"You"ll teach me how to defend myself?"
"Sure."
Marvin charged, ducking low, planning to try and take the old man"s feet. The old man squatted, almost sitting on his a.s.s, and threw a quick uppercut.
Marvin dreamed he was flying. Then falling. The lights in the place were spotted suddenly. Then the spots went away and there was only brightness. Marvin rolled over on the mat and tried to get up. His eye hurt something awful.
"You hit me," he said when he made a sitting position.
The old man was in a corner of the ring, leaning on the ropes.
"Don"t listen to s.h.i.t like someone saying "Come and get me." That"s foolish. That"s leading you into something you might not like. Play your game."
"You told me to."
"That"s right, kid, I did. That"s your first lesson. Think for yourself, and don"t listen to some fool giving you advice, and like I said, play your own game."
"I don"t have a game," Marvin said.
"We both know that, kid. But we can fix it."
Marvin gingerly touched his eye. "So, you"re going to teach me?"
"Yeah, but the second lesson is this. Now, you got to listen to every G.o.dd.a.m.n word I say."
"But you said ..."
"I know what I said, but part of lesson two is this: Life is full of all kinds of contradictions."
It was easy to get loose to go to practice, but it wasn"t easy getting there. Marvin still had the bullies to worry about. He got up early and went, telling his mother he was exercising at the school track.
The old man"s home turned out to be what was left of an old TB hospital, which was why the old man bought it cheap, sometime at the far end of the Jura.s.sic, Marvin figured.
The old man taught him how to move, how to punch, how to wrestle, how to throw. When Marvin threw the X-Man, the old guy would land lightly and get up quickly and complain about how it was done. When the workout was done, Marvin showered in the big room behind the faded curtain and went home the long way, watching for bullies.
After a while, he began to feel safe, having figured out that whatever time schedule the delinquents kept, it wasn"t early morning, and it didn"t seem to be early evening.
When summer ended and school started up, Marvin went before and after school to train, told his mother he was studying boxing with some kids at the Y. She was all right with that. She had work and the housepainter on her mind. The guy would be sitting there when Marvin came home evenings. Sitting there looking at the TV, not even nodding when Marvin came in, sometimes sitting in the padded TV chair with Marvin"s mother on his knee, his arm around her waist, her giggling like a schoolgirl. It was enough to gag a maggot.
It got so home was not a place Marvin wanted to be. He liked the old man"s place. He liked the training. He threw lefts and rights, hooks and uppercuts, into a bag the old man hung up. He sparred with the old man, who, once he got tired-and considering his age, it seemed a long time-would just knock him down and go lean on the ropes and breathe heavily for a while.
One day, after they had finished, sitting in chairs near the ring, Marvin said, "So, how am I helping you train?"
"You"re a warm body, for one thing. And I got this fight coming up."
"A fight?"
"What are you, an echo? Yeah. I got a fight coming up. Every five years me and Jesus the Bomb go at it. On Christmas Eve."
Marvin just looked at him. The old man looked back, said, "Think I"m too old? How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Can I whip your a.s.s, kid?"
"Everyone can whip my a.s.s."
"All right, that"s a point you got there," the old man said.
"Why every five years?" Marvin asked. "Why this Jesus guy?"
"Maybe I"ll tell you later," the old man said.
Things got bad at home.
Marvin hated the painter and the painter hated him. His mother loved the painter and stood by him. Everything Marvin tried to do was tainted by the painter. He couldn"t take the trash out fast enough. He wasn"t doing good enough in school for the painter, like the painter had ever graduated so much as kindergarten. Nothing satisfied the painter, and when Marvin complained to his mother, it was the painter she stood behind.
The painter was nothing like his dad, nothing, and he hated him. One day he told his mother he"d had enough. It was him or the painter.
She chose the painter.
"Well, I hope the crooked painting son of a b.i.t.c.h makes you happy," he said.
"Where did you learn such language?" she asked.
He had learned a lot of it from the old man, but he said, "The painter."
"Did not," his mother said.
"Did too."
Marvin put his stuff in a suitcase that belonged to the painter and left. He waited for his mother to come chasing after him, but she didn"t. She called out as he went up the street, "You"re old enough. You"ll be all right."
He found himself at the old man"s place.
Inside the doorway, suitcase in hand, the old man looked at him, nodded at the suitcase, said, "What you doing with that s.h.i.t?"
"I got thrown out," Marvin said. Not quite the truth, but he felt it was close enough.
"You mean to stay here? That what you"re after?"
"Just till I get on my feet."
"On your feet?" the X-Man said. "You ain"t got no job. You ain"t got d.i.c.k. You"re like a f.u.c.king vagabond."
"Yeah," Marvin said. "Well, all right."
Marvin turned around, thinking maybe he could go home and kiss some a.s.s, maybe tell the painter he was a good guy or something. He got to the door and the old man said, "Where the f.u.c.k you going?"
"Leaving. You wanted me to, didn"t you?"
"Did I say that? Did I say anything like that? I said you were a vagabond. I didn"t say something about leaving. Here. Give me the G.o.dd.a.m.n suitcase."
Before Marvin could do anything, X-Man took it and started down the hall toward the great room. Marvin watched him go: a wiry, balding, white-haired old man with a slight bowlegged limp to his walk.
One night, watching wrestling on TV, the old man, having sucked down a six-pack, said, "This is s.h.i.t. Bunch a f.u.c.king tough acrobats. This ain"t wrestling. It ain"t boxing, and it sure ain"t fighting. It"s like a movie show or something. When we wrestled in fairs, we really wrestled. These big-a.s.s f.u.c.kers wouldn"t know a wrist lock from a d.i.c.k jerk. Look at that s.h.i.t. Guy waits for the f.u.c.ker to climb on the ropes and jump on him. And what kind of hit is that? That was a real hit, motherf.u.c.ker would be dead, hitting him in the throat like that. He"s slapping the guy"s chest high up, that"s all. c.o.c.ksuckers."
"When you wrestled, where did you do it?" Marvin asked.
The old man clicked off the TV. "I can"t take no more of that s.h.i.t ... Where did I wrestle? I rode the rails during the Great Depression. I was ten years old on them rails, and I"d go from town to town and watch guys wrestle at fairs, and I began to pick it up. When I was fifteen, I said I was eighteen, and they believed me, ugly as I was. I mean, who wants to think a kid can be so G.o.dd.a.m.n ugly, you know. So by the end of the Great Depression I"m wrestling all over the place. Let me see, it"s 1992, so I been doing it awhile. Come the war, they wouldn"t let me go because of a rupture. I used to wrap that sucker up with a bunch of sheet strips and go and wrestle. I could have fought j.a.ps bundled up like that if they"d let me. Did have to stop now and then when my nuts stuck out of the rip in my b.a.l.l.s. I"d cross my legs, suck it up and push them back in, cinch up those strips of sheet, and keep on keeping on. I could have done that in the war, but they was all prissy about it. Said it"d be a problem. So I didn"t kill no j.a.ps. I could have, though. Germans. Hungarians. Martians. I could kill anybody they put me in front of. "Course, glad I didn"t in one way. Ain"t good to kill a man. But them son of a b.i.t.c.hes were asking for it. Well, I don"t know about the Hungarians or the Martians, but the rest of them b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were.
"I learned fighting by hard knocks. Now and then I met some guys knew a thing or two, and I picked it up. Some of them j.a.p tricks and the like. I had folks down in Mexico. So when I was in my twenties, I went there and became a wrestler for money."
"Wasn"t that fake?"
The old man gave Marvin a look that made the water inside Marvin"s body boil.
"There was them that put on shows, but then there was us. Me and Jesus, and ones like us. We did the real thing. We was. .h.i.tting and kicking and locking and throwing. Look at this."
The old man jerked up a sleeve on his sweatshirt. There was a mark there like a tire track. "See that. Jesus bit me. I had him in a clench and he bit me. Motherf.u.c.ker. "Course, that"s what I"d have done. Anyway, he got loose on account of it. He had this technique-the Bomb, he called it, how he got his nickname. He"d grab you in a bear hug, front or back, lift you up and fall back and drive your head into the mat. You got that done to you once or twice, you felt like your ears were wiggling around your a.s.shole. It was something. Me, I had me the step-over-toe-hold. That was my move, and still is."
"Did you use it on Jesus?"
"Nope. He got the Bomb on me. After the Bomb I thought I was in Africa f.u.c.king a gorilla. I didn"t know my d.i.c.k from a candlewick."
"But you"re still wrestling him?"
"Haven"t beat him yet. I"ve tried every hold there is, every move, every kind of psychology I know, and nothing. It"s the woman. Felina Valdez. She"s got the mojo on me, the juju, the black doo-doo, and the silent dog whistle. Whatever there is that makes you stupid, she"s got it on me."
Marvin didn"t follow any of that, but he didn"t say anything. He drank his gla.s.s of tea while X-Man drank another beer. He knew he would come back to the subject eventually. That"s how he worked.
"Let me tell you about Felina. She was a black-eyed maiden, had smooth, dark skin. A priest saw her walking down the street, he"d go home and cut his throat. First time I seen her, that stack of dynamite was in a blue dress so tight, you could count the hairs on her thingamajig.
"She was there in the crowd to watch the wrestling. She"s in the front row with her legs crossed, and her dress is slithering up to her knee like a snake creeping, and I"m getting a pretty good look, you see. Not seeing the vine-covered canyon, but I"m in the neighborhood. And looking at that broad, I"m almost killed by this wrestler named Joey the Yank. Guy from Maine who takes my legs out from under me and b.u.t.ts me and gets me in an arm bar. I barely manage to work out of it, get him and throw him and latch on my step-over-toe-hold. I put that on you, you pa.s.s through time, baby. Past and future, and finally you"re looking at your own G.o.dd.a.m.n grave. He tapped out.
"Next thing I know, this blue-dress doll is sliding up next to me, taking my arm, and, well, kid, from that point on I was a doomed man. She could do more tricks with a d.i.c.k than a magician could with a deck of cards. I thought she was going to kill me, but I thought too it was one h.e.l.l of a good way to go. Hear what I"m saying?"
"Yes, sir," Marvin said.
"This is all kind of nasty talk for a kid, ain"t it?"
"No, sir," Marvin said.
"f.u.c.k it. You"re d.a.m.n near eighteen. By now you got to know about p.u.s.s.y."
"I know what it is," Marvin said.
"No, kid. You talk like you know where it is, not what it is. Me, I was lost in that stuff. I might as well have let her put my nuts in a vise and crank it. She started going to all my fights. And I noticed something pretty quick. I gave a great performance, won by a big margin, the loving was great. It was a mediocre fight, so was the bedding. I had it figured. She wasn"t so much in love with me as she was a good fight and my finishing move, the step-over-toe-hold. She had me teach it to her. I let her put it on me one time, and kid, I tell you, way she latched it, I suddenly had some mercy for all them I"d used it on. I actually had to work my way out of it, like I was in a match, "cause she wasn"t giving me no quarter. That was a cheap price to pay, though, all that savage monkey love I was getting, and then it all come apart.
"Jesus beat me. Put the Bomb on me. When I woke up I was out back of the carnival, lying on the gra.s.s with ants biting me. When I came to myself, Felina was gone. She went with Jesus. Took my money, left me with nothing but ant bites on my nuts."
"She sounds shallow."
"As a saucer, kid. But once she slapped that hoodoo on me, I couldn"t cut myself loose. Let me tell you, it was like standing on the railroad tracks in the dark of night, and you can see a train coming, the light sweeping the tracks, and you can"t step off. All you can do is stand there and wait for it to hit you. One time when we were together, we"re walking in Mexico City, where I had some bouts, and she sees a guy with a wooden cage full of pigeons, six or seven of them. She has me buy all of them, like we"re gonna take them back to the States. But what she does is she takes them back to our hotel room. We had to sneak them in. She puts the cage on an end table and just looks at the birds. I give them some bread, you know, "cause they got to eat, and I clean out their cage, and I think: this girl is one crazed bird lover. I go and take a shower, tell her to order up some dinner.
"I take my time in there. s.h.i.t and shave, good hot shower. When I come out, there she is, sitting at one of those little push tables room service brings up, and she"s eating fried chicken. Didn"t wait on me, didn"t say boo. She was like that. Everything was about her. But right then I learned something else. I saw that cage of birds, and they were all dead. I asked her what happened to the birds, and she says, "I got tired of them."
"I went and looked, and their necks was wrung."
"But why?" Marvin asked.
The old man leaned back and sucked his beer, took his time before he spoke. "I don"t know, kid. Right then I should have thrown my s.h.i.t in a bag and got the h.e.l.l out of there. But I didn"t. It"s like I told you about those train tracks. Christ, kid. You should have seen her. There wasn"t never nothing like her, and I couldn"t let her go. It"s like you catch the finest fish in the world, and someone"s telling you to throw it back, and all you can think about is that thing fried up and laid out on a bed of rice. Only it ain"t really nothing like that. There ain"t no describing it. And then, like I said, she went off with Jesus, and every day I get up my heart burns for her. My mind says I"m lucky to be shed of her, but my heart, it don"t listen. I don"t even blame Jesus for what he done. How could he not want her? She belonged to whoever could pin the other guy to the mat. Me and him, we don"t fight n.o.body else anymore, just each other. Every five years. If I win, I get her back. I know that. He knows that. And Felina knows that. He wins, he keeps her. So far, he keeps her. Its best he does. I ought to let it go, kid, but I can"t."
"She really that bad?"
"She"s the best bad girl ever. She"s a bright red apple with a worm in the center. Since that woman"s been with Jesus, he left a wife, had two of his children die, one in a house fire that happened while he was out, and Felina gave birth to two babies that both died within a week. Some kind of thing happens now and then. Cradle death, something like that. On top of that, she"s screwed just about everyone short of a couple of eunuchs, but she stays with Jesus, and he keeps her. He keeps her because she has a power, kid. She can hold you to her tight as liver cancer. Ain"t no getting away from that b.i.t.c.h. She lets you go, you still want her like you want a drink when you"re a drunk."
"The way you mentioned the fire and Jesus"s kids, the two babies that died ... you sounded like-"
"Like I didn"t believe the fire was no accident? That the babies didn"t die naturally? Yeah, kid. I was thinking about that cage full of pigeons. I was thinking about how she used to cut my hair, and how she had this little box she had with her, kept it in the purse she carried. I seen her wrap some hair into the knot of a couple twisted pipe cleaners. Oh, h.e.l.l. You already think I"m nuts."
Marvin shook his head. "No. No, I don"t."
"All right, then. I think she really did have the hoodoo on me. I read somewhere that people who know spells can get a piece of your hair and they can use that as part of that spell, and it can tie you to them. I read that."
"That doesn"t mean it"s true," Marvin said.
"I know that, kid. I know how I sound. And when it"s midday I think thinking like that is so much dog s.h.i.t, but it gets night, or it"s early morning and the light"s just starting to creep in, I believe it. And I guess I always believed it. I think she"s got me in a spell. Ain"t nothing else would explain why I would want that cheating, conniving, pigeon-killing, house-burning, baby-murdering b.i.t.c.h back. It don"t make no sense, does it?"
"No, sir," Marvin said, and then after a moment he added, "She"s pretty old now, isn"t she?"
""Course she is. You think time stood still? She ain"t the same. But neither am I. Neither is Jesus. But it"s me and him, and one of us gets the girl, and so far he always gets her. What I want is to have her back, die quick, and have one of those Greek funerals. That way I get the prize, but I don"t have to put up with it."
"What"s a Greek funeral?"
"Heroes like Hercules had them. When he died, they put him on a pile of sticks and such and burned up the body, let his smoke rise to the heavens. Beats being buried in the ground or cooked up in some oven, your ashes sc.r.a.ped into a sack. Or having to spend your last days out with that woman, though that"s exactly what I"m trying to do."
"Do Jesus and Felina live here in the city?" Marvin asked.
"They don"t live nowhere. They got a motor trailer. And they got some retirement money. Like me. Jesus and me worked other jobs as well as wrestled. You couldn"t make it just on the wrestling circuit, especially the underground circuit, so we got some of that social security money coming, thank goodness. They drive around to different places. He trains, and he comes back every five years. Each time I see him, it"s like there"s this look in his eyes that says "Beat me this time and take this b.i.t.c.h off my hands." Only he always fights like a bear and I can"t beat him."
"You win, sure she"ll go with you?"
"It"s me or him, and that"s all there is to it. Ain"t n.o.body else now. Me or him. It"s us she"s decided to suck dry and make miserable."
"Can"t you let it go?" Marvin asked.
X-Man laughed. It was a dark laugh, like a dying man that suddenly understands an old joke. "Wish I could, kid, "cause if I could, I would."