Everyone has their fix.
For some people, it's grinding teeth and breaking bones.
For some people, it's grinding teeth and breaking bones.
Stay Ugly by Daniel Vlasaty
For a second
there is only the screaming and cheering of dozens and dozens of drunk motherfuckers
hungry for blood, money, and action.
They are so much
background noise.
I spit some
blood and a chunk of broken tooth on the filthy ground, crack my knuckles, and
wait to see what happens. Take a breath.
And then the dude
shakes my last few hits away, squares up again, comes at me.
Fresh blood pours
from a newly-opened gash on his face.
I put my fists
up and we kind of dance around each other. Right now we are the same. I am not
better than him and he is not better than me. We are just two guys. Both of us
trying to come out five hundred dollars richer at the end of this thing.
He makes the
first move this time. Comes in with a slow jab I side-step easily enough. I
counter and get him twice in the ribs, once on the side of his face.
He stumbles back
and I take another breath, squeezing my fists to try to get some feeling back
in them.
I watch him get
himself together again. Dude’s big. Got about a good thirty pounds on me but
size don’t mean shit. The only thing that matters is what you can do with it.
That’s something
I learned early on. That’s something you have to learn early on if you want to
make it at this.
I continue to
watch him and the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes heavy. His
dirty hair hangs in his face. Pieces of it sticking to the blood running down
it.
He grunts out
something like, “fuck you” and he’s quicker this time, hits me with two solid
jabs to the face.
I barely feel
them. They are just pain, added on top of more pain, added on top of more pain.
Pain is
something I learned to not even think about anymore.
He smiles at me
and I can read it all across his face. He thinks he’s got me now. He’s already
spending that five hundred in his head.
But fuck him.
He takes his
eyes off me for barely a second. Just a quick glance out at the people crowding
around us.
Then I come in, kick
the side of his leg in so he buckles a little, and hit him again and again.
I don’t stop
until I start to feel his face breaking under my fists; don’t stop until he’s
coughing and spitting blood; don’t stop until the only thing holding him up is
the people he’s leaning against.
Then the ref
calls it and the people holding him up let him drop to the floor. He falls like
a lump of shit and it’s over.
:::::
I see the crowd
around me erupt into equal parts joy and anger. Some people just made some
money and others got to go home to their wives or girlfriends or whatever and
explain to them why rent’s going to be coming up short this month.
But that’s the
nature of this shit. There are always going to be winners and losers.
I let it all go
around me. Try to control my breathing. Close my eyes and take in all the
sounds and smells. The buzz of it before I have to step out of this makeshift
ring and come back to the real world.
Before I have to
leave this stuffy-ass basement and get back to it.
This is what I
need. My fix. This is my zen place. This is where I’ve always been at my most
comfortable. Surrounded by screaming and hungry animals. Like I’m on display. In
a makeshift ring in the grimy basement of a shit bar, in a shit neighborhood, in
a shit city. Or in a prison yard, surrounded by different but equally hungry
animals; or in some fucking alley somewhere, where the fights are more intimate
and personal and for something other than entertainment, or status, or small
amounts of cash. Something like pride or ego. Or, because, fuck it.
Fighting’s
always been that thing for me. My thing. Some people get it from drugs or drink
or fucking. But I get it from the
gladiator shit of a bareknuckle fight.
I found it early
in life and ran with it. They don’t call me Ugly for nothing.
When I finally
open my eyes again, I see that the room around me has cleared out a bit. Everyone’s
either back at the bar to get a fresh drink before the next fight starts, or
they’re doing some rails in the bathroom, or smoking a quick one.
The dude I fought
is still laid out on the dirty floor and some of his people are standing around
me. A small group of them. There’s one girl, skinny and pretty, that’s standing
a bit away from the rest. I can see the tears in her eyes but she’s trying to
play it cool. She’s the girlfriend.
I’ve never
understood why some guys feel the need to bring their whole crew down into this
basement with them. Their dudes and their pussy. Like they got a posse and like
that shit means anything.
I turn away from
them and head up the stairs. The bar’s pretty slamming right now. But it’s only
because of the fights. Friday’s are always popping. Any other night of the week
and Meadows is so dead it almost seems like a waste of time and energy for it
to even stay open.
The way it works
with the fight nights is the house cashes out the following day. The winners come to collect the Saturday morning after a fight. Kenny has a stack of
envelopes behind the bar and he just passes them out to whoever’s name’s
written on them. No big show. You come in, get
your cash, and get the fuck out. Maybe you buy a beer or two; some dope or blow;
some pussy from one of the girls Acevedo runs out the bar. Or whatever.
I make my way
past the bar and catch sight of Kenny doing his thing behind the bar. I give
him a little nod and he knows what that means.
