My hand cramped up for the fifteenth time. “I need another Sharpie.”
Marty leaped into frenzied motion. “Gotcha Mr. Bell. I’ll grab some more copies of your book too. And some more 8 x 10 glossies.”
I shouted to his back, “Just Shar—.”
He was just being helpful but Christ the man could use a Xanax. I turned the next hardback book on the table around to face me. There was my big puss on the cover in all its bruised and bloody glory. My right cheek pressed halfway through a chain-link fence like someone grating cheese.
The adult cherub in front of me said, “I love the title ‘Ring the Bell’. Did you come up with that?”
I opened to the inside cover and started scrawling my signature of Christopher “Liberty” Bell with my fight record of 31-0. If I knew I would be doing so many autographs, I would have shortened it to one name a long time ago.
“Bob was it? Should I make it out to you or your boyfriend?”
“To Bob, I guess. Wait, what?”
I looked past Bob and took in the long line. My eyes burned dry. I would rather eat some punches in the cage than sign another book or get advice from another fan. Unfortunately, I made most of my money out of the fighting ring. Sponsors, advertisements and now an autobiography of my short span on earth.
The publishers wouldn’t even let me write my book even though they made sure the ghostwriter spent one whole chapter on my college education. Seems my only useful skill was to take more punishment than any man alive then snatch victory at the last second. I think the worst punishment a man can take is to work a mind-numbing nine to five job his whole life.
I slid the book across the table. “Stay strong Bob.”
Marty rushed up with his arms overflowing. “Here’s some more Sharpies Mr. Bell.”
“Gracias. That last signature smudged so bad it looked like a pigeon shit on it.” I took a sip of lemon-lime soda, massaged my bald head then clapped my hands.
“Who’s next?”
A short choppy fellow wearing an olive army jacket over a blue hoodie passed his book across the table. His eyes were hooded as well.
“I’ve bookmarked the page I want you to sign, tough guy.”
Wonderful. Something like a postcard stuck out halfway through the book. I found the edge with my finger and opened it to the page. It was a weathered Polaroid picture. The image snapped of two pre-teen boys caught in their cotton briefs. One boy outstretched his hand as if to block the camera. Their eyes shared the same emotion. Shame. Something I’ve tried to conceal for nineteen years.
“Did I ring any bells?”
I slammed the book shut. My legs started to bounce under the table. My cheeks felt damp so I brushed them with my fingers. The tips weren’t stained with blood this time.
“Tucker?”
“Come on tough guy. Let’s get out of here before you piss your pants.”
***
Tucker took me to a faux Irish pub down the street from the bookstore. This whole block of downtown had been developed into a trendy entertainment district. It was a mall turned inside out for adults.
I looked around at the quaint Irish décor as Tucker ordered us a couple of beers from a bartender with a Southern lilt to his Irish brogue.
“Place is fuck-all Irish but the Guinness is real enough.” He sat down with two dark beers topped with foam.
“Let me see that picture again.”
He wiped his hands off on his jeans then placed the picture face down on the table. I used a couple of fingers to slide it over, took a peek like I was checking a poker hand dealt to me and flipped it over keeping it close to my chest.
He took a pull from his beer. “Your fans looked pissed when you left.”
I ignored him exploring the picture.
“So did your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my fucking boyfriend. He’s just my handler on this book tour so knock it off with that shit.”
“Handler, huh?” Tucker grinned. “You macho types hate the queer jokes. Makes me wonder.”
I slammed my fist jostling the drinks. “Where did you get this?”
“Makes me wonder what your fans would think of you or those sponsors with the deep pockets. Do you think you could get an opponent to step into the ring with a faggot?”
With one hand I flung the table, drinks and all, from between us and surged at my old friend. He didn’t even flinch when I grabbed him by the throat. A couple of waiters approached. The bartender had a phone in his hand with two digits of 911 already dialed. Tucker smiled at me but spoke to them.
“Easy fellows. My buddy just found out some bad news. He’s distraught.”
The bartender stopped dialing. “I don’t care if someone died. He can’t act like that in here. You’ll have to go.”
Tucker’s eyes saddened. “Certainly, my friend will pay for the mugs and any inconvenience that he’s caused.”
He helped the waiters right the table and picked up my chair for me. I just stood there frothing. He turned to one of the waiters and ordered two more beers. The bartender heard him and said, “No more beer. I said you’re out of here.”
Tucker’s eyes flipped again this time to ice. “I said we would pay for the broken mugs and such. However, we’re still thirsty and in desperate need of respite, so bring me my fucking beers.”
The bartender poured two new beers and the waiter brought them cautiously over to us. Tucker patted his pockets looking for money I knew he would never find. I pulled a hundred out of my wallet and paid the price.
“Is this a shakedown?” I hadn’t seen Tucker in 16 years. He had spent half that time locked away somewhere.
I swear his eyes changed for the third time this evening. The actual tint of his eyes seemed to slip into richer or cooler shades depending on his mood.
“I would have to be dense to blackmail myself, wouldn’t I?” He stabbed a finger at the other boy in the picture.
I leaned back in my chair waving for him to level me with all he had. It was toasty in the pub. They even had a fire blazing in a rock encrusted fireplace. Tucker still wore his army jacket but hugged himself as if he had chills.
“I haven’t been out long this time. It’s just parole but I’m out. My probie officer got me some shithole on the west side to live in and similar work. We can’t all be big shot cage fighters like you. Some of us scrap to survive.”
“You grew up in the same suburb that I did. You had two parents and St. Barnard’s wasn’t exactly a training ground for criminals, Tuck. We are what we make of it.” I tasted the Guinness. I dig a beer that’s almost a meal.
He smiled. “It’s not where you start but where you end up, Christopher? Maybe that’s why I haven’t got so much as a Valentine’s card from you in years.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Anyway, I’m in my crappy neighborhood walking home from the bus stop when I see this old dude lugging some groceries into his shotgun house. A real dump on Wine St. I couldn’t place him but I thought that was because he was wearing the wrong clothes. So, I figured he must have been an ex-cop then the porch light haloed his face.”
Haloed his face. Tucker the poet larcenist. I almost laughed. He pulled his hood over his head.
“It was Father Max.”
***
We had just left Circle Liquor Store’s drive-thru window with two bottles of Wild Turkey. Ever since I started training for submission fighting, I drank sparingly. In two hours with Tucker, I doubled my annual intake. We rode in a maroon mini-van. I tried to ignore the child’s car seat in the back.
“I thought you rode the bus.”
“And I thought you wanted to see Father Max.”
If the devil had a twin it was Tucker. He was right. I had to see Father Max. After he had recognized our old parish priest and told me what he had found, there was never any choice.
Tucker cased the shotgun house for a week determining the old man’s routine. When the good father was out one day on his regular alcohol run, Tucker plied his trade with the back door and walked in clean. Mail was placed neatly in a hanging wooden file system in the kitchen. A few bills, a retirement check stub from the Archdiocese.
Worn but taken care of furniture in the den. No television or computer but a bookshelf full of used Louis L’Amour paperbacks and some religious and philosophy hardbacks.
The real prize sat in the bedroom closet. On the top shelf, he found an old Polaroid Instamatic camera even some unused film cartridges. Below the hanging shirts and pants were six cardboard shoe boxes. When he opened the dusty shoeboxes, he found pictures upon pictures of young children from both sexes and the same approximate ages in various stages of undress.
Father Max made them pose and touch each other in ways that should never be recorded. Tucker wanted to shred up every last picture. Rip them with his hands and teeth. Burn down the house and let the ashes blow where no one would ever find them. He became sick to his stomach and ran to the bathroom to throw up.
As he raised his head from puking, he noticed another shoebox resting on the back of the toilet. There wasn’t any dust on this one. He flicked off the lid fighting another rise of bile. On top was the picture I now held in hand. The whole fucking shoebox filled to the top with me and Tucker.
“Why didn’t you?” I covered the photo with my hand.
“Burn the place down? Take the shoebox?” He finger-tapped the steering wheel tightly. “I dunno. Shock maybe. Next thing I know I’m in the middle of the street with that picture in my hand crying like a baby. I zombied around my life for about a week when I caught your ad on the radio.”
I flinched waiting for his rendition.
“Come meet local boy done good at Hawley-Cooke’s Booksellers. Undefeated MMA star Christopher “Liberty” Bell will be signing his revealing new book on the behind-the-scenes world of underground fighting,” said Tucker in his best radio announcers voice.
My bald head blushed. “They promote the sport like we’re outlaws to raise the pay-per-view prices. Ridiculous.”
Tucker laughed. “At least you get paid for spending time locked up in a cage.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, that’s not the only thing we have in common.” I tapped my knee with the Polaroid photo.
Tucker glanced around the deserted neighborhood. He found a spot and parked the mini-van on the street.
“After you saw the photo what was your first thought? Was it, I hope my fans never find out? Will I lose my sponsorships? Or will I ever fight in the cage again?”
I stammered because I had all those thoughts and even more feelings. My voice was strangled. I struggled for air having been pushed out of my safe fishbowl. I spit out the only phrase that would clear my throat.
“I wanted to end his life.”
Tucker patted me on the cheek and opened his door. “A-fucking-men Christopher.”
***
The brittle back door looked like it was made by wasps. I balked a little.
“How do you know he’s here?”
“He’s an alkie ex-priest with a bad rep and no money. He does the same thing every night. He gets a book, a drink and gets besotted until there’s no more liquor or words.”
I grimaced at Tucker. “Besotted? I should have paid you to write my book.”
“I could only write about our youthful adventures since you ditched me for the high life.”
Our voices were too loud for this time of night but at least they wouldn’t be out of place. I crept closer to him keeping my voice low but iron.
“I put that part of my life away when we moved away. Everything and everyone had to go. No sparks from the past to ignite the bomb in my head.”
“You think I didn’t want to forget? You’re just lucky you got to move to another parish. Even with the rumors, Father Max stayed for three more years.”
I don’t believe I could have handled what Tucker had for those years. Taking communion from that bastard at Sunday mass plus seeing him at school every day. My fighting got so bad my dad put me in karate classes to channel my rage. It provided me an outlet and later a career. I possessed an unnatural talent for taking and giving punishment.
Tucker appraised me. “You ever tell anyone?”
I thought I couldn’t be rattled anymore tonight when he asked me that. “Never. Who would I tell?”
“A big girl like you might have gone to counseling or blab to your first lay.”
“I was doing a good job of keeping it inside until you showed up.”
He straightened his jacket. “I tried to tell my Mom back then and she about stripped the skin off my narrow ass.”
I leaned on a warped fence post. The rusty chain-link bit into the wood over years of neglect.
“I’ve watched your fights over the years. You’re strong and kick like a mule.”
My blood rose. “But?”
“You let those guys beat on you till the last round. You give yourself just enough time to come back.”
My stomach flopped because Tucker knew the answer to the question every reporter and fan asked me. Why does it take so long to get going? Are you addicted to pain? How can you keep doing this to your body?
He took hold of my shoulders. “You confess to millions of people every time you step in that cage.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze and looked at my feet instead. He lowered into a crouch searching up at me and found my eyes again. This was why I never wanted to see my best friend again. Too much.
“Your pain stops tonight.” He fished behind his back and pulled out a small black pistol. An automatic. He let me see it, stood up and strode towards the door.
A haunted wail escaped from me. I sprinted past Tucker who reached out to hold me back. The wasp-hive door flattened under my weight and I tumbled into the kitchen. My momentum carried me into a practiced roll and I was back on my feet roving for the lamp lit den.
An empty chair sat next to the lamp with an open book on its arm. A small table contained a rock glass half full of amber liquor. Someone struck me from behind. I looped my arm backward and captured the striker hurling him to the ground. I fell to my knees using gravity to increase my punching power as I hammer-fisted his face.
This was one fight I would not be starting late. This son of a bitch was due. I pulverized bone and pulped flesh. Crimson ropes flung from my fists when I reared back to punch. Spent, I had to stop and catch my breath.
“You can come in Tucker. The hard part’s done.”
I could hear him breathing in the hallway. He approached the body and squatted on his haunches to get a closer look. I took a ratty macramé blanket off the chair and used it to clean my face.
He looked up at me and said, “Here’s the hard part.”
The little gun kicked me in the chest. And once more in my stomach. I knocked over the lamp, hit the wall and slid down.
I watched Tucker put the gun in Father Max’s hand. He stood up and came over. He wiped the tears from his face.
“Just like I promised Christopher. No more pain.”
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Latest posts by Rob D. Smith (see all)
- Act of Contrition - June 26, 2020
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