twenty-two
There’s only one place I can
think to go. I slow to a walk on the steep path up to the lip of the volcano. There are no lights, crowd, noise. I don’t know what else I was expecting. It’s not fight night, after all.
But when I reach the top and look down onto the cycling track, I see that I haven’t wasted my time. A small light burns at the centre of the basin. There are three people in the cage.
The Gentleman sees me coming and pushes open a gate on the side of the cage, his eyes friendly in his duststreaked face. I duck through and he bolts the door behind me. He pulls me into a strange, fleeting embrace, and I feel the strength of his arms, his bigness and wildness. Clad in nothing but a pair of stubbies, every inch of his skin, from collarbone to toes, is covered in thick coarse hair.
‘Wolfboy,’ is all he says, as if I drop in every day.
I nod, suddenly shy.
The cage is lit only by two heavy-duty torches placed on the ground in a crisscross arrangement. I don’t recognise the other two men in the ring. They don’t hide their curiosity. The smell of sweat and dust is strong.
‘Paddy.’
The Gentleman flicks his hand, and a man steps forward. He’s older than the Gentleman, short and squat and wearing a faded tracksuit. Sleek black hair grows from his eyebrow line, all the way over the top of his head and down the back of his neck. A thick glossy pelt.
‘Better take your shoes off.’ The Gentleman leans against the cage wall.
I drop my eyes to Paddy’s bare feet. He has ugly knobbly toes but his feet are ordinary.
I realise I’ve come here to fight.
I kick off my shoes and step into the centre of the crosshatched light. Paddy bows. I return the gesture.
We circle each other on the dirt, our feet kicking up puffs of dust. I watch Paddy. Soon the world is reduced to the two of us, staring, orbiting.
An unexpected calm descends over me. I can feel everything: the dirt between my toes, the barest wind on my skin, my fingers curling into fists.
And then Paddy charges, planting a shoulder in my stomach.
I take the blow, letting myself buckle at the middle and fall. My back slams against the ground and I kick up into the air. A moment later I’m back on my feet.
Paddy cricks his neck to the side. I throw myself at him. I grab him around the middle and hurl him to the other side of the cage. He hits the ground, then comes at me on all fours, crawling fast. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. He grabs my ankles. I kick frantically until I free a foot, stomp hard between his shoulderblades, leaving a streak of dirt on his tracksuit.
Paddy grunts and collapses but he still manages to topple me by pulling my ankle.
I smack into the ground, a skyscraper under demolition. My chest heaves, trying to suck in air. I finally kick free, and launch myself at him again. I’m getting tired and my heart is beating out of time. Paddy and I roll over and over until I lose sense of which way is up.
He gets a punch in to the side of my head and there are stars everywhere. When my vision clears I’m sitting on his chest, pinning his arms above his head.
Paddy taps the ground—’I’m out!’—and I let go.
I get to my feet straightaway, but the ground tilts under me. Paddy rolls away. The Gentleman pushes off the cage wall, clapping. He collars my waist when my legs give way, and helps me to a sitting position on the ground.
I tip my head to look at the stars through the cage. They’re pulsating with disco light. I might feel fantastic, I’m not sure.
Seconds later I’m positive I’m going to throw up. I put my head between my knees until the nausea passes. When I look up, the Gentleman is watching me without concern.
‘You’re punch drunk,’ he says. ‘It’ll pass quickly. Come with me to the clubhouse.’
The clubhouse is a long narrow shed with a concrete floor and a corrugated iron roof. It’s littered with mattresses and blankets, kerosene lamps and rusty gym equipment.
A bruise is blooming on my cheekbone. Paddy hasn’t fared any better, but he still shakes my hand, and then sinks onto a camp bed with a groan.
I wince when I lower myself onto a bench.
The Gentleman grabs a bottle of whisky and offers it to me. I refuse, but he insists. ‘Trust me.’
The spirit burns in my mouth.
‘Feel better?’ he asks.
I shrug. What an unanswerable question.
‘I’m not going to be able to convince you to fight for stakes, am I?’ he asks.
‘Probably not.’
He doesn’t seem too fazed by that. He draws from the bottle, swills the liquid.
‘So you know, people here come and go as they please. No rules, no pressure. If you want to train with us, spar with us, anytime, you’re always welcome.’
‘Good to know.’
I take another sip from the bottle, but it makes my nausea well up again. My insides are hot and loose.
‘What have you been doing tonight, Jethro?’
I think of Doctor Gregory’s words, the smooth veneer that does little to cover the sick reality. I look at the Gentleman, barely clothed and unwashed and straight out of the Wild West, and I trust him implicitly.
‘I’ve been wondering about Night Sickness,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s this.’ I point to myself. ‘It’s being different.’
The Gentleman baulks. ‘This isn’t an illness, Jethro. It’s a gift, a privilege. Who called it a sickness?’
‘Something I read.’
‘Something you read in Doctor Gregory’s pamphlets? I already told you he’s a quack. D’you know when I first set up this place, when I first started the fights, he came calling? He pretended he was talking to me man-to-man, but he made it very clear that he was doing me a favour by considering me an equal. He wanted to do a deal. He offered me money for access to my fighters.’
‘That was never on the table.’ The Gentleman puts the whisky bottle on the ground next to his feet. ‘One reason to distrust him. Second reason, the way he talked, he thought we needed tempering, controlling. He talked of a cure, of all things.’
The Gentleman’s smile is devilishly white. ‘Every one of those ordinary yokel Locals that come to my fights on a Sunday night, who throw their hard-earned cash at my fighters, they want to be us. They envy us. We are part of the night. More than they are, and they know it. The night makes us. I don’t need Doctor Gregory’s money, and I don’t want a cure.’
I blink, freeing myself of the Gentleman’s considerable charisma. I like him, but I don’t want to be like him. So where does that leave me? My confusion must be evident, because the Gentleman leans over and grabs my left bicep. I do my best not to wince.
‘This here is your anger, Jethro.’ He switches to my right arm. ‘And this is your sadness. This is your strength; this is what makes you different.’ He releases me. ‘I know you’re not looking for advice, but I will give it regardless. Don’t try to control it, don’t hold it in, let it be what it is. You’re fine as you are, Jethro.’
I don’t run on the way home, I walk. I cross over the creek and skirt Orphanville. I desperately want to drop in on Diana and Ortie, to sit with them while they eat dinner on the big studio table, but I can’t let them see my tenderised face. And I’m not sure I’d be able to stop myself from telling Ortolan what Doctor Gregory said about Diana. I know he’s all hot air, but Ortolan doesn’t.
I settle for calling their landline, as I flirt with the edges of Shyness and Panwood all the way along Grey Street. There’s no answer so I peel away from the main road, heading for home.