Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“I don’t believe this,” he said. “What is this?”

Norman flagged down a vendor and bought a hot dog. “It’s amazing, right? You ever see Ultimate Fighter on TV?”

“Yeah, but those are real fighters. Athletes. These guys are — I don’t know what they are.”

“Sure you do. They’re just normal guys.”

“That one’s got an inhaler.”

Norman made short work of his dog. “Once you get a feel for it,” he said, “what does any of that matter? This serves a purpose. I signed up.”

Blood and cracklings oozed from one of the guy’s kneecaps. Bruce visored his face as flings of skin came at him.

“Signed up to do what?” he yelled. As the sound of the crowd was in ebb and flow, Norman’s words were more or less audible. He looked at the audience. On many legs were thousand-dollar jeans perfectly aged and smelted at the knees. Designer T-shirts and jewelry soldered to taste. These people were rich — that much was clear. He needed a camera; he asked Norman’s advice.

“Oh, you’re just not very smart,” Norman said. “God knows why the feds sent you.”

Since Bruce had no idea, either, this did not mean much. He pressed. Norman said, “You think you’d be getting out of here alive with a camera? You think being held at the Helix House was scary?”

“Yeah, but it can’t be long before the feds come down here looking for me. Or us. I’m a little surprised they haven’t shown up yet.”

Norman laughed and wiped spit from his cheekbone. “They aren’t coming here. If they come down here, they’d have to explain here. And how good’s that going to make them look?”

“Oh,” Bruce said, feeling shoots of panic rise up from the mulch his brain had become over the last few months. Norman was right. Probably when deals were brokered between overtly hostile nations, it happened here. Diplomats fondling twelve-year-old girls? Down the hall. No one was coming for Bruce. No one at all.

When the fight was over, an MC stepped into the cage, followed by ring girls who upheld news of the docket. Next up: the walk-ins.

Bruce began to get a bad feeling. He said, “Maybe it’s time to go, huh?”

“Sure,” Norman said. “You go on without me. I’m up.” He gave Bruce his wallet and keys and in so doing seemed to forsake more than the miscellany of his pockets. He mounted the three stairs to the ring and the gate swung open. On the other side was his opponent, who wore a black catsuit, a cape, and Oreo face paint that might have seemed doggerel if only. His hands were pork loins. He could probably clock Norman from the other side of the pen, such was the length of his reach. He weighed three hundred pounds at least.

Norman did not even hesitate, just looked up at the ceiling, maybe at God, and stepped in. The gate shut behind him. Click went the lock.

From his pocket the referee pulled a laminated card that was encomium for all things barbaric and unfair. In gist: Poke each other’s eyes out, anything goes. Agreed? If so, let’s get it on.

The Orca — because that was what he was called — backpedaled around Norman, who seemed to have committed to a spot in the middle of the ring. He didn’t follow the Orca with his eyes or even flinch when the thing came up behind him to speak his intent just in case Norman thought this was going to end well.

The crowd began to jeer. “Put ’em up, black boy!”

Norman, who’d been lock-eyed with the floor, upturned his cow face and smiled. The Orca knocked him down with one hand, and the crack of his head against the floor — and the floor was vinyl foam, which discouraged this sound 99 percent of the time — roused from the audience a gasp that turned to laughter when Norman smiled anew, got up, and returned to the spot of his choosing. The Orca’s face paint was dusted in glitter, and his catsuit was made of rubber, and though the costume had none of the pathos that halos your average clown, it still should have beat out for pity Norman’s carriage in the moment. But no. Norman was, in the outpouring of his body and the soul inside, effigy for the Bozo punching bag Bruce once whaled on as a kid. Weighted at the bottom, always coming back for more. People celebrate resilience, and mostly Bruce did, too. How else to scrape himself off the floor every day he woke up unsuccessful and broke? But still, every now and then, looking at himself in the mirror, he’d catch sight of Bozo and his stupid optimism and think: Just for today, don’t bounce back.

The Orca, who’d probably grown up bullying kids at school, was undeterred by the ease with which Norman went down. Only it was not so entertaining, and the audience was getting mad. The Orca tried to spice things up, reverted to choreographies that had made his career in the WWF. Except it was hard when only one of you knew the moves and the other just wanted to die.

Bruce started to yell. “Get up, Norman! Fight back!” He came off his bench and pressed his face to the grille, and the chain link grooved his skin, but so what? He rattled the cage and, unbelievably, started to cry. He knew about this kind of thing, okay? As a kid, he’d been classed among the weak and advised by teachers schooled in permutations of self-disgust to give himself a break. As an adult, he dismissed this advice and hated himself thoroughly. Norman, fight back! But no, he was in a heap and not getting up.

Bruce plunged his arm through a diamond hole in the cage and groped for Norman’s hand; he just wanted to hold his hand. Was everyone template for someone else’s feelings? Norman had to bounce back because, who knew? one more bounce and the Orca might go out with a heart attack, because life couldn’t beat you down every second of every day; there had to be some successes here and there. Get up, Norman! He strained to reach into the ring, and finally he managed to tap Norman on the arm.

The Orca went wild. “Tag team!” The grin on his face was so big, his gold fang implants caught the light from the overheads.

“Tag team!” went the crowd, and like that Bruce was borne up on the needs of three hundred. He tried to resist but was pushed through the cage door so fast, it locked shut before he could reestablish contact with the workings of his inner ear and stand upright. The Orca, meantime, had straddled the top rail and was brandishing his arm as though he held a lasso. Bruce scrambled for Norman, who was attempting to pull himself up by the cage wire and fishing words from the blood welled in his mouth, words like, “Get out of here,” and “I don’t want your help.”

The Orca came off the rail. Bruce looked into his eyes and was horrified to see in them the weary acquittal of a guy who just can’t afford to retire. He must have been at least sixty.

Bruce backed up into a post and then, like a rodeo clown himself, tried to draw off the Orca from Norman, who was still scaling the fence with the intent to escape — or so Bruce told himself.

He put up his hands, palms out, and when this failed to stall the Orca, and when the Orca was, essentially, on top of him, he counted it down. One: Even if there were a phone anywhere in this nightmare, he couldn’t call his wife, not anymore. In fact, he couldn’t even go home. Not without a wedding ring. Not having exhausted their savings. Two: He’d had the greater share of moral authority between them for a whole day, and he’d blown it, and for what he’d done in the casino, he would never get it back and would probably have to yield the raising of their son to her, because he couldn’t think of a single quality that suited him to the privilege. Three: He drew back his fist and let it rip.

Probably, though, he should have looked. His bones glanced off the Orca’s elbow. Only Bruce was hurt. He stuffed his hand under his armpit, then sucked on his knuckles and winced like it was sour candy.