The room is quiet for a minute, then a whoop goes up. Two dozen shirtless attack dogs—the other fighters—cheer me on, except for a few I beat as badly as this guy. The pit boss, the closest thing we have to a ref, comes over and checks the battleship’s eyes and breathing. He waves his hand in a circle, signaling that the guy is alive, but he’s not getting up. A couple of the boss’s flunkies come over and haul the guy off the fighting floor like a pile of bad meat. I don’t see where they take him. Supposedly, there’s a volunteer doctor down here, but I’ve never seen him.
The fighting pit is really an empty swimming pool in the old school gym. I climb the few steps up to ground level. Guys pat me on the back and call me “killer,” tell me what a champ I am. Who fucking cares? All I know is Trotsky is out of my head and I can look at the gym lights without running into the dark like a bug.
Part of the gym roof is down. The floor is warped in places, collapsed in others. Filthy clothes and food cans lie scattered around the walls. The place must have been a homeless crash pad before the amateur brawlers took over. For all I know, one of the other fighters owns the property. I’ve seen some flash shirts and designer shoes around the pit during the fights. Maybe here is the real estate agent for his family’s property. What would Daddy and his money think if they knew what junior was up to?
As I put my shirt and boots back on, the pit boss comes over. He’s an older guy with a few scars of his own. He has one cauliflower ear and nicotine-yellow teeth. I never did learn his name. He stands there a minute waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, he starts in.
“You ever fight professionally?”
“Nope.”
“You interested?”
“Nope.”
I touch the heel of my hand to my eye. It comes back with a streak of blood and the cut hurts from the salt in my sweat.
“There’s good money in it,” continues the pit boss. “I have connections. I could put you in the ring tomorrow. Strictly underground, you understand. A grand in your pocket guaranteed. More if you win.”
I pick up a piece of broken glass from the floor and check my reflection. I heal fast and the cut is already beginning to close, but I’ll have a bruise until morning.
The pit boss is still standing there. I want him to go away before he sees me heal too quickly for an ordinary person. I turn around and give him a friendly half smile.
“Let me think about it.”
“Sure,” he says. “We can talk about it next time. You can sure handle yourself out there and, if you don’t mind me saying so, you look like you could use some walking-around money.”
“You think so?”
He comes closer and speaks quietly.
“I know an ex-con when I see one. From your clothes, I’m guessing with your record you can’t get a decent job. I understand. I’ve been there. I can help.”
I look at my coat and boots. I’m not a fashion plate, but what the hell about them says con? Or is it just me?
Probably me.
Glancing at my crooked fairy godfather, I say, “Thanks. I’ll talk to you next time.”
He claps me on the back and shakes my hand.
“Tomorrow?” he says, anxious enough that it’s annoying.
“I’m not sure. It depends on when I can get out.”
“I understand. I have an old lady too. Well, you know where to find us. See you soon.”
He bobs his head and goes back to the fight pit, where men are stripping off shirts and shoes for the next bout.
I have an old lady too. Is that the kind of vibe I’m giving off? An ex-con with a shrew at home checking my breath for booze and my wallet for what little pay I can scrounge? I picture Candy, the very opposite of all that, and feel like more of a heel than ever. I can’t keep this up. I hate lying and I hate these people. But this regular life . . .
Sometimes it makes me want to cut my throat and head down to Hell forever. At least I understand the rules down there. But I’m not the suicide type, especially knowing how it would hurt the few people I care about.
I grab my ex-con coat and head out. When I get back to the Catalina, I check under the seat for the angel’s box. It’s right where I left it. I look at it again. Open it, take out the vial, and shake it. Black milk. It sounds charming. What every good boy and girl needs for a growing body. I put it back and slip the box back under the seat. The cut over my eye has stopped hurting. I run a finger over it and don’t find any blood. That’s good news at least. I start the car and head back into Hollywood. I need a drink to wash the taste of cheap lies out of my mouth.
A LITTLE EAST of home is Bamboo House of Dolls, the best punk tiki bar in L.A. Old Cramps and Germs posters on the walls. Plastic hula girls and palm trees behind the bar. An umbrella in your drink if you ask nicely. There’s also a brilliant jukebox. Martin Denny. Arthur Lyman. Meiko Kaji. I don’t think there’s anything on there less than forty years old.
Carlos, the bartender, laughs when he sees me.
I sit at the bar and he pours me a glass of Aqua Regia, the number one booze in Hell.
He says, “What happened? The bigger kids took your lunch money?”
I touch my eye.
“It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”
He steps back, cocking his head from side to side like he’s trying to find the naked lady in a Picasso.
“I’ve seen you worse. The scab is almost gone, but you’ve got a nice bruise over your eye.”
“Goddammit.”
“Let me guess. You ran into a tall midget with an iron hat. Or a small giant carrying a lunch box.”
“The truth is more embarrassing, so let’s go with that last one.”
“Please tell me you at least won the fight.”
I sip the drink. It tastes like gasoline and burns just right going down.
“I won, all right. But I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
He picks up and tosses a couple of drink coasters some customers left behind.
“Then why were you there? I thought your looking-for-trouble days were behind you.”
“That’s the problem. They are most of the time. I want them to be, but sometimes . . . it feels like if I don’t hit something my brain will go nuclear and run out my ears.”
Carlos gives the bar a quick wipe-down and pours himself a drink.
“I know your problem. Seen it a thousand times before. Before I bought this place, when I was a little niño, I barbacked at a cop bar over by Rampart. The ones still working, most of them had their heads wired on right enough, but the old-timers? The retired ones or the bad ones that were exiled to desk duty? They could chew their way through steel. You killers, you men of action, take you out of the game and you’re always a month from eating your gun.”
I swirl the Aqua Regia around in the glass.
“Thanks for your concern. It’s touching. Really.”
“Don’t be so sensitive,” says Carlos. “Those guys, they didn’t have your advantages.”
“Such as?”
“The things you can do. The places you can go.”
I finish my drink.
“That’s the problem. I can’t go places anymore. I can still do everything I used to, but I don’t have anywhere to do it.”
“And you being you, you go looking for trouble and you’re going to find it.”
“Finding it’s not the problem. Not looking like I found it is. Chihiro would hate it, and my boss, he wouldn’t be too happy either.”
Carlos opens the cooler under the bar, puts some ice in a clean rag, and hands it to me. I hold it to my bruised eye.
“Then it’s just me that’s amused watching you twist yourself in knots,” he says.