Craig Davidson - The Fighter

Reuben tore the paper up. “No way is some government ghoul harvesting my kid brother’s guts. No way is some medical school prick hacking up his head. I’ll die first.”

Tommy lay still. The EKG machine beeped fitfully; every so often the green line trembled, indication that a semblance of Tom Tully yet existed. His arms were pocked with needles — needles to feed and medicate and drain him.

Rob said, “Why did you let him?”

“Why’d I let who do what?”

“Why didn’t you stop him? Tell him how stupid it was, or refuse to go along with it?”

Reuben looked as if he’d been stabbed in the heart. “You think I didn’t say that — Christ, Robbie, you’ve been there, you’ve heard me say that. A thousand times I told him how stupid it was. I told him right up to the day it happened.”

“But you were never forceful about it. You talked; that was all.”

“Listen: this wasn’t my choice. If I’d had my way, Tommy would’ve been finished years ago. All I could do was be there to see he didn’t get hurt.”

“But he got hurt.”

“And you blame me.” Reuben nodded, taking it in. “Maybe that’s fair — I blame myself. But then each man acts according to his own wishes. My brother, not my slave.”

Reuben dipped his fingers in a cup of water and wet Tommy’s cracked lips. “Your uncle never learned how to throw a punch right. Purely an arm puncher; no hips.

Couldn’t dance for the same reason. But he took his body and his talent as far as they could go. A lot of it was for me. I was his trainer and he knew that if he ever hit it big I’d be right there beside him.”

“And isn’t it a trainer’s job,” Rob said, “to protect his fighter?”

Reuben ignored him. “We used to talk about what we’d do if Tommy were the heavyweight champ. I think we both knew it was a pipe dream, but where’s the harm? We’d go out for a big Italian supper and put every other nickel in the bank. “And we didn’t have the sort of relationship where… we knew each other too well — you take things for granted. He was always there so he’s always gonna be there. What were the last words I said to him? Something practical, I’m sure: keep your chin down, plant your feet. Christ. Should’ve been, Fuck all this, we’re out of here. I should’ve been the older brother. The protector.”

Reuben’s fingers dipped and wiped. Rob became aware of a very strange sensation looking at his father’s hand: the paleness of it, bleached from enriched flour. A baker’s hand. A breadmaker’s hand. A hand nothing like his own.

“He’s coming through this, Robbie. You still believe that, don’t you?”

Watching his father and uncle together under that harsh hospital light, Rob felt himself pulling away. A dark hole opened and a massive force pulled him down a vast corridor at such velocity he thought his skin might get sucked off, huge pressure tugging at his arms and legs as his father and uncle dwindled, all sense of intimacy gone and Rob not fighting it at all.

His hands were clamped tight on the chair’s armrests — not in fear, but rage. Rage at these two men, mere specks now, who’d been charged with his upbringing; rage that all they’d ever told him was that fighting was the only way to find a little space for yourself in the world. His whole life funneled, focused, preordained. How else to settle matters except through violence? It was all he’d been taught. His anger swelled, magnified beyond any point of reference or comprehension: a billowing mushroom cloud, a towering inferno, a brilliant supernova.

Two men drove the southbound QEW in a rattletrap Ford.

Paul Harris wondered at the chain of events that had brought him here. To him, it seemed life unraveled as a series of minor decisions. And it could begin almost without your knowing it: one moment your life followed a predictable path down well-lit streets, the next it was careening down dark alleyways. Momentum becomes unstoppable. A snowball rolling down an endless hill until it was the size of the world itself.

Lou asked Paul how he felt. Paul said he felt fine.

“Don’t look so fine.”

Paul’s face was as expressionless as the face on a coin. “Don’t worry about me.”

The dotted median strip flickered, a luminous white line in the side-view mirror.

Lou cracked a window — the kid plain stunk — to let the cool air circulate.

“What was it you said you did before this — something business-y, wasn’t it?” When Paul nodded, Lou said, “Ever think about heading back to that?”

“Are you kidding?”

Lou shrugged. “Let your body heal up, buy a nice set of false teeth. Figured you’d enjoy looking at your face in the mirror and not seeing a plate of dog food staring back.”

“Since when did you start giving a shit?” Paul asked him.

“Since never,” Lou said, honestly. “A temporary lapse on my part.”

Fritzie Zivic drove down narrow streets past boarded shopfronts and fire-gutted buildings. American flags hung from poles in rigidly frozen sheets; faded stickers covered rust-eaten bumpers: god bless the usaand support our troopsand blessed be.

Staring from the passenger seat, Rob Tully was overcome with a consuming need to be different — different in every conceivable way — from all this. To be rich where all he saw was poverty. To find sophistication where all he knew was crassness.

Grace where all he saw was ignorance. Girls with platinum hair extensions and three-inch fingernails gabbing outside Sparkles Nail Boutique. An old black man wearing a snap-brim fedora behind the wheel of a shiny white Mustang 5.0 ragtop. Teenage boys passing brown bottles of Cobra malt on the curb outside Wedge Discount Liquors.

“Just so we’re clear,” said Fritzie, “if things get ugly, I’m stepping in.

I’ll wave that white towel. That’s the price of this ride.”

Murdoch cut a toneless fart in the backseat: a low wheezing groan like a bungling musician hitting a flat note on his accordion. The car filled with a reprehensible stench.

“You sour, ungrateful mongrel,” Fritzie said dourly.

The lights of the city faded. The Cadillac wended down dark country roads. Rob’s heart beat in a regular rhythm. His course of action was settled. Fritzie slotted an eight-track cassette into the player; Frank Sinatra sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

They pulled off the main road and parked along a barbed-wire fence. Bars of cold even light cut between the barn’s slats: in the darkness the light appeared to be slanting up out of the earth itself.

Manning stood beside the barn door. Ankle-length duster coat parted slightly, the butt of his Remington shotgun resting on the toe of one boot.

“Who you brung me, Fritzie?”

“Amateur fighter from out my way. Robbie Tully.”

Manning set his sharp eyes upon the young fighter. “I heard of you. You’re hot shit.”

“I just want a fight.”

“Plenty safer places to find one.”

Fritzie said, “He’s got a specific fight in mind.”

Manning nodded. “Big fella went down last time — that was a Tully, no? We run a blind draw here, so strictly speaking it’d be a beggary of the rules. But rules can be bent to clear room for a grudge.”

The space under the barn’s peaked ceiling was packed to capacity. The crowd was a mix of Canadian and American, their country of origin distinguished by the coffees in their hands: white Dunkin’ Donuts cups for Yanks, brown Tim Hortons for the Canucks. Some wore T-shirts bearing tough-guy phrases: pain is only fear exiting the bodyand yea, though i walk through the valley ofthe shadow of death i shall fear no evil, for i am the meanest motherfucker in the valley.