Donnybrook

by Frank Bill

  Purcell turned around to where Jarhead was looking and asked, “Sam hell you keep gawking at that female for?”

  Jarhead’s frame tightened with adrenaline and he said, “’Cause she’s surefooted.”

  * * *

  Liz walked among booze-breathed men who were sweat-sheened and pumped as they watched the first twenty men fight. She offered her godliness in clear baggies for one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty a dose. Offered it to the ones with missing teeth and dehydrated appearances first, knowing they’d an itch for it.

  From close range, Scar watched. Dabbed her busted tomato nose, muttered to herself among the depravity of hooting and hollering male and female onlookers, “Someone’s gonna spit and piss blood.”

  She sang it over and over like a lullaby.

  Liz worked her way through salt-scented bodies, stopping in front of the thirty-by-thirty square ring. Ned’s number had been drawn. In the ring, he and nineteen other men taunted and faked with their heads and arms. Fisted, elbowed, kicked, stomped, palmed, kneed, and head-butted one another into paste. Specks of each misted out of the ring onto the shrieking onlookers.

  Sunlight bit down on Ned. It’d already begun to lather his and the other fighters’ frames, making punches slip and palms slap from their bodies. The loose rock they fought on uprooted their footing, kept them off balance.

  Liz watched Wolf Cookie Mike plant the ball of his right foot and dig an uppercut into Ned’s stomach. Roll off with a right hook to his ribs. Ned coughed. Dropped his forehead down onto Mike’s face. Bone cracked. Red-hued his upper lip. Ned pumped a triple left jab. First to Mike’s jaw. Then his throat and shoulder. Mike stepped back. Tried to shake it off. Ned followed with an elbow. Parted the soft skin above Mike’s right eye.

  Whistles and yelps amped up from the men and women watching.

  “Beat that son of a bitch, Ned!” someone screamed.

  “Come on, Wolf Cookie Mike! Kill that backstabber!” Someone else.

  Liz worked a finger into the baggie of moist powder she kept for herself. Vacuum-inhaled. Tasted the chemical drain down her throat. Wiped her teeth with the remaining specks on her finger. Turned to a man in a clean white T-shirt tucked into jeans. Hair short. Split on one side. Coffee-bean brown with flecks of gray. Thorny complexion. Red, yellow, and orange flames sleeving each arm. He smiled. She felt moisture glisten down below. Ned had been impressing her in the ring, she’d admit that. But this man had presence, something tougher than that greasy-haired dime bag dealer. She pointed to the ring and hollered over the cheers, “Why they call him Wolf Cookie Mike?”

  The man laughed, grasped her arm, said, “I gave him that name.” He nodded them away from the hollering, promising the rest of the story.

  Scar squinted her eyes. Dropped the rag from her nose, kept the pair of them in her sights. Took a hard swig of Bud. “Someone’s gonna spit and piss blood.”

  Liz and the man walked to where they could view the fight but speak without yelling. The man’s lips parted, offered his deep southern Indiana dialect. “Years back, Mike’s at Cur’s Watering Hole after working a local sawmill. Stew Coats bumps into him. Accident. Mike spills his beer. Coats apologizes, offers to buy him another. Mike’s got a buzz, threatens Coats. Says he’s gonna beat him into a shade of afterbirth. Coats laughs, tells Mike to calm down. Mike don’t calm down. Coats is six foot six. Two hundred fifty pounds. Gristled tobacco farmer. Mike, as you can see, five-six. Hundred sixty pounds. Mike keeps on. Starts digging his finger into Coats’s chest. Mike tells him, ‘Let’s step out to the lot.’ Coats nods okay. The whole tavern clears out to watch. Coats stands out in the graveled lot, face the shade of a rash. Mike says, ‘Wait one second.’ Walks over, opens his truck door. Pulls out an axe handle. Approaches Coats. Offers it to him, says, ‘You gonna need this.’ Whole tavern is watching. Coats stares at Mike for near a minute. Then he says, ‘You’re fucking crazy.’ Walks back into the tavern.”

  Scar snaked around men and women, keeping a bead on Liz.

  Liz ignited her brain with another inhale of the moist powder, asked, “The hell Mike do that for?”

  The man smiled, offered, “Ran into Mike on down the line. Ask him, ‘The shit was you thinking that day you threatened Coats? He could’ve killed you.’ Mike laughed, said, ‘But he didn’t. I sold that son of a bitch a mess of wolf cookies. He thought I’s as crazy as I was stupid. He didn’t know what to do.’”

  Behind Liz, voices rose around the ring. Five men lay unmoving on the ground. Fifteen traded blows. Ned stomped Mike’s face into a puddle of defeat. Went to another man. Double-teamed him with another fighter. The man fell. Ned traded with the man he’d helped.

  Liz sniffed twice, offered her hand. “Can call me Liz.”

  Scar came up behind Liz. Empty beer bottle in hand. Nose shading to black and yellow. She raised the bottle. Shattered it over Liz’s head of possum tails.

  Surrounding mouths shouted, “You see a head, hit it! You see a head, hit it!” Over and over.

  With an intense stare, the man watched Liz’s form gel up and drop. He bent down, his hand lifting her chin. Said, “Name’s Bellmont McGill. And this is my daughter, Scar. Welcome to the Donnybrook.”

  Scar pulled out the gun tucked down the rear of Liz’s painted-on denim. Ripped the rucksack from her back. Liz tried to fight. Scar fed the butt of the pistol into Liz’s mouth till she traded fighting for pink saliva. Scar slid the gun down the front of her fatigues. Opened the rucksack. Dug her hand down inside. Shouted, “Goddamn!”

  * * *

  Tables lay upturned. The insides of men redesigned the floor. Two outlines stood behind the bar of Cur’s Watering Hole, their faces welted and busted. The shelf behind them sat devoid of liquor. One man shouted, “The shit you want?”

  The smell of combined bourbons pried Whalen’s inhale and he said, “Looking for Lang. Poe sent me.”

  Uneasy laughter hummed through the air, rattled Whalen’s bones from behind. He reached for the Glock on his hip. Turned, keeping his back neutral to the bar, seeing the men behind it in his peripheral. Two men approached him from the entrance. One held a bar stool. The other a busted bottle of bourbon, its edges like teeth on a saw blade.

  Whalen gritted his teeth, mouthed, “Don’t want trouble, just Lang.”

  One with the barstool said, “Ain’t here.”

  Whalen rolled his eyes, asked, “Where is he?”

  One with the stool said, “Some son of a bitch that punched like a mule come in here, cleaned house looking for his sister and a guy we know by Ned. Took Lang. Went to Pete’s.”

  Whalen’s arm started to tremble. Motherfuckers, he thought. Spit thickened in the corners of his mouth. He motioned his Glock at the one holding the stool, asked, “You got a name?”

  The man said, “Name’s Cramp. Why?”

  Whalen told him, “Put down the stool. Turn around. You and me’s gonna take a ride.”

  Cramp hesitated, stared at the gun. Dropped the stool. Turned his back to Whalen, who pulled finger cuffs from his belt. Clamped them over Cramp’s thumbs. Said, “Gonna show me where this Pete lives. Any one of your buddies gets in my way, I’ll finish what that other guy started.”

  * * *

  Four men holding shotguns stood outside the black-and-gray shack, their dogs chained, waiting for a command. Angus eased one foot on the brake, the other off the gas.

  “Think you gonna just drive up this road, these men gonna let you through?” Lang asked from his bubbled lip the shade of eggplant, his hands belted by leather behind him.

  Shadows from the trees lining the gravel road spotted Angus’s face and the arm that hung out the rolled-down window, and he said, “Pretty much.”

  “The ’Brook is done started.” Burgundy drops fell from Lang’s mouth.

  Angus told him, “Don’t matter.”

  Lang said, “You fuck with McGill, he’ll kill you!”

  Angus had been approached years ago, before the ac
cident, to fight in the Donnybrook. Never wanted anything to do with it. The purse was tempting. But too many men he knew who liked to fight, earn extra cash on the side, had disappeared after coming to fight in the Donnybrook. Rumor was if you showed skill, even if you lost, McGill wanted you in his stable to network throughout the counties of backwoods bare-knuckle fighting. Milking your marrow for money regardless of your diminishing abilities, betting for and against his own.

  Angus laughed, said, “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t.”

  Lang asked, “You think Ned and this root-headed spinster is worth dying for?”

  Angus told Lang, “Done left me for the maggots once. Won’t happen twice.”

  Angus pushed the brake down. Waited. Watched a man walk in front of the Tahoe. Come around to his side, lay a hand next to his arm inside the door. Nod. The other three stared through the passenger’s side window. Walkie-talkie static channeled in and out. One of them with teeth the color of piss looked in and chuckled, “The fuck happen to you, Lang?”

  Another on Angus’s side asked, “You a fighter or onlooker?”

  “You tell me,” Angus replied, as he grabbed and pulled the guard’s wrist, pinning his arm down inside the Tahoe and punching the gas to the floor. “I say I ain’t neither one. I’s something else entirely.”

  * * *

  Inside the old barn, Goat and Walkup twisted Liz’s arms behind her back while McGill spread her mouth open with metal tongs, glanced inside, and said, “All her teeth is still white. No rot. She can still gag on some cock.”

  Liz nearly retched at the taste of acidic steel. Pink ran down the corners of her busted mouth.

  McGill laid the tongs on the oak table behind him, next to his walkie-talkie, a .38 pistol, a half gallon of Old Granddad, and Liz’s rucksack of meth and the money she’d made thus far. Screams bounced off the barn from outside. The first fight was coming to an end. McGill said, “Girl, one thing I never get tired of is pussy, regardless of type.” He looked over at Walkup, said, “Let Goat hold her. Come around here, see what kind of pussy you’d call her.”

  Walkup was an ex-carny, had traveled with the county fairs, run the Pick a Ducky, Win a Prize game. Seen and lain with many an unsavory female. He released his grip from Liz’s wrist, stepped in front of Liz. Felt one of her hefty mounds. Rubbed his thorny chin, spit brown sludge onto the barn floor. He’d a gray burlap beard and a red bandana over his head. Steel skulls in each earlobe. He turned to McGill, spoke in a slow yodel. “Well, you got your state-fair pussy. They doll up with clown makeup, get out once a year. Thumb a ride from the sticks to the city fair. Get some city dick. Then you got your beat-up pussy. Ones that let they husbands or boyfriends beat on them but still let ’em throw a dick their way. Then you got your trailer-park pussy, which is just an offshoot of white-trash pussy. Some unclean, split-lip bitch whose shit attracts dog-pecker gnats ’fore they even drop they drawers.”

  Walkup glanced over Liz’s shoulder at Goat, who by trade raised goats for milk and meat. He’d cataract eyes, the skin around them hanging like damp shammies. His corn-oil hair was hidden beneath a black trucker’s cap with the orange Auto Zone logo faded across the top. Walkup asked, “What kind you thinks she is, Goat?”

  Goat spoke with a lisp. “She got them strands running down from her scalp. You know, like that Clash of the Titans bitch.”

  Walkup spit again. Told McGill, “That settles it, boss. She’s Medusa pussy.”

  McGill chuckled. “Then Medusa’s gonna get shined up, ’cause she’ll be busy on her back trading spread-eagle for a wage the next few nights.” McGill winked at Liz. “I take fifty percent off the top. That pays for my time that you wasted, bitch.”

  The barn door squeaked open. Ned stepped in. Face highlighted by knuckle imprints. A gash about his forehead. Mouth the wrong shade of blue. Tops of both hands open expansions of flesh. McGill laughed. “You win?”

  Still heaving, Ned grunted, “Yeah.”

  McGill said, “Scar tells me this piece of ass travels with you. How the shit you hook up with this feisty broad, Ned?”

  Ned grabbed the bottle of bourbon from the table. Turned it up. The walnut-sized knot in his throat ran up and down. He lowered the bottle and said, “Ah, long story short, she and me made a deal at Leavenworth Tavern. Kill her ole man for a sampling of her sours, a cut of the crank she and her ole man cooked.”

  McGill pointed and said, “Mean that rucksack on the table?”

  Ned looked where he had picked up the bourbon. “Yeah, part of that is mine.”

  McGill smiled and said, “Tell you what, Ned. Win the ’Brook, you can have your half of everything in the ruck. I’ll keep the rest for her waylaying my daughter. You lose, I keep it all.”

  Ned had killed and fucked for what was in that rucksack. Damn near got his ass dry-humped by Pete and his gang of retreads. Done paid a thousand bucks to fight in the Donnybrook. Ned was all gums greased the shade of battle, said, “Gonna shit and fall back in it, split-tail son of a bitch!”

  McGill’s eyes baseballed in size. “You watch your gargled tongue, toothless bottom-feeder.”

  Anger vibrated beneath Ned’s feet as, still pumped from the fight, he stepped to McGill, clenched a right uppercut into McGill’s gut.

  Goat’s eyes watered in amazement, and he blurted “Holy fuck!” as he stood paralyzed, in shock.

  Walkup backed away from Ned and McGill, wanting no part of either man’s menace, and said, “Son of a bitch has got the mad cow in his head.”

  McGill doubled over. His right hand fumbled for something at his belt. Ned followed up with a left hook into McGill’s skull. Dropped him to one knee. McGill pulled a piece of black steel half the size of a road flare from his side. Flung his wrist away from his body and the steel extended into a baton. He swung it into Ned’s left shin. Worked it up Ned’s thigh. Stood up. Rattled Ned’s ribs, jabbed his kidney.

  Ned huffed, raised both hands to shield his head. McGill branded Ned’s forearms, shoulders, and skull with the metal ASP baton.

  Ned screamed, “Motherfucker!” and tried to curl into a protective ball.

  McGill panted, stabbed the ASP up and into Ned’s stomach, not breaking the skin but taking the rest of Ned’s air, and he hissed, “I’d have taken you in long ago. If you wasn’t as crooked as me.”

  Liz’s vision kept blurring and clearing. She’d watched the ASP pelt Ned’s body like hail on a tin roof. Had felt the tension of Goat’s hands loosen. When her vision cleared again, she stomped his feet. Pulled her hands free. Came at McGill from behind. Pushed him into Walkup. Grabbed her rucksack from the table and McGill’s .38. Turned around to McGill, who raised the baton with madness in his eyes. He hollered, “Fucking cunt!”

  Liz fingered the trigger. Told McGill, “Any man hit a woman deserves double in payback.”

  Ned’s body burned with welts and cherry bruises as he stood up, pushed past Liz, and planted a low right uppercut into McGill’s gut. McGill dropped the ASP and hit the barn floor like water breaking from a pregnant woman in contraction.

  Walkup and Goat were already on the floor, hands laced over and covering their heads. Then the walkie-talkie on the table buzzed with static, and a man’s inflamed voice said, “McGill? McGill? We got a runner dragging ole Cut down the entrance, done busted through the damn gate!”

  Liz looked to Ned and asked, “Now what?”

  Ned said, “We best get while we still can.”

  18

  Fu sat in the Jeep’s passenger seat meditating on needles puncturing skin. Tethered bodies. Inhales and exhales of pleading. Breaking a man’s will. Loyalty. He watched Whalen follow yet another piece of greasy bar trash into the house, his pistol pressed into his back.

  Cramp asked Whalen, “What’s up with you and the fish-eyes in the Jeep, some kind of fetish thing?”

  Whalen tapped the pistol against Cramp’s skull, reminded him, “Shut the fuck up.”

  Entering the open door, they found the living ro
om devoid of humans. Gnawed strips of duct tape were scattered across the floor. The interior reeked of soured sweat and sweet honey.

  From behind, Whalen felt metal press into his back. A voice followed. “Drop the gun.”

  Whalen kept his pistol in Cramp’s back. “Go ’head, shoot me. I’ll separate this old boy’s insides.”

  The voice told Whalen, “Don’t make me no difference.”

  Cramp recognized the voice. Was worried, said, “Come on, Pete. He’s looking for Lang and some guy named Angus.”

  Pete said, “Lang done been here with some man whose face is all uneven. Guess that was Angus.”

  Whalen questioned, “What about Ned?”

  Pete said, “Ned is long gone with some crazy piece of tail. Left us high. Just like Lang and the guy with the uneven face. Now drop the damn gun.”

  Whalen said, “Fuck you.”

  Cramp pleaded, “Come on, Pete. He just wants this Angus fella. Where’d they go?”

  Pete ignored Cramp, laughed. “Smells like pork tenderloin to me. You a police, ain’t you?”

  From the hallway a motor hummed. Dodge came rolling down the carpet in his electric wheelchair with Elbow walking behind him holding his privates. Dodge hollered, “The hell is going on in my house?” He held an AR-15 assault rifle across his shot leg, looking like a half-robot killing machine, the blood now dried black down his shin. He lifted the rifle up, said, “Don’t wanna answer me?”

  Without warning, he opened fire in a sweeping motion across the living room. Elbow squeezed his crotch and screamed, “Fuck you!,” pogo-ing deliriously around the room. Whalen ducked, turned his body into Pete. Shouldered him out the open door. Into the yard, onto the ground. Back in the house, Cramp’s body opened up with bullets like a pond with rocks breaking its surface. He hit the floor bubbling blood.

  In the yard, Whalen and Pete grunted and struggled for each other’s weapons. Whalen saw that Pete held a screwdriver, not a gun, and bared his teeth. Bent his wrist against Pete’s grip. Forced the Glock’s barrel down into Pete’s jaw. Pushed Pete’s screwdriver into the other side of his face.