by Frank Bill
Some punctured stolen canisters of freon. Dropped them into black plastic bags. Closed them up. Took turns meeting the openings with their faces. Huffing. Holding in the gas till the dizziness dented their perceptions, made surrounding voices echo, outlines wobble. Others snorted and shot meth. Felt the dopamine rush root through their minds like a bullet.
The circus of men spread out in front of the platform, waiting for a man to step up onto the graying wood and announce the first twenty numbers so the first of six free-for-all bare-knuckle fights could begin.
In the frays of field grass there were enough dented, dirty, and rusted vehicles to fill ten football fields, maybe more. From them, onlookers got out with lawn chairs and provisions. Set up camp. Their forest fires scented the air with smoke and the whole chickens or slabs of venison, goat, squirrel, rabbit, or coon they grilled. It’s what they’d do for the next three days. Sell their food to others. Sit chasing pills and crank with swigs of bourbon or home brew. Watch twenty men enter a thirty-by-thirty barbed-wire ring, fight till one man was left standing. Then another twenty numbers were called for the next free-for-all. Till Sunday, when the winning men were left to fight till one man stood bloody and toothless waiting for his cash prize.
There was one way in, one way out, of the bare-knuckle festival: a gravel road, near a mile long, lined by pine trees on each side. A steel-slatted gate cut the road in half. Beside the gate was a tin-roof wooden shack painted black with gray trim. From inside stepped four men with long hair greased to their shoulders. Thick beards. Mirrored wraparound sunglasses covering their eyes. They dressed in faded T-shirts, aged denim, boots. Their flesh was tattooed with hearts—MOM knifing their centers—or MIGHTY MOUSE or WHITE PRIDE. Each man was armed with a shotgun. Tied outside the shack were two tan curs. Two brown-and-black Walkers. Two walnut bloodhounds.
The four men wanted to know if you were a fighter or an onlooker. They took your entrance fee if you were fighting, gave you a plastic number. Told you and your trainer to sleep in the horse stables up by Bellmont McGill’s barn that overlooked the barbed ring. Separate from the onlookers, who paid one hundred bucks to watch, wager, camp, and sell food, booze, or drugs all weekend.
No one left till the fighting was finished. This was the rule of Mr. McGill. To cross him was to become part of the thousand acres of wild, unknown land he owned. To be seeded into the soil. Walked upon by the next group of men trying their luck the following year at Donnybrook.
After paying his fighter’s fee at the entrance, Ned got his number. Liz would be an onlooker. They parked in the field lined and spread with trucks and cars, all makes and models. Saw men and women in their camps with raised bottles of booze. Their tents pitched. Fire pits blazing or grills smoldering. Voices humming like bees in a swarm. Liz sat rearranging herself, bitching, “Never let no man feel up my shit like they did.”
Ned tongued a tooth the color of dry leaves, laughed. “You’s far from being the Virgin Mary. I never seen ’em do that before no way.”
“Look, Festus, you done give me enough surprises with them incest brothers. Didn’t tell me we had to give these sons of bitches a thousand dollars to fight on top of one hundred so I could watch and sleep in a horse stable with you.”
Ned got red-faced, said, “Can the lip, bitch. I done this more than a few. ’Sides, when I win this thing, won’t matter no way. You just shake that shapely ass, jiggle them titties, and sell our meth.”
Liz bit her tongue. Tasted blood. She was beyond pain. Tired of being called a female dog, of being told it was their meth. Tired of being an onlooker. She took a stab at his backwoods ego, told him, “How the shit some double-crossing drip-dick like you know about something like this?”
Offended, Ned told her, “Any man with two fists and something to prove knows about Bellmont McGill’s Donnybrook. The coin alone separates the pugilists from the wannabes.”
Ned opened the door to step out of the truck. Liz wondered why Angus had never fought in one of these Donnybrooks. Then she knew—he’d never part with no thousand bucks just to get in a fight. Too late now anyway. Sarcasm fed her laugh. She asked Ned, “You a wannabe or a limp-dick pugilist?”
The truck door slammed with no reply. Liz thought, Fuck off. Opened her rucksack of meth. Dug Angus’s pistol out of the bottom. Pushed it down the back of her hip-hugger jeans. Hefted the rucksack of meth. Opened the door. Stepped out to the smell of food on grills and smoke from fire pits. Ned came around the side of the truck, grabbed her arm. Slobber boiled in the corners of his mouth. “Look, you ain’t nothing but a whore selling her flavors with a pinch of good crank. We finish here, we split our earnings, go our separates. Till then, get rid of the tangy tongue.”
Liz looked into his mutted, uneven face. Thought about digging her teeth into his nose of oily blackheads. Chewing it off. Driving her knee up into his crotch. Dropping him. Spitting his mangled pieces back onto his face. Showing everyone Ned was a wannabe pus sack. She twitched her knee. Threw Ned off. He tightened his grip, spit, “Go ’head, bitch, see how quick I tame that rancid flavor you got brewing.”
She jerked her arm from his grasp. Pumped her left knee up for effect. Ned dropped a hand, blocked her knee. Leaned back, shook his head, showing his three teeth and gum smile. Liz’s other hand reached behind her. Pulled, and then pushed Angus’s pistol up under Ned’s throat. “Hope you can read them fighters’ movements better than mine or the only thing you’ll be splitting is your insides.”
Ned foamed, “Cunt.”
Liz felt eyes from the surrounding onlookers as she pressed the barrel into his throat harder, told him, “I’m tired of talking with you. It’s been nice. Now nice is over. Go try to do what you come to do. I’ll do the same. See you in the stables.”
She pulled the gun from his throat. Kept a bead on him. Backed away real slow. He stood rubbing the spot she poked into him, said, “Watch your ass, bitch. ’Cause I know I will.” Then he took his thumb. Started on one side of his throat like it was a razor. Cut across to the other side. Spit on the ground. Turned with his plastic number in hand. Walked over to the crowd of fighters gathered around the large gray platform.
Behind Liz, a female voice said, “Don’t pay Ned no mind. He’s a backstabbing tool.”
Liz turned around to see a faded blonde, her hair of jagged ends not passing her chin. She sat by a tent, drawing on a smoke, can of Bud sweating by her feet. A rusted-out green-and-white International Scout sat next to the tent. Her lips were pale as bleach. Eyes opaque. She wore a Lucero concert T-shirt. Cutoff desert fatigues. Brown and broken work boots. Held out a hand. “Name’s Scar.”
Liz approached. Got into her face. “Look, you crotch-nibbling bitch, I wanna mix with a backstabbing pugilist, it’s my concern.”
Scar swigged her Bud, smiled, not seeing the butt of Angus’s gun coming down across the bridge of her nose. The Bud busted open on the ground. Scar’s eyes watered. Her hands smothered her nose. She nasaled out, “Bitch!”
Liz finished with, “Ain’t no dyke’s concern no way.”
* * *
Unable to decide whether Purcell was a batshit-crazy, chicken-shack recluse or a legit prophet like Da Mo, the curator of Shaolin Muscle-Tendon Changing Qigong, Jarhead distracted himself by watching the first twenty men trade knuckles, knees, and elbows. Pound one another’s bones. Break and bruise skin. No matter how insane Purcell might be, at least he’d gotten him here.
He’d seen preachers with suitcases housing rattlesnakes. Pulling the snakes out during church services. Men, women, and children singing and dancing. Their eyes rolling white into the rears of their skulls. A snake being passed around to see if it bit them. Magicians, that’s what his stepfather called them. Fools of their own apocalypse.
Purcell had given him a backpack for his clothing and pistol. Told him to keep the gun and the box of ammo buried beneath the clothing. That he’d be needing it. For what, Purcell wasn’t sure yet.
He’d told Jarhead he’d
stay with him for guidance.
Purcell kept studying the crowd of backwoods misfits. Jarhead asked, “Who you looking for?”
He smiled. “He ain’t here yet, but the others are. Things are just gettin’ started.”
Jarhead asked, “Who ain’t here yet? What things?”
Purcell smiled and said, “Watch. You’ll see.”
* * *
Blood blotted Whalen’s hands like wood stain. Dried and cryptic, it highlighted the lines of his skin. Navigating his Jeep down the back road, he thought of how he’d thrown Gravel over his shoulder. Hauled him up beyond the barn into a small thicket of cedar. Taken a shovel from the milk house. Dug through limestone and red clay. Buried Gravel among his kin.
For five years, Whalen had checked on Gravel. Letting him live from the land in a cave that tunneled beneath the barn. Gravel had kept a garden. Made lye soap. Hunted his meat. Stored it in his makeshift fridge that sat in the earth. Boiled his water from the stream that ran through the bottom of the cave. Lived like a hermit. Just as Reese and Whalen had taught him.
Now this Angus or Liz who’d run with him—and murdered Beatle, Flat, and even Eldon—had killed his Gravel. There was no maybe. Whalen felt it suffocate his heart. This Angus and Liz were killers. Add Ned to the mix, and it looked as though Whalen would have his hands full. Regardless of his badge, when he found them he’d take them someplace and do as he pleased. Get the truth and bury it.
He hung a right at the stop sign. Knew he’d ten more miles to Cur’s Watering Hole. Poe’d told him to ask for Lang. Lang would help him get to the Donnybrook, find this Angus who was after Liz and Ned.
Out his driver’s-side peripheral, a figure rose up from the earth like the dead from their graves.
Whalen slammed on his brakes. Threw open the door. The heat of the day hugged his body with sweat. He stared at the purple and violet swells about the complexion of an Asian man. Who jerked one foot after the next toward the Jeep with his white shirt torn and bloody, dress slacks the same. He wore glasses with both lenses cracked. Cell phone in his hand.
Words fell from Whalen’s mouth, a leaky faucet, saying, “The shit’s a Chinese doing out in the damn sticks of Orange County?”
There was no soul nor sound for miles. Whalen took in the tears about the Asian’s arms. Noticed the barbed-wire fence behind him. Son of a bitch must’ve fell into that, got tangled up. The man stood before him. His cheek pulsed a clear liquid from an opening the size of a cigarette’s end. A burn, Whalen thought. And he raised his voice, asking, “The shit happen to you?”
The man looked at Whalen’s shirt smeared a familiar shade from Gravel, told him, “A hitchhiker. He took my Tahoe.”
Whalen thought, What a dumb son of a bitch. Got what you deserved. “Why the hell you out here in the sticks picking up hitchhikers?”
The man’s flint-chipped face lit up seeing the gun on Whalen’s hip. Whalen saw the reaction, raised a palm. The other hand touched the gun on his hip. He said, “I’m a county cop. It’s okay.” The man said nothing. Whalen asked again, “Why are you out here?”
The Asian said, “I’m taking care of some business.”
Whalen’s asshole tightened, him thinking, Business? And, seemed like someone had taken care of this guy’s business, not the other way around. “What sort of business you got out here in the sticks?”
Fu didn’t have time for Q and A. Wanted to move his hands, see how this cop with blood spatter about his torso reacted to his movements. See how he carried himself. Fu had let his guard down once. Almost cost him his life. But he thought, No fighting, he needed to get Mr. Zhong’s money. Needed to calm himself. He fished a smoke from his shirt pocket and asked, “Do you know of a place called the Donnybrook?”
Whalen chuckled. “It’s where I’m headed.”
The unlit smoke hung from Fu’s busted lip. “That is my business.”
Whalen sized up the little Asian, asked, “You a fighter?”
Fu smiled at Whalen. “Sometimes I am.”
Whalen held a soured cramp in his gut, said, “Get in if you want a ride.”
Fu got in. Closed the door. Watched the man limp around the front of the Jeep. Open the passenger’s side. Fall back into the seat and slam the door. Push his cell phone into his shirt pocket.
Whalen said, “Them cell phones don’t take this far out in the sticks.”
Fu nodded, saw the lighter. He pointed to it, asked, “May I?”
Whalen glanced at the lighter, said, “Sure.” With his hand resting on his thigh, close to his gun, he thought, If the Asian tries anything, I’ll blow the driver’s side window out with the side of his head.
Fu pushed in the dashboard lighter. Kept a blurred peripheral on the gun attached to the cop’s hip. The gun would be hard to pull from his side once the seat belt was fastened. Even now, with a blinding elbow, a quick index knuckle to the cop’s lung point or kidney, he’d be left breathless. The gun was useless at in-fighting range. Fu asked, “Do you fight?”
Whalen thought of how he’d have to turn, pull his gun from the hip all at once. Push his back into the driver’s side door, keep the spatter down. He wondered if this Asian was one of them karate-chopping sons of bitches. He knew that shit had its place. He’d seen Billy Jack. But no way a man could beat a bullet. He said, “No, just a peacekeeper.”
“Peacekeeper,” Fu repeated.
Fu sat in the seat, thought about how he’d kill this cop. But he needed him to get to the Donnybrook. Find Angus. His sister. Get Mr. Zhong’s money. The lighter popped out. Fu grabbed it. Lit his cigarette. Pushed the lighter back in. Inhaled. Smoke traced his insides. Relaxed his mind. A smile blossomed from his lips as he imagined this cop pleading in his own blood.
* * *
Insects landed and stuck to soured flesh that’d been coated sweet. Pete and Elbow grunted and struggled to get loose, just as they had for hours. With the same outcome. Muscles stiffened with ache.
Out the open door, footsteps stumbled into the small house. Lang’s voice barked, “What the shit?”
Pete hollered, “Lang!”
Lang entered the house with fresh abrasions. Ashtray to the temple, elbow-busted nose. Wrists belt-tied behind his back.
A boot heel kicked Lang to the carpet.
Angus held the sawed-off. Both barrels reloaded. Box of shells in the Tahoe. A few shot shells in his pants pocket. Lang had missed Angus by centimeters back at the bar. After the glass of busted booze bottles rained down on Lang, Angus had filled his vision with left and right square-dancing heel stomps. Now Angus stared at the men tied together. Pale. Bony. Mange-infested and exposed. He said, “Fuck sakes, what kind of queers you running with, Lang?”
Pete, bare feet and balls naked, whined, “Who the shit are you?”
Angus ignored Pete’s words, pushed the sawed-off down into Lang’s skull. “Where the shit’s Ned and Liz with my crank? You said they’d be here getting corn-holed.”
Lang motioned his dented head to Pete, Dodge, and Elbow. Spit blood, said, “Ask them.”
Angus asked, “The shit you all got on yourselves, smells like honey?”
Dodge chattered his teeth like a copperhead shakes its tail. Pete started to cry, said, “It is. That faggot son of a bitch Ned and his peacock-headed bitch took Elbow’s gun and Dodge’s money. Made us all get naked. Duct-taped us together. Poured honey all over us. Bastard shot Dodge in his leg. Now, will you cut us loose?”
Angus said, “Let me guess, they’re headed to the Donnybrook.”
Pete blew air through his nostrils, a child pouting, said, “Yeah.”
Dodge jerked his upper body back and forth. Hollered, “Cut us loose. Get these naked parasites off me. Want my Fruity Pebbles, a PBR, and my goddamn money back.”
Pete’s eyes welled with tears, him pleading, “Please, just cut us loose.”
Dodge pushed his mouth to Pete’s head, bit into his hair, growling and ripping it from the roots, tasting and spitting the honey
and sweat. Pete screamed. Thrashed his head into Dodge’s, who shouted, “Shut up, you pussy, shut up!”
Wanting out of this freak-show house hidden in the woods, Angus clutched Lang’s hair, yanked him to his feet, said, “Come on, you’re taking me to the Donnybrook. Now.” Angus pushed Lang out the door. Behind him he heard the man in the wheelchair holler and spit, “Come back here, you fuckers, come back!”
17
Onlookers ingested teaspoon-scoops of crystal up flared nostrils. Ran it with swigs of booze and hollered, “Make ’em bleed!”
Jarhead wiped specks of parched saliva and blood from his forehead, measured the onslaught of men in the ring. Their stutter-steps of unsure footing. Punches thrown wild from the shoulder, not the hip. He thought they fought like starved hogs wallowing in the mud. Snorting and wheezing for air.
Jarhead clenched his left fist, whitened his knuckles for Caleb. Then his right for Zeek. He’d win, he told himself. Give his boys a better life. Get Tammy the help she needed. Fix her back. Cease the Oxycontin dependency. But would he quit fighting? Stop the one thing he was gifted at?
Behind him, a shoulder brushed his own. He turned, watched a female with serrated lengths of hair calculate her each and every step. A beer bottle held at her side like a blade. Bumping through the crowd of abuse.
Beside him, Purcell said, “You can’t quit.”
Jarhead turned to Purcell and said, “Quit what?”
Purcell said, “What you was just considering up yonder.” Purcell tapped an index finger to his temple. Looked at the ring and asked, “Think they’s any count?”
In the ring, three men hit the ground like squirrels shot from a tree. No bounce, just muscle and bone collapsing to a halt.
Jarhead wondered how much Purcell knew about his future as he turned back to the female. Watched her hone in on her prey. His heart rushed, and he said, “They footing and punches is off balance, unsure. Mostly they’s scrappers at best.”
