The Hunter
Page 26
And of course, a healthy sprinkling of fools that have watched a few too many MMA bouts on television and figured it didn’t look that hard. Little more than chum for the crowd, they have done their part, sacrificial lambs for the maddened rabble.
With each passing bout, I sat in the back and felt the energy rising. Starting low, it worked steadily upward, cresting into a veritable hunger, bordering on lust, the feeling so strong I can feel it pushing in from every angle.
Goose pimples cover my exposed forearms and calves as I assume my stance in the corner, waiting as the ring announcer steps through the ropes. A cordless microphone in hand, he doesn’t pretend to be some sort of Michael Buffer knockoff, showing up in the traditional attire of a tuxedo and polished wing tips.
Opting for little more than board shorts and a tank top, the tail of his unbuttoned Aloha shirt flaps to either side. No more than a couple of hours from the surf, his long hair is sun bleached and pulled back, a crooked grin on his face.
All in all, a look that holds no pretense, neither confirming nor denying the fact that he’s a Los Angeles trust-fund baby down here hiding from his family and the real world and all the responsibility both brings with them.
Not that I give a shit. This isn’t the place anybody ends up unless they’re hiding from something.
Myself included.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, his sandals slapping against his heels as he saunters to the center of the ring. A quick squawk of feedback through the cheap mic echoes through the speakers, vocal displeasure sounding out from the audience.
Pretending not to notice, he pushes on. “Let’s hear another round of applause for our last combatants, Charlie Reed and Eric Montrose!”
Calling the last two guys combatants is something like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch. Both big and beefy, the bout quickly devolved into a couple of gorillas trying to see who could withstand more haymakers.
It was like watching three rounds of the last forty seconds of every Rocky Balboa fight.
The crowd had loved it.
The reception to his request is weak at best, what clapping there is accompanied by a healthy smattering of boos. Already the crowd has moved on from the last spectacle, ready for the next in line. A small shower of peanut shells and paper napkins rain down, the items dotting the outer edges of the ring, some even landing within a few inches of my feet.
Not that the announcer seems to notice. Even with the top of my head buried into the corner pad, my gaze aimed straight down at the ground, I can imagine the look on his face. One corner of his mouth is rising higher, his grin growing ever more lopsided.
He lives for this shit, inciting the masses, feeling like he’s some sort of ringmaster in his own personal circus.
All bought and paid for with his daddy’s money.
Not that he — or any of us — have any delusions about where we are and what we’re doing. The last guys beating the hell out of each other just means there are a few more stains on the mat going forward. Pelting the ring with garbage doesn’t mean we’re going to slow things down to sweep up. It’s just that much more crap for me to now roll around in.
This isn’t Las Vegas, or New York City, or even Rio. The people that have shown up to watch know that. Those of us that step inside the ring damned sure know it.
And here we are in spite of it.
Or, some might even argue, because of it.
“All right,” the announcer says, a bit of his surfer accent sliding out, making him sound like McConaughey in Dazed and Confused. Rotating at the waist, he looks to either side before saying, “and with that, I’ll get us straight to what we all came here to see tonight.”
“Ham!” a stray voice calls out. “Ham!”
My eyes slide shut. This is the worst part. That damn chant that some drunken idiot always gets started.
“Ham!”
Ignoring him, the announcer calls, “For tonight’s main event, we have one of the most anticipated bouts in Shakey Jake’s history.”
His voice cracks as he walks around the ring, pretending that he’s trying to whip them up a bit more, though there’s no need. The collective energy has continued to rise, the lack of walls or a roof having no negative effect on the tension brimming in the air.
No, this is about him siphoning off a little piece of things for himself, reminding everybody here who is responsible for all this.
Because it has been a whopping fifteen minutes since he last pointed it out.
“Two women, different in every way,” he continues. “One Latina, the other white. One from South America, the other North. One making her Tijuana debut here tonight, the other putting her crown and perfect record on the line!”
The hype achieves some modest bit of effect, enough to at least push a swell of cheers and applause from the crowd.
Again, I hear the same inebriated bastard attempt to get a chant going, calling, “Ham! Ham!”
Once more, the announcer ignores him. My time will come. Right now, he’s still milking his moment.
“In the blue corner,” he continues, his voice rising and ebbing, “a woman coming to us straight from the underground club circuit of Colombia. Standing six foot two and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds, with a 38-2 record, the Bogota Brawler herself, Victoria Rosales!”
I don’t bother moving from my spot in the corner, already knowing exactly what the woman looks like, her actual physical description enhanced the standard twenty percent by announcer hyperbole.
On a good day — in boots — she might go six feet even. Weigh maybe a pound or two above a buck forty. Striated muscle lines her arms and shoulders but her midsection is a bit softer, free of definition, with small bulges visible above her trunks.
Not that all of that is easy to see, most of it obscured by dark ink etched into much of her skin. Beginning around her ear, it wraps down one side of her neck before spreading over her back and, eventually, making it all the way to her calves.
With basic coloring and blurry lines, it’s the sort of thing referred to in the States as prison ink, though I don’t have enough knowledge of the girl or parlors in Colombia to know if she got hers inside or if that’s just how tattoos look down there.
Not that it much matters, my lifetime interaction with her is about to come to an abrupt end in about ten minutes.
Perfunctory cheers ring out as a bit more debris lands in the ring. Right now, I imagine she has a fist or two raised into the air, making a small circle, the announcer remaining silent, extending the moment as long as he can.
Same cocksure smile on his face.
The first few times I was down here, I played the part. I stayed upright in the corner, responding to all the cues, doing what was expected.
That was long ago, well before I came to see that it went the same way every time, that the kid was more interested in playing out his own little fantasy than actually doing justice to the venue or the fighters.
Now, I just stay in my corner, wrists draped over the ropes, top of my head pressed into the pad, waiting it out.
“And her opponent,” he eventually pushes out, “a woman that you all already know. Making her way down from just over the border and standing before you tonight with a perfect twenty-eight-and-oh record, your champion — Haaaaam!”
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Thank You For Reading!
Aloha!
As many of my longtime readers know, the T.R. Kohler pseudonym was created as a secondary platform to (1) allow me to create on an accelerated timeline and (2) to explore story ideas and genres that perhaps fall a bit outside my traditional style. To that end, I know this story is a step or two to the left of what I usually do, and I truly appreciate you taking a chance on it. I hope you enjoyed it.
The original impetus for this story came from a throwaway quote I read one time in which the speaker likened their personal situation to trying to be a parole officer in Hell. For whatever reason,
the notion kind of stuck with me, forming an idea that slowly morphed into the story you just read.
Never did I particularly like the idea of setting a novel in Hell, though the notion of outside forces operating outside their normal purview seemed fascinating. As did the idea of someone being in the employee of something so generally associated with evil, but having done so for love.
From that, Ember, and this story was born.
While I know this step is a bit unusual, if you have the time and inclination, I would again greatly appreciate any thoughts you have on this. It really cannot be overstated how much your reviews have helped drive my work forward, both in the forms of feedback and in feeding the systems that ultimately present my work.
As always, thank you all so much for your unfailing support, and please feel free to contact me directly at TRKwrites@gmail.com.
Happy trails friends,
Dustin, writing as T.R. Kohler
Free Book
As thank you for reading, please enjoy a FREE copy of my first bestseller – and still one of my personal favorites – 21 Hours!
dustinstevens.com/free-book
Dustin’s Books
Works Written by T.R. Kohler:
Standalone:
Shoot to Wound
Peeping Thoms
The Ring
The Hunter
My Mira Saga
Spare Change
Office Visit
Fair Trade
Works Written by Dustin Stevens:
Reed & Billie Novels:
The Boat Man
The Good Son
The Kid
The Partnership
Justice
The Scorekeeper
The Bear
Hawk Tate Novels:
Cold Fire
Cover Fire
Fire and Ice
Hellfire
Home Fire
Wild Fire
(Coming 2019)
Zoo Crew Novels:
The Zoo Crew
Dead Peasants
Tracer
The Glue Guy
Moonblink
The Shuffle
(coming soon)
Standalone Thrillers:
Four
Ohana
Liberation Day
Twelve
21 Hours
Catastrophic
Scars and Stars
Motive
Going Viral
The Debt
One Last Day
The Subway
The Exchange
Ham
Standalone Dramas:
Just A Game
Be My Eyes
Quarterback
Children’s Books w/ Maddie Stevens:
Danny the Daydreamer…Goes to the Grammy’s
Danny the Daydreamer…Visits the Old West
Danny the Daydreamer…Goes to the Moon
(Coming Soon)
About the Author
T.R. Kohler is the pseudonym for bestselling author and award-winning screenwriter Dustin Stevens. Kohler’s work to date includes the standalone thrillers Shoot to Wound, The Ring, and Peeping Thoms, in addition to the My Mira Saga: Books 1-3.
A resident of Oahu, he can be reached at TRKwrites@gmail.com.