Craig Davidson - Cataract City

His Achilles tendon tore. His left leg crumpled. The kid tried to stand. Instinctively, I offered my hand to help him up. I squinted down, wobbly on my feet — then withdrew my hand sadly and said, “You ought to stay down.” The kid followed my eyes. The tendon had ripped off the bone, wadding up around his ankle like a loose tube sock. He nodded.

A few of the kid’s buddies stepped from the crowd. They picked him up and carried him past Drinkwater, who stood with a painful, pursed grin on his face.

I didn’t dare sit down; my legs would seize with scalding lactic acid. My broken right hand had mushroomed to double its size. I shuffled my feet like a man near the end of an epic dance marathon and waited for the next fighter. When he appeared, I smiled — not that anyone would have noticed since my lips were fat as sausages.

“Holy shit,” Silas Garrow said to Drinkwater. “You sure you want me to hit this guy? Why not give me a feather — that’ll knock him over just as well.”

It had all started with a letter. It had arrived at the Kingston Pen in an envelope with a stamp of Chief Big Bear in full headdress — treaty stamps, they were called, dispensed only on reservations to card-holding band members. The envelope had been slit, its contents inspected by the mailroom guard. The return address had been scribbled over with a black felt-tip; all I could read was the band number, 159. The Mohawks of Akwesasne First Nation.

Greetings, White Devil! I trust you are keeping up with your daily beatings, and I hope you have found a sparring partner who is as happy to administer them as I was. As I am aware that other eyes than yours will read this, I will only say that rockin’ is my business, and business is GOOD. I hear that one of our mutual friends — Mr. Guzzlesoda, let’s call him — has had troubles as of late. Some sticky-fingered thieves took advantage of him. What a shame! When you get out, make sure you look me up. I’m always looking for spare punching bags. Until then, I offer a thousand hosannas in your name .

Yours in Christ ,

Silas Garrow

The day after my release I’d walked up the street to the motel pay phone, fed coins into the box and dialled.

“Akwesasne Import — Export Holdings,” said a female voice. “How may I help you?”

“Silas Garrow, please.”

After a snatch of elevator muzak, Garrow picked up.

“Import — Export, huh?” I said.

“We import lots,” Garrow said. “Teddy bears, Japanese soda pop. Why must you think so poorly of me, white man?”

“The big house hardened me.”

I sketched my idea for him. Garrow listened silently, then said: “It’s Diggstown, baby. It’s also just about the longest long shot I’ve ever heard.”

“Could you get yourself in?”

“Maybe. He generally invites tomato cans, doesn’t he? Hell, he invited you.”

“You’re a peach, Silas.”

“If I did this, I’d have to set this up so there’s no suspicion — that man’s a lot of things, but a fool he ain’t. And anyway, what makes you figure you’ll make it past the first two?”

“That’s on me. If not, it’s an easy night for you.”

Silas considered it. “On the one hand, it would be shit for my boxing cred — losing to a banana-footed white devil. On the other hand, it’s not like Don King’s knocking on my door, right?”

So Silas made the call, asking Drinkwater to set up a fight. Drinkwater said he’d keep Silas in mind. A few weeks later I’d laid the trap—“ If that’s the kind of guy you think I am, why not make it all Natives? ” And Drinkwater walked into it.

“I’ll have to hit you,” Silas had warned me. “Not just to salvage a shred of dignity, but because we can’t give Drinkwater a sniff of this being a tank job.”

Silas skipped out of his corner lightly, crossing his legs over, making a full circuit around me where I stood rooted in the centre of the ring. Silas shook his head at Drinkwater, said, “Shouldn’t I be wearing an executioner’s hood?”

Drinkwater’s lips were pressed into a whitened line. “Just get it over with.”

Silas pumped out a few air-jabs, showing off his speed. I could barely raise my hands to parry them. Silas stepped back, scoffing, playing up his role, then hit me four times: right to the body, left to the body, right to the body, left to the forehead as he was backing away. The violence was sudden and the blows stung like bullets — either my body had stopped pumping adrenaline or I was too hurt for it to have much benefit. But Silas knew where to hit: the guts, the forehead. He avoided my knockout buttons — a liver shot might put me down for good, but anywhere else I’d survive.

I reeled from the volley, only selling it a little — it hurt like hell, no faking needed. The air-raid siren kicked up in my head; I took a knee. Silas backed off. Drinkwater nearly stormed into the ring.

“Hit him,” I heard him cry. “Go on, quick! Keep at it!”

“Come on, Lem. He’s down. Standing eight-count.”

“This isn’t goddamn Vegas! Hit him and keep on hitting him!”

I gathered my feet but couldn’t quite find my balance: it was as if I was struggling in a fierce riptide. My body was approaching a cliff that my will couldn’t bridge — no amount of strength would salvage me, no guts or heart. I’d simply topple over. No shame in that, I guess.

Silas punched me in the belly the way a loanshark punches a deadbeat — straight on, no grace. I hinged at the waist, a long runner of bloody drool between my lips. When Silas pulled his fist away I was almost sad to feel it go. At least it had anchored me in a standing position.

The simple act of straightening my spine drained me. Silas slipped a punch past my skull, bringing our heads together.

“Make it real,” he whispered.

I did.

My left hand lashed into Silas’s ribs, then I tightened my right hand and brought it up into his chin. The impact was genuine. Silas’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. I broke another bone in my hand but that pain was no more than a sorrowful hum inside my flesh.

Silas went down on both knees like a man who’d been stabbed in the back, his hands clutching for the blade, then he fell face first onto the cement. His liquid snuffles filled the warehouse.

Drinkwater stared blankly at Silas Garrow, KO’d on the floor. He threw the white towel. It fluttered down on Silas’s back and I couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or selling it.

Ten seconds later, he hadn’t moved. The towel rose and fell with his deep breaths. The crowd stood dumbstruck. This was just the freshest in a long line of soul-sapping injustices.

I fingered Drinkwater as he shrunk into the crowd.

“My money, Lem.” I smiled, thinking it must be a sight to inspire nightmares. “Don’t make me get rough with you.”

I thought about the past eight years, the nights without sleep and the constant formless terror; I thought about Edwina because my mind was never far from Edwina; and I thought about cosmic fairness, how it is a mysterious commodity, but sometimes that great wheel really does come around.

I woke up blind.

My mattress was dented with the impressions of the bodies that had lain in it before me. My nose was swollen with crusted blood, but I could still smell industrial bleach on the sheets.

What had happened after the fight? I remember Drinkwater had balked at paying — as I was sure he would — shrugging his scarecrow shoulders and calling the second fight a draw because the kid hadn’t gone down under my fists. He offered our money back, plus a few extra bucks for my pain and suffering.

Owe and Bovine called bullshit. Drinkwater smiled his way-off smile and played his fingers along the knife sheathed at his waist. But then Silas peeled himself off the floor, rubbing the nasty lump on his jaw.