The guy coming at me is built like a battleship welded together from fat and blind fury. Whatever he does for a living, he needs a new job. Whoever he’s married to needs to get a ticket back home to Mom because the SS Shithead here is not fit for human company. I guess that’s why he was the only one who wanted to fight me tonight. There are a couple of dozen other guys in the abandoned high school, but none stepped up. I’ve beaten most of the others down here in the fight pit. No one knows who I am down here, but I’ve laid out enough of them that it’s mostly the new guys and the crazy ones who want to go at me. I’m not exactly a big guy—people call me Slim for a reason—but most of the weekend gladiators down here are scared off by my scars. But the ones who step up—the crazy ones—they’re the cure for a sane life. My best friends and the only elixir for a Trotsky headache.
The only thing I worry about is my left arm. The Kissi one, an inhuman prosthetic that looks more like it belongs on a Terminator insect than a person. That’s a problem.
My buddy Manimal Mike makes mechanical-animal familiars, though. He’s good with fake skin and made me a sheath so my freak-show left arm matches my right. As far as anyone here knows, I’m just ugly, scarred meat that, like them, is looking to blow off a little steam.
I let the battleship thunder a right cross into my chin. It’s gorgeous. A work of art. For a second, I see stars and choirs of angels. The harder he hits me, the more he loosens the icepicks behind my eyes.
Unfortunately, right when I’m having fun, the big guy decides to get stupid. I’ve let him hit me enough that he thinks I’m out on my feet and his mean streak is kicking in. When he punches my face he sticks out his thumbs, hoping to gouge out an eye. I shove him back a few feet to get his attention. He thinks it’s just muscle memory. That I’m punched out. I give him one more chance to fight like a human being.
But he does it again. I feel his thumbnail catch skin and tear open a slit over my eye. The sight of blood turns him from asshole into animal and he rushes me, hoping to rip the cut open more so the blood blinds me. It’s a decent strategy, but he’s too big, too dumb, and too slow.
When he swings, I duck his first punch, then block the jab he throws with his other hand. While he’s still surprised I give him a shot in the Adam’s apple. Hit there hard enough and you can collapse someone’s trachea and they’ll choke to death, spitting blood the whole time. But I just hit hard enough so that he won’t be able to breathe for a couple of minutes.
The battleship staggers back and I close on him, jamming a fist into his gut, then an uppercut when the first punch bends him over. He falls to his knees and I hope he’s going to stay down, but the dumb animal doesn’t know he’s beat. He pushes himself up and runs at me like a bull with a bottle rocket tied to his balls. I wait until he’s almost on me, then jump, slamming my knee up into his jaw. This time when he goes down his eyes are pinwheels and his brain is on a train to Cincinnati. He doesn’t get up.
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.
“I don’t like lying to people, but I’m not built to be, I don’t know, a regular person. I was born to break things. Even my father said so.”
“A natural-born killer.”
“That’s what the old man said.”
Carlos pours me more Aqua Regia.
“Your problem is you’re all Koyaanisqatsi. You remember that movie?”
I nod. “A hippie music video ninety minutes too long.”
“The whole thing is only ninety minutes.”
“Yep.”
Carlos uses a finger to draw a shape on the bar in the moisture left from the rag. A little yin yang sign.
“Aside from its virtues as a film, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘life out of balance.’ That’s you, my friend. You go from crazy hit man to a pencil pusher on some board of directors or something with no steps in between. Of course it’s going to make you a little crazy.”
“And I’ve lost the Room. It’s not just that I could travel through it. I used to think that was it, but it’s not. The Room was always my place. Somewhere I could hide from this world, Heaven, and Hell. No one could touch me there. It’s the only place I ever felt . . .”
“Safe,” says Carlos.
I look at him.
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you know. You lost your happy place and now you’ve given up the thing that kept you alive all these years. Your fists. That’s not the recipe for a happy life.”
“So, what do I do?”
“You got yourself Koyaanisqatsied. Now you have to get yourself unkoyaanisqatsied.”
“Yeah, but how?”
Carlos shrugs.
“Take a pill. Get a cat. Follow the yellow brick road. I don’t know. I’m not a shrink. But this isn’t the first time you’ve come in with bruises on your face or hands and I’ve helped you hide them. I’ll tell you, though: I don’t like lying either. Chihiro is good people. Come to me to talk anytime you like, but me helping you hide your sins? Tonight is the last time. I’ve cut off drunks and junkies and now I’m cutting you off. No more ice after tonight.”
Someone pushes past me and orders shots of bad Scotch. I look at my hands. Some of the knuckles are swollen, but not so much you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. I hold the ice on my eye. No wonder the pit boss thinks I’m an ex-con. I am. Only I did my time in Hell and I came out with exactly the same problems all those cons have when they get out of federal or state pens. Candy and Julie nagged me about PTSD a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to listen. I still don’t, but maybe they’re onto something. Maybe this fighting on the sly isn’t fixing anything. It’s me feeding whatever is wrong with me. So, what do I do about it? I stop is what I do. No more fights. Carlos is right. I need a dog. I need a doctor. I need something else that doesn’t make me a chump and a liar every time I open my mouth.
Then I remember something. I take out the box and put it on the counter.
“Carlos, you’re a man of spirits and exotic liquids. Have you ever heard of something called black milk?”
He hands the guy his lousy Scotch and thinks for a few seconds.
“Never. What is it?”
I open the box and take out the vial.
“This. Only I don’t know what this is.”
He takes the little glass bottle and holds it up to the light. Shakes it a little.
“Where did you get it?”
“It was a gift. Of sorts.”
“More secrets? Who gave it to you?”
“No one I can talk about this close to such shitty Scotch. You should be ashamed of yourself for selling it.”
The guy who ordered them turns to me.
“Hey, I like this stuff. Who made you king high shithead of Scotch?”
I start to say something, but he backs up a step and his mouth opens like a roast pig waiting for an apple. The guy is slumming it tonight. He tried to dress down because he knew he was coming here, but the manicure and the million-dollar college ring give him away.
“Oh shit,” he says. “You’re him. I heard you hang out here. Can I buy you a drink?”
Carlos waves the guy off.
“Not tonight, man. Come back at Christmas. He’ll be a chipper fucker by then. Won’t you, Stark?”
I look at Carlos, not at the groupie.
“Thanks, but I have a drink.”
“Then, can I get a picture with you?” he says. “I swear it will only take a second.”
“What did I just tell you, pendejo?” says Carlos. “Not tonight.”
Out of the corner of my eye I can see the guy turn from Carlos to me and back to Carlos. He holds up his hands.
“Fine. Be an asshole. You’re not that special, you know. I’ve met lots more cool people here and what do you call them . . . ?”
“Lurkers,” I say.
“Yeah. Lots more interesting ones than you.”
I look at him.
“There’s lots here that love guys like you. Just be sure to check your wallet before you go home.”
He takes the cash for the drink out of his front pocket. He slaps himself on his back pocket, hoping to hit imported hand-tooled leather. By the look on his face I’d say he came up empty.
“Shit,” he says, and checks another pocket, coming up with his iPhone. He looks relieved. At least he
can still text his buddies about his night with the wild people on the bad side of town.
He thumbs the phone on and says, “Please. So the night isn’t a total loss. Just one picture.”
“Get out,” says Carlos. “You don’t listen, so you can’t stay. Move. Now.”
I look at Richie Rich.
“Better do what he says or he’ll hit you with a coconut carved like a monkey.”
The guy gives up. Puts his phone in his breast pocket, sadder but wiser.
“I get it. Sorry to have bothered you. I’m going. Besides,” he says, “you look like hell.”
“Now,” says Carlos.
Richie starts for the door.
Carlos shakes his head.
“Some people couldn’t buy a clue with all the gold in Fort Knox.”
I hold up my glass, toast Carlos, and down my drink.
“Thank you, Doctor. I’m feeling much better now. How’s my eye?”
He looks and nods.
“It’s getting there.”
Then he looks up past me.
Someone throws his arm around me and clicks a picture. It’s Trump and his iPhone. I turn just in time to see him scrambling out the front door with my bruised face in his hand.
Perfect.
So, to sum up the evening. A Sherman tank with the brain of an angry hamster gave me a black eye, and now some college boy snuck up behind me and got my picture without me even knowing he was there. I think this is what’s known as a wake-up call. Something has to change. Starting with me.
“You have any food left back there tonight?”
“Some tamales with some beans and rice. You want some to go?”
“Could I get three?”
“No problem.”
He disappears into the back and reappears with a packed paper bag.
I sniff the food and smile.
“What do I owe you?”
“You know you always eat and drink for free around here,” he says.