Craig Davidson - Cataract City

“And my son, Duncan,” Mr. Diggs said, guiding his boy forward. “They’re your biggest fans.”

“Oh, are they now?” Bruiser Mahoney said. “I must say they ought to be, that you’d bring them into this snakepit with these vipers!”

He laughed and strode forward, offering a hand that swallowed my father’s own. He shook Mr. Diggs’ hand next, then knelt down before me and Dunk like a man preparing to accept a knighthood.

“Look at you. My wide-eyed little warriors.”

Up close his eyes were blue, terrifically blue, the skin around them scored with little cracks like the fissures in alabaster. He smelled of carbolic soap. The cleft in his chin bristled with untrimmed stubble.

“Welcome to the bestiary.” He smiled. The point was broken off one eye tooth. “Fancy joining the carnival, boys?”

It was overwhelming to be so close to him, to all these men. I still struggled with the notion that the Masked Assassin might lend Disco Dirk his deodorant. Was it possible that any of these men actually wore deodorant, or stood in line at the post office to mail a parcel or behaved in any way like normal people? How could a creature like the Boogeyman have a job, a mortgage, a wife? It was impossible to imagine him grilling steaks in his backyard, his lizard-green face grinning above a Kiss the Cook apron. I had figured these men vanished behind the curtain after a match and lived in some nether-realm, squabbling amongst themselves like petulant demigods until they stepped back through that curtain to settle their grievances the next month.

“You’re my favourite wrestler.” There was a quaver in Dunk’s voice. “You’re sort of … well, perfect .”

Bruiser Mahoney laughed. His breath washed over me. I caught the same smell that I’d once caught coming off my father when he’d stepped into my room late one night, watching me silently from the foot of the bed.

“Perfect, he says. You hear that, fellas? It’s like I keep telling you!”

“A perfect boondoggle,” Outbacker Luke cracked.

Bruiser Mahoney took our fathers aside.

“… come by your house, do the dog-and-pony,” I heard him say. Our fathers sunk their hands into their pockets and smiled politely. “… reasonable rate … wouldn’t gyp you fellas …”

My father rested his hand on Mahoney’s shoulder, patting it the way you might pat a dog. Next he reached for his wallet. Mahoney’s big hand went to my father’s wrist, trapping his hand in his pocket.

“Later,” he said softly. “Either of you have a stick of gum?”

When he came back his breath smelled of spearmint instead of whatever had been in the plastic cup. He grabbed a Polaroid camera from his duffel, handed it to Disco Dirk.

“Take a shot of me with these little Bruisers,” he said, kneeling to grab us around the shoulders. His power was immense: it was like being hugged by a yeti.

To Duncan and Dutchie , Mahoney wrote on the still-developing photo. Two warriors in the Bruiser Mahoney armada .

He signed it with his initials— Yours, BM —and for an instant I was terrified I’d laugh. Sometimes my mom would warn me through the bathroom door: “If you’re taking a big BM, Dutchie, make sure you flush twice or you’ll plug the pipes.”

When Bruiser handed the photo to Dunk, Dunk stared at him gratefully and said: “I want to grow up to be just like you.”

For a moment Mahoney’s expression slipped. Under it was the face of a creature who was old, haunted and lost.

“Ah, you’ll grow up, boy,” he said. “You’ll learn.”

When we got out to the parking lot Mr. Lowery and Mr. Hillicker were there with their sons and some other Bisk men. They sat on the tailgates of their pickup trucks drinking cans of Natural Light.

“Look who it is,” Mr. Lowery said. “The cheat and the gasbag.”

My father gripped my hand. “Just keep walking, Dutchie.”

The men hopped off the tailgates. Mr. Hillicker came towards us, bobbing on the toes of his boots while Mr. Lowery skulked low. They formed a semicircle of bleached denim, cigarette smoke and booze fumes.

“What’s the matter?” Mr. Hillicker said to my dad. “Too big to talk to us grunts?”

“That’s nothing to do with it,” my father said. “It’s been a long night, Dean. I’m taking my son home.”

“And we’re stopping you?” said Mr. Lowery. His teeth shone like tiny white spears under the lot lights. “Take him home, Stuckey. Mister Stuckey.”

“You lay off, Stan,” Mr. Diggs said with ice in his eye. “I’m telling you to just lay off.”

Mr. Lowery showed Mr. Diggs his palms like a magician performing some dizzying sleight of hand. “I’m laying easy as a blind bitch in her bed, chum.”

Clyde Hillicker and Adam Lowery watched from the truck. Adam’s eyes were every bit as narrow and flinty as his father’s; it was a scary thing to see in a boy my own age.

An awful electricity zipped among the older men. Shoulders jostled. Hands balled. Next the air was full of swinging fists.

Mr. Diggs’ right shoulder dipped and his hand came up, crunching into Mr. Hillicker’s nose. Mr. Hillicker stutter-stepped back on his heels, toes pointed up like in a Three Stooges routine; it would have been comical if not for the new dent in his nose and the blood that lay stunned across his cheeks.

My father pushed me out of the way as Mr. Lowery surged at him, low and sidewinding. It seemed unreal: Dad in his penny loafers and corduroy slacks fighting Adam Lowery’s father in his chambray work shirt. Mr. Lowery hit my father in the stomach. The air whoofed out of him—“Dad!” I cried — then my father, who I’d never seen throw a punch, brought his fist around in a sweeping roundhouse that clipped Mr. Lowery on the chin.

A pair of cop cars had been idling at the Country Style Donuts across the street. Now they crossed silently, skipping the curb and rolling into the lot. Four uniformed officers stepped out. They stood with their hands on their hips, smirking, not quite ready to get involved.

A hand grabbed my jacket and jerked me backwards. My shoulder collided with Dunk’s — we were both gripped at the end of two huge muscular arms.

“Stay out of the fray, boys,” Bruiser Mahoney said. “You’re liable to lose something.”

He sat us on the pavement and rucked into the fray. “Stop this mess!” he cried, towering like a colossus. He grabbed one of Mr. Hillicker’s buddies by the scruff of his neck and rag-dolled him across the asphalt. “Cease and desist!”

Another man fell out of the scrum clutching his arm. Blood squeezed between his clenched fingers. “He cut me!” he shrieked.

I could have seen a flash of silver in Mr. Diggs’ hand — something that shone like a sliver of moonlight.

“Break this shit up!” the cops shouted, wading in with their batons swinging. “Give it up, you bastards!”

Bruiser Mahoney stepped away, panting just a bit. Beads of sweat dotted his brow.

“Come on, boys.” His hands gripped our forearms. He half led, half lifted us: only my toes touched the ground.

“My dad …” Dunk said.

“Your dad’s in a whack of trouble, son. Nothing to be done for it.”

The brawl raged on. The cruiser’s lights bathed the scene in blue and red flashes. In hindsight, it was shocking that neither our dads nor the police saw us being led away by a goliath wrestler in scuffed cowboy boots and a buckskin jacket. Equally shocking was the fact that neither Dunk nor I called out to our fathers.

Bruiser Mahoney’s brown cargo van was parked around back of the arena near the Dumpsters. He popped the side door and said: “Hop in, boys.”

We sat hip to hip on the ripped bench seat. The van smelled of sweat and turpentine. The left side of the windshield was milky with cracks. A plastic hula girl was stuck to the dash. In the back were a few army duffels, boxes of bodybuilding magazines, sleeping bags and about a million empty Coke cans.