In the Cage

by Kevin Hardcastle

  Daniel slept late and Jung Woo finally came to get him at ten in the morning. The fighter ate a breakfast of fruit and egg whites. They weighed him at two hundred and fourteen pounds on a bathroom scale. He needed to weigh two hundred and six by four o’clock. He went down to the lobby to speak to the promoter and the press. Five reporters interviewed him. Many of the younger, would-be journalists didn’t know his story or they didn’t care. He shook hands with a few of the fighters and spoke to a journeyman from lower on the card who had fought nearly forty times though he was five years younger than Daniel. The man asked about Daniel’s eye and Daniel told him it was fine but not to bring it up again. The man said he wouldn’t. The journeyman had to cut sixteen pounds before his fight and Daniel shook his hand and wished him luck and then he went back up to his room to get ready.

  He gnawed ice cubes through a handtowel while he waited for the coaches to help him get the plastics on. Long-sleeved shirt and pants made of airtight vinyl, taped at the wrists and ankles, tight at the neck and tucked in at the waist. He wore the suit into the sauna and took turns shadowboxing and riding a stationary bike. The weight came off. Sweat pooled at his lower back and spilled down into his shoes. His throat dried until it hurt but he didn’t want to speak anyway. He suffered quiet for the better part of an hour and then he sat alone in the dim wood-lined room and suffered some more. When they came to get him he had the eyes of a wolf at the kill. They weighed him at two hundred and four pounds and he had half an hour to wait before they put him on the scales. He looked like he’d been carved out of wood.

  The man he fought was a young contender from Boston, beaten twice in the early part of his career. Undefeated since. He stood a half-foot taller than Daniel and he had stopped sixteen men in a row. Daniel felt weak in the legs when he left the changeroom to make his walk. Every step closer to the cage he got them back. Felt his heart banging and rubbed his knuckles hard through the gloves. He came up the steps and ran a lap around the matting. He wanted that bell to ring so bad it near hurt him to wait through the announcer calling out their names. When they met for the staredown the younger man showed him nothing. They were told to protect themselves at all times. They touched gloves. Daniel kept his eyes on the other fighter. The announcer left the cage with his microphone and the attendants closed the door and bolted it shut. The other man glanced away for just a moment. Daniel opened and closed his fists.

  When the bell rang Daniel took the centre of the mat quick and stung the taller fighter with an inside cut kick and an overhand right. The man buckled and recovered. He threw back. Daniel blocked the punches or ate them and walked the man back against the cage. The man tried to shoot for his legs but Daniel sprawled hard and stopped the takedown. He feinted and threw a long lead hook to the man’s eye. The man came back strong but in the exchange he got caught with an uppercut and knelt on the canvas. Trainers cried out from cageside for the younger man to clinch. He tried to hold Daniel as he stood but Daniel shucked loose and landed straight punches and hooks until the other man caromed off the cagefencing with his head in his hands. Daniel ripped a left hook to the taller man’s body and when the man lowered his hands Daniel caught him with a right elbow and another left hook to the cheek. The man fell. Daniel followed him to the mat to take mount and there he blasted the downed fighter. The man kept his elbows tight and tried to roll out but he couldn’t. Daniel’s arms were stained red from glove to triceps. Finally the hurt fighter bucked and turned over to his side. The referee called down to the men but he didn’t stop the fight. Then he did. He shoved Daniel clear with his shoulder and lay over the beaten fighter, one black-latexed hand waving back and forth.

  Daniel circled the cage with his hands on his hips. He stared over at what he’d done. Officials came in through the door, doctors, cutmen. A suit-jacketed man stopped Daniel and asked him how he felt, took a good look into his eyes, lifted Daniel’s hands and turned them over. He told Daniel it was a good fight and then he went on. The crowd were screaming and whistling. Daniel raised his hands and they saw it and got louder. He let his arms drop and went over to see the other fighter. His opponent’s face was in ruin but he smiled at Daniel from where he sat on a short-stool. The fighters shook hands and the bloodied man patted Daniel’s shoulder before the officials eased Daniel away so the doctors and cutmen could go back to work.

  Jung Woo and Jasper hung over the top of the cage and Daniel went over to them. They each clasped his right hand in turn and told him it was a good fight but they were otherwise very solemn. Jasper glared over at the referee who stood at the other side of the cage and spoke to the judges through the fencewire. The promoter had come into the cage and had words with the referee and the athletic commission officials. He looked over at Daniel’s corner just for a second. He turned away from the referee in mid-sentence and left the cage shaking his head.

  The fighters were called to the centre of the mat with the referee between them, one of their wrists in each hand. The beaten man had his nose pinned back against his right cheek and a forehead like a boiled potato, scarred and swollen. His left eye was entirely closed.

  “What the fuck, ref?” he said.

  The referee didn’t answer.

  The call came from the announcer. Disqualification from strikes to the back of the head. Daniel tore his wrist clear and walked away. He came back and there were officials in the ring between him and the referee. The other fighter had his hand raised but he pulled clear as well and came over to Daniel. Raucous boos shook the place. Someone threw a lidded cup of beer at the cage and it broke apart at the bottom of the fencing and sprayed the canvas.

  “It’s bullshit, man,” said the other fighter.

  They shook hands and half-hugged. Daniel left the cage. The referee was nowhere to be seen but Daniel had already stopped thinking about him. He walked up the aisle where fans slapped at his arms and shoulders and hailed him as the winner between curses and calls for riot. He went into the tunnel and made for the exit. Doctors and commission men tried to block him and make him take his post-fight medical. They told him he would never fight again if he didn’t stop. They said they’d take his entire purse. He held up long enough to take their measure. He wouldn’t go back. The promoter came over to him with a doctor in tow and had them examine him on the spot. He promised to pay Daniel the win bonus. Daniel let them cut his wraps and check his hands, his vision, his heartbeat. Minutes later he walked out through the exit doors and they swung hard against the outer wall of the arena. He beelined for the car, his bare feet turning black-heeled as they padded across cold tarmac.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Murray took the receiver from the cradle and listened. He called Ella into the kitchen and when she came he handed her the phone and went into the living room. He came back with his mobile and started dialing. Ella had a pen in her hand and Murray laid a pad of paper down on the counter and she started writing. Murray listened to ringtone for a very long time. Someone answered.

  “Sarah?” he said.

  “It’s me.”

  “Dan call you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s on the other line with Ella right now.”

  “Okay.”

  “Madelyn’s upstairs sleepin’. She won’t stir for awhile.”

  “I’ll be back at seven.”

  “We’ll be waitin’. Don’t you worry now.”

  Murray said goodbye and he sat down at the kitchen table. A half-full bottle of whiskey stood on the topboards. He had three fingers of the stuff in a glass beside it. He stood and took the glass to the sink and dumped it. He was about to set it down but instead he took a few steps back toward the table and turned and pitched the tumbler at the sinkbasin. The metals rang and glass flew. Ella spooked and dropped the phone on the floor. She cussed at Murray and he picked the phone up for her and handed it over. Then he went back to the table and corked the bottle, sat there staring at it.

/>   He hadn’t been there for ten seconds when Ella waved at him. He got up and took the phone from her.

  “Where the hell are yous all now?” Murray said.

  “Just outside Cornwall. I’ll be home in five an’ a half hours.”

  “What do I tell the girl if she wakes up?”

  “Tell her the truth,” Daniel said. “I lost.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There were two men barside. Blue halos of smoke rounded them. Tall cans of beer crowded the counter, overfilled shotglasses. They’d lately been watching the television mounted above the backbar. They cussed and argued. One man coughed hard and downed a mouthful. On his right hand he was missing a length of thumb from third-knuckle to fingernail. The bartender came over to take their empties. She knew them both by name. They shot their whiskies and ordered another round. Then they argued some more.

  Tarbell sidled up to the bar and sat on a stool near the men. There were two commentators talking at each other on the TV and they looked to be setting up for the next fight. Tarbell called for a drink before the woman had even seen him. She turned and stared at him like he he’d kicked her cat. He stared back, still dapper in his shirt and jacket beside men in steel-toed boots and workshirts. Rank scent of sweat in their backcloth. The drink came to him slow. The local men returned to their conversation. The nearest one wore heavy fireproof coveralls and he filled the all of them, scratched at the hair under his ballcap as he swore at the man with the cropped thumb. The girl behind the bar eyeballed Tarbell. He drank in short sips and many. He heard something and turned on his stool.

  “What did you just say?” he asked.

  The men at the bar mumbled to a halt. Cigarettes ghosting trails of smoke from between their fingers. The man in coveralls glanced back and then angled away slightly. Tarbell whistled to them loud. Cropped-Thumb clasped his hands on the bar counter and shifted.

  “What?” he said.

  “You watched the fights?”

  Cropped-Thumb said they did. That Tarbell had missed the most of them, including Daniel’s scrap.

  “Who won?” Tarbell said.

  The workman raised his tallboy and chugged. He set it down and burped against a closed fist, plainly showed the club-digit.

  “The local guy lost. DQ’d. Load of bullshit if you ask me…”

  Tarbell downed his drink as he stood. He took a ten from his billfold and laid it on the bar. The local men were talking at him about the fight. Tarbell raised his palm to quiet them.

  “Nobody cares, shut up,” he said, and shoved the bill toward the bartender.

  Coveralls sat up straight, took his dirty cap from his head.

  “You’re a real ignorant piece of shit. You know that?”

  Tarbell stepped clear of his stool and walked to the door. He shoved out with his shoulder and paused long enough to look back at the workmen. The door shut behind him and wind whistled in the crooked jamb.

  Partway across the lot he heard the door come open again and footsteps on the asphalt. He took a sharp turn to his right, toward a shuttered roadside filling station with one lonely bulb casting small light to the near ground.

  They started calling out to him. Tarbell loped low and reached into his boot and then he turned. Both were far bigger than he. The man with the half-thumb led. Tarbell lunged and the workman blocked with his forearm and then backed up holding the arm. Arterial red pumped over his fingers. Tarbell came again and by the look in Cropped-Thumb’s eyes the man knew the cost. The blonde held a two-inch bootknife between his first two knuckles and he snaked a punch over his foe’s rising guard and put the triangular blade into the man’s neck. He pulled the man close. His left hand braced the man’s sweaty head as he stuck him again through the Adam’s apple.

  The bigger man in coveralls had come to help. He pulled Tarbell clear by the back of his jacket and the knife came out and painted a maroon line in the pavement. The man with the half-thumb sunk and keeled. When Coveralls saw all of the blood coming out of his friend he loosed his grip and stumbled back. Tarbell wheeled and swept the blade through the bridge of the stunned man’s nose. Coveralls screamed tonguelessly and then he started running. He ran faster than he should have been able with his steel-toed boots and husky build, blood in his mouth. Only steps from the bar Tarbell caught him and stabbed him in the liver-side, hobbled him by dragging the knife through his hamstring. Tarbell hooked his arm around the wounded man’s neck and pulled him gimpedly into the blackness behind the bar. There he opened the workman’s throat and bled him white. He laid the man in a cut of wildgrass not ten feet from the rear of the building. The man gaped at starless sky and his eyes dimmed. Tarbell waited on his haunches until he saw the last plume of fog depart the workman’s lips. Then he walked out of the brush and went across the half-lit lot with his shirt and suit jacket balled up in the crook of his elbow.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The black Cadillac rolled up the grade and waited in front of the building. Sarah got up from the desk and looked at it through the office window. Shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then she came around to the security doors. She turned her key in the lock and went out, pocketed the keychain in her scrub apron. Clayton got out of the car on the passenger side and came around to meet her. She could see Wallace King behind the wheel. She waved to him and he waved back.

  “Let’s sit,” Clayton said.

  “Okay,” Sarah said.

  They walked over to a wooden retaining wall and there they sat on the topbeam. The timber was damp and cold under their asses. Patches of newly-laid sod behind them. Clayton pulled a joint from his shirt pocket and offered it to her.

  “I’m at work right now,” she said.

  “I won’t tell,” he said.

  Clayton lit the joint. He dragged deep and blew smoke.

  “You won’t hurt him, Clayton. Don’t you dare.”

  “Who said I would?”

  “There’s a lot of stuff I know about you all and a lot more I could guess at that’ll turn out to be true if the cops dig at it.”

  “Careful,” he said. “That’s a bad way to talk.”

  “What d’you think you could threaten me with if you already went after him?”

  “There’s still your daughter to worry about.”

  She turned slow. Stared a hole through him.

  “I guess I could just kill you,” she said.

  Clayton took hold of her hand. She made a fist but let him have it.

  “I don’t plan to hurt him,” Clayton said. “He isn’t just anybody.”

  “What about the money?”

  Clayton let go of her and put his palms on his knees. He studied the bordering pines.

  “He’ll have his purse to hand over. And I heard they paid him his win bonus anyway. That’ll get us more than halfway.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I might have some work for him.”

  Sarah cleared her throat. She hung her head and put both hands over her face. Then she dropped them and sat up straight. She seemed like to puke but she’d not give in.

  “He’ll come home to you in one piece,” Clayton said. “Both now and later. I won’t work him like before. He’s got some fights left. Probably I’ll oversee them.”

  Sarah pinched the joint from his fingers. She took a drag and looked into his eyes. Clayton looked away first.

  “You’re gonna be his manager?” she said.

  “Of sorts. People know what he did in these last fights. To real fighters. Bullshit calls be damned. There’s money to be made before he truly does get old one night.”

  Sarah stubbed the joint out in the turf behind her. Flicked it into a nearby trashcan. She leaned back on her palms, saw the sky above.

  “You are not doing any of that. I’ll tell you right now,” Sarah said. “But you will make sure all your fu
cking buddies know that Daniel is to be left alone.”

  She stood up. Clayton stood with her.

  “I looked out for him before,” he said. “Many times.”

  “There’s just no way we all live through this if you don’t leave him be.”

  Clayton raised a hand to Wallace. The car engine fired.

  “We can talk about it later,” he said. “But your man’s safe. I’ve no intention of harming him, neither will anybody else.”

  “Promise me,” she said and held her hand out.

  Clayton looked her in the eyes and they shook on it. Then Sarah turned and walked the pavestone pathway to the security doors. She went inside without another word. Clayton climbed back into the car. The Cadillac circled the empty north end of the lot and came back past the office. She wasn’t there.

  Wallace drove through desolate town avenues. He took most street signs and stoplights as suggestions. They pulled up to a stop sign by the police station and Clayton scoped the building. Wallace wound his window down and spat. They drove on.

  “How long until we meet my nephew?” Clayton said.

  “About five hours.”

  Clayton looked to the clock in the dash.

  “That’s awhile yet,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “You couldn’t get him on the cell.”

  “That fuckin’ lunatic ain’t answerin’,” Wallace said. “Could be he pitched it. Could be he’s sleeping.”

  “You think?”

  Wallace frowned.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he don’t sleep at all,” he said.

  “He’ll show on time,” Clayton said. “Once he’s done what he was told to up north.”

  “Okay.”

  They neared Clayton’s bar just before daybreak. Wallace parked and shut the engine off.

  “I’m going in the back to try and sleep awhile,” Clayton said. “You keep trying to turn him up. Then get some sleep yourself.”