Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

“Breathe,” Nurse urged, squeezed a sponge over his head. Her breath smelled impossibly clean, as always, like cilantro and lime. She rubbed Primo’s shoulders and Vaselined his ears while he leaned back, rested against her chest.

“Who’s ahead?”

“I call it even. So stop effin’ around.”

“Tryin’ to be smart. Guy’s a butcher.”

“And you a pussy. Don’t mean you got to act like one.”

Ding.

The Albatross fluttered over. Primo dropped his guard, baited the Albatross into a wild uppercut before shoving him against the ropes and tearing off his left wing. It sailed into the crowd. A group of brokers went crazy, holding up a ticket for “Both Wings Torn” (46 — 1) until Mr. Fancy explained that “Yes, that sure was a savvy bet, and congratulations! Really. It’s just that the fighter in question is, as you can see, still Partially Winged.” The suits bitched and whined and poked the air with their cigars until Abe Golem loomed over and stood behind them.

“Pay attention!” Nurse yelled, as the Albatross worked free and tried a spinning backhand. Primo ducked and drove his heel into the larger man’s kneecap, shattering it. The Albatross fell, tried to rise, stayed down.

“Winner. . Da Champeen !” Buddy Vox warbled, over a wash of boos and spilled paregoric.

DOC NOB TWIRLED his mustache. “Will you just look at this piece of shit?”

The Albatross lay on an exam table, blubbering quietly. Primo sat at his locker wearing a towel, too tired to move. Doc Nob broke a hypo off in the Albatross’s thigh, manipulating the kneecap for a while before declaring the whole enchilada medically pointless.

“You concur?”

Nurse stuck out her tongue.

Nob dropped three pills onto it.

“You concur?”

She nodded, signed the form.

Nob pressed the intercom. “Can we get a clean up already?”

“Not a clean up,” Primo said.

“None of your business, Champ.”

An orderly who looked like Veronica Lake in desperate need of a shave kicked open the door, pointed at the Albatross.

“This mess?”

“That mess.”

She wheeled the exam table out into the alley and then threw the bolt. Dogs began to bark and snarl.

“Anything else?”

“Go get Mr. Fancy.”

The orderly blew Doc Nob a kiss, skipped back up the stairs.

“She new?” Nurse asked.

“Of course.”

“Where you find them at?”

“I dunno. Bars. Under bridges.” He turned to Primo. “How’s Gina?”

Primo gingerly pulled on slacks. The answer was dying .

“Same, I guess.”

Nob rooted around his Gladstone for a prescription bottle.

“Give her six reds and ten purples. Before breakfast. No milk.”

“Thanks. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yet.”

Mr. Fancy walked in, held up a check. Doc Nob snatched it and disappeared. Nurse picked up a robe with a slit in the back to accommodate wings, dropped it in the trash.

“Yeah, listen, it’s too bad about the Albatross,” Mr. Fancy said, chewing a cocktail straw. He wore a Mao jacket and round glasses and looked almost exactly like John Lennon in pictures where John Lennon is so high he looks almost exactly like a small Chinese man. Behind Fancy, as always, was Abe Golem. “But the beak? The fluttering and cheeping already? Ho-hum.”

“Yeah,” croaked Abe Golem. “Ho-hum.”

“Also, on the news front? I’ve got some bad news.”

Abe Golem nodded. “News.”

“The thing is? I can’t use you again this month, Champeen. That’s the thing. That’s it for you. This month.”

Primo pawed at his duffel. He needed a little over twenty thousand more for the big plan. He and Gina would fly back to Tokyo. Already had the tickets and a down payment on an apartment. Top floor. A doorman with brushes on his shoulders. Picture windows and pay cable. Also, there was a doctor. Akashimi. Did experimental shit with a laser or something.

“That’s not gonna work. I got bills.”

“Yeah, well, what I got is a busload of Brazilians. Steaming north this minute. Actually, cannibals. One of my scouts found them. Way out in the jungle. Guy almost didn’t come back, too busy scouting to notice he’d make a nice brisket.”

“Brisket,” said Abe Golem.

“Anyway, I figure I’ll have them go at it for a while, learn the ropes. Who knows how long to cancel each other out? A day? A month? Cannibals? Shit. Anyway, you’re on hiatus, Champeen. The crowd’s getting bored with your shtick. Blah, blah, was at one time considered pound-for-pound the greatest in places they measure greatness by pounds , blah. It’s like, ‘So What’ (1–1) at this point.”

Abe Golem opened the canvas bag at his waist. Mr. Fancy reached in and counted out three thousand dollars. “So here’s your cut. Say by August or so? Maybe I’ll have something then. I’ll send Abe over to let you know.”

Primo shook his head. “Not him. Not at the store.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll send Vox. How’s business, anyhow?”

Yesterday they’d had two customers. The day before none at all.

“Booming.”

Mr. Fancy lit a long, thin cigarette, and then immediately put it out.

“Well, stay in shape, Champ. A smart man’s always ready when his time comes.”

PRIMO DROVE HOME with the windows up and a pipe wrench across his lap. Plastic smoldered on every corner. Torn dresses and flat wallets and tiny Crocs littered the street. At night, teenagers took over the recycling plants and held raves. They laughed at people who still used the word rave . They cut up magazines and smashed bottles and sang Boy George. They fired their weapons and fondled their concubines and goaded each other with jagged tuna lids until dawn.

Gina was still awake, on the couch in her favorite lipstick, watching television. Therapy Fred’s Upswing Hour . A bald man in a cheap suit listened patiently as women complained about being left or cheated on or just plain ugly. He had a soothing voice and a southern accent that promised Reasonably Sustained Remedy. Once Therapy Fred found your Road to Remedy, he smiled through his mustache and showed the way. Or went to commercial, depending. To the crying woman on stage he said, “Kick your husband to the curb, sweetheart, and then put on some mascara and go find someone with the life skills to treat you anywhere from 18 to 22 percent better!”

The crowd stood and cheered.

“Hey, babe.”

“Daddy?”

“No, it’s me. Primo.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“Dead.”

“For a long time?”

“Yeah, babe. Twenty years.”

“Oh.”

He kissed her temple. She held his hand and stroked it. Her wedding ring gleamed dully, just a setting, the diamond long since disappeared.

Primo was working late the night Gina guzzled the floor wax. He found her in the hallway, in nothing but a bra, green foam bubbling out her mouth like a science fair volcano. He raced her to the hospital, where they pumped her stomach. After six months she’d recovered enough for therapy. There were speech classes (Pin cushion. Say it. Say it. Pin. Say it. Cushion. Pin cushion. Good.) and life classes (Do we give out our credit card number over the phone? No. Do we leave dirt in the toilet without flushing? No. Do we swallow most of a bottle of floor wax? Probably no.) and coping classes (Sometimes it’s okay to scream. Good. Great! Like an animal. Grrr. Fantastic! But the scratching? No. Ouch . No.).

“Can I have a Popsicle?”

“Sorry, babe. It’s too late for dessert.”

“Then can I have a story?”

Over the television was a picture of Young Primo in a gold frame. It was taken in Tokyo. His arms were raised, in the middle of the ring, the night he beat Bulldog Funches for the belt. It was like two lives ago. Primo stared. The man in the picture stared back, fit, delirious, barely a mark on him. He’d been way too much for Funches that night. The bulbs flashed and reporters clamored and Gina sat in the front row, newly ascendant on the modeling circuit and cashing insane checks, beautiful, serene, wearing the most expensive dress in all of Japan.