The Fighting O'Keegans

by Aaron Kennedy

  Flannery stepped forward and out of the circle, the bell rang, the moment that no one truly believed would really arrive, had finally arrived.

  O’Keegan lowered his centre of gravity, bringing his legs slightly apart and bent at the knees. Raising his arms in a traditional boxers pose, he stood ready waiting for Meehan to make the first move. Like a caffeine charged teenager, Meehan was all motion. Stepping in like a whiplash, he slapped O’Keegan hard across the face, a pride prodding taunt to show the crowd his lack of respect for O’Keegan.

  Meehan looked over his shoulder and winked at the crowd, some gave a sputtering chuckle but still a little afraid as if they were all taunting a caged animal and unsure that the bars would hold up. A split second later Meehan had snapped in again, repeating his slap and pulling his palm backwards he followed it through with a back handed swipe.

  O’Keegan stayed his hand, briefly touching his now split lip with his right knuckles and peering down at the smear of blood. On the side, Flannery watched every movement, wondering what the hell O’Keegan was playing at. He’d been on the other end of O’Keegan’s threshing punches and knew that O’Keegan was not even making an effort to look engaged. He didn’t understand this at all.

  The crowd began to summon more courage, sensing that not only was the beast caged but perhaps it wasn’t a beast at all. The taunting began, a slow bubbling up of insults masked by encouragement, a few careful prods with the stick to see if he had claws,

  ‘Come on O’Keegan. What are you waiting for?’

  ‘O’Keegan, hurry up old man, I could do better than this.’

  ‘Go home, you don’t deserve to be in there’

  ‘Bring the Priest back, at least he knew how to throw a punch’.

  The voices combined and grew as O’Keegan made no effort to respond to Meehan’s slaps. Meehan, sensing that it was about to become just a joke, with him at its centre, stepped forward for a third time and threw a right hand in a horizontal haymaker. His bunched knuckles connected just below O’Keegan’s left cheekbone and sent an instant shock through O’Keegan’s body to the soul’s of his boots. The crowd sucked in its joint breath convinced that this would be the blow that would release the flurry of fist, elbows and arms. None came.

  The boos began, a few clustered around the first like measles finding a home. Meehan actually began to get nervous, this was not turning out to be the pantomime he had supposed. He at least expected O’Keegan to make a good show for his own prides sake. But O’Keegan was making no moves at all. He stood, like a dog waiting for an invisible whistle from his owner.

  Meehan threw a few more punches, trying to summon up enough strength to end it before the crowd became too disgruntled. Flannery looked back to see Meehan’s punches connecting, the first on O’Keegan’s chin, the next on his nose. The blood began to flow, painting O’Keegan face in scarlet. As he looked over, O’Keegan’s eyes connected with his own and for a short lived moment Flannery knew that O’Keegan was just reeling them all in.

  Just as Meehan needed this victory to solidify his position, O’Keegan needed it too and for the same reasons. O’Keegan raised both palms up to Meehan, as if to ask for a brief respite while he caught his breath. Meehan stepped back and played once again to the crowd,

  ‘Seems like they don’t make them like they used to in the old country. Glad I’m from Boston.’ The Boston crowd laughed and cheered, agreeing, sure now that O’Keegan was one lame duck, a duck that was about to be plucked, basted and eaten by one of their own.

  O’Keegan waited, his eyes darting to the crowd, looking at each of the faces. Settling on Flannery’s, he saw what he needed too. Standing beside his second in command, Flannery’s arm around his weather beaten shoulders was the face he was waiting to see. His Father looked back at O’Keegan, his old tired eyes drilling into him. With an inner smile O’Keegan winked, his Father’s lips moved, with clarity O’Keegan understood every silently mumbled word, ‘Standing boy…that’s all that’s important, get on with it…’

  O’Keegan turned back to Meehan, beckoning him over with his index finger pulling it in and releasing a few times waiting for Meehan to make up his mind. Meehan grinned back at the crowd, and met with a cheer, leaning in towards O’Keegan, he expected some long awaited counter attack. None came.

  O’Keegan continued to call Meehan forward with his finger, asking him to come closer still. Meehan edge closer, again waiting for the counter attack. It didn’t come. Meehan stepped all the way in, sure now that O’Keegan had finished before he’d. Meehan looked down at O’Keegan’s face which had begun to look like a trainee dentists experiment, his lips swollen to thin rigid sausages.

  ‘I’ve taken your best and it’s not good enough Meehan, you’re mine Meehan and want you to know for the Priest and that Shop keeper your boys finished off that you’re about to lose everything you’ve worked for …how does it feel Meehan?’

  Meehan stepped back, the grin wiped from his face. O’Keegan’s finger pulled him forward once again, a last point to be made.

  ‘Meehan, look over there…that’s my Pa…’ Meehan’s head flicked around, taking in the old man standing beside Flannery before returning his eyes to O’Keegan.

  ‘…and my Daughter?’

  ‘Oh…your daughter? We never had your daughter. Did I ever say we did? We just borrowed her favourite bear. She should be tucked up at home. But I thank you for letting my Father loose…and Flannery? I know about your proposition, he would never turn against me. It’s all about standing Meehan…that’s all it’s ever been about’. O’Keegan grinned then looked over to the worried face of the teenage book maker, giving him a quick wink, O’Keegan put an end to his waiting with an uppercut that travelled up from the very floor.

  His balled fist travelled towards the roof connecting with Meehan chin and continuing until Meehan’s head had whip lashed almost snapping his neck in its journey backwards at such speed. As Meehan’s head went back on its journey, O’Keegan swung his right foot around from its rear position, connecting with Meehan’s opened midriff. Meehan’s momentum went into reverse as the uppercut’s motion was countered by the force of the boot kick.

  Falling to his knees, his head now close to the ground Meehan retched from his stomach blow, his arm tight around his pulped middle.

  O’Keegan stood above him, waiting and welcoming Meehan retaliation. Summoning up his strength, Meehan looked up at O’Keegan through watering eyes, his body numb from the two blows, his mind still numb from the Irish treachery, from taking his daughter.

  Pushing himself up from the ground at 45 degrees he ran-jumped at O’Keegan, head making straight for O’Keegan’s stomach as his arms reached out to clasp around O’Keegan’s waist striking his midriff with the force of a sledgehammer.

  Meehan’s legs continued to pump as he ran forward lifting the smaller O’Keegan off the ground. O’Keegan let himself be taken backwards, struggling to keep his balance while Meehan pushed him resolutely backwards, clasping his fists together O’Keegan brought them down solidly on Meehan’s spine, once, twice, three times in rapid succession, knuckles turned inwards to cause as much pain as possible.

  Meehan’s mind ignored it all, fighting for his life, for everything he had ever worked for and taken, quickly changing direction Meehan rolled backwards while maintaining his hold on O’Keegan’s body. As he rolled, Meehan brought his knee up, striking O’Keegan’s groin with a solid smack before continuing backwards, taking O’Keegan with him.

  O’Keegan flew over Meehan to land knees and hands first like a crawling baby, shaking his head like the painful fog had all but overwhelmed him. Meehan was up and spinning almost before O’Keegan landed, sending his fist into the back of O’Keegan’s head following up with a knee to O’Keegan’s exposed kidney.

  O’Keegan collapsed on his side grasping Meehan’s ankle as he went over. With a yank, he pulled, Meehan’s heels skidding along an inch or two before Meehan came down to join him seated on the floor. On his k
nees now, O’Keegan swung a left balled knuckled fist followed by his right partner, Meehan’s head turned first one way then the other. Meehan’s head pivoted on the spinal axis from the blows, the blood sprayed half circles from Meehan’s mouth, scattering thick red shiny droplets along the front row of the circle of spectators.

  The noise from the crowd intensified as they were pulled into the death match, the front watchers dabbing the speckles of blood from their clothes and faces with whatever was close, handkerchiefs and sleeves utilised to brush aside the physical evidence of the fighter’s pain. Each person blended further into the whole as they whooped and foot stamped chanted as they saw that this wasn’t a bout to determine winner and loser, this was a fight for survival, no doubts from anyone in the room that this was the real thing, perhaps too real.

  No respite for pain or breath, Meehan shook off the bone fracturing blows O’Keegan delivered, leaned forward to thrust his palm into O’Keegan’s throat with as much dazed force as he could pull together, the noise of the slightly disorientated blow still a succinct slap. O’Keegan rocked backwards, both hands grasping at his neck as he struggled to maintain the airflow to his already painful lungs, his eyes registering surprise at the intensity of the pain, as his eyes teared and clouded. Meehan took advantage of the lack of assault and stood, pumping fist upon fist into O’Keegan’s face, red fissures and cracks appearing across his facial landscape as they sliced through cheek flesh and forehead.

  The crowd sucked in its collective breath as they saw little way of return for O’Keegan taking blow after blow, rendering his face a criss-cross of interlinked cuts and bloody rivers. O’Keegan’s will fought against the damage, remembering at a molecular level his Father’s constant insistence that the only fight the O’Keegan’s would ever lose would be with death himself. He had always found that thought overly dramatic but that was his Father, no explanations or apologies. The idea amused O’Keegan as his brain and will did what they had often done before, disconnecting from the physical abuse, after all, this beating was just a repeat of a past repeats going back blow upon blow upon blow since before O’Keegan’s ability to think back further. As O’Keegan took the punishment, it occurred to him that perhaps this was life after all, maybe life was just a string of stepping stones, each stone one more fight, a balled up collection of pain strung together stone after stone, nothing much else as real or as important. O’Keegan smiled as he found the place within himself that he had managed to touch on rare times before, the place where he could look dispassionately almost clinically at the physical harm his body was experiencing, O’Keegan’s mind gaining full control of every bodily fibre, knowing he could turn the pain on and off at will. As he took full control, he looked up at the still pummelling Meehan, welcoming the pain, sucking it in like the cold breath of a new early morning, knowing this round would be his even as Meehan’s fists landed.

  Meehan looked down at O’Keegan who was placid under his barrage, falsely thinking that all sense had been beaten from him as O’Keegan’s blood poured. Summoning his last ounce of strength, Meehan drew back his arm for the coup de grace. He hesitated as he saw the smile fleeting across O’Keegan’s face seemingly staring off into nowhere, Meehan’s brain starting to add it all together, working it all through. Meehan’s senses worked it out first, the warning signals flashing in increasing intensity but the brain was still too many steps behind.

  More and more unsettled, Meehan glanced around, searching for whatever it was that O’Keegan was focused on, seeing nothing. O’Keegan instincts and DNA saw the gap before his mind did and without thought sent a balled fist slamming into Meehan’s solar plexus. Meehan tried in vain to grab another chest of air, dark sparks of Roman candle unconsciousness cascaded down his vision, his eyes beginning to flick right and left at speed repeatedly his brain working in an effort to stave off blackness and suck in more air. O’Keegan was now up and pounding, his fists a blur as he trammelled into the giddy Meehan. The crowd watched as O’Keegan smashed Meehan repeatedly, with Shorty’s words repeating in his ears, ‘Make him pay, for the Priest’. His surgical ferociousness intensified as Meehan collapsed in on himself. O’Keegan kept on and on, strategically dissecting, punching and kicking, tapping into the professional anger that had stayed dormant in the hard core of his being, layer upon layer of insults and disappointments that had accumulated over the years like a putrid pearl. It was his engine, his force, the acid that didn’t let him lay down and give up when life crashed over him, his Father’s slaps and beatings, the whispers and sniggers of children past, the stern reprimands and pain inflicted by over disciplining Priests. Right here, right now, O’Keegan almost puked out the anger and bile of a lifetime, a life that had given him nothing, had left him with nothing but the ability to do just what he was doing now, fighting, winning and killing, dismembering his opponent, piece by piece, releasing every valve so Meehan could be drained, drop by bloody drop. Meehan was slowly torn apart, a bone crack here, torn muscles there, blood washing over blood as nose, ears and eyes gave up as barriers to keep his blood contained within his fracturing body. The spectators began to feel like witnesses to a murder, O’Keegan’s ferial snarl putting a rabid frothing dog in mind as Meehan was surgically disassembled. O’Keegan’s eyes squinted as he struck over and over oblivious to anything but the pain, his own blending with Meehan’s.

  And then it was over. Flannery stood there, hand resting on O’Keegan’s shoulder, the human contact bringing him from the dark lands of his mind, the hell of his past to arrive back at a new hell of pain and recognition. O’Keegan looked down at the red coated fists still clenched and inches from his face. O’Keegan’s stood, wide eyed, all defences gone, the beaten child in him crying out, his heart an ache that threaten to jump out of his chest, tearing as the adult constructed barriers disintegrated, looking for some forgiveness, some comfort. O’Keegan began to weep, finding the tears that had been closed off to him for so long. His Father’s voice receded like washed out waves, reminding him over and over as it faded that ‘real men don’t cry’ each syllable punctuated by long dead fatherly punches. O’Keegan staggered, his mind and will grasping for sanity, his marionette movements touching on comical he struggled back from the brink.

  Looking down at Meehan O’Keegan saw the gasping breaths, the fluttering eyelids and knew that Meehan was beaten by still alive. In the end, none of it had been about Meehan, he had just stumbled into O’Keegan’s private hell and had paid for it. Flannery brought his other hand up to O’Keegan’s waist and began to walk him through the crowd guiding him as O’Keegan moved like a mechanical sleep walker towards the safety of the changing area.

  Flannery turned his head as they exited, seeing Tony doing his best to resurrect his sibling. Meehan started back to life, shaking his head to clear the fuzz. It was over, O’Keegan had won.

  ++

  Flannery led O’Keegan to one of the benches and slowly settled him down to sit, O’Keegan’s arms hanging loosely at his side. Flannery was worried, he’d seen this disconnectedness before, like a thread of humanity and animation broken by emotional overload, too much happening in too short a space of time. Flannery looked down at O’Keegan, wondering what had made such a man, thankful that O’Keegan had thought to toy with him during their own conflict rather than tapping into the dark core of his childhood traumas and experiences. O’Keegan sat, a few minutes passing while Flannery made sure O’Keegan had the time to begin to connect the dots, his breath still panting despite his apparent composure, sweat running from every pore not supplemented or clogged by blood. Flannery stayed standing, his hand gently resting on O’Keegan’s shoulder, thinking the contact would help. Leaning down to within inches of O’Keegan’s ear, Flannery whispered in an effort to penetrate O’Keegan’s consciousness,

  ‘It’s over O’Keegan…it’s all done. You’ve won.’

  O’Keegan didn’t respond. Looking into nothing like some electro therapy patient content to be a blank.

  ‘O�
�Keegan, we still have something left to do tonight. Remember the plan O’Keegan. The slate needs to be wiped completely clean. O’Keegan. Meehan needs to be gone. O’Keegan…O’Keegan?’

  Blank eyes.

  ‘O’Keegan, for God’s sake, we need to finish this properly. Meehan can’t just be allowed to crawl back into his hole and lick his wounds. He’ll be back and he’ll come at us with everything he has. Meehan’s close to losing everything, he has no choice. O’Keegan? O’Keegan’

  Snapping his fingers in front of O’Keegan’s face, Flannery stood at a loss.

  ‘O’Keegan, we have to do what we planned, Meehan wants it all, and right now, his all means you, me and the rest of the boys on slabs O’Keegan. O’Keegan, we…you…you have to finish this as we planned. Remember. Remember?’

  Blank.

  Flannery straightened and turned away, not sure exactly what was next without the solid confidence of O’Keegan to draw upon. Did they win the battle to lose the war? Did their horse fall just before the last fence? Flannery’s head fell as he walked towards the curtain, wondering if he could still go on without O’Keegan. As his foot landed one step closer to O’Keegan’s hand shot out, seizing Flannery’s wrist and pulled him around and back down so their eyes were within inches of each other.

  ‘I won, the O’Keegan’s didn’t lose. Can’t that be it? Can’t it? Isn’t that always what it’s been about, to never lose? Is there still more to do?’ O’Keegan’s eyes now alive but the hint of madness obvious even to Flannery.

  ‘You know there is O’Keegan. You figured it all out. This is your plan. Snap out of it OK? We’re within inches of getting it all, forget that shit O’Keegan. Push it back down, deal with it later. We don’t have the time now, we’re in a fight for our lives now.’