He fits a mouthguard into his teeth, curls his lips back and works his jaw to settle it in place. His fists are taped from fingertips to forearms. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s do this, then,ja?”
I crack my knuckles and assume a fighting stance. “I’ll make sure your hospital bill is covered.”
He snorts, recognizing my shit talk for what it is. “I’ll try not to damage your pretty face too much.”
On the balls of my feet, fists up, shoulders down and back, torso turned sidelong, I edge toward him. I don’t play games, don’t fuck around, don’t go in for a lot of tapping and clinching. I’m a street fighter, and my tactic is super fuckin’ simple: take a beating and give a worse one, till one of us can’t get up anymore.
His left foot lashes out, and I take it on my vertically barred forearms. Motherfucker can kick like a goddamn mule, Jesus. I wait. Slide crabwise in a circle around him, waiting for him to make his next move. Which is a straight left. Mistake. I duck under it and slug a hard left hook to his kidney, then a brutal right uppercut to the diaphragm.
He staggers backward, gasping, wincing, but he’s no slouch. Takes it like the pro he is, moving out of reach. I barely hear the crowd, howling and booing and cheering. See nothing but Jürgen. He feints a right, and I fall for it, like a dumbfuck—gets me a left knee to the gut, forces my defenses down, and I take a wicked overhand right straight to the face. Hot blood bathes my eye, forcing me to close it and dance backward. Blink it out of the way, swipe at it with my bicep.
It’s on, then, me and Jürgen going at it hammer and tongs, trading blows and blocking, missing, connecting. It’s going to be a fight of attrition, a question of who can take the most punishment.
This is where I always win, because nobody except maybe Chance can take more pain than me and keep going. And even that’s a close one.
My face is a wreck, my right cheek opened, lip split, right eye swollen. Blood everywhere.
Jürgen isn’t much better, and I can see him starting to flag. I don’t grin, but I know I’ve got this one in the bag. Not that I doubted it—I haven’t lost a fight since I was twelve and got jumped by six dudes from a rival gang…and they had pipes, chains, and lengths of garden hose full of sand. Nearly didn’t walk away from that one.
This one, I’ve got locked up. Jürgen knows it, too.
Props to him, though—he doesn’t give up or slow down. He takes my hits and gives ‘em back, lasting longer than I’d have thought he would. Finally, I land a short kick to his liver, and that drops him to his knee. If I had less respect for him, I’d knock him flat, but he’s put up a good fight, so I let him slump to all fours and tap out.
Once he’s tapped, I offer him my hand, haul him to his feet. “Good fight, bro.”
He works his jaw, stretches his side after the liver blow that felled him. “Same,mein freund.”
I hold out my fist, and he taps it with his; I precede him out of the cage, pausing halfway down the steps to pump my fist in the air for the crowd, which is going fuckin’ apeshit.
I hit the service corridor, and I’m met by Lew, the fight promoter, and Colin, the bookie. Lew is a short, thin, fast-talking Black dude, and Colin is a tall, overweight, dorky white dude from Ohio who happens to be the best bookie this side of the Mississippi.
Lew shakes my hand. “Fuckin’ what a fight, Rev, what a fight! I was about to lose my mind when Borgas called me saying he was shittin’ his pants, and I ain’t kiddin’, he legit shit himself. You know Borgas, he wouldn’t miss a fight for any fuckin’ thing, right? But Jesus, dude, your face. Need a doctor? I can get you the doctor, bro. You need the doctor, stitch that shit up.” He turns, shouts. “Mark! Get Adnan in here!”
I growl at him to shut him up. “Next time, have a backup that’s not me.” I turn to Colin. “Whaddya got for me, kid?”
Colin digs a stack of cash from his back pocket, wrapped in a thick blue rubber band. “Made the club a mint, and a lot of other folks very, very happy. Jürgen was heavily favored over Borgas, but when people saw you, they were real quick to change their bets.” He hands me the stack. “Ten Gs, Rev.”
I flip the cash in my palm. “Appreciate it, Colin.”
He shrugs a shoulder, uncomfortable with social interactions, as always. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Good fight.” He turns away, shoulders hunched, muttering to himself—repeating numbers, I know, counting primes or some shit. Weird dude, great bookie.
Lew is ushering toward me a slender Middle Eastern man carrying a small black leather satchel. “Here he is, Doc.”
I stand in place, smacking my winnings and letting the doctor probe my face with his cold, gentle fingers. He nods, and deposits his bag on the floor. “You sit.”
“I’ll stand.”
He gestures at me. “Too tall. Cannot reach, you stand. You sit.”
Someone flips a bucket upside down and slides it to me, and I sit.
Dr. Adnan is threading a hooked needle with black thread, which he sets aside on a small silver tray lined with blue paper. He rips open a sterilizing pad, places that on the tray. Another square of blue paper he uses to blot my face around the cuts, since the one over my eyebrow is still seeping.
He withdraws a syringe, removes the cap.
I block his hand. “Nah. None of that shit Doc. Hate my face being numb.”
He frowns at me. “Is hurt, when I stitch. Local only.”
