EVERYTHING ABOUT ANSON VAYE was underground. His life, his career – if you could call it that – even his personality had the feel of something that had spent most of its days covered in earth. A jack of all trades and a practitioner of none. One late barroom night, some professorial sloshed egghead announced to the room that Anson was a “factotum” and got himself two lost teeth shooting across the floor like a pair of spinning dice. Later Anson took the trouble to look up the word and felt a passing pang of regret – but it was too late and the town in question far behind in the dust. Anyway – he hadn’t liked the man’s tone and he still preferred jack of all trades. And he was master of at least one, which was kicking the shit out of people in bare knuckle brawls - played out mano y mano in the hidden catacombs of the illegal fight world, surrounded by cursing men waving fist loads of cash like frenzied human cock-fighting fans.
Even in public, people shied away from Anson like horses from a ghost. He had a lived in look, leather skin, eyes that could cut through steel, a youngish looking man but pushing forty – almost over the hill for the fighting game - wiry like an old time cowboy who spent every night under the stars with a saddle for a pillow and a six shooter at his side, slow with his words and quick on the draw.
It seemed hard to believe that in this day and age a person could still get along like an old gunfighter roaming from town to town choosing his battles. He lived offline, off grid and off the cuff. He didn’t read newspapers – not out of any serious lack of reading skills– but because of a terminal allergy to bullshit. He could read a fight crowd and the weather - and he could read fear in a man’s eyes. Anson always knew victory before he tasted it. You got that look and it was all down hill from there. His reputation alone was enough to punch men in the face all night as they tried to sleep before battle.
He rolled into Fallville at 6 a.m. on the proverbial Greyhound Bus. That’s how it goes in loose leaf America where the big spaces are slowly eaten up and overbuilt. Anson thought back to his long gone stepmother reading to him from the New Testament, as the bus downshifted into the still gray dawn punctuated by a lone blinking red stoplight on the main street. Anything real has to travel like the Holy Family sneaking under the wire into the desert, – avoiding the long arm of Herod and his flying monkeys (and the God’s of Egypt trembled ...). He was traveling unannounced. It wasn’t like there would be a welcoming committee anyway. As it was there was only Joe Lee Farman, wrinkled, balding and crinkled up into an oversized, overstuffed shiny pleather jacket that made him look like a slicked down Elephant Seal keeping an eye out for the beach … any beach.
They had breakfast at Caldwaller’s Diner near the station – waiting outside with their breath puffing in the cold before it opened. Once inside it was still cold and they waited once again as old man Caldwaller fired up the heaters and stoves. A handful of other early birds showed up and business slowly cranked into gear like a time worn but trusty Ford.
“She’s been asking about you,” Joe Lee opened up over steaming coffee, as if he was picking up on a conversation from nearly three years ago, which was in fact the case.
“Mara?” said Anson, blowing on his coffee and taking a sip.
“Who the hell else is gonna be talking about you, sport,” Joe Lee winked. “- unless it’s the law.”
“Law got no truck to be sayin’ shit about me. Not in this town anyway.”
“Maybe so, maybe so …” Joe Lee mused as if was only a matter of time.
He didn’t want to ask Anson where he’d been or where the hell he thought he was going. It wasn’t the kind of thing they talked about and, besides, he didn’t really care.
But he did care about Mara Cornish. Not like she was family or anything. She was part of Fallville, just like Joe Lee Farman himself. That was enough. They had roots, a sort of solidity – as opposed to drifters like Anson Vaye - and that commanded some kind of respect.
On top of that there was a lot that had gone on with Mara that Anson should know about. Knowing the man as he did, Joe Lee decided to play it straight and hit him right between the eyes. You could be forgiven for thinking it was the only language that Anson Vaye understood.
“She’s dying,” said Joe Lee.
Anson looked up from his coffee quickly, checking Joe Lee’s eyes for veracity. He said nothing in response. He knew the man was being truthful.
Old Man Caldwaller, skinny, white bearded and nearly lost in his denim overalls, plunked two plates down before them.
“Here’s your eggs, boys.”
“Thanks, Caldy,” Joe Lee gave him a smile, while Anson sat, now staring off into space somewhere beyond Joe Lee’s head. Old Caldwaller gave him a sidelong look, as if looking straight at him might cause the roof to collapse. Then he looked back at Joe Lee who gave a barely perceptible shrug and motioned with his eyes that it might be best if Caldwaller got back to the counter and tended his other customers. The old man made a firm look with his mouth and backed off with a nod.
“What is it?” asked Anson, shifting his gaze back to Joe Lee’s eyes. “What does she have?”
“Cancer,” Joe Lee sighed. The Big C. Fuck Cancer. He looked down at his plate of eggs in disgust, as if food had no business being part of this conversation.
“People beat that a lot of times.”
“Not this time.”
Anson slumped slightly. Joe Lee felt for him. As much as everyone in this town did not like Anson Vaye – and most of them knew basically nothing about him – Joe Lee still found room in his heart for the man that Mara Cornish loved, once upon a time. He was a magnificent fighter. Never bit, elbowed or headbutted a man in his life. He fought like a tiger by the rules – and then he moved on. He was a proud man but a man all in all, thought Joe Lee. And now he’s gonna have some manly dues to pay. He geared up for the next punch. “That’s not all.”
Anson tilted his head, now looking at Joe Lee at almost a forty five degree angle. “What’s not all? Ain’t that enough?”
“She’s got a kid. A girl. Two years old.”
The age was supposed to have some significance that he could see Anson was missing. He could be forgiven for that. He was probably still reeling from the first bit of news.
“Okay,” Anson shrugged. “The father taking care of things? Who is he?”
This said a bit defensively, as if Mara was somehow cheating on him – a thought that both men knew to be absurd for any number of reasons.
“Is it that Rob, fella?” Anson wanted to know. Rob Karlaky – a man who’s unrequited love for Mara Cornish was nearly legendary in Fallville. Anson looked like he wanted to smash Rob Karlaky’s head into a pulp – but even he knew that the mere desire to squash that runt with coke bottle eye glasses was akin to first degree murder. Anson was a lot of things, but he was no bully. He only wanted to beat the best and that – in fact – was the reason he was sitting here on a freezing morning dealing with this giant slug in a ski jacket named Joe Lee Farman who had arranged the fight.
Joe Lee chuckled and pulled his food closer, seasoning it with salt and pepper. “Shee-it, can you imagine Rob Karlaky for a father?”
But Anson wasn’t laughing. “So, who the hell is it then?”
He had this aching desire to know bad news, thought Joe Lee. He uses it to psych himself up for a fight. Anson collects every bad and vengeful thought he can contain, seeking them out like ammunition so he can take it out on someone else. Joe Lee recalled a story in the newspaper sports section saying pretty much the same thing about Michael Jordan. I guess it works, he thought, and took a fork full of eggs. Need to get at ‘em before they get cold.
“I asked you a question,” Anson glared at him. It was never good to have Anson Vaye glare at you. If he held it long enough, there was no retrieving him until someone was on the floor.
But today Joe Lee held a sort of moral high ground. He was withholding the name because it was too big for Anson to handle. Anson could sense this. But the more he sensed it, the worse he wanted to know.
As for Joe Lee, well, he was just trying to pull off a big fight wherein nobody got killed. He stood to make some good money a couple days down the road and he had to get Anson’s head in the right place. Unfortunately that meant he had to tell the truth and be up front with him right now even if it wasn’t going to leave him in a good frame of mind. The consequences of Anson finding out later that Joe Lee had held out on him were unacceptable. Rock, meet Hard Place.
“It’s that bastard, Shane Kleven isn’t it.” Anson said with a final certainty. “I knew it.”
Shane Kleven. Nearly half Anson’s age. An ex-marine built like a muscle bound brick shit house. And he wouldn’t be an easy fight. He was a threat – young but approaching the maturity of re-enforced steel mentality that was Anson Vaye.
Kleven lived alone on the edge of Fallville in a surprisingly well kept shack that looked like hell on the outside but military tight on the inside. He was known to disappear from town for long periods, and come back looking even meaner and leaner than when he left, sometimes looking like he had battled a cage of starving tigers and won. Gossip on the lowdown had it that he was a mercenary for hire on the CIA payroll sent out to do special jobs anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice. He didn’t hang out in town and any woman he was ever seen with wasn’t from Fallville either.
He was paradoxically a soft spoken man, but he loved bare knuckle fighting the same way a guy loves going to the gym to lift weights. He merely used it to stay in shape – and his opponents came away from his fights looking typically shapeless.
But why am I going on about this, Joe Lee thought to himself and scowled. For a second, he actually wanted to strike out at Anson. What was wrong with this bastard? The woman he had allegedly loved was lying near death in a hospital and all he wanted to know was who had been running around with her while he skipped town for almost three years.
Aww, fuck it. Anson was always skipping towns. That’s what towns were for in his estimation. And in every town he graced with his brief violent presence there was a Joe Lee rubbing his hands together, counting the money he would make off Anson Vaye’s bloodied fists. Hell, Joe Lee hung his head. I’m no better, and I know it. If there’s a God he sure as shit better be a forgiving one or we are all screwed. And now, back here on earth he was supposed to talk about Shane Kleven already? Before Anson even touched his damn breakfast? Joe Lee needed a good fight, not Shane Kleven dead on a stretcher put there by a supremely vengeful Anson Vaye. He needed Shane Kleven to keep the circus going after Anson left town again, maybe this time for good. Things were already going sideways, he could feel it. This is how it starts.
“Well?” Anson wanted to know. It made little sense to keep him in suspense any longer.
“He’s not the father,” said Joe Lee.
“Well then who the fuck is?”
Joe Lee lowered his fork to the table and looked up at him.
“You are,” he said. “You are her father. Her name is Amber.” Okay? he thought. And fuck you. But he didn’t say that. He just got back to eating his eggs, leaving Anson staring at him in shock.
“Bullshit,” Anson glared.
“You heard me,” Joe Lee kept eating as he talked. Ol’ Caldwaller really knew how to do eggs if you thought about it. “I already told you, she’s two years old. Three years ago you were practically living with Mara. For a damn week, anyway.”
“That don’t prove shit.”
He looked up at Anson and shrugged. “You want a paternity test? I’ll pay for it. You’re her father. Get used to it. And get ready for this damn fight. Shane Kleven is an ass kicker from the word go.”
He could see Anson calculating. A paternity test? This was getting real. He didn’t want news of that getting around. Too distracting. It would only … tie him down to a place – and that would sap his strength like kryptonite. At best it was a roll of the dice and Anson never did well at gambling. He quick studied the opposition and crushed them. That wasn’t luck. That was something you could take to the bank without putting it on the roulette table. He was like Ulysses Grant. You went in like a steam roller, absorbed every shot, and accepted nothing less than unconditional surrender from your crippled opponent. Done. Truth be told, Anson didn’t think of himself as the original bad ass. He was just terrified of losing. And so he won. Usually…
They didn’t allow him much time with her. Mara was beautiful as always. He had not even planned on attempting to see her until after the fight. He didn’t like getting too close to emotional trip wires before battle. The secret to Anson’s power was that he kept moving, like a shark. He moved around things, moved on from things. He only stayed long enough to attack. If he didn’t have bare knuckle fighting, he didn’t know what he’d do to stay sane. Probably have to be a serial killer by default or something.
But there she was, nearly lost in a tangle of tubes and monitors and trays and God knows what else. He figured she was doped up pretty heavily. The hospice staff nurses had done a good job keeping her presentable, her hair was short and well groomed. She looked like she had been asleep for a year, thinned, tired but model beautiful at the same time, with newly accentuated cheek bones and a face that seemed like it was contemplating heaven. She was always too good for him, he thought. He had never fallen so far for anyone – even though it wasn’t all that far, given that he was Anson Vaye – who never fell for anyone or anything. He saw the unattainable in her, in spite of the fact that she had once freely offered herself to him. Me? Married?, he recalled telling her time and time again. It couldn’t work. It was like a hobo walking around wearing a diamond studded Rolex. He knew he never deserved her - and he never knew what she saw in him.
He leaned down close and whispered in her ear. All the perfunctory things one might say to a dying ex-love. But what he said came unbidden, as if all his filters had failed and the bottom of his heart opened up to let out the specific truth he was feeling.
“I will take care of our daughter,” he whispered.
And – to his own surprise – he found that he meant it.
Her eyes flitted a bit as if she might wake and speak. There was a barely perceptible groan, and then the slow methodic breathing of deep morphine induced sleep took charge once again. He stayed for as long as they would let him, sitting in a chair by her bed, departing hours later into another cold, gray day in Fallville. He would do what came next for her and for the child. He couldn’t afford to think any further than that right now.
A new power had come over him. He spent the day wandering, not training, barely even thinking about the upcoming fight. Strangers stared and stepped aside as he passed. Anson was hated and feared in Fallville. Hated because the story of him and Mara only became amplified every day that he stayed in town; how he had left her to die, and abandoned his child. He was feared because whenever Anson showed up in Fallville – on his Mountain Lion like circuit of their world – he always mauled one of their own into a state of near death. Local boys trained like mad anticipating the day they would face him. For twenty years they went down one after the other. They feared that Shane Kleven would be no different. Shane was no saint, but he was one of theirs. As for Anson, if he ever passed away in Fallville for any reason, it was likely that they would refuse to bury him in the town cemetery.
You couldn’t in any way tell by the look of him what was going through Anson’s head. This close to a fight his jaw was always set in a determination that defied any likelihood of defeat. It was an involuntary aspect that still dominated his face, even as he was light years away in his mind, pondering other matters. She had asked to speak to him, and now she was incapable of speaking. She was the mother of his child. Amber. He knew in his heart that it was true. Or did he merely want it to be true? Was there some hidden corner of his chain mail plated heart that had wanted to be a part of in spite of himself? Anson smiled… smiled!… keeping it hidden by staring hard at the ground as he walked. Him, a father!
And yet he was terrified – delightfully terrified if such a concept can be digested – of meeting the child. Joe Lee Farman pointed the way with reluctance. “It’s your funeral,” he said. And he was immediately sorry for saying it. There would be funerals enough to come in Fallville. He was hoping at least that one of them wouldn’t be for Shane Kleven. “She’s with Mara’s mother. You know the way.”
Helena Cornish. She had a name like a Celtic warrior princess. Her maiden name was the more prosaic Helena Dunn – but she had taken on the solid traits of her late husband of sixty years – Malachai Cornish of Welsh mining stock. If Anson was a man who could crush bones in a makeshift fighting ring, Helena Cornish could shatter a false intention like John Henry swinging a pickaxe at a boulder, hitting home at the sweet spot until it split at the heart and crumbled in defeat. She was Anson’s match at the same time that she was his polar opposite, as far as the people of Fallville were concerned. She had respect in spades. She was kind to the poor, helpful to her neighbors and took zero shit from anybody. Helena had a wild Irish Rose aspect, a practicing Catholic married to a mountain man of a Protestant, and her parents had named her for a great saint; Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and the finder of the True Cross – and decidedly not named after the mythological two timing hussy who had launched a thousand ships upon Troy.
She was waiting for him. With the child in her lap. Helena did not shy away from confrontation. She was on top of the opposition at the opening bell, with her eyes, if not with her words. Anson respected that. He liked Helena Cornish. The feeling was not quite mutual. She had every right to dislike him, or at least his ways. Helena Cornish hated the sin but loved the sinner. In her book, nobody made that more difficult that Anson Vaye. She was in her late sixties, thin, birdlike, and energetic with traces of aging beauty and wisdom filled blue eyes. Her daughter was dying in a hospice and her grand daughter was on her lap. The last thing she wanted to do was give up the sleepy little curled blonde hair angel to a man who roamed the country paying his rent with his fists.
He stood on the dark, polished hardwood floor facing her, like a penitent serf searching for words to address a queen. If he wore a hat it would be in his hands. She simply sat and looked up at him from the throne of her floral upholstered chair, wildflowers on a back ground of white. The room was filled with an incongruous, temporary sunlight that defied the gray of the previous few days, flowers in vases at each window in defiance of the denuded chill of the trees outside. The child played with some sort of bright green do-hickey toy that Anson could not identify, turning it in her hands as if trying to give it a name.
“So,” said Helena. “Here you are.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Anson. He wasn’t going to bullshit her with any sort of effusive greeting or “how’s life?” salutations. They both knew the deal.
“Well,” said Helena. “I’d offer you some tea but … I’m a bit pre-occupied at the moment. Please have a seat.”
She nodded at a companion upholstered chair set at an angle to her side, as if it had been strategically placed in exactly that spot. The request was cordial, mannered… and otherwise spoken like a judge addressing the accused. Anson nodded and sat. He kept his eyes on the child, in a genuinely mystified sort of way that Helena recognized as real. She sighed imperceptibly and her posture relaxed a bit. Suffer the children, she thought.
She had tentatively decided that – if he asked – she would let him hold the child. He asked only with his eyes, but it wasn’t enough. She was happy not to be confronted with the request by a man who had ignored the first two years of his supposed child on this earth. But had he been aware? It was so hard to give Anson the benefit of the doubt – but then how many men had she met like him? Very few. They said that in Depression days men like Anson Vaye roamed the country. Men with no homes who developed a deep and fierce independence. The honest ones wanted to work and disdained handouts. And they could outwork the men of town – as if competing for their very possessions, homes and families. And then they were off again. She saw in him what had appealed to her daughter. It wasn’t difficult. Mara might have seen it the same way some people love the idea of an approaching typhoon. Some people. But not Helena Cornish. You can only love the storm if you have no children to protect from it. In that case you pray it will skip town.
They didn’t speak much. They had a history where all the harsh words had already been said. If Helena wanted to say anything to him now, it was nothing she would relate in front of a child. Anson gazed at the little girl, then at the floor, hating himself. It was not the reaction she had desired for him, but it didn’t hurt. He lifted his head and met Helena’s eyes.
“My hands are clean,” he said raising them for her to see.
She almost smiled. Anson Vaye, sitting here in her living room making her feel like an old time school marm.
He reached out slowly and the little girl let go of the bright green toy, curling her hand around Anson’s forefinger. He shook it a bit. She smiled, then turned her head away shyly into Helena’s shoulder, letting her hand go free again. Anson gazed at her for another second. Then slowly got to his feet.
“Thank you,” he said without looking back as he headed for the door. He stopped and turned again as if to add one more thing.
Helena gave him a steady look, hugging the child closer. “You go do what you came here to do,” she said.
She knew where to hit and how hard. Anson understood every word to the fullest extent of their meaning. There was no getting around this woman. Damn her.
He left as soundlessly as possible, like a ghost. He stood on her porch for a moment, his blood rising, his mind cleared. He was Anson Vaye again, full bore. He stepped down to the street and headed back to the windowless little room Joe Lee Farman had set up for him. And as he walked his vision narrowed to one objective. Oh yeah, he was Anson Vaye again. And Shane Kleven? Well … he was going to die.
The thought was nothing new. Anson always aimed high. He went into the ring with the intention of – legally – killing every man he faced. Fortunately for all of them the knock out punch was never lethal. Anson had lost fights based on broken bones and what not during the early years, but he didn’t know what it felt like to be rendered unconscious by another man’s fist. Judging by the looks on the faces of his opponents it didn’t seem to bad, more like a nice nap after a hard day’s work.
On Saturday, the eve of battle, he sat on the end of his bed but he couldn’t keep his mind off the little girl, Amber. What would life be like? he thought. Living here in Fallville, becoming a “normal person” with a regular job. He knew cars. He could always be a mechanic. In fact that was his usual gig between fights… factotum.
But he knew he was deceiving himself. He would be challenged every day, on every street corner. It would never end. And one day - it wouldn’t take very long - she would be rendered fatherless as Anson lay in an alley with a knife in his back. To have any future with his current trade, he would have to beat Shane Kleven. Or – it occurred to him – he could lose to Kleven and who knows, maybe stay in Fallville, crawling around with his tail between his legs, second best to the local muscled pretty boy. But he would be a father. Helena would understand this and appreciate it, he was sure. At least that alliance would hold. He thought again of Mara Cornish lying in that hospice, waiting to leave this world. What would she want? The more he thought about it, the more nothing came back. He didn’t know. He might never know.
The fight was set for later that night in Caleb Martin’s barn, cleared of all his tractors with a canvass mat laid down and double stacked hay bales set up in a loose approximation of a ring. That’s about as professional looking as it got. Off-duty cops had already been paid off for security – keeping the un-paying curious at bay and off the property, now filled with haphazardly parked pickup trucks, jeeps and lifted mud spattered SUV’s with big studded tires.
Almost two hundred men had gathered for the event, drinking cold beer and laughing their way through the undercards consisting mainly of an inverse ratio of testosterone to talent, all wild haymakers and bloody grappling until somebody got hurt. There were no bells, no gloves and no rules other than no headbutting, no elbows, no biting, and no hitting a man when he’s down. If he stays down - that’s the end of the fight. You go boom, you go home.
At his station behind the bales, Joe Lee Farman stood frantically making notes on a clipboard and brokering bets, stuffing cash into an apron with big pockets, his eyes glinting in satisfaction. He didn’t have to go into that damn ring but he was sure as hell going to make a pile of cash tonight. Most of the men were vocally behind the hometown boy, Shane Kleven. But they were betting on Anson. They were over enthusiastic and half drunk, and most of them hated the visiting pugilist - but they weren’t stupid.
And here came the two fighters themselves, Shane introduced first to wild cheering as he leaped over the bales and shadow boxed to applause. He was young, not yet thirty, with a new fulsome blonde haircut like an evening news anchor, Dudley Do-Right jaw, and bulging muscles that made it look like he might actually have trouble swinging his arms. The effect was lumbering, but you no more wanted to get in his way than you would lie down for a nap in front of a slow moving steam roller. One was never wrong to remember that Shane Kleven was also weapons trained by the Marines and an expert marksman. Just something to file away for fighters who might go out of their way to unduly embarrass him in the ring (as if anyone like Anson Vaye gave a shit).
Like most of the underground fighting ilk, Kleven wore blue jeans, sneakers and a black sleeveless t-shirt, known in other parts of the world as a “wife beater”. They didn’t use that term around here. Only a coward hit his wife. The men under this roof were much happier punching the daylights out of each other, or vicariously taking part in the action. The fighters themselves generally showed each other much respect, even helping a bloodied opponent to his feet after the ref had called it a day.
And now Anson was announced to a smattering of applause and a few “let’s git it on” hoots of anticipation. He stepped onto the top of the bales and lithely sprang into the ring, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a cat, shooting a few jabs and hooks while he kept his eyes glued to the pupils of Shane Kleven. Anson wasn’t into any kind of showy intimidation at this point in a fight. He was truly scoping out the mind of the opposition, and it almost always paid off in terms of how to approach the matter. That it was often interpreted as overtly intimidating by the other guy was not his problem.
They were united in their choice of fighting attire – the universal black sleeveless shirt and blue jeans. But everything else was a study in contrasts. Anson, lean, wiry, a man who could strike like a mean ass snake. For him getting there first and quickly was the whole point. Didn’t matter if the other guy had more weight and even more power. Power meant nothing if you didn’t connect first. And Anson made a career of getting there first – and often. He was the Nathan Bedford Forest of bare knuckle ring strategy.
He did a quick survey of the room, taking the temperature. The boys were betting heavy. He could tell by the way they were leaning forward, fists clenched, almost salivating. He almost nodded with satisfaction. He figured most of them hated his guts for even being here tonight while his one time love lay dying – and his child practically abandoned. They were torn between their wallets and their loyalties. Like Joe Lee, Anson was a realist and the eyes of many of the men betrayed their true intent. He wasn’t here to lose and neither were they. He was prepared to make some good bank on this room tonight. That wasn’t over confidence talking. That was simple experience.
There was a delay as a few dozen more men entered the room and Joe Lee held up a hand while he took more bets. Stupid SOB, thought Anson. He was surrounded by the usual shit-show, ill-timed, loosely organized. But that was the deal with the underground. Hell, he could even hear old Caleb Martin’s chickens squawking in the back ground as if an uninvited coyote was making a pass at the coop.
He used the time to get back to Shane Kleven, who stood at the edge of the hay bales, slowly hitting the air with one two punches. Oddly enough, Shane was looking straight back at him and Anson was curious to find out that it was not a look of fear. Yeah, the guy was an ex Marine and they weren’t the fearful type. But there was something else in the look that … what was it? It took him a while but he realized that Shane was unconsciously trying to tell him something. It was like the look that two friends might exchange across a crowded room, one trying to let the other know that he was in unexpected danger.
But what was it? Something outside the ring? Anson let his hands drop slightly, pausing. For a moment he wanted to stop time, freeze everything and simply walk over to Shane Kleven and ask him what this was all about. He didn’t feel like the man was trying to psych him out or put on an act. It was something else. And yes, he decided, it was outside this ring… out there in Fallville. Anson had never really stopped to consider the level of dislike for him in this place. It was unlike any other town where he had fought – and he had been everywhere. He’d messed up a lot of faces in his time, but he’d never left a mess quite like the one he’d left for these people to deal with. That had to be it. Whatever. He brushed it aside and got his head back in gear. There was other business to be done. Time to start denting heads. Joe Lee Farman finished up his business and with a “Let’s Do This!” rang a bell on the table in front of him, hitting it with a gavel-like wooden hammer, like a judge looking forward to sentencing time.
For a long time afterward men would say it was a sham and a disappointment, a staged event mainly for the purposes of lining the pockets of Joe Lee Farman – even though nobody ever clearly established who he had personally bet on.
The fighters came out, Shane Kleven playing defense from the get go, dodging and shoulder rolling, keeping himself a moving target. As if to nip any such hope in the bud, Anson quickly stepped up and popped Kleven right between his upraised fists with a sharp jab, instantly drawing blood from his nose. Some in the crowd cheered in spite of themselves, then – after a quick embarrassed look around - immediately switched to rooting loudly for the hometown boy.
Anson rarely stepped back to assess a hit to his opponent but something compelled him to do it this time. It wasn’t so much that he thought he’d done any critical damage. Kleven was marine tough – and a little tap on the nose wasn’t going to cause him to fold. If anything it probably increased his enjoyment of the evening’s entertainment. But Anson simply had to check his eyes again. Was that look still there? The meaning that lay behind it, if anything, still baffled him. Sure enough, Shane Kleven slowed again as they circled each other. Blood was dripping off the tip of his magnificent chin but his eyes spoke volumes. And then, in an instant Anson knew. He dropped his arms as if to say, really? There was a long pause, and a strange lull in the crowd.
That’s when Shane Kleven made Fallville history by delivering a left uppercut that could have been dodged by his deceased grandmother, even in her current condition - but so solidly connected under the outstretched chin of Anson Vaye that he was asleep before he hit the floor.
The crowd mobbed Shane Kleven, leaping en masse over the barrier into the arena. Even though most of them had just lost an entire week’s paycheck they couldn’t help themselves. Anson Vaye lay alone on his back, his head half propped against a hay bale while a cathartic rage of ecstasy convulsed on the other side of the ring. It was a full five minutes before anyone came to check on him to merely establish that he was still alive, then ran back to the party again.
In the middle of the melee, Shane Kleven tried to push through the mob, finally finding his way to a grinning Joe Lee Farman who grabbed a towel to help staunch the fighter’s bleeding nose. Through all the noise and shouting, Kleven leaned in close to Farman but had to keep repeating himself to be heard.
“What?”, Farman held the kid’s head between his two hands and listened hard.
“I said, he wanted it!” Kleven was almost shouting over the crowd. “He wanted me to knock him out!”
“Bullshit!” Farman shook his head.
“I know a sitting duck when I see one!” Kleven shouted in his ear, before he was surrounded once more and carried off by the mob. But he kept his eyes locked on Joe Lee Farman’s for as long as he could before disappearing into the surging crowd.
Helena Cornish sat on her porch dressed in black when Shane Kleven came to call, with a new teddy bear wearing a red bow perched on his arm. He thinks he is being cute, she thought. Trying to “brighten up the day”. Some men are so pathetic. There were no real men left in town after Malachi Cornish. She sighed and checked her watch. The funeral for Mara was not for another two hours. In the meantime, she guessed she was supposed to put up with Shane Kleven.
“Amber is napping,” she informed him, before he had even put a foot on the first step.
He paused and kept his distance. Kleven feared no man, but getting in Helena’s space was never a wise move without a clear invitation. He stood there with his bent boxer’s nose, looking up at her as if waiting for directions.
“Well?” she looked at him with expectant eyes.
Kleven sighed. A passing car on the street beeped its horn and passengers leaned out the windows, cheering.
“Way to go champ!”
Kleven turned, put on a smile and waved until the car had passed out of sight, then back to Helena, his body slumping like a man who had tasted anything but victory.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you at the cemetery later today,” he frowned.
She simply stared at him, the question hanging in the air.
“He left town this morning on the bus, headed west,” said Kleven. “Probably California. Joe Lee paid him off and he’s gone. But he might - ”
“He won’t be back,” said Helena.
“But-”
“But nothing. He won’t be back.”
She leaned forward in her chair and fixed him with her eyes.
“We saved your life. If he knew the truth you would be as dead as my daughter right now.”
There was a long pause as Kleven gulped and finally acknowledged the fact by nodding his head in the affirmative.
“And another thing. Your daughter… my granddaughter … is safe where she is. And here she stays.”
He had no response for that, but only looked at his feet. Why did this woman always hold all the cards? Was there no way to at least take her down a notch?
He picked up his head slowly and looked at her in a sort of new found triumph that made her flinch. Then he climbed the stairs, put the teddy bear in her lap, leaned in close to her ear and whispered.
“He knows.”
— ENNIS JAMES SHEEHAN
Ennis James Sheehan is one of eleven children from the exurbs of New York City. A former newspaper reporter (Brooklyn and NYC), Los Angeles TV producer/writer over 25 years from news and entertainment to true crime and the paranormal. He is is living in Makati, Philippines, with his wife Susan and a little dog named Colette.