Craig Davidson - The Fighter

Kilbride crumpled to his knees, cradling the side of his head. Tommy stared in horror: it was the worst damage he’d ever inflicted upon another human being. It was as though Kilbride were made not of flesh and bone but of weaker substances that broke and tore and bled at the barest provocation.

Tommy threw a helpless glance at his brother. Reuben had already packed the valise and now tossed the towel. “It’s over,” he signaled to Manning. “We’re quit.”

The crowd booed lustily. Beer cans and flaming matchbooks pelted the ring.

“We better hightail it.” Reuben shielded his brother’s head from the flames that rained down. “These crazies are bound to riot.”

On the way out Tommy stopped before Papa Kilbride, who was weaving drunk and hadn’t yet attended to his stricken son. His eyepatch had slipped down around his neck; he stared at the brothers with a pair of boozy but working eyes.

“Your boy’s feebleminded and we both know it.” With his face veiled in blood, Tommy’s eyes were very wide, very white. “If I catch you running him out here again, you and me will have business.”

“Goddamn butcher shop,” Reuben said once they were clear of the barn. “Look at you carved right to hell.”

“I’m fine. But the kid—”

“Some are made of flimsier stuff. The kid won’t win any beauty contests, but skin heals.”

Reuben grabbed a low-hanging branch and pulled it aside, allowing his brother to walk past before letting it whip back. “You’re bleeding something fierce. Get you cleaned up.”

He guided Tommy to a fence post and hung his valise on a point of barbed wire. With a clean towel he wiped the blood from Tommy’s face. His brow was so sodden with adrenaline Reuben could only patch it with a butterfly bandage. He set two fingers under Tommy’s jaw to ease the chatter of his teeth.

“What about your fight purse?”

“Manning knows to give it to Fr-Fruh-Fitzie Z-Zuh-Zivic. I owe him.”

A spotted cow ambled over and jammed its blunt, ski-boot-shaped head through the wire. It snuffled loudly, rooting about under Tommy’s armpit.

“Shoo,” Reuben told it.

“L-luh-le-leave it be,” Tommy said. “Its breath is nice and wuh-warm. You know, it was the st-struh-strangest thing.” Shivering, he spoke with his eyes shut. “I’m lo-lo-locked up with that kuh-kid, his f-f-face pissing bl-bluh-blood, look into his eyes and see no way is he quitting. I could’ve beat on that poor boy till there was nuh-nuh-othing left that was really hu-hyu-human and he’d’ve kept getting uh-uh-up. So I had to quit.”

“I would’ve been disappointed if you hadn’t.”

The cow chewed at the seat of Tommy’s pants, pulling the material so taut Reuben saw the shape of his brother’s crotch.

“Stupid animal’s gonna chew your pants off.”

Tommy grinned. “This is the most a-ah-action I’ve got in a l-luh-long time.”

Reuben took his brother’s head between his palms and considered it at a few angles. “Border guards ask, we’ll say you fell down a set of icy steps.”

Kate had bundled herself up and headed for home by the time Rob’s father called.

“Come on down and get a slice — pecan’s just out of the oven.”

The sky coldly pristine, spokes of lightning flashing across a bank of night clouds far off to the west. Through lit windows of the houses strung down the block Rob saw familiar silhouettes watching television, preparing for night shifts, arguing, eating alone. The nature of his neighborhood was such that he knew why that woman was eating alone, the job that man was preparing for, the root of that couple’s argument. To live on these streets was to know everything about those you lived among, to see inside their homes and lives and be seen in turn. Rob knew it was a big world from the books he’d read and movies he’d watched, but his own world often felt infinitesimally small: a limited orbit of opportunities and events, faces and places, friends and enemies. And the specific gravities of obligation and fear and love could keep you locked in that orbit your whole life.

Macy’s was an institution. The original owner, Jefferson Macy, was a pipefitter who’d come from Altoona to labor on the bridge crews; he’d sunk down to the Niagara River in a diving bell to set foundation anchors in the stony riverbed. He’d received hazard wages: at shift’s end sometimes nothing but an empty helmet was retrieved from the deeps, the diver’s waterlogged body found dashed on the rocks beyond the whirlpool rapids. Most workers — Irish, Polish, Mi’kmaq, and Iroquois — bunked in clapboard shacks or tents pitched on Goat Island. On cold nights the tents frequently collapsed, weighed down by frozen spray off Bridal Veil Falls. Each week Macy’s wife crossed the river by punt boat with pies for the laborers. Macy insisted his wife charge them for ingredients, if not her sweat and toil. By 1942 they’d saved enough to open a shopfront on Elmwood.

Reuben and Tommy sat in a corner booth. Tommy wasn’t too bad off, considering. A few gloveburns, that old scar over his eye bust open again.

“You win?”

His uncle sipped black coffee and shrugged. “Some you win, some you lose.”

Reuben clarified: “He lost.”

The waitress freshened their cups. “Can I get you, Robbie?”

“Give him orange soda, Ellie,” Reuben said. “Coffee’ll stunt his growth.”

“Old wives’ tale,” she said. “Your brother’s been drinking it since he was in short pants and look at the size of him.” She appraised Tommy’s face. “Been in a scrape tonight?”

“Ran into a door, my darling.”

“You’re the only man I know runs into doors with a nasty habit of swinging back. Robbie, you steer clear of the doorways your uncle frequents.”

Pecan pie for Reuben, pumpkin for Rob, cherry for Tommy. The slices were a good two inches thick, topped with a big ball of vanilla ice cream.

“What’s that?” Reuben gestured with his chin to the words on Rob’s palm. “Looks like a girl’s writing.”

Tommy brightened. “Kate must’ve been over.”

Reuben pinned Rob’s palm to the table and read Kate’s haiku: “Though there will always / Be those things out of your reach / Never stop reaching .” He nodded. “I like it. Yours?”

“It’s Kate’s.”

“She’s a clever gal,” said Tommy. “Pretty as her mother, too.”

“Get off it,” Rob said.

“What’s the matter,” said Reuben. “Not like she’s your sister.”

“I know!” Rob nearly shouted. The brothers chuckled at this.

They sat with stuffed bellies. Ellie came around with a bag of frozen strawberries for Tommy’s lumps.

“You see that place up there?” Tommy pointed across the street, to the lit windows of an otherwise darkened building. “I ever tell you the story?”

Neither Reuben nor Rob wished to see the puzzled look come over Tommy’s face should they say he’d told it a dozen times, so both shook their heads.

“That’s the LOH on the third story — Loyal Order of Hibernians. You need a card to get in, even though it’s just card tables and a wet bar. One time I was working the door and this guy showed up, didn’t have no card, so I tell him to bug off. Come on, let me in, I’m Irish, the guy says. I tell him no card, no dice, and when he got pushy I threw him down the steps.”

Tommy mopped crumbs off his plate with his thumb. “Well, pretty soon come that knock again. It’s the same guy, looking a bit worse for wear. Come on, let me in, I’m Irish. Well, he gets a bit flagrant so I got to throw him down the steps again. A few minutes later another knock. The same guy. Well I stepped aside and let him in, saying, You’re right. You must be Irish! ”