Fight Town: Inspiration Read online

  Chapter 9

  After the gym, Johnny crossed the street to The Oasis, where he barely managed to climb the stairs and get into his room. He was hurting pretty bad and exhausted like never before.

  He sat on the bed for a while, head throbbing, replaying the night’s events in his mind.

  He was pissed.

  Pissed at Jobbo for luring him into the ring; pissed at Jobbo’s trainer for letting it go down; and most of all, pissed at himself for falling into their trap.

  Johnny wasn't stupid by nature, but tonight, he’d been dumber than hell. Why had he trusted Jobbo? Why had he gotten into the ring with a stranger when he’d never even boxed before?

  Part of it was Jobbo’s lie. Part was his appearance.

  Part was Johnny’s faith in himself. In all fairness, he had never lost a fight before.

  But there had been something else at work, too, he realized now. The fact that he was in a game world had boosted his confidence.

  He hadn't put much thought into it at the time, but on some level, he'd been running on the assumption that Vicarus wanted to please its subscribers.

  That made sense, right? Happy subscribers would mean more subscribers, and more subscribers would mean more money.

  So yeah, he had assumed this world was set up to please its riders.

  After all, Paul and Annabelle hadn’t said, Beware of the man in the winter coat. They’d said, Be bold! Kick ass!

  Honestly, the whole Jobbo thing had felt like a setup.

  And, as it turned out, it had been a setup.

  But not the type of setup he’d been expecting. He hadn’t thought he was being lured into the ring by some gloved psycho. He had foolishly assumed this was a world full of scripted opportunities for him to show his stuff, get some easy credits, and level up–or whatever you called it here in Vicarus Land—and thereby provide a thrilling experience for his subscribers.

  But that clearly had not been the case. He had been lured into the ring by an opponent several notches above him, a guy who didn’t look like much but who ended up being very much indeed.

  Almost too much to handle.

  Well, it had happened, and he couldn’t change that now. Nor would he want to change the night’s events. Because they had taught him a valuable lesson.

  Whatever else Vicarus was, it was realistic. It wasn't going to cut him any slack just because he was new.

  He had to rethink the whole thing, had to remember this wasn’t just a game but actually some kind of life replacement system. And based on what the prospectors had told him and what he had experienced here, maybe in the last century, the big heads who ran Vicarus had figured out that people like living more than leveling up.

  As in real living, ass whippings included.

  Thinking back across what Paul and Annabelle and numerous people here in Fight Town had said, he detected a theme.

  People want to earn their loot, Annabelle told him.

  Lucinda chimed in, There ain’t no free rides in Fight Town!

  Work now, win later, the gym banner declared.

  Bottom line, he would have to earn his way here.

  That was fine. He hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. If he had, his father would have yanked it out the day Johnny was born and pawned it for a bottle of whiskey.

  Johnny had always worked. His family and friends always seemed to be just scraping by. Honestly, he’d never given it much thought. That was life. Knocking around, working hard, living for the weekend and praying the brakes in your beater didn’t go.

  So real life had apparently prepared him for this simulated world.

  And Jobbo’s punches had tattooed the lesson onto Johnny’s brain.

  You couldn't be stupid in this world. You couldn't be sloppy.

  Johnny couldn't assume that just because he was a… what? A player? A main character? Whatever the hell he was supposed to be in this Vicarus set up, he couldn’t assume things would be okay.

  Because he had not made quick work of Jobbo. He had gotten his ass handed to him.

  His nose was broken. His ribs were bruised, maybe even cracked. Every inch of him from his belt line to the top of his head hurt. His jaw throbbed. So did his teeth. He kept getting distracted by the swelling around his eyes, his own bruised flesh jutting into his field of vision.

  He laughed. That hurt, too.

  He lay back on the bed beneath a heavy blanket of pain and anger, and blinked up at the water-stained ceiling, thinking, You dumb son of a bitch, you dumb bastard.

  Yeah, he'd been stupid. And yeah, he’d gotten his ass kicked.

  But at least he'd caught Jobbo at the end. He'd caught him good.

  He remembered the moment, squaring up and going toe to toe, knocking it hard, both guys locked in place, taking shots and giving shots, everything on the line; and then, the punch, the glorious punch and the way it felt when his fist smashed into Jobbo’s head. Then came that other feeling, that wonderful feeling of impact, lines of destruction fracturing away from his hand as Jobbo’s electrical and muscular systems hiccupped.

  Landing a punch like that is kind of like when you’re a kid and you’re blindfolded, and you swing the bat and crack a piñata and feel it give for the first time and know that candy will soon come gushing out. Only, landing the punch was so much better, sweeter even than candy to a six-year-old; landing a shot like that was the sweetest feeling in the world, even if he'd taken a beating to get to that point, maybe even especially because he’d taken the beating.

  That punch hadn’t just rocked Jobbo, it had also extricated Johnny. It was even sweeter than the moment a drowning man breaks the surface and pulls his burning lungs full of air. Because in this case, he hadn’t just clawed his way back to the air, he’d also turned tables on the guy trying to drown him.

  And hanging in there and landing that shot and nearly putting Jobbo on his ass, it said something. It said something to Jobbo and his trainer and everyone else in the gym: the weird ass mongrel kid, everybody standing around laughing at him, and to Marvella, Freddie, and even Johnny himself.

  It said, I am here.

  It said, Take me seriously.

  And when you got down to it, isn’t that what every man wants? For everyone, including himself, to take him seriously?

  These thoughts passed through his head without much effort or contemplation, washing over him as naturally as his pain.

  He would take himself seriously. Just as he would take the world and all its Jobbos seriously.

  There was a lot to learn.

  Johnny woke in the middle of the night.

  He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep in the first place. He lay atop the bed in the latticed illumination of yellow light falling through his blinds, still dressed in his stinking, blood-spattered restaurant clothes.

  Everything hurt. He coughed, choking on the thick, foul mass draining from his shattered nose down the back of his throat. Stiff and sore, head throbbing with every beat of his heart, he rose and went into the bathroom and spat in the sink. The mucus was dark with blood and clung stubbornly as he ran the tap and rinsed the porcelain.

  Johnny cupped his hands and scooped water in his mouth and swished it around and spat, then sipped more and gargled and spat again, then splashed cold water onto his face, washing away the blood and grime.

  Finally, he looked at his face in the mirror.

  What a mess.

  He’d never been so thirsty in all his life. He cupped more water in his hands, raised it to his lips and sipped, then took the little glass from the edge of the sink and filled it and drank, filled it, drank again, filled it, drank again. Then he stood there breathing hard and staring at his battered face and poking its savaged features here and there.

  His nose was the worst. Just below the bone, the snapped cartilage lay flat against his face then twisted so the tip of his nose, now bulbous and purple with bruising, pointed to the left. Laying his hands to either side, he tried straightening the
crooked mess but didn’t have much luck.

  It hurt, pulling his shirt up over his head, and he realized his neck was stiff as hell. It felt like he’d been in a car accident and suffered whiplash.

  He unbuckled his pants and let them drop to the floor, kicked off his shoes, peeled the black socks from his feet, and dropped his drawers, leaving it all piled on the bathroom floor. He didn't have the energy to clean up now.

  He stared at the shower, knowing he needed one.

  He poured another glass of water and sipped it, staring at the shower stall, wanting to stand in the steamy spray and wash away the blood and sweat and stink, but he was just too tired. So instead, he just stood there, leaning against the sink and drinking water until he hobbled back into the main room and fell asleep buck naked atop the bed, too tired to even get under the sheets.

  Chapter 10

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The punches kept coming.

  The dream was not a precise reenactment of his sparring match with Jobbo; it was more the feel of being in the gym, of being in the ring, people with indistinct faces talking in garbled words. People egging him on, trying to lure him into destruction.

  There were flashes of Marvella.

  Marvella doubting him, frowning, then touching his face gently, her dark eyes full of surprising compassion.

  And then more punches.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  A vicious blur came at him, smashed into him, pummeled him.

  Johnny swung wildly, trying to fight back, but he couldn't see and couldn’t breathe. His gloves were enormous, as big as couch cushions, as big as whole couches, huge and heavy and soft, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't land a punch.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Johnny opened his eyes. At least part way, which was as far as they would open, thanks to their swollen state.

  That's when he realized the thump-thump-thump sound he was hearing, the sound his drifting mind had incorporated into the dream as punches, was actually real.

  Someone was knocking on a door.

  His door.

  Which rattled now. He heard a muffled voice calling through the door and a faint jangling and metal scraping against metal and understood someone was unlocking the door.

  Meanwhile, Johnny lay atop the bed as naked and bloody as a half-butchered hog. He tried to speak, tried to tell whoever it was to hold on, but his voice stuck in his throat, jammed there behind a wad of bloody phlegm.

  The door opened a crack, and a woman's voice called softly, "Housekeeping."

  Johnny grabbed a fistful of comforter and pulled it over his lap.

  The door swung open, and Millie stepped inside wearing her frilly, black-and-white uniform. As soon as she saw him, the slim maid gave a little gasp and raised a hand to her face, startled again.

  Johnny managed to grin and raised one hand. “We gotta stop meeting like this,” he croaked.

  Millie blushed and half-turned, looking pointedly away from him, and started backing out of the room. "I'm so sorry to disturb you, sir. I knocked, but there was no answer. I'll come back later."

  "Wait, Millie. Hold on, please."

  She hesitated and looked at him, her big purple eyes going wide as she registered his battered state. "Are you okay, sir?"

  "I'm all right," he said. “Just a little banged up is all.”

  “A little banged up?” Millie said, clearly disagreeing with his assessment. “Do you need help, sir? Want me to fetch you a doctor?”

  For some reason, this struck Johnny funny. It was so old-timey, the notion of fetching a doctor. Where he came from, if you were busted up, you headed to the Urgent Care or ER. But here, apparently, doctors still made house calls even at…

  “What time is it?” he asked, finger combing his hair. Even that hurt.

  “Ten,” Millie said. “A little after ten. Do you need help, sir?”

  He shook his head. Man, was his neck sore. “No thanks, Millie. I'm all right.”

  “Were you set upon by ruffians?”

  He laughed. “Ruffians? No. I went to the gym.”

  She sighed dramatically, clearly relieved. “I was so afraid you'd been set upon by ruffians.”

  “Does this place have a laundry?”

  “Yes, there's a coin-op in the basement. Would you like me to take some things down and throw them in for you? It’s the least I can do, you poor man.”

  He eyed her for a second through his swollen eyes, thinking how innocent she looked. But as a maid in a cheap motel, Millie had to have seen her share of unsavory things.

  “I'd really appreciate that. Thanks.”

  Millie smiled. “Well, I'll be happy to help. If you just gather everything up, I’ll take it straight down and get it washing.”

  Johnny grinned. “Maybe you’d better step outside for a minute. All I got on under this comforter is my birthday suit.”

  Millie’s purple eyes swelled, and her pale face blushed bright pink. “I'm sorry, sir. Let me give you your privacy.”

  She started to step through the door again.

  “Hey, Millie, hold on for a second, please. Quit apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong. Look, if you don't mind waiting outside for just a minute, I’ll get up and get dressed and gather those things. What’s it cost?”

  “A penny a load.”

  “A penny a load,” he echoed, resisting the urge to shake his head. Prices here were going to take some getting used to. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  “Okay, sir, I'll be right outside.” Millie left and closed the door behind her.

  Johnny stood, feeling even stiffer and sorer than he had the night before. The unquenchable thirst returned, raging as it had when he’d stood in the bathroom pounding water like a man straight out of a desert.

  He gathered his clothes, embarrassed by the state of them, the balled-up mess, the blood, the stink of working and fighting.

  Suddenly, he wished he hadn't asked Millie to do his washing. It had sounded nice since he was so banged up, but man, this was embarrassing.

  Still, Millie struck him as the type of person who might get upset if he changed his mind now. She’d probably think it was her fault if he did, probably think she’d done something wrong and bothered him or lost his trust.

  So he went to his battered suitcase and pulled on white boxer shorts, his other pair of pants, and another tight white tank top. Then he emptied the pockets of his dirty pants onto the bed, plucked a dime from the pile, and carried it and his dirty laundry over to the door.

  Millie accepted the unspeakable bundle without so much as a twitch of her mouse ears or a wrinkle of her tiny little button nose. The girl might've been worried about Johnny's injuries, but she sure wasn't squeamish.

  “Oh,” she said, and suddenly her expression was troubled, “you shouldn't put these nice pants in the washing machine. They need to be dry cleaned.”

  “All right. How much is that?”

  “Three cents, generally, unless you have some special instructions or something.”

  “Nothing special.”

  Millie smiled. “The place we use is just a block away, over on the corner of 8th and Holyfield. They’re real good. Real fast, too. If I run them over now, you'll probably have them back by two, three o'clock. Four at the latest. We give them a lot of business.”

  “All right. Thanks. That would be great, Millie.”

  She smiled and curtseyed as if he’d complimented her little black-and-white uniform. “I am happy to serve, sir.”

  “It's Johnny, please. My friends call me Johnny.”

  Millie dipped her head and blushed again for some reason. “Okay… Johnny. These other clothes I can do in a single load, so it’ll be four cents all-in.”

  He handed her the dime. “Keep the change, Millie.”

  Her face lit up. “Thank you, sir.”

  Johnny grinned. “Please call me Johnny. You call me ‘sir,’ I feel like a cat in a turtleneck.”

  M
illie laughed softly. It was a pretty sound he realized he’d like to hear again. “Thank you, Johnny.”

  After she left, he drank about a hundred gallons of water, put on some socks and shoes, left the room, and headed down to the five and dime.

  His jaw was sore as hell. It felt swollen and crooked.

  Out on the street and in the store, people saw his bruised and misshapen face and did a double take.

  Initially, it was embarrassing. But he soon realized that while they were doing double takes, they weren’t exactly staring. People looked at him, looked again, and went about their business.

  And as he went about his, he started to understand why they were taking his injuries in stride. Because he wasn't the only guy sporting a black eye or crooked nose. In fact, he saw several people with banged-up faces.

  Fight town, he thought. No joke.

  He bought some workout clothes, a bunch of bananas, and a bottle of aspirin. By the time he headed out the door, his mindset had shifted. Because he knew the citizens of Fight Town saw his injuries for what they were—damage he’d incurred honestly, fighting in the gym—their lingering stares triggered not shame but grim pride.

  He took two aspirin, crunching them up dry, and masked their bitterness with a bite of banana.

  You know you jacked up your jaw when it hurts to eat a banana.

  Johnny gutted it out, eating as he strolled back to The Oasis, pondering the mysteries of life, chief among them the fact that despite having drunk approximately ten thousand gallons of water he still hadn't taken a leak since leaving work the night before.

  “You look like shit,” Lucinda said as he passed her near the empty pool.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “What did you do, get drunk and jump off the diving board?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Bananas are constipating,” she called after him.

  Johnny went upstairs and ate another banana and drank more water and paced back and forth, restless. He shook out his arms and threw a few punches. His ribs ached with every motion.