Walking along dirt roads and ragged concrete, the trees around us grow thicker, a little livelier, still holding onto the last gasps of autumn life. I feel a quickening in the air. The chill blows through to my ankles, wrist, face. I fluff my scarf and breath hot into it.
Care is beside and seems pale, tired, only that undying fire in her heart and belly powering the engine of her eternal, straight-forward wandering. I can see it flicker in her eyes.
“Why are we going out this way?” I ask her. “Seems like all woods.”
“Gettin’ close,” she replies. “Heading to a far part of town where the hicks and yokels live. It’s a hike, but if I’m right, there should be a little village before we end up in the swampy parts. Don’t know if we’d be able to walk through that...”
“Why out here?” I tersely ask, noticing the cold is getting to me.
“Because we can’t exactly walk into a gun shop. And you’re right, we need more ammo for that thing,” she says, ruffling up in her jacket. “Matty used to talk about the hillbillies on the other side of town being big into guns. Dealers, shooters, collectors, hunting deer, all of it. I’m thinking we can score what we need off the right local- cash or trade.”
“We’re walking somewhere everyone has guns because you think they’ll be nice enough to just trade some girls ammo when they don’t know who we are, if we’re cops or in highschool or what?” I ask incredulously. “This is just getting more and more desperate and insane.”
“Hey, easy,” Care goes. “This ain’t battin’ completely blind, hun. Matty used to say people around here are different. Crazy, but kinda goodie-two-shoes. Now I don’t believe that, but Matty did and that counts for something. They wouldn’t deal with him at all. Sent him running with his tail between his legs.”
“No one out here would deal with him?”
“Yeah. Sell him guns, look at him, talk to him. Nothing. Something they didn’t like about him. Pissed him right off. They probably knew what he was.” She looks ahead pondering. “I thought everyone dealt with everyone here, just about... Doesn’t make much sense.”
I hate that we’re always riding on hopes and half-truths. I’m nervous and snatch her cigarette. She glares and snickers, lights another.
“Hopefully it puts us further from whoever knows Matty or his people, at least.”
“You got the idea,” Care says. “Hey, look up ahead.”
Little houses peeking out through branches. Long worn streets of rubble road and old sidewalk winding over grotesque bumpy land, peppered with fenced-in gargoyle homes that slide forever toward swampy puddles of ponds from the tops of patchy, dead-grass yards.
“Are we still in Piercing?” I ask, searching the landscape sharply.
She nods. “I dunno. It’s part of it but separate, think they call it a village. Some name I can’t remember... Greyburg or something.” She points down a long straight street lined with grey telephone poles impaling the earth, and withered treetops like dry-rotted pikes in the scattered, half-rural neighborhood. “Straight and narrow, must lead somewhere.”
I shake my head unsurely, silent, bracing myself against the dreary, empty wind tunnel of a road.
“Where is everyone? School?” I ask.
“I dunno. I heard they just marry 'em young around here and no one’s got any wits. Maybe they ain’t even got schools. Heard they all marry their own family. Gross.”
“Matty said that too?”
“Well yeah...” She hums. “Sure ain’t fancy on this side of town, that’s for sure.”
We hear voices up ahead and see a crowd of kids, about two dozen. They’re surrounding a chain-link fenced-in yard, in front of a dusty eggshell duplex with torn up paint and falling cedar shingles. A lanky old man with loose skin and an enormous belly watches on the porch from his battered wicker rocking chair, a beer in hand and one on the big blue cooler beside him. They’re all cheering and shouting for a scuffle in the front yard between two massive guys built like apes, both in torn jeans and muddied white t-shirts. We walk beside the crowd and most of them eye us curiously, but look back away.
“What’s this shit?” Care asks, elbowing a kid a little younger than us. He looks over with a scraggly brown beard around fat lips, looking suddenly older. He laps out a wad of tobacco, spews it on the sidewalk behind us, wipes his mouth.
“Sorry bout that, hardly talk with that in...” the kid says with a voice like a man’s.
“No kidding,” Care says, cockeyed.
“This just a gentlemen’s match fer sport,” says the man-kid, nodding at the two fighting linebackers swinging fists wildly when they aren’t locking arms around each other’s massive backs or trying to strangle each other’s tree trunk necks. “Course, some of us are putting down wagers, make it more interesting.”
“That definitely makes it more interesting,” Care grins deviously. “What kind of cash we talkin’?”
“Ah, fives, tens, twenties,” the kid goes, spitting over the fence and apologizing again. “Depends on who’s scufflin, who’ll take ya up.”
“Aw c’mon,” Care scoffs. “Tens and twenties? That’s peanuts.”
The kid rubs his chin, surprised. “Well I tell ya, no one’s beat my big brother Rufus the Ruckus there. Big ol' boy. Been wipin’ these up clean ever since he beat Reuben the Jewman. Good ol' boy there, though. Real sport even gettin’ his whole arm broke like that.”
Care looks at me with droopy eyes, half-whispers. “They think they’re pro wrestlers.”
“Hey, my uncle’s calling y’all over,” the kid says. “If you wanna go and say hi.”
The old man on the porch beckons in muffled non-sentences from his white rocking chair on the porch. We go around the fenced-in fight that all eyes are on and walk up the broken concrete path approaching his creaking wicker throne.
The man looks somehow tired and wakeful at once, speckled with sun dots, tanned like old hide. His jaundiced blue eyes peer lazily from hairless bony cheeks the shape of a happy, sleepy skull, hidden under a gas station ballcap. He reeks of smoke and stale beer.
“Hello there little ladies,” he says in a raspy, droning voice. “What brings you out to these parts?”
“Just taking in the scenery and, uh, local attractions.” Care bites her thumbnail, half snickering.
“Ah, I know... This neighborhood ain’t what it used to be.” He looks past the unfinished awning to the overcast sky. “Came here thirty years ago from West Virginia. Little place south of Wilsie. Not much of a town at all, just a little school, the churches, the post office. Not much unlike here, nice ol’ hills, a pretty river. But I tell ya this place has got the Lord’s curse on it. The river don’t flow so pretty anymore. The churches ain’t got no good preachin’ either. Most of 'em closed up.”
I think of the old abandoned church. The last days flash behind my eyes.
“Yeah, town’s cursed alright,” Care says.
“Pardon I don’t have another seat for ya. You can have a rest on the cooler, if you want, but don’t lean on the railing.” The old man lifts his beer off the blue, white-lidded cooler. “Railin’s needed done for years now, whole place too, ain’t it? Anyway, lil' ol' Rufus over there broke two my old rockers with his big backside horsin’ around, owed me 'em for a while now. Suppose I can pull his ear for em, get me some winnings from this lil' damned games they’re havin’. Ah, pardon the French.”
We look over and see who we assume is Rufus, the larger of the quarreling beasts. His shirt is drawn up his giant back, his flanks and asscrack showing as he hoists up the other man like a cut of slaughterhouse beef. He slams him to the ground and I think the earth will shake. They start tossing and thrashing on the cold, hard mud.
“He’s a monster alright,” I say.
“Oh, just a big ol’ teddy bear tossin’ these neighborhood boys around. And their dads too when they want for a piece.” The old man lets out a few hoots at the show. “Ol’ Bob next door had me hold his beer thinkin’ he’d take my boy. His poor belly got so jostled by Rufus, he done walked home all in a daze, left it right here next to me.”
The old man stares off into space a hundred yards past the fight, a little smile in the corner of his mouth, drooling over a touch of dried white spittle. Rufus crushes the other’s chest for what seems like forever, till a flailing hand smacks the ground weakly. Rufus lets off, stands with his hands on his knees, panting. Slowly, he helps the other guy up, whose legs wobble and skin is paler than his dirty, ragged white t-shirt.
They pant and wheeze, looking at each other sternly, slap hands on one another’s forearms and embrace. The kids cheer and howl, and the snuff-lipped kid in the crowd starts buzzing around, collecting and dispensing wads of dollars.
“Oh me,” the old man suddenly springs to life. “Not a good seat in sight and haven’t even offered a beer. Youins are old enough to drink, right? What’re you, sixteen or such?”
“I don’t like to think about my age. I’m getting old,” Care says matter-of-factly. “I brought my own anyhow.” She pulls out a pint of rum. I wave away his unopened beer, so he finishes the other in his right hand, tosses it to a mound of cans poured over a trash bin, and starts gulping the new one. Care pulls out the cooler and sits on it furtively.
“Hmm! The hard stuff,” he hums. “Can’t do it anymore, too hard on the belly.”
“I love the hard stuff,” Care says. “Love the burn going down to my stomach.”
“Well, quite the firebrand, aren’t we?” the old man says, pulling out a pack of smokes. “Suppose you don’t mind if I...?”
“Course not.” Care pulls out cigs for me and her both, lighting his first, then ours.
“Well! Can’t say I’ve had a lady light me since my ol' girl passed away some time back!”
“Sorry to hear that,” I chime in.
“She’s in a better place, now, my Susan,” the old man nods through a cloud of smoke. “Had the cancer bad. Broke my heart seein’ her like that. In a better place for sure...” He shakes his cigarette, pointing. “And see that right there what you first talked to?” The chew-lip boy in the crowd was looking down counting money. “That’s my boy, too, Rickie. They’s my nephews but I call 'em as my own. They were in some misfortune too, their parents taken in a bad crash... looked like some hope for the mother, but she passed on with my boy Rich. All with the Lord now...”
“I’m sorry,” Care says with steel eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Oh they used to call me Chuck the Buck,” he answers. “Damned if I didn’t hear 'em call me Chuck the Stuck a couple times now.” He chuckles and gasps, pulling at his cig.
“You’re still living on,” I say. “Best you can do in a world with so much death. Just keep on.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” he answers, sighing a ghostly cloud full of memories into the chill air.
“How about this game here? The fights?” Care goes. “Keep the juices flowing, huh?”
“Ah, more for them than me. I’ll admit it’s a bit of entertainment for ol' Chuck, now that I ain’t buckin so much no more.”
As he’s talking, Rickie comes up and counts him out some cash, leans back against the railing. It creeks.
“Don’t lean on them rails, boy! Lessin’ you’re gonna pay for the damned thing!” Chuck looks at us a little embarrassed, counting some fives and tens. “Okay, maybe ol' Chuck’s still making a few bucks.”
“It’s forty even there, pawpaw,” Rickie says. “Ain’t no one betting too much on the other fellers.”
“I’m satisfied, son, not bad money for a horse’n always wins.” Chuck hands him a bill and pockets the rest. “Take five for good work. Rufus get his cut?”
“‘Course, pawpaw. Looks like they might call it a day. No one else bigger than Johnson to step up anyhow,” Rickie says. The crowd out front is quietly buzzing still.
“Can’t blame 'em.” Chuck ashes his cigarette on the wood floor beside him.
Rufus lumbers over like a giant. The deck creaks and groans under his weight. “Howdy, ladies,” he nods casually, still panting and wiping sweat from his freckled cheeks. He leans over into the cooler and gets a loud slap on the sweaty small of his back from Chuck.
“Ow, pawp!” he whines in good humor.
“Ain’t I taught ya beers and cigs ain’t no good for ya?” Chuck half-shouts, chuckling.
“Well I’ll be takin’ two for hittin’ the road if I’m gettin’ this treatment!” Rufus laughs.
“Don’t smoke, drink, or chew, or run with those that do,” Rickie spits off the deck.
“What’d I tell ya waterin’ my plants with that spitoon juice, boy!” Chuck shouts. “And you keep arm’s reach from that railing or I’ll have Greg Lloyd’s big white stunt double here push you through it into your muck!”
“Don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t run with those that do...” Care recites. “Damn, I love that, old man.” She sips some rum.
“Ain’t we just the devil’s bunch?” Chuck cackles. “Well this sure’in’s better’n that damned dice you was at all day every day before.”
“Well I certainly do win more now, Pawpaw,” Rufus says, looks to Rickie. “Think we all do.”
“Cause it’s a luck game, muscle head,” Rickie mutters.
“Yep, told ya it’s a bad game. Game for coloreds, y’ask me, and I ain’t meanin’ no offense to 'em, but this’ns a game of skill, not throwin’ money around for nothin’.”
“That why you said Black Jim couldn’t fight in the yard?” Rickie asks sarcastically.
“Well,” Chuck goes, ruffled. “Lil’ Black Jim can run around or fight or shoot dice in his own yard if he well pleases.”
“Hey, you’re a tall girl,” Rufus says to me. I shake my head from the cigarette trance.
“Yeah, might give you a run for your money,” Rickie jokes.
Rufus throws his arm around Rickie, ruffles his hair violently. Rickie pushes him away.
“You too, lil' brother,” Rufus says. “Gotta stop lettin’ me win all the time.”
“Sure...” Rickie murmurs.
“Actually, I think I could take you,” I say to Rufus suddenly, pinching out my cigarette and flicking it past all of them onto the overflowing crumpled can pile on the other side of the porch.
Rickie and him laugh, but Chuck bursts into tears. I’m worried he’s going to have a stroke. After half a minute he stops and wipes his eyes. “Maybe you should start with someone a little closer to your level, like me or Rickie here. Oh, he don’t look like much, but he’s a mean lil' scrapper when his blood gets goin’!”
“I’m serious,” I say. “One on one, me and Rufus.”
They can’t help laughing like a pack of hyenas. Care looks at me worriedly. Chuck looks at her, wiping a dusty tear away from his eyes.
“What odds would you give me?” I ask.
“Oh, wrastling ain’t for little ladies.” Chuck slaps his leg. “I’m not much sure anyone would bet on that sorta thing anyways. We ain’t WWF, havin’ little girls slide around in the mud. We’s havin’ good clean tussles here, nothin’ below the belt, don’t break nothin’ on purpose, nothin’ upside the head cause even some of the youngins got little enough teeth as it is. You fightin’ ol' Rufus or anyone... well, that’d just be unsportly.”
“Why you makin’ fun for?” Rufus goes. “I wouldn’t hurt a little thing like her.”
“What odds?” I demand.
Rickie speaks up. “Who’d bet on you? You want his hands tied behind his back or some’n?”
“No handicaps,” I say.
“Kade...”
“And four to one odds,” I say. “Not so bad for a little girl, right? Make it three to one even.”
“Young lady, I can’t say I believe you know how this works...” Chuck begins. “How about a game of cards? Checkers?”
“For every three dollars on Rufus, we’ll match a dollar for me. Whatever it is.”
“Now you can’t be serious...” Chuck says.
“I’m not beating up a girl for no amount of money!” Rufus protests. “Just ain’t right.”
“If it’s just free money, why not try? You can go easy. If I give up, I give up.”
“Your friend done lost her marbles?” Chuck asks Care. “Or y’all just playin’ the fool on us?”
Care chugs on her rum and winces as it washes down.
“No, it’s true,” Care says, confident but annoyed, puffing hard on a cigarette. “She knows some super kung fu that will let her take on a guy three times her size, easy. Special forces stuff.”
Chuck slaps his knee. “Well that’s great! He ain’t but four times her size, easy!”
I pull out a handful of bills and show them all around. “Look, feel them. Real money. No fakes, no scam. One to three, whatever you and those kids want to put down.”
The family all look at each other with a mix of confusion and intrigue.
“You ain’t gonna whip out a blade on my boy, here?” Chuck goes.
“That wouldn’t be fair. A fair fight, a fair wager. Your rules.”
Chuck laughs and suddenly goes stern. “Fetch them boys before they all run off now. See if they’ll bite. Real circus show, this, but I’ll bite. Money’s money.”
I catch Rickie by the shoulder, whisper. “Hey. You have to tell them they can’t watch, though. You can get them as soon as the fight’s over, but no one but you and Pawpaw here can watch.”
Rickie nods hesitantly, walks to the crowd that’s mostly dispersed, starts pulling them back into a semicircle around the fenced-in fighting ring.
Care drags me to the other side of the deck, smoking hard. Her voice is tense. “I don’t even... What are you doing?!”
“I can do this, Care. Trust me. You know me.”
“We don’t know these guys. What if he hurts you? What if we lose?” she asks. “What if you...?” I can see her heart pounding.
“I won’t lose,” I smile. “And it’s not about the money. I have a plan.” I slip her the gun and the money. “Watch everyone else close. Just keep an eye out. But if big Rufus does win, just pay up and we walk away. I’m here to beat him, not rob these guys.”
“I can’t believe you’re gonna do this.” She like she’s about to cry. “This guy’s twice the size of Dryden and you barely made it out alive, you haven’t even healed...”
I shrug, roll and crack my neck. “Dryden had a weapon and a lot of skill. Rufus is just weight, you saw. It’ll be easy.”
She grits her teeth and looks down, clenching her rum flask, then suddenly puts it to my lips. I swig and shiver, a little warmer.
Rickie walks back to us. “I uh... we got almost four hundred put together... but uh... they have to watch. They think it’s some kinda ruse where Rufus gives up, you win all the money, we split it...you know, they ain’t trust it.”
“They’re dumb. If you were going to scam them, you wouldn’t make it so obvious. You’d start the bets at dollar to dollar or something. Amateurs,” Care mutters, grabbing two beers from the cooler and slamming her ass down on it, tossing her empty pint at the can pile with a clatter. “Hope you don’t mind sharing some beers,” she says to Chuck.
“Ah, be my guest, little lady,” he says, scratching his head and lighting up another smoke, a little unsettled. “Here now Rickie boy, take this and make it an even five hundred on Rufus. God help you girls. Feels like robbery, but equality and all that. Dollar don’t discriminate.”
I look at Rufus. “If they have to watch, will you let them?”
Rufus throws up his hands. “Damned the difference. I’ll go easy anyhow. This is all craziness to me.”
“You’re telling me,” Care interjects. Chuck nods in agreement.
“Don’t go easy,” I tell Rufus. “But I’m sorry...”
“What for?” he cocks his head.
“For kicking your ass in a minute,” Care spits.
The reality of the fight coming seems to charge Rufus up a little. He steps off the porch inside the fence and I take off my jacket down to a tank-top, adjust my boots, follow him inside. All eyes watch my skin, that patchwork of grey and pink scarring gleaming on my chest and arms.
Rickie runs back into the crowd and the kids are laughing and cheering. “Don’t waste our money Rufus!” “Get 'em, karate girl!” “What’s wrong with her arms?” “My money’s on you!” “I love you! Marry me!” “One hand behind your back, Rufus!” “Give 'em the ruckus!”
Me and Rufus square off a distance away from each other, still and silent as Rickie quiets the hecklers.
“You sure about this, sweetheart?” Rufus asks tenderly, limbering up.
I breathe deeply and shudder, blink my eyes. A forest of red, a party of rainbow globes floating around me. It all fades, resolves into a smoky alley, a dark figure in the distance. “Remember your training, Autumn,” it says in a heavy voice and my eyes shoot wide open.
“I-I’m... ready when you are,” I say.
He shakes his head annoyedly and lumbers over toward me reluctantly. He tries to lead me back-to-back with the fence but I finesse left and right, staying in the open. I know he just wants to get ahold of me and squeeze me till I give. I’m watching intently. Studying.
He rushes forward to test me, so I screen with a few light front kicks at his knees and shins that don’t do anything. He seems surprised I’m going for an attack and tries to catch my feet, leaving his face open. I move in for a few fake jabs to see his response. He’s slow to switch defending high and low. He favors defending his legs. Perfect. I kick faster and harder, vary the fronts and sides, but can’t allow him to catch any. Hit fast and keep my distance.
He suddenly charges. Faster than I expected. I have to roll and back on my feet. That was close. Keeping his weight off me until the opportunity comes...
More screening kicks. He almost grasps my foot. A twinge of fear, but I pull it back with a snap. Opportunity seizes. I kick again, use his leg to climb up him like the first step of a staircase, wrapping my arm behind his neck and flinging my legs open in a whirl. My left arm holds his right with all my strength as I pull him down from the top with all my weight. We hit the ground with my legs wrapped around his neck and his right arm pulled straight across the center of my chest. He wriggles and my legs tighten, pelvis pushing up. A desperate grunt and thrashing fist that knocks on my shins. I pull harder, feeling the limits of his joint.
“Don’t make me snap it!” I growl hushedly.
A muffled whine. My legs squeeze his face tight and red. Desperate gasps for air, squeaks at the pain as I push up harder, arching my back like a taut bow.
His left hand smacks the ground. Gasps from the crowd, silence. His hand slaps the dirt over and over. I slowly release, panting, feel the cold air hit my sweat.
The crowd erupts into chaos. “How did she do that?” “What the fuck?” “I knew it was a set-up!” “That’s impossible! That’s Roof, man!”
I lift myself to my knees. Rufus stares into the sky panting as if comatose. I lean over and consider the size of his body compared to mine, reluctantly put my hand on his shoulder. He comes to, shoots a confused look at my eyes.
“You alright?” I ask him.
He nods, gets up very slowly as we help each other up. We face one another, eyes looking into eyes. He puts out his hand. I stare at it hesitantly.
Our hands meet, hold firm, shake. He wraps his arms around me like a bear and I shift presence to another place. It’s warm. A voice says, “I love you, sweety.” The sound caresses me. Suddenly I’m back in the arms of this giant man, nearly crushing me. He lets go and half the crowd cheers.
“You gotta teach me how you done that,” he whispers, shocked and half defeated, half-impressed.
I nod quietly and walk back to the porch where Chuck sits, stunned, and Care gleams, teary-eyed, a crushed can leaking beer from her hand.
“Well now... ya really weren’t kidding, were ya?” Chuck says, dazed. “Y’all done killed our sport here, for a little while at least.” He sniffs deeply and drags his cigarette.
Rickie walks back from keeping the crowd calm. “They’s sayin’ all sorts of things, but I told ‘em a bet’s a bet.” Chuck looks at Rickie and nods. Rickie reluctantly counts out fifteen-hundred dollars in cash from every pocket and hands it over. I count it quickly and hold out a hundred in front of Chuck.
“Keep your part,” I say.
“I couldn’t...” Chuck’s eyes salivate at the lost winnings.
“It’s not charity. This wasn’t about money as much as...” I whisper, “I need to know where to get some firepower.”
“You? What do you need that for now?” Chuck asks. “You can already fight. A gun don’t make anyone’s life better, sweet thing.”