by Lucky Simms
Closing her eyes, she placed her fingertips lightly against the paper weight. “I feel,” she said in a sing-song that seemed mysterious and magical-sounding, “you will fight tonight, and you will win.”
“Yes! High five!” he demanded and she held up a hand tentatively, which he slapped so hard it made her bones jangle together. He spun toward his friends. “Woooooooo!” they all yelled in unison, and trotted off toward the ring.
Moses looked over one shoulder to see them coming, then crossed off the next name on the list. The grey-eyed one went to the wheel and spun it to choose his opponent. The wheel turned with loud clicks, lights chasing in the opposite direction. The friends all jostled and elbowed each other like overgrown schoolyard pals.
The wheel slowed, it stopped. Riddick.
Tommy and Sweet Ray stretched their arms over their heads and clapped Riddick on the shoulder, exiting the ring while Grey Eyes took the tape Moses offered him and started to wrap his hands. They didn’t use gloves. Back in the 40s it became immediately apparent that gloves led to more injuries because they gave people a false sense of impunity.
These days, everybody felt there was a sort of naked honor to barefisted fighting. Just two guys and their hands for three minutes, trying to beat the crap out of each other until one of them gave up. It had a veneer of honesty about it.
Grey Eyes tore the last piece of tape off with his teeth and pulled himself through the ropes and into the ring. Moses handed him a fresh mouth guard that he stuffed between his teeth with a leer. He whipped his t-shirt off and gave his jeans a good hike so they would stay up.
“You about ready?” Riddick asked. He was pacing from side to side, not letting Grey Eyes out of his sight, sizing him up.
Grey Eyes wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh yeah, man. Let’s do this.” He immediately brought his fists up and led with his forehead, keeping his stance wide. The bell rang. He seemed comfortable. He seemed excited.
Riddick felt nervous, and he was not sure why. Usually by his third bout, he was over the butterflies. Even with a challenger who obviously had experience, all he really had to do was swerve and deflect until the three minutes was up. Let them get a couple decent connections. Most people were not going to give it 100% anyway.
But this guy looked like kicking ass was his day job. He spotted the Marine tattoo and realized: it totally was.
Riddick kept his guard up and started dancing. The guy’s pals were ringside, leaning in and strangely silent. Three blonde women stood behind them, whooping and bouncing, calling out like drunken, overaged cheerleaders.
They circled each other. Riddick knew time worked weird in the first part, and you could trick yourself into thinking that more time had passed. He kept a cocky half-smile plastered on his face. He’d let the guy get in a couple good ones.
They squared off, ducking and feinting, testing each other. Grey Eyes threw a jab that glanced off Riddick’s left eyebrow and it felt like a freight train had just come through.
OK, no. He wasn’t going to let anything land. This guy was lethal. He’d get killed.
“Quit your dancing, Nancy,” Grey Eyes taunted. “This will just hurt for a second.”
Riddick kept on the balls of his feet, danced back, danced forward.
“Seriously, Nancy, get to it!” Grey Eyes took a step forward. Riddick hopped away gracefully but found himself on the ropes. Grey Eyes advanced and caught him with a body blow. It was like being hit with a bat and Riddick bent over. Big mistake: Grey Eyes grabbed him and drove two cruel blows into his kidney.
“Whoa! Hey!” Moses bellowed. There was still nearly two minutes on the clock. The girls shrieked with joy and jumped, cleavage heaving in their tank tops. Grey Eyes’ compatriots kept their creepy, wordless gazes fixed on the match.
Riddick wheeled. This was no casual boxer trying to impress a girl. This was a fighter who was used to trying to kill somebody. Riddick figured he could try to dance for the next two minutes - next to impossible - or he could break the guy’s nose.
He had a keen sense that this was the right thing to do, a sort of cruel clarity. He wasn’t entirely sure where that feeling came from, but he was determined to follow it, come what may.
From Billie’s counter, she could see Riddick reel and she had to bite the heel of her hand to keep from crying out.
“OK, OK, tough guy,” Riddick breathed when he was able to stand again. He stretched his back as he danced to the far side of the ring, trying to recompose himself. “Pretty impressive. Nice moves for a dude who spends his life rowing a boat!”
Grey Eyes chuckled. “Oh, yeah. I got moves. Here, let me lay this on you…” He took two steps forward, squared off, then he turned, directing his heel at Riddick’s jaw in the fastest roundhouse kick Riddick had ever seen.
“Whoa!! No! Fists only!” Moses shouted, jumping up to the platform. “No kicking!”
Grey Eyes shrugged. “What a bunch of pussies,” he spat. “You’d last about 30 seconds on my --”
He didn’t have time to answer. As soon as Riddick saw his opening, he came in low with a left uppercut that Grey Eyes dodged, putting his nose in the path of the right cross Riddick was sending. As planned, the nose crunched and immediately a gout of syrupy blood poured out.
“Riddick!” Moses bellowed. Riddick raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness and started to back away. Usually they went easy on the townies, but Riddick knew the preemptive violence was necessary to keep him from permanent kidney damage - or worse. He had felt it, that cruel path Grey Eyes was opening up in front of him.
Grey Eyes was doubled over at the waist but not freaking out like Riddick had expected. He’d obviously had his nose broken before and was practically calm about it.
His buddies were less so. Without making a sound, they both jumped into the ring and crossed the distance to Riddick in less than a second.
Billie left the counter of her booth and started running toward the ring.
The first guy slipped around him and put him in a half-nelson, immediately cutting the blood off in his neck and bending him toward the mat. The other guy kicked the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees. “You give up?” he yelled in his ear. “Say you concede!”
Riddick gave a weak nod before he lost consciousness and slipped to the mat.
Moses leapt to the ring and grabbed the two pals by the back of their hair, like kittens. Though they were not small, Moses was a force of nature. They went absolutely limp and allowed him to toss them bodily from the ring.
Grey Eyes stood up with one hand covering his nose. Streams of blood leaked through his fingers, painting the mat all in garish red. He raised one fist in triumph. “Woooooooo!” he shouted through his hand, slightly nasally.
“Fuck you, man,” Moses sneered as he bent over Riddick, who was muttering and dazed. Riddick got to his hands and knees and shook his head to clear it.
The marine pointed at him. “I won. I beat this hillbilly shit stain.”
“Yeah, you won. Even money. Talk to the bell man.” Moses pointed to the side of the ring. With a final drunken “Woo!” Grey Eyes swung out through the ropes and stumbled toward the bell man, who shook his head in disgust and shoved two twenty dollar bills into Grey Eyes’ bloody fist.
Billie stood breathlessly at the side of the ring. She could see Riddick was blinking his eyes. His chest was heaving. He was still breathing hard through his nose and Moses was telling him to take it easy.
After a few more seconds, Riddick stood upright. He swayed dangerously, then half-smiled and shook a fist half-heartedly in the air. The townies cheered in solidarity.
Billie didn’t know whether to cheer or not. He looked around the ring, slightly dazed, humbled. His gaze found her and he stopped short and gave her an apologetic smile.
Moses seemed to push him lightly toward the ropes, and Riddick swung down with as much bravado as he dared. Everything hurt.
Billie thought she should say something but couldn’t. She wasn�
�t sure why she was standing there. Every sentence she tried out in her brain sounded stupid. Finally she said, “You’re OK.” It sounded more like a sentence than a question.
He chuckled. He had small lines around his eyes. “Well you’re the psychic…”
“Oh, haha, yes.” She looked back toward her counter. People were milling around it. She needed to get back.
“I really should go,” she muttered. He nodded silently. He was still breathing heavily. His hair was plastered to his head with sweat. His torso heaved, and she couldn’t help but stare at his stomach muscles.
His lips were open too. She looked up at him and had a confusing feeling of knowing him so well and yet not knowing him at all. She felt like she had stared into his eyes countless times, yet some part of her wanted to reintroduce herself after so much time apart. But then…
Suddenly she stepped toward him and touched his cheek. She rose on her tiptoes and moved close. He seemed like he wanted to kiss her. Like he expected it. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Does he want me to kiss him, she asked herself. Yes.
Wait, stop that, don’t kiss him!
She leaned toward him as though swept forward on a wave. At the last moment she caught herself and swerved. Not quite a hug, she put her lips near his ear while her mind reeled with confusion. “I’m so glad you’re all right,” she whispered awkwardly. She hoped that she had successfully concealed her near-collision with his lips.
She leaned back and looked at him. He seemed confused. “Um, thank you,” he whispered back. Emotions flew across his face in fast-forward, too many to count.
Billie stepped back uncertainly, not sure how to remove herself from the situation. She still felt strongly like she was supposed to kiss him, like that’s definitely where her lips were supposed to be. The sensation wouldn’t dissolve, no matter how stubbornly she told her brain to SHUT UP.
But there were futures to tell. Billie backed away and returned to her tent, burning brightly somewhere deep in her mind, leaving both Riddick and Moses staring after her like they’d been hit by lightning.
WELCOME HOME
Somehow Madear had managed to keep a secret for a whole day. It had helped that Billie was at the carnival all evening and there was no way to reach her. She sat with Mame on the front porch and watched the lights shut down in blocks, her anticipation rising in her throat like a scream.
“Oh, please calm down,” Mame sighed. “You’re giving me heartburn.”
“I know!” Madear hyperventilated. “I know, I am trying. I really am. I’m sorry. I’m just so excited!”
“Yeah. I know.”
“She didn’t have time to see me yet!”
“So you’ve said.”
“Or we could have done this another day… Like Sunday or whatever. And I don’t know what her schedule is anyway… But you can’t really welcome somebody home after they’ve been home like for a whole week. So this is awesome. This is great. Thank you!”
Mame waved her off. “It’s fine,” she said drily. “It’s been just ages since I stayed up all night.”
“She’s been at college. She’s probably totally used to being up late right?”
“Right,” Mame yawned.
“I see her!” Madear shrieked and leapt off the porch. It wasn’t Billie; it was a few people from high school. They parked a hundred feet down the road and came back carrying six-packs of beer in cans and smiling, waving.
Behind them was another car full of high-school chums, then the girls from the library and Wanda and Amanda from the copy shop.
Then the guess-your-weight guy, Tommy, Sweet Ray and Polari pulled up, popped the trunk and lifted out a keg of beer. “Hi, Madear!” Tommy waved from the street. She waved back, then glanced nervously at Mame, who was squinting into the first garden and the dozen guests who were dangerously close to trampling the beets.
“If I remain here,” she said quietly, slowly, “I will have a heart attack.” She turned toward the front door. “I trust you will clean this all up. Please tell them to use the downstairs bath only, and direct them to the third garden.”
Madear waved, terrified. “OK! Will do! Sleep well!” she squeaked. “You guys! In the back, now! Or that lady is going to have me murdered!”
She had strung the third garden with Christmas lights and set tables and folding chairs between the rows. The pumpkin vines had just begun to sprout and there was still a good deal of space available for milling about. Still, if she got those vine seedlings killed, Madear knew there would be hell to pay.
“Baby!” she cried as Riddick climbed out of Moses’ truck, wincing. “Oh my god, what happened to you?”
He gave a pained smile. “Tough day at the office.”
She planted tiny kisses all over his face. “Oh, no! You poor thing. That’s terrible!”
“Ow, honey, OK, easy does it,” he complained.
“Oh!” she gasped, and promptly disengaged herself. “I am so sorry. Just go to the back OK? There is beer and stuff. I’ll wait here for Billie.” Did he flinch again? She couldn’t really be sure. Probably he was in pain.
Madear stayed by the mailbox, directing guests to the third garden with explicit instructions about not killing anything that looked like it might be trying to grow. Please stick to the paths, people. There were a lot more folks than she meant for. But, well, you don’t get to do these things every day right?
Finally she saw the green Escort under the streetlight at the end of the road. It drove up slowly, parked, and Billie got out.
Madear jumped up and down in place. It seemed to take forever for Billie to make her way to the driveway. When she saw Madear, she knew exactly what was going on. She shook her head and grinned.
“You are insane.”
“I know!”
“This is too much.”
“I totally know!”
It felt great to hug her. Billie hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her best friend over the last year.
Madear was sobbing into her hair. She said something that sounded totally muffled by the curls.
“I can’t hear you in there, you know.”
Madear sniffed dramatically. Her cheeks were wet. “I said I’m so glad you’re back! I made you a cake!”
She dragged Billie to the third garden by the hand, snatching a scrapbook off the front porch on the way. Billie was silently amazed that Mame had agreed to this. Leave it to Madear to pester somebody until they relented.
They sat in folding chairs by the keg with Billie standing up every few minutes to hug somebody who had come to welcome her home. Madear paged through the scrapbook relentlessly, reading out the little things she’d written, falling into bouts of hysterical laughter.
“Oh my god! Do you remember… hahaha! That time, after art club… When Mrs. Smeltzer…” And she trailed off, giggling, temporarily unable to speak.
“This is so awesome, Madear,” Billie said sincerely. “Really. I can’t believe you would do all this for me.” She looked around. “I don’t think I even know half these people.”
“Ha! Yeah, word gets around I guess! People love a house party. Well, I’ll be right back. Going to hit the loo. Hold this.” She offered Billie a plastic tumbler full of some dark, sweet liquid and dropped the scrapbook into Billie’s lap, then started walking back toward the house.
Scanning the garden uncomfortably, Billie glanced at each half-familiar face then away before they noticed her. It was all so much to process. She sipped at the beverage slowly, letting the intense syrup linger on her tongue before swallowing. A few people looked at her with curious, friendly expressions, but she wasn’t quite ready to be sociable. For camouflage, she wanted to appear busy and flipped open the book on her lap.
There were pictures going all the way back to seventh grade, but nothing really before that. Here they were on a vacation to Lake Erie. Here they were on a field trip at the train museum, pretending to have a shoot-out. There were dozens of misc
ellaneous snapshots of them addressing the camera with toothy smiles and regrettable hairdos. Hilarious.
Bille adjusted the neckline of her dress. She wasn’t entirely accustomed to having so much skin showing. It would take a little while to acclimate herself to the idea of “show business.” Was she really a carnie now? It seemed weird, but also not as weird as she thought.
“Good times?”
“What?” Billie looked up, startled, then back to the book. She took a nervous gulp of her drink in order to have something safe to do with her lips. “Oh, god, yeah. We had lots of fun.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Riddick chuckled, and dropped into the folding chair next to her, wincing.
“Oh, man, does it hurt much?” Billie reached out unconsciously and touched his arm. It was like putting her hand into a flame.
He looked like he felt it too, and stared at his arm where her fingers had grazed him. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“So,” he gulped, suddenly breathless again. “Did you enjoy your first day as a carnie?”
“Oh!” she sighed, attempting to be breezy. “Yes, very much. Especially the part where you got your ass handed to you, haha.” She laughed unconvincingly. The words had just seemed to tumble out of her without her control.
“Really?”
Billie looked down, mortified. “No, not really. Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” She shook her head and looked at him. “I’m sorry. You make me really nervous, for some reason.” Oh god, no! Why did she say that?
“That’s awesome.”
“What?”
He chuckled. He looked like he started to say something several times but abandoned it, then started again. “Shoot. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Nevermind.” His face crinkled into a smile and he stared at everything but her. She watched his cheeks crease and traced the dark shapes with her fingers in her mind. He inhaled deeply. “This is some deep dorky something,” he said with an embarrassed laugh, “but it’s ok. We’re friends. It’s fine.”
Billie looked into her plastic cup. Was it just a regular beverage? Was Polari here?
