Stanley Elkin - Boswell

“These people paid for a main event. Give them a main event.”

“Get him off. The main event is my death. He means to kill me.”

“Take it easier with him, Reaper,” the referee said. “Work him toward the ropes. Let him get away a minute.”

“Sure,” the Reaper said mildly.

“No,” I shouted. “No. I quit.” I tried to turn my neck toward the crowd. “He’s killing me,” I yelled. “They won’t let me quit.” They couldn’t hear me above their own roar.

The Reaper gathered me toward him; he grabbed my body — I wasn’t even resisting now — and raised me over his head. He pushed me away like a kind of medicine ball and I dropped leadenly at the base of the ring post.

I knew my man now. To treat flesh as though it were leather or lead was his only intention. To find the common denominator in all matter. It was scientific; he was a kind of alchemist, this fellow. Of course. Faust and Mephistopheles combined. Fist! I lay still.

“Fight,” he demanded.

I didn’t answer.

“Fight!” he said savagely.

He could win any time, but he refused. This was a main event for him, too. He had thrown me away to give me a chance to organize a new resistance.

“Will you fight?” he asked dangerously.

“Not with you,” I said.

The crowd was booing me.

“All right,” he said.

He backed away. I watched him. He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in a queer rhythm. His shoulders raised and lowered rapidly, powerfully. His arms seemed actually to lengthen. He stooped forward and came toward me slowly, swinging his balled metallic fists inches above the canvas. It was his Reaper movement, the gesture that had given him his name. I had never seen it and I watched fascinated. The crowd had stopped booing and was screaming for me to get up. The closer he got the more rapidly his fists swept the canvas, but still his pace toward me was slow, deliberate, almost tedious. He loomed above me like some ancient farmer with an invisible scythe. Now the people in the first rows were standing. They rushed toward the ring, pleading with me to get away. At last my resolution broke. I got clumsily to my knees and stumbled away from him. It was too late; his fists were everywhere. They caught me on the legs, the stomach, the neck, the back, the head, the mouth. I felt like some tiny animal — a field mouse — in tall grass, trampled by the mower. I covered my eyes with my hands and dropped to the canvas, squeezing myself flat against it. I squealed helplessly. A fist caught me first on one temple, then on the other.

I heard the referee shout “That’s enough” just before I lost consciousness.

I was unconscious for only a few seconds. Oddly, when I came to my head was clear. I could have gotten up; I could have caught one of those fists and pulled him off balance. But I didn’t choose to; I thought of one of those phrases they use for the wars — to struggle in vain. They were always praying that battle and injury and death were not in vain — as though anything purchased at some ultimate cost ought to be worth it. It was a well- meant prayer, even a wise one, but not practical. Life was economics. To be alive was to be a consumer. They made a profit on us always. There were no bargains. I saw that to struggle in vain was stupid, to be on the losing side was stupid, but there was nothing one could do. I would not get up, I thought, I would not even let them know I was conscious. I lay there, calmer than I had ever been in my life.

“He’s dead,” someone screamed after a moment. “He’s dead,” someone else shouted. They took it up, made it a chant. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

The police rushed into the ring. They made a circle around The Reaper and moved off with him through the crowd. They were protecting him, I knew. He was not being arrested. What he did in the ring was all right. He was immune to law; law itself said he was immune, like someone with diplomatic status. What did that reduce my death to, I wondered. What did that reduce my death to if my murder was not a murder, not some terrible aberration punishable by law? Missouri rules and natural law worked hand in hand in an awful negation of whatever was precious to human beings. Oh, the dirty athletics of death!

Lying there on the canvas, in the idiotic nimbus of my blood, no longer sure I feigned unconsciousness, or even whether I still lived, one thing was sure: I would not fight — ever again. It was stupid to struggle, stupider still to struggle in vain — and that’s all struggle ever amounted to in a universe like ours, in bodies like our own. From now on I would be the guest. I would haunt the captain’s table, sweating over an etiquette of guesthood as others did over right and wrong. Herlitz knew his man, who only gradually, and after great pain, knew himself.

If only it isn’t too late, I thought; if only it isn’t too late to do me any good, I thought, just before I died.

At first the voice was simply conversational, pleasant to listen to there in the dark. I settled myself comfortably and tried to guess what the speaker was like. This mattered more than what he was saying, though it wasn’t very important either. Nothing was. It probably wasn’t important for the old speaker either. (I pictured him as very old.) I imagined him to be as comfortable as myself. We might have been in Purgatory together, or on some battlefield after the noise and terror of the day.

After a while the voice became a little husky. He may have been thirsty. That was too bad, I thought; he should either drink something or stop talking. The strain became more obvious, and though I could still hear him almost as clearly as before it was plain that he was making a greater effort. It occurred to me that he may have been in some peculiar position, and I thought, Why doesn’t he change it if it’s such an effort to talk from? As he substituted effort for momentum his speech became less objective, more urgent. I might have been able to learn something from this old man, I thought, if only he hadn’t become thirsty.

“She mustn’t see him,” the voice was saying. “Not after what he did to her. Why do you suppose I’m here now? It was the shock. What a shock that was. Never mind about that. I’ll see to it that he’s punished. She won’t have to be there. You promise me. Promise.”

He was probably right, I thought resentfully, there was no reason to expose the child. (I knew she was very young just as I knew he was very old.) But why did he have to shout? He seemed more convincing, I thought, when he simply stated his position.

“Stop that noise,” another voice, deeper, surly, said. “You’re unappreciative,” it added unexpectedly.

“Will everyone please be quiet?” a third voice said. This last voice seemed very near and I wondered if it was me who had spoken. It seemed odd that I should have said anything. None of this had anything to do with me.

“Oh, shut up,” said the second voice angrily.

“Are you talking to me?” I asked.

“Another county heard from,” said the second voice.

“Look,” said a fourth voice, “my head hurts very bad tonight, even worse than usual. But you never hear me complain.”

“You’re complaining right now,” the second voice said logically. “If your head hurts so bad why don’t you tell her?”

“Promise me,” said the first voice. “Promise me.”

“All right,” the third voice said wearily, “I promise you.” I listened very carefully. It wasn’t I who had spoken. It was somebody older.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the second voice when I realized he hadn’t meant me when he had said shut up.