Soul Mates (33 page)

Ask and ye shall receive.

As Karson distracted himself with his thoughts, rather than reacted like the instinctual fighter he had always been, Stockton pummeled Karson with a one-two combination made up of not the typical jab, followed by a stronger punch, but concocted of two devastating haymakers, one which shattered Karson’s nose and the other put his lights out as his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell backwards, without an inkling of a brace for his “lights-out” fall to the ground. He was incapable. Karson hit the mat at such a flat angle that he actually bounced about six inches straight up into the air before his limp body settled again on the mat.

The crowd banged on the seat backs, banged on the floors, yelled, screamed, and pitched a fit, for now all eyes were on Stockton. In any other fighting competition, the fight was over, but not in the Super Chasm. In this case, this fight would be over once Rayce “The Stock-Boy” Stockton said so. He moved in and went down to his knees to straddle his unconscious opponent as everyone in the audience and in the Imperial Suite waited to see the fighter’s next move.

“What the fuck is he doing? Karson’s out. He’s out!” Tyler said, this time to Lilith in particular.

“What are
you
talking about hun? You know the rules of the Super Chasm. He doesn’t have to stop.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. The rules state that if the fighter doesn’t give up, the opponent can continue, but Karson is out cold!”

“Right, and he’s out cold, so he
can’t
surrender, can he?” Brad, whom Tyler despised ever since he began paying attention to how Brad would look at Lilith, explained.

“This is fucked,” Tyler concluded. “Well,
yeah
! What do you think all of the uproar and protests about the Chasm was about?” Tyler answered himself mentally.

“The Stock-Boy” straddled Karson, getting ready to finally earn his prize money. As the audience prepared to count how many deathblows would be thrown, for which there was a sid
e-
bet in place at the bookmaking kiosk
,
the fire that burned fervently in Stockton’s eyes and carried him through the short, but intense, fight flickered out and humanity flooded back in. His cocked right gloved hand, stained with Karson’s dark rich blood dropped to his side as he waved to the referee and shook his head in the universal back and forth “no” shake of his head.

The referee had no choice but to declare Stockton the winner, but even an untrained eye could see the referee’s face riddled with displeasure and frustration. When Stockton got up and the referee raised his arm in the victory pose, the mild applause was quickly overrun with “boos” from the audience.

“What the fuck!? Is this guy kidding me!?” Brad yelled, as his champagne flute exploded against the wall after Brad hurled it across the room. “Finish the fight, you pussy!”

“The fight
is
finished, Brad!” Tyler argued.

“Oh really, Ty? Well, in my experience, after a fight, there’s an applause, not thousands of people booing in discontent!”

“I’m sure the main event won’t disappoint. Relax, Brad,” Lilith interjected.

“Yeah, trust me, the fighters in the main event are psychopaths. They
won’t
disappoint,” Jayson assured. That would
have to
change, not only to quell the discontent of the non-
Chutmas
, but more importantly of the
Chutma
board members and partners, which was most of the board.

“They had better not, because if you keep sanctioning fights between pussies like this,” Brad pointed, his finger turning bright red where it was pushed up against the glass, “then this place is finished in two months.”

“Brad, even the threat or potential for a death in the ring will keep asses in the seats,” Lilith said, and then turned to Jayson. “But he’s right. Eventually, we’ll have to make good on that promise, otherwise the numbers
will
dwindle…slowly but surely.”

Jayson promised that as with any job, his judgment would only sharpen, and that he had confidence in the remainder of the fighters he had enlisted. While Jayson explained his case to the rest of the board, Tyler made his way to the bathroom, where he sat in his suit on the toilet with his head in his hands, looking like a forlorn gargoyle on his perch, going over again and again in his mind how he could have been so mislead by not only the board of directors, but his wife. His
wife
. How could she be so heartless? Inside Tyler knew she was not like other women, didn’t he? Surely he had been over this before in his own mind.
You and I
have spoken about it ad nauseam. After all, Tyler was blessed with an enviable memory. Yes, he remembered the examples of her dark guile, misdirection, and let’s face it, her downright uncanny ability to actually control situations over the years. As he recollected, he quickly dismounted the toilet bowl, got to his knees, and vacated the contents of his stomach.  

*   *   *

The maiden bout of the Chasm left the board of directors shaken and unsure about the future of the venue as the ebbs of discontent surrounded the group while they observed from the Imperial Suite. However hasty their judgment was, they understood the fast paced business of not only the city of Las Vegas, but of fads in general. You make your money when you can because nothing is forever. I’m here to tell you that they underestimated their audience…the followers of the Super Chasm weren’t going anywhere, and I am not only speaking in terms of that fight night, I am speaking in terms of the future.

The second fight, and main event, between “Krag” Tyrone Washington and Gunnar “The Widow-Maker” DeStefano calmed the nerves of the dubiously hostile board of directors. This fight delivered everything the audience and board of directors could have hoped for…even Tyler, if he was being honest with himself. He can’t lie to
me
, I’d know. The main event delivered the superficial carnage that all other fighting arenas and sports brought, but tonight the Chasm separated itself from the rest. The main event resulted in death, and the audience could not have been more excited.

The fight between Washington and DeStefano lasted four bone-crushing rounds. What could have looked like different martial arts disciplines squaring off to test which was mightier instead resembled a prison brawl with the professional prowess that high school students could emulate in the schoolyard after the final school bell rang. What the fight lacked in style, it made up for in action seven-fold. The two combatants punished each other, absorbing countless devastating blows. Before the fourth round began, when the referee asked the combatants if they wanted to continue after looking at their haggard and mutilated faces, DeStefano knocked out one of his corner-men (much to the delight of the spectators) for trying to convince the referee that his fighter had had enough. Luckily for DeStefano, it was not his corner-man’s decision to make, as per the rules. However, unfortunately for DeStefano, his trainer was right.

As the fourth round started and the two exhausted fighters slowly circled each other in the middle of the decagon, Washington on feet as heavy as hardened concrete, and DeStefano on the most rubbery of legs, DeStefano mustered the last of his energy to throw a devastating right hook, which only found air. Washington seized the moment of vulnerability after DeStefano whiffed with such a furious punch and threw his own right hook, which caught DeStefano in his temple. The Widow-Maker collapsed immediately, and the entire spectating collective rose to their feet in anticipation of the ending of the fight.

The spectators were looking forward to Krag quickly straddling DeStefano and counting along in primal screams with each one of Krag’s deadly punches to the head of a defenseless DeStefano, bringing him closer and closer to his expiration. However, we don’t always get what we want. Just ask Mick Jagger.

When DeStefano went to the ground, Krag only stared at his dazed opponent on the decagon mat, who was unaware and precariously clinging to consciousness. The entire audience had already created an obvious, yet cleverly apropos, signature chant for the end of a fight. Thousands of spectators joined as one to collectively pump a thumbs-down into the blood-lust-poisoned air as they all chanted “END-IT! END-IT!” in unison. DeStefano rolled from side to side, willing himself to get up from the mat, knowing what it potentially meant for him if he was unable. DeStefano came to a rest on his back with his head in his hands, trying to regain his strength and equilibrium. Krag, the ice cold merciless killer who had once killed a man by shooting him, stabbing him, and drowning him, only stared back at his opponent in obvious contemplation.

“Terrific! Just fucking
terrific
!” Brad roared in contempt. “Is this pussy refusing to finish the fight too?” He turned his anger to Jayson with his meaty index finger. “Great recruiting job, Jayson! For our next matc
h–
if there is one after this cluster-fuck-why don’t you just get us a couple of cock-sucking boy scout troop leaders!” The room went silent, save for the sound of ice settling in Tyler’s drink. “You may have single-handedly fucked this place before we even got a running start!” After shifting uncomfortably on his feet, an emasculated Jayson split his concentration of near-panic between his surly associate and the action (or lack thereof) in the decagon below the suite.

“Shut your mouth, Brad!” Lilith boomed in a voice that achieved the requested silence in the room, with the exception of the muffled sound of the thousands of spectators bleeding through the glass of the suite window. Her voice also frightened her husband, who could not recall ever hearing that threating other-worldly bass in her tone prior to this evening. “Just watch,” Lilith finished in a voice that juxtaposed her chilling tone brilliantly and horrifically. Lilith turned to look through the suite window and the others followed suit, occasionally sneaking peeks over at Lilith, worried that her anger had not truly left her.

Krag glanced quickly at the referee, who gave a look that asked Krag, “What’s your next move, pal, because I ain’t stopping this thing. Not after that last fight. I could hear the owners shitting Tiffany tie-tacks from here!” Then, the referee actually spoke on the sly: “You better end this one, pal; they’ll tear you apart.” Krag didn’t know if the referee had meant the spectators, or the owners, but found it to be a moot question regardless.

“I’m just thinking about how I’m gonna end this white motherfucker,” Krag informed. The referee backed away.

DeStefano began to stir on the mat with every ounce of energy he had banked during his horizontal siesta. Finally, he got to his knees. More exhausted than ever, he huffed and puffed, looking at the roof of the Super Chasm; looking for a ray of hope that was not there and would not come. The only rays were that of the hot lamps which lit the arena. Krag had decided how he would proceed. DeStefano still had not surrendered, perhaps knowing how the finale of the previous fight had gone. Surrender, at this point, would have been useless anyway. He could smell it on his savage opponent.

For a large and brawny man, Krag moved quickly. He transferred all of his weight and power into his hips and delivered a brutal roundhouse kick that connected with the center of DeStefano’s forehead. His head snapped backwards until it was flush with his back, making DeStefano momentarily look back up at the roof of the Super Chasm like a Pez-dispenser doling out candy. DeStefano’s neck snapped with a whip-crack and the sound of DeStefano’s neck fracturing could be reportedly heard by spectators within the first six rows of the decagon. However, many spectators seated farther back would also boast in excited horror via social media, texts, and phone calls that they
also
heard the last sound that Gunnar “The Widow-Maker” DeStefano’s body would ever make.

An eerie silence and calm, comparable to when an awkward scene is made in a crowded restaurant and the patrons wait with bated breath to hear the drama unfold, swept over the entire Chasm audience, including the board of directors and their guests. DeStefano gave two myoclonic twitches before his body was still and would remain that way. The referee and medics ran over to DeStefano and after the medic gave the clichéd shake of his head towards DeStefano’s corner and yanked off his stethoscope, the crowd erupted in a fury of animalistic cheers. The silence in the Imperial Suite was broken by Lilith, who gave a warrior-princess yell and a single hand clap, which left her hands red for hours. “We have our first
true
winner!” she said as she turned away from the window and towards her constituents. The wave of energy and sound that penetrated the glass of the Imperial Suite was proof that the spectators agreed with that assessment.

Chapter 18

“Well kids, our time draws close to a close! You can say that, right? ‘Close to a close?’ Fuck it, it’s said; and it has a certain understated simplicity that I like. I imagine it sounds better to the ear than it looks on paper, but I digress. Now, I could go on and on in unnecessarily long detail and draw this thing out like Stephen-fucking-King, but I have things to tend to, as you may have guessed. Whoops, watch out for the blood over there!”