Breaker (3 page)

The Logan Avenue el stop is underground, not actually elevated at all—at least, not at this point. Soon the long snake of metal will push its way slowly uphill and emerge from the earth as if waking from a dream, seeking sustenance as its tongue wags in the air, sniffing.

For now, I sit and rest. Sunglasses on, I retreat farther into myself, hiding in plain sight, and yet every woman that walks past me shifts her purse or bag to the other side, out of my reach, as the seats on both sides of me stay empty. They will remain empty for the entire ride—men in suits, boys in jeans all preferring to stand, tightly grasping a metal pole, eyes on me, never turning their backs. As if I might do something violent, stand up and tear my clothes to shreds, Hulking out on them.

Could happen.

It has before.

As the concrete slides by, the brick buildings one after another, telephone wires stretching out to the horizon, it feels as if this is not my life. I am a toxic green phosphorous gas piped into a glass beaker, housed in a padded box, suspended in a cracked rib cage, waiting to be released.

A little girl sits in her mother's lap, her pink puffy coat turning her into a marshmallow, her striped hat holding a fluffy ball up top, one that keeps falling into her eyes.

This is Rosemont.

The train pulls into the station, highway on both sides, traffic shooting by, lights flying in all directions.

This is a Blue Line train to O'Hare International Airport.

This…is Rosemont.

My stop.

I stand up and the train car takes a collective breath—and holds it. As I pass the girl, I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a tiny, plush Pokémon doll, something I found in Salvation Army for a dollar. I'd thought of giving it to Natalie, a totem to ward off the dark fates that spin around her fragile frame. This tot seems to need it more, snot running down her face, cheeks flushed, and ready to wail. It's a little yellow guy, Pikachu I believe. Black-tipped ears top its fuzzy body, some sort of rodent or rabbit, maybe. It has red circles on its cheeks, just like the little girl. I hand it to her and she smiles, grabbing it quickly, her gaze running from my taped hands up my coat to my face and stopping there, lingering even, uncertain how to process it all. She blinks, and I think she's going to start crying, throw it on the ground. Instead, she tucks the little animal in tight and plugs her thumb into her mouth, eyes slowly closing, and then shooting open again, as I wait for the doors to open. She drifts off to sleep, her mother unaware of our transaction.

I move into the night. Having paid homage to the old gods, to whatever voodoo skips across my flesh, I breathe it all in—I drink it up.

Doors are closing.

I remember the last fight, the one I almost lost, the powder blown in my face under the dim yellow lights, the brass knuckles slipped out of a pocket, a slit, a sleeve, someplace hidden, three raps to my face as his shoulders dipped down, hiding the work, the butcher laughing, then the metal disappearing again.

I push the memory toward the black again, letting it all slip away. My sister and her giggling laughs, face shining after a night out chasing one dangerous man after another. My mother rubbing Vicks on my chest, a fever running across my forehead, sweat trickling down into the damp sheets. My father stepping behind me, holding the baseball bat, the golf club, showing me the grip, the swing, the throw. Natalie skipping up the sidewalk singing a song that I'd been humming all day—not a care in the world, that girl, it seems.

They're mannequins, all of them—my family—empty and dead inside. The masks they all wear, I can see right through them.

So I slip mine on as well.

Train to a bus to a warehouse filled with desperation. This is my ritual, my release, and one source of my irregular income. Neon bathes me in a soft light, one heavy boot after another. I walk past McDonald's, Jim's Liquors, Taquería Dona Ana, and an EZPAWN, the last window filled with all kinds of shiny, distracting objects—watches, jewelry, guitars, and brass instruments. I slink toward a large metal structure that looks like an old airplane hangar. And maybe it was, a long time ago, a private airstrip or something.

I tend to come in the back door, avoiding the crowds out front, the questions and probing looks. I'll get plenty of that in a few minutes. I take the sidewalk off to my right, past a row of hedges that line the property and up to a small metal door, just to the left of an enormous metal fan.

I pull the door open and step inside, bracing myself for the heat and noise, but there is nothing here tonight. Just a few lights flicked on, running up and down the walls, and one long solitary bulb directly over the ring—a soft yellow glow emanating from the metal cage wrapped around it.

“What the hell?” I mutter.

I unzip my coat and take off my sunglasses. Maybe I have the wrong day. Hell, maybe I have the wrong week, the wrong bus, the wrong building.

“Ray…Ray, over here.”

Sitting next to the ring on a small wooden stool is Edson. He's a shrinking elderly man, white hair shooting out in all directions, including his nose and ears. He's polishing up something, rubbing oil into a pair of leather gloves, fast at work, a metal bucket by his feet. He turns and spits some tobacco juice into it and looks up at me, squinting from behind a pair of thin wire glasses.

“What's going on, Ed?”

“You didn't get the email, the text message, voicemail—none of that?”

I scowl at him as I walk closer.

“No, of course you didn't, you're neither man nor beast, caught somewhere in between, living in the woods, raised by wolves, limping back to your apartment when the moon finally goes to bed. Right, Boom-Boom? That about it?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

Edson's eyes twitch a few times as he kneads the gloves, nodding his head.

“Mixing it up tonight, old friend. Casper versus the Holy Spirit, a fight for the ages, no holds barred.”

“What are you talking about, Ed?”

“You're Casper, right? Get it? Big white ghost?”

“I get it, Ed.”

“You like the money, right, Ray? Maybe up for a challenge, yeah? Something different? Tired of the riffraff and supermodels, my friend?”

I take a breath and sigh.

“Sure. What are the stakes, what's the catch—the kicker?”

Edson eyeballs the glove, the concrete floor, not looking up. He jaws his dip and spits the juice into the pail again.

“It's a doozy, Ray. But, ah, I think you got it, no worries, right? Never even seen you get close to losing.”

“Not counting the powder and brass knuckles from last time, yeah?”

The old man toes the ground and rubs more oil into the gloves.

“I told you, Ray, I didn't see nuthin' or I'd have stopped the fight. You know that.”

On the other side of the hangar I see a door open, and in walks a tall, thin man all dressed in black, a flash of white at his neck, two young boys at his side.

“Double the usual, Ray,” Edson whispers, “and there's only one catch.”

The priest strolls up closer, into the light, the blond twins on either side like two malnourished hyenas looking for a carcass.

“Ray, this is Father Brassard.”

The man smiles, and he's all teeth.

“Heard a lot about you, Ray,” Brassard says. “I've come to cast the first stone.”

The boys next to him cackle and nod their heads, the one on the left rubbing his nose, his face, the one on the right grinning like the canary eater he is.

“Father,” I say. “Bless me, for I have sinned.”

Brassard makes the sign of the cross in the air.

“Nope, not gonna be enough, I fear. Some penance is in order, my son.”

He elbows one of the boys, who turns around to reveal a backpack, which holds a wicker offering plate, stuffed with dollar bills that are wrapped in red rubber bands. Edson reaches back toward the ring and pulls a footlocker out from under the canvas and metal railings. He clicks it open and pulls out a stack of bills, half as big as what Brassard has offered.

“Two to one, right?” Edson asks the priest.

“Exactly.”

“What's this about, Brassard,” I ask, “doubling down, covering your ass?”

“Language, Ray. Let's just say that a few other investments went south and I'm here to recoup my losses. That, and I have a lot of issues to work out.”

The kids grin and laugh at his remark, but when he turns to look at them, they go quiet, eyes to the concrete floor. He unbuttons his coat and hands it to one of the lads, and proceeds to take off his collar and black shirt, stripping down to his black pants. His arms are long and sinuous, scars running up and down them. When he turns around to place his folded clothes with one of the boys, a crosshatch of ugly red welts and scabbed lines reveals itself to the room.

“I am my own worst enemy,” the priest says, his face turned away. “Today I repent, today I redeem—today I ask for forgiveness.”

Edson looks up at Ray, nodding along, eyes bugging out.

“The catch, Ray,” he whispers. “Ask him about the catch.”

I turn my head from the old man back to Father Brassard.

“You're not a good man, Ray. I know that; we all know that,” Brassard says. “Idle hands are the devil's workshop, right, my son? Today, we see what evil lurks within you, what you're made of. Two to one, your hands tied behind your back.”

I stare the man down, unafraid.

“And idle lips are his mouthpiece,” I reply. “I have no issue with the stakes, the terms, Father. You won't be the first holy man I hurt, or the last. I fear no god—yours, or any other.”

A glimmer flashes in Brassard's eyes.

“Blessed are the meek,” he says.

Edson nods, his mouth open, sending a spit into the can.

“For they shall inherit the Earth,” Brassard continues.

“We'll see about that.”

Standing inside the ring, we're both in boxing shorts now, bouncing on our toes, swinging our arms, trying to warm up in this cold, abandoned warehouse. Brassard is a piece of work—fractured and lost, no matter what he says about God, no matter how much scripture he quotes. Behind the wide smile and sparkling teeth, there is a twitch in his eyes, an uncertainty. Not just about the fight, what I might do to him, but his presence in general—distant, distracted, and panicked. I don't for a minute think he's as humble and innocent as he pretends. I see the looks the boys give him—respect, but also fear, adoration, as well as hate. There are many ways to abuse young boys and girls; I'm not as simple-minded as to assume that he touches these two in the dark of night, whispering in their ear about redemption, about sacrifice. No, this aging thorn bird has the look of a Lothario, a Casanova—these two merely his pawns, his tools. This lost soul is a silver fox, sly and cunning—confessions taken at all hours of the day, drop-in visits in order to provide guidance and assistance, his hand resting on one aging housewife's knee after another.

But what do I know? They all bleed the same.

“Ray, here you go—turn around, old chum.”

It's Edson stepping into the ring with a pair of handcuffs dangling in front of him. I stop bouncing and let my hands drift down to hang at my sides.

“I know, I know,” Edson says. “Not ideal, but it's what the client wants. Too easy to slip out of rope or twine or what have you.”

I take a deep breath and turn around.

“Just try not to cinch them too tight, Eddy.”

“You got it, champ,” he says. My arms are pulled back, the metal clicked on tight, but not slicing into my skin—not yet, anyway. “You got a plan, Ray?”

“Working on it.”

“Well, work fast, my friend. The reverend is eager to shed some blood, and not his own this time.”

I turn back around and Edson reaches up to place my mouth guard in, standing on his tiptoes, as the priest does the same, wedging the plastic in over his teeth.

Brassard is smiling wide, his head cleaved in half, a light whirling in his eyes. In his corner the feral lads are talking him up, foaming at the mouth, ready for the carnage to begin. Not sure who they're really rooting for, as they turn their heads to me, give me a sour nod or three. Their voices and words are riling Brassard up, but their eyes tell a different story.

Edson stands in the middle of the ring.

“No holds barred, fellas, anything goes. Punching, slapping, kicking, biting, elbowing, shots to the crotch, spitting…whatever gets you going. But when I say stop, when I say it's over, there is no debating me. Got it, boys?”

I nod my head once, my arms behind my back, as Brassard shrugs his shoulders, cracks his neck from side to side, and throws a few quick punches into the air.

“Sure thing,” he mutters.

“I'd have you touch gloves, but, you know…” he trails off.

I nod again and smile.

“When I ring the bell, come out fighting. Got it?”

Edson slips out of the ring, and as I watch the man across from me, I see he has no fear. Which makes my stomach lurch. A man who is ready to die, unafraid of the violence and suffering that stands in front of him, that's a man who's not quite right. And that's a dangerous opponent. I don't fear his body, his strength, his fists—I fear the unknown, like every other reasonable man on the planet.

I know I'm going to get him, but I can't avoid his fists forever, and I don't trust this holy man as far as I can throw him. I need a few moments to see what his plan is—rush in right away, fists to my gut, my chest, or will he target my face? How to dodge him, and how to attack? Those are the pressing questions. I'm too big and slow, my strength usually in my arms, my fists, but tonight it'll have to be my legs, dodging and weaving, moving and bouncing, and when the time comes, there are really only two weapons to be deployed. But it all starts with my legs. If I miss, it leaves me open and vulnerable. This could be a fight that I win with one move, one violent attack—one strike to the center of his face. Timing is everything. It's time to summon the films of my childhood, a grace that I rarely use when fighting—all with my arms tied behind my back.

Time to enter the dragon.

The bell rings and we both smile, teeth behind plastic, hearts fluttering, the light fading from both of our eyes as the serpent rises from within.