"REQUIEM"
“I broke this cheek, right across here, do you see that? That was way early on, probably my first real fight.”
Rachel she jotted down in her little book, while I talked.
“Then, this eye, right above it see when I raise my eyebrows, this one doesn’t go up. This mouse up here, scar tissue.”
“And then, my nose got broke three, four times. My lip busted up, and then my ears, especially this one, I don’t hear out of it so good, you know.”
She looked up and pointed the pencil at me, “What about the rest of you?”
“My body I always managed to keep covered pretty good, ‘cept for lots of bruises, one broken rib, I think.”
I slapped my stomach hard, “lots of padding. But that’s nothing, you should have seen the other guys right?”
I give her a gentle jab on her chin. Rachel is a good kid; she’s a lot straighter than her dad. Lately she’s been coming over and doing these interviews with me, maybe some kind of school project, or she wants to be a writer and needs some subject. Either way, I feel like I’m letting her down, kid probably thinks she’s got a real life contender in her midst, and not some fucking tomato can like she does. Rachel is talking in my bad ear this time.
“I suppose, God made me big. I always figured you should make due with what you got, your natural gifts, and what with being shaped like a mattress, I couldn’t cut it as a jockey or a figure skater, so here I am. That and I was good at hitting people.”
After a few more minutes of banter, her time is up; “Thank you Mr. Hanson”
“Pug”, I correct her.
Pug, alone again, the pug in a little trailer on a square of dirt.
I was ‘Pug Hanson’, or ‘Powerful Pug Hanson’, and early on in his career ‘Handsome Paul Hanson’ (very briefly). But for right now, its just Pug, or if you want to believe that fat prick barker, I’m the Scottish headhunter. I wear a kilt and everything, Bagpipes play on a record while I fight, and I fight not once a month, or once a week, but every night, maybe ten times a night, more than a dozen on a good night. The biggest payoff on the midway, they call out. The barker with the big megaphone in the center of the ring, he calls out, looking for marks, ‘Take on the Scottish devil, Step in the ring with the big Scot, last three rounds and take home two hundred dollars.” So far, we don’t pay out much, we haven’t paid out once, Andy makes sure of that. Andy is kind of like my manager, except he doesn’t know anything about fighting. My old manager used to know a whole lot about fighting; he must have fought his whole life, about a hundred years. He was good to me too, real good until I started losing, really losing. I lost here and there but you lose enough and you become a loser, that’s what he told me. That’s what he told me and then he said he couldn’t wait for losers to turn around and I probably wouldn’t turn around and maybe he wasn’t a good manager for me anyway, and then he left. Actually he made me leave because it was his place I used to train in. I used to have a cut man too, to jab cotton in any holes that were made in me, and patch up any holes that were too big for cotton wads, I don’t have him anymore, but I had to give him twelve percent of each nights cut anyway so at least Im saving some money, and besides Im not getting cut up much. I tried to train by myself but I wasn’t getting any fights, and I was about to lose my apartment because I couldn’t pull a damn nickel not even in a month.
That was just in time, when Andy came to me, he walked in Vince’s gym, the owner nice guy let me train there free since he knew me from before I was a kid. So Andy walked in, more like sailed in wearing a full-length fur coat like some kind of pimp from the Himalayan Mountains.
He tell me he knows about me, that my friend,
“From the fried chicken place, he said you would probably be in here, I think you’re a pretty good fighter.” Even though I don’t think he ever saw me fight. He says he has a way I can make some money while training, easy money. He takes out a card, I got gloves on so he lays it on the ring apron says I should meet him tomorrow if I’m interested. I can meet him at the coffee shop next door, because that’s where he’ll be from noon to three, if I’m interested.
I’m interested as soon as he said money, hungry from living off of like my old man would have said a hot dog and a hard boiled egg, I would have went with him right there.
Karson Brothers Carnival.
That was printed on the front of the card, and on the back the guy’s name.
“Andy”. That’s Andy with his hand out when I walk in the café, he asks me to sit down and I’m pretty cautious at first, he asks me if I want anything, and then when he gives the suggestion that he’s paying, I accept and order some breakfast.
What’s a carnival got? Like, roadwork, maybe hoisting tents?
Not for you, better than that. A real good gig, you got sparring partners, right?
Sure, sometimes.
Well, this is basically just a lot of sparring. I’m not going to lie to you, not professionals, just regular guys, but look you’d be getting paid while you stay in practice, am I right?
He was sort of right.
It took a guy like Andy who was no trainer at all, to train you to fight these kinds of barneys, which was what they pretty much were.
In the ring under these bright light rigs, and a hundred million moths and mosquitoes and June bugs all flying around and dying inside the lights, all was illuminated.
The rubes gathered all around the ring, spilling food and cups of beer, and pigeons lined up harkened by that fiery sermon out that tinhorn.
Sweaty faces looking on a mix of jaded bloodlust and material exhaustion.
....
.
“It’s going to be a bunch of country boys, probably some wanna-be fighters used to box in high school, that sort.” Andy explains, “Tough guys spitting a bunch of trash, all talk. And you might see the aspiring amateur, think they’re gonna make a big show out of it.”
.....
Right now, a fresh faced looking kid was giving the barker his money and taking off his shirt. He couldn’t be a day over 18, in good shape, not a mark on him.
....
“And once in a while, we might get some serviceman on leave, they itch for a fight, like it’s their duty, you know? And they’re clean, too. I think you’ll do alright.”
......
This kid looks pretty eager, I do the bit where I spit and curse and stare him dead in the eye. He’s having the gloves put on him a quick tie job of these cheap Casanovas, the kind the Mexicans use.
....
.
“What about the drunks?”
“The drunks?” Andy laughs, “The drunks are our butter and egg men, man! If if wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t pull in half the bread that we do.”
....
.
The barker rings his bell and the kid starts dancing about, I stand there still for a second and then walk real slow over towards him. Its right now, about three seconds into his fight that all the courage will just drop right out of him. If I look real close I can see his eyes turn to an opacity like that happens when ones eyes look upon the thing that intends to visit very mortal harm upon one.
His shoulders slump slightly as ones shoulders do when the weight of fear is suddenly heaved upon one from where it was once perched aloft, far out of reach.
From here on out, It’s not a bullfight, it’s a foxhunt.
...
..
“Don’t take pepper to the poor sap all at once, get me? You come out pummeling and that’s it, nobody who sees that kind of shit is going to pay to get in there.”
..
.
I don’t touch the kid, I let him regain what he can of himself and that’s when he comes at me full force, wasting everything he’s got almost all at once. I block everything he throws at me; I drop my guard once to let him land a few weak shots to the body.
He backs away and I put a few love taps to him, enough to make him come at me again.
....
..
“That’s the beauty of it, you see?” Andy nudges me with his highball glass, “You get it? You barely have to do a thing. If you use your head, these rubes, these wheats..” He leans in closer,
“They beat themselves.”
....
.......
The kid comes again, flailing arms all over the place and I deflect them. He’s hitting hard, but he’s hitting wrong. I don’t quite punch but I push him back with my fists, and he keeps coming back. Its only a few minutes and then he can barely lift his arms, I make like Im going to hit him hard, but I don’t.
That’s all it takes.
He jerks back once, twice, I land the glove on his head but its got nothing behind it.
He yells at the barker/referee, he’s completely spent, three minutes.
He gives up.
The bell rings again and I have to make show like I did something.
I slump, I breath heavy, I let my hand get raised.
That’s only one,
There’s bound to be more tonight.
Pug Gulley by Anton Kozieja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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