck is surprised Dwaine can even see through all the swelling.

  “Role will bleed your eye for you. There’s a razor in my bag if you don’t have one,” Neck tells the other fighter.

  Dwaine claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll wash it off.”

  “Just keep it.”

  Neck steps into the square of concrete masquerading as a ring. Four spray-painted streaks show the crowd – who double as the ropes – how close they can get. Posts keeping the ceiling aloft act as corners.

  Though it’s a step up from sparring with his demolition buddies on lunch break – and a far cry from breaking faces in the alley for ten bucks a pop – it isn’t quite where Neck envisioned he’d be when he walked into Clancy’s Gym eleven years ago, the summer after his senior year in college.

  As much as Neck doesn’t enjoy the charity from Bill Stokes, the envelopes from the little pissant promoter help supplement his legitimate check, giving Allison’s thespian dreams some buoyancy. But still ...

  Red, skinny mean, leans against a post, cigarette drooping in his mouth. With something approximating boredom, he eyes the fighters warming their muscles as Gus scatters sawdust to soak up the blood. Red nudges a friend in the ribs and laughs, then takes a long belt from a plastic bottle.

  Neck eyes up the other fighter. He’s almost tall enough to duck when walking beneath low ceilings, but thick ropes of muscle twist and stretch when he swings his arms, making his lanky frame more feral than comic. However, he doesn’t even look like he has calluses, much less the gnarled forehead earned from time in a ring. He strings together a jab-cross-hook combo, not even throwing a glance toward Neck.

  “You said he’s a roofer?” he says to Gus.

  “Think so.” Gus’ belly, covered by a dirty gray t-shirt, precedes him wherever he goes.

  “He looks like a window-licker.”

  “Definitely so.”

  Red strolls into the center of the ring, yelling to the crowd to shut their traps if they want to see any action.

  “Y’all know the rules,” he says, more to the drunks than the fighters. “So you got two minutes till the books close.”

  The other fighter swings his arms in circles and throws his head back and forth, then comes close to Neckbone. “I know you?”

  Neckbone squats a few times. “Sure.”

  “All right,” Red says to them. “If you got something on the side, that’s on you, but at least give these people something to talk about first. Otherwise, good luck.” He checks the inside of their fists for sharp objects then backs away as the fighters raise their hands, waiting for the say-so.

  “You live on Conkling?” Neck asks, dropping his guard.

  “Yeah, I’m Jeff Bailer.” The other fighter extends a taped hand and smirks. “I remember Ally riding bikes down the street with my oldest.”

  Neck suddenly lashes out with a right and catches Jeff just beneath his eye. The crowd explodes with shouts.

  Neck closes the space between them, throwing a cross then a hook aimed at Jeff’s ear. Jeff slips it and sidesteps, moving to the left while sending out a few exploratory jabs.

  The last one skips off Neckbone’s forearm, and when he sees Jeff lean forward off-balance, he sets his feet and pivots from the hip, aiming at a point three inches behind Jeff’s forehead. The impact of knuckle on skull shivers up his forearm. Jeff stumbles back and Neck advances, throwing two more rights before the other man finds the concrete.

  “Say one more thing about her and I’ll hit you till you see black.”

  Jeff blinks a few times and tries to spit out the blood, but it just dribbles down his cheek. He waits for Neckbone to step back before standing up, then uncorks a jab-cross-cross that vibrates in Neckbone’s stomach.

  The ring collapses a few feet as the drunks shove forward. Neck flicks his head to the side, clears the dots floating in the before him and attacks. Jab, cross, jab, jab, hook. Jeff’s eyelid busts open, adorning his face with blood curtains. Neckbone’s lip splits, each cross now sending a new arc of blood at Jeff.

  Cross, cross, uppercut, uppercut.

  Cheeks swell and ears ring.

  Blood mixes with sweat, covering their bodies in war-paint.

  After an eon of pain, Red shoves his way between the two, catching knuckles on his temple. “I called time twenty seconds ago!”

  He pushes them back to their corners.

  Gus tries to massage Neck’s shoulders with slaps. “The hell you doing, kid? You’re going to punch yourself out, you don’t pace yourself.”

  Neck spits a glob on the floor. “Just give me some water.”

  Gus hands him a plastic cup and a stained towel – there’s no adrenaline 1:1000 or Avitene here. Just sawdust and water, maybe Vaseline if the cutman’s good. “Never make it to the fourth, is all I’m saying.”

  Neck glares “What? Everyone know about the set-up?”

  “Only them who need.”

  Red calls for them and Gus points at the ring.

  Neckbone makes his way in measured steps, taking labored breaths through nostrils, which are quickly closing. He hasn’t seen his face but if Jeff’s is anything to judge by, he must be as pretty as a pile of road kill. Neck raises his hands.

  Red says go.

  The two circle each other, trading more head dekes than solid hits for a good minute. The crowd throws their cups and cans in place of punches.

  Neck edges close enough to let Jeff get in a few good shots, but slips them with a glance or quick forearm. After another minute of hanging back and pulling half-shots, Jeff manages to get in close and land a thick hook to the ribs. He grapples with Neckbone and holds him tight.

  “What are you doing?” Neck asks. “Save this crap until the fourth.” Neck pushes away and lodges knuckles just below Jeff’s solar plexus. The wheeze is audible.

  “What’s happening in the fourth?” Jeff gasps, pushes back and takes an off-balance pot-shot.

  “They said you were okay.” Neck says then plants his lead and drops a cross on Jeff’s cheek.

  Jeff stumbles back, stunned for a second. He raises his hands, but skips around Neckbone slowly, his head cocked like he’s deep in thought. Another twenty seconds. “You kidding me?”

  Neckbone slaps a hand against him. The crowd showers them with boos.

  “Hey!” Jeff drops his hands all together. “You’re an even worse an actor than your teenage girlfriend.”

  Neckbone stops stock-still, then charges with an overhand haymaker. Jeff’s hands aren’t fast enough and he catches it right on the jaw, spinning him around into another wild overhand. He falls to a knee and Neckbone cocks back like he’s splitting wood, but Red wraps his arms around Neck’s waist and whirls him aside.

  “Can’t you two hear nothing?” He pushes Neck at Gus.

  Gus is nothing if not pissed. He doesn’t even offer water or the towel. “Calm yourself down.”

  Neck starts to spin t
oward Jeff, but when he sees FatFace, Bill Stokes’ monolithic lackey, standing beside the steps leading to Stokes’ upstairs office, he catches himself.

  “He’s not in on it,” Neck tells Gus. “Stokes didn’t tell him anything.”

  “We both know the score, and we both need the money.” Gus lays his hands on Neck’s shoulders, looks up at him. “Don’t matter if he knows. Just put him down when he’s supposed to go down.”

  Breath courses from Neckbone’s mouth, his nose almost closed. He can’t stare at anything but Gus’s cauliflowered ear. In his head, he can see Allison reading scripts while pacing across their living room, folding the blanket over their couch, coming panda-eyed through the door after another bombed audition, making omelets in one of his old training shirts.

  “Yeah.” He takes a deep breath through his mouth. “Yeah, I got this.”

  Gus slaps his cheek. “You’re a good kid, Christopher. So be one.”

  Neckbone looks over his shoulder at FatFace, posted up with his arms crossed.

  Red’s voice rings out behind him. “Come on, now.”

  Just one more round.

  He lets his arms hang loose at his side while approaching Jeff, saying without saying, we’re all friends here.

  Jeff smiles and shows the blood on his teeth. “You can’t win straight, just like your –”

  Jeff’s tooth is cutting through his skin before he realizes Neck has swung. Two, three, four in the mouth. Jeff’s tooth sticks in Neck’s wraps, his cheek splits in two spots, his lips halving in a great gush. Jeff’s right flails out and catches Neck just below the eye, enough to rock his head back, but Neck’s arms still swing.

  Jeff doesn’t fall until Neck’s muscles begin to hurt, but even then only goes to a knee. Neckbone takes two steps and unleashes a hook straight into Jeff’s ear. The sound it makes spreads through Neckbone like a rock in a still pond.

  His arm is back, but Gus and Red are on him and he’s tumbling to the ground. He blinks and sees the rafters of a moldy bar in Highlandtown. He tastes blood, feels a vicious throbbing in his wrist. He glances over and sees the side of Jeff’s head shining red. His arms are punched numb.