For a moment the place goes silent, as half the patrons stare at me, but as soon as they recognize me as one of the regulars, the dull drone of conversation continues, mixing with the clink of tin jugs and gulps of amber liquid ice.
“Get a ’quiddy for Dazz,” Buff shouts to Yo above the din. The grizzled pub owner and bartender sloshes the contents of a dirty, old pitcher into a tinny and slides it along the bar. Well-practiced bar sitters dodge the frothing jug as it skates to a stop directly in front of me. As always, Yo’s aim is perfect.
“Thanks,” I shout. Yo nods his pockmarked forehead in my direction and strokes his gray-streaked brown beard thoughtfully, as if I’ve just said something filled with wisdom, before heading off to refill another customer’s jug. He doesn’t get many thanks around this place.
“Out with it,” Buff says, slapping me on the shoulder. His sharp green eyes reflect even the miniscule shreds of daylight that manage to sneak through the dirt-smudged windows.
“Out with what?”
Shaking his head, he runs a hand through his dirty-blonde hair. “Uh, the big breakup with her highness, Queen Witch-Bitch herself. It’s all anyone’s been talking about all morning. Where’ve you been? I’ve been dying to get all the details.”
Elbows on the bar, I lean my head against my fist. “It just happened! How the chill do you know already?”
Buff laughs. “You know as well as anyone that word travels scary fast in this town.”
I do. Normally, though, the gossip’s about me getting broken up with after having done something freeze-brained, not the other way around. “What are they saying?” I ask, taking a sip of ’quiddy and relishing the warmth in my throat and chest.
Buff’s excitement seems to wane. He stares at his half-empty mug. “You don’t wanna know,” he says, and then finishes off the last half of his tinny in a series of throat-bobbing gulps.
“Tell me,” I push.
“Look, Dazz…” Buff lowers his voice, a deep rumble that only I can hear. “…the thing about girls is, when you want ’em they’re scarcer than a ray of sunshine in ice country, and when you don’t, they’re on you like a double-wide fleece blanket.” Now I’m the one looking at my unfinished drink, because, for once, one of Buff’s snowballs of wisdom is spot on. I thought I wanted the witch—because of her looks—but as soon as I got to know her I wanted to toss her out with the mud on my boots.
Using my knuckles, I knock myself in the head three times, exactly like I rapped on the witch’s door this morning before it all went down. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask, I mentally command myself. “What are they saying?” I ask, repeating myself. Having not listened to my own internal advice, I feel like knocking my skull against the heavy, wooden bar a few dozen more times, but I manage to restrain myself as I wait for Buff’s response.
“Well…some of them are saying good sticks for you, she got what she deserved, Brown District pride and all that bullshiver. You know the shiv I mean, right?”
All too well. I nod. “And the others?”
Buff chews on his lip, as if deciding how to break something to me lightly.
“Give it to me straight,” I say.
He sighs. “You know tomorrow they’ll move onto the next freezin’ bit of juicy gossip, right?”
“Buff,” I say, a warning in my voice. I know what’s coming, so I tilt my tinny back, draining every last drop in a single burning gulp.
“If I tell you, promise me you won’t start anything—I’m not in the mood.”
Looking directly into his black pupils, I say, “I promise.”
He rolls his eyes, knowing full well I just lied to him. Then he tells me anyway. “Coker’s been saying the witch was too good for you, that she shoulda dumped your Mountain-fearin’ arse a long time ag—”
I’m on my feet and breaking my false promise before Buff can even finish telling me. My stool clatters to the floor, but I barely notice it. I get a bead on Coker, who’s between two of his stone cutting mates, laughing about something. Regardless of what it is, and even though they’ve probably moved on from discussing me and the witch already, I pretend it’s about me. About how I’m not good enough for someone in the White District. About how I’m lazy and good for nothing.
My fists clench and my jaw hardens as heat rises in my chest. Always aware of what’s happening in his pub, Yo says, “Now, Dazz, don’t start nuthin’, remember the last time…”
“Dazz, hold up,” Buff says, his feet scuffling along behind me.
I ignore them both.
When I reach Coker he’s already half-turned around, as if sensing me coming. I spin him the rest of the way and slam my fist right between his eyes. A two for one special, like down at the market. Two black eyes for the price of one. His head snaps back and thuds gruesomely off the bar, but, like any stonecutter, he’s tougher than dried goat meat, and rebounds with a heavy punch of his own, which glances off my shoulder, sending vibrations through my arm.
And his friends aren’t gonna sit back and watch things unfold either; they jump on me in less time than it took for the White District witch to cheat on me, swinging fists of iron at my head. One catches my chin and the other my cheek. I jerk backwards, seeing red, blue, and yellow stars against a black backdrop, and feel my tailbone slam into something hard and flat. The wooden table collapses, sending splinters and legs in every direction—both table legs and people legs. I’m still not seeing much, other than stars, but based on the tangle of limbs I’d say the table I crashed into was occupied by at least three Icers, maybe four.
I shake my head and furiously try to blink away the dark cloud obscuring my sight, feeling a dull ache spreading through the whole of my backside. When my vision returns, the first thing I see is Buff hammering rapid-fire rabbit punches into one of the stone cutter’s, sending him sprawling. The area’s clearing out, with patrons scampering for the door, which is a good thing, because Coker gets ahold of Buff and throws him into another table, which topples over and skids into the wall.
Me and Buff spring to our feet simultaneously, cocking our fists side by side like we’ve done so many times growing up in the rugged Brown District. Buff takes Coker’s friend and I take Coker. We circle each other a few times and then all chill breaks loose, as the fists start flying. After taking a hit in the ribs, I land a solid blow to Coker’s jaw that has him reeling, off balance and stunned. I follow it up with a hook that sends a jolt of pain through my hand, which is likely not even a quarter of the pain that I just sent through his face. He drops faster than a morning turd in the outhouse.
I whirl around to find Buff in a similar position, standing over his guy and shaking his hand like he’s just punched a wall. The guy he was fighting was so thick it probably was like hitting a wall. We stand over our fallen foes, grinning like the seventeen-year-old unemployed idiots that we are, enjoying the aliveness that always comes with winning a good, old-fashioned fair fight.
Yo’s glaring at us, one hand on his hip and the other holding an empty pitcher. I shrug just as his eyes flick to the side, looking past us. The last thing I hear is a well-muffled scuff.
Everything goes black when the wooden stool slams into the back of my head.
Chapter Two
I wake up to a slap in the face. Not a loving, caring slap when the doc smacks a newborn baby in the butt to get it to cry, but a stinging, full handed palm across the face that snaps my head to the side and will likely leave a fierce red handprint on my cheek. I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t conjure up memories of at least one ex-girlfriend.
“Yow!” I yelp. “What the chill?”
As I blink away the wave of dizziness that spins my vision in blurry swirls, I hear the sharp crack of palm flesh on cheek flesh. For a moment I’m left wondering whether it’s an echo from me getting slapped, but then I hear a similar outburst from someone close by.