A Fighting Chance (27 page)

Miguel shrinks
under my answer, disappointment settling into his features. I’m Debbie Buzz Kill Downer over here. I’m probably too irritable to be in a social setting right now. Drew didn’t go back to the hotel room immediately, so she wasn’t in there when we left. Her impending departure has me feeling a little raw, a little more susceptible to wounds, which will make it easy for other things to get under my skin. I don’t want to ruin Miguel’s night, though. “A fucking lot
.
We’re drinking a fucking lot.”

His shoulders rise and fall in relief before he laughs and slaps me on the back
. We walk through the door, where an old sign banning women, children and dogs is still nailed. Salon Tigre is a torture chamber of colors—the wall is neon green, bright crepe paper streamers are strung along the ceiling in all directions, and there are vivid erotic murals on the walls—but it also relies on its age and decrepit state for character. Spindly cracks stretch across the exposed concrete floor, an indication that the building has weathered several earthquakes. There are also real bullet holes scattered across the walls behind the bar.

It’s really
small, so it looks crowded even though there are, maybe, twenty people in here, and there’s no space to move without bumping into someone. We manage to grab bar stools facing the mariachi band when two patrons get up, and I check my phone to see if I missed Drew’s call. I didn’t. Duke called, though. And texted some typo-laced death threats. A casualty of this breakup? My best friend.

“Love of your life, huh? What happened to
just friends
?” Miguel teases with a knowing smile.

“Yeah…well, maybe she’s both,” I admit.

“She told me about you once,” he says as his smile fades. “We went to a bar, me, her and Buck one night when they were here. They got into a fight because he introduced her to someone as his fiancée. She hadn’t said yes yet and when I asked her in private why not, she said, ‘Because I’m in love.’”

I clench my jaw and suppress whatever is welling
up in my chest. “I told her I love her tonight, Mig, when we were outside. And I didn’t care about what that would mean for her and Buck. At all. How fucked up is that?”

But there’s no judgment in his eyes, only
kindness. “Things are complicated, no?”

I nod. “I let her go years ago. She hasn’t forgiven me for that but she cares about me. We
are
complicated. But she and Buck seem to work. Maybe it’s simple, and it just works.”

Miguel gives me a consoling pat on the back. “Well, t
onight’s on me, my friend.” He orders eight tequila shots for each of us, and by shot four, we’ve toasted to blowjobs, we’re enthusiastically participating in the mariachi band’s call-and-response song, and Salon Tigre is the most magnificent place I’ve ever been.

“To…” I lift my shot glass with a shaky hand. “To…mariachi! Wait…did we already…”

He nods. “You know…we actually have something to celebrate!” Miguel hops off the stool, gripping the edge of the bar to stay on his feet. “You beat Daniel Killian. You broke his undefeated streak. Took his asshole down a peg.” When I burst out laughing, he adds, “Ay
Dios mio,
I meant
that asshole.
I don’t know whether to blame it on the tequila or my English…”

              “Daniel Killian, the UFC guy who used to play college ball?”

Unease rushes in as I turn to the
skeptical voice at my ear. It belongs to a wide-eyed, mop-haired,
frat boy
type on the stool next to me. And I can think that because I’m one, too, so I’m an expert on the subject. More eyes in the cantina fall on me, and I swing back around to Miguel and his apologetic expression.

“Don’t worry about it. We can just—”

“Oh my God! I saw your fight!” the guy says. I turn again and he has swiveled to his other side, to his friends. Five guys stare down Miguel and me, curiosity levels varying within the group. The one who is sitting next to me is the most interested, but his friend in the sunglasses is obviously not impressed. I take down one of my remaining shots but I don’t say a word. The last thing I want to talk about right now is fighting. My thoughts get a little fuzzy as the alcohol flows into my bloodstream and teases at my anger.

“You guys remember the dude from UFC,
Daniel Killian? He used to play at Georgia. He was really good but kinda off.” He points at his head and twirls his finger. “Anyway, he got banned from UFC but he fights down here now. Davíd took a bunch of us to see his fight. And this kid…” He jostles my shoulder, which is annoying as hell, but it wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t loud enough for other people to hear. The mariachi band is on break. “Kicked his
ass
. Dude was fucking
out
like a light. Blood everywhere. Insane crowd. It was some
crazy
underground shit. Oh! I almost forgot, some other guy
died
right there in the cage…”

He trails off when my stool scrapes across the floor as I push away from the bar. Now my
general discomfort threatens to bow out to my rage.
His fucking name was Nico,
I think to myself,
and he was trying to feed his family.

“Hey, he doesn’t want to talk right now,” Miguel says.

“Oh yeah?” Sunglasses replies, still not impressed. “How come he can’t say that himself? Who the fuck are you? His
bitch?
How come he can’t just say he beat Killian if he did?” I give him a chilling glare but I don’t respond.

“Come on, dude! Just tell him,” the first guy goads.
“They were calling you
Ellie American
or something, right?”

“There are more cantinas
up this street. Can we go to one of those?” I ask Miguel as we head for the exit. That irritability from earlier? Back with a fucking vengeance.

“Yeah…and I think one of them still serves
pulque
. We can drink like the Aztecs did,” he jokes, but Sunglasses forces himself in between the door and us.

I
squeeze out a flat smile. “Fine. I was in the fight. I won. It’s old news. Can I buy you guys a round? Where you from?”

Sunglasses slides his shades up to the top of his blond head and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s a stocky guy, built like a wrestler, and reeking of
douchebag
body spray. “No…put your money somewhere else. A
real
round. Right in the streets. You and me. I heard the cops are slow to come here. Come on…a five minute fight.”

“I don’t think so
, but my offer of free tequila still stands. Or beer. Your choice. Where are you guys from?” I say again.

“You fight for money, right? Why don’t you want to fight now? My friend lost five hundred because of you. And not in worthless Mexican money.
Real
money.” He pulls out his wallet and waves some cash at me. “What do you say? Everything in my wallet.” He steps back. “What do
you guys
say?” he continues, addressing the crowd. “Who wants to see the guy who beat UFC’s Daniel Killian take me on?” Excited looks bloom on their faces and a few people even cheer.
They know what we are.
I grit my teeth as Killian’s words pound on my skull.

“No fighting
here…you leave,” a waiter serving a nearby table says.

“Leaving sounds like a great idea,” I say
, making a face. The alcohol—or my anger, I don’t really know—has my mouth sour. “Don’t worry.” I nod to Miguel as I push the door open and we step outside.

“Hey! Hey! You think you’re too good to talk to us because you won a fight against a drug addict?” Something shatters on the concrete behind me. It’s a glass beer bottle.

“Jimmy, dude, what the fuck?” the one I’m assuming is the most sensible says.

“You’re such a pussy, Dave…”
Jimmy yells. When I turn around
,
Jimmy is walking in my direction with a small crowd from the cantina spilling out into the street. He shrugs Dave off when he tries to pull him back.

“Jesse, you don’t have to do this…” Miguel
offers.

“No, this is what he wants, right?
” This is what they always want. Mental clarity breaks through my intoxication, driven by rage and frustration. The cage I’m really in is far bigger than any I step into at The Cull. 

When
Jimmy is within a foot of me, I get into fighting stance. “Looks like it’s on, bitches!” he says. As soon as he puts his fists up, I hit him with a straight punch to the face, and he doubles over. The surrounding crowd’s cheers do nothing for me, except remind me of how much I don’t want to be here right now.

I punch
Jimmy again with a right hook, snapping his face to one side and sending him stumbling backward. Without pausing, I kick him in the chest, and swing a roundhouse one to his face. They keep praising me and something reckless rips through me.
Fuck this shit.
I drop my hands after Jimmy recovers, and he punches me in the chest a few times. They’re weak hits, so I let him do it until they actually start to hurt, but I still ignore my instinct to defend myself. His wild swings slam into my face and neck, and I take every hit, take all the pain, without a single block.
What’s that saying?
I feel a sting in my lip as it splits, and a burn in my nose.
Pain is weakness leaving the body?
The taste of salt and metal runs into my mouth.
No, the other one. Pain is how you know you’re still alive.
Oh.
This is my reward for still having a heartbeat: I woke up this morning so Dudebro Douchebag here could pick a fight he really can’t win. Thanks, universe.

You bitch.

The disgruntled crowd boos as Jimmy shoves me back, and I fall onto the concrete. “What the fuck?” He freezes, fists raised, looking confused.

“Do you guys see
me
now? Do you fucking see
me
?” I yell, glaring at everyone standing around us, and clenching my fists until my arms ache. Of course they don’t.
She
is the only person who ever did, and she’s gone. “Do I have to punch him again?” I rush Jimmy and collar him to the ground and point my fist at his nose. “Do I have to fucking punch you?” There’s a wall of startled faces aimed at me. “Do you only see me when I’m punching?” Spitting blood, I stand up and storm away from the scene, leaving them still booing behind me. “Fuck all of you,” I shout back.

“Jess! Jesse, are you okay?” Miguel jogs up behind me. His concern for me has sobered him up. “What the hell was that? Are you okay? Is this about Nico’s death?”

It’s about Nico. But it’s also about how fighting destroys so much around me. It’s about how I can’t break free from it. It’s about the way fighting controls how I feel. It’s about how it controls
me.
And most of all—worst of all—it’s about how it
is
me. “I’ll be fine. You should go home, Mig…or back to the hotel.” I shove the keycard and some cash in his hand.

“I
feel like this is all my fault,” he says.

“
Not you. I’ll be fine. Really. Thanks for tonight.”
Fine
entails going from cantina to cabaret to cantina in Doctores until I lose track of time. I don’t get shitfaced, though, and I stop drinking as soon as the day’s meals start warring over which one I might spew out later on the sidewalk.

I stumble out of the Vegas cantina
, numb now, and walk a few steps to the gate of an old church. Vegas is the only lit building on the block, on the entire desolate street.

I need a cab. Can I even get one around here? Where the hell is
around here
, anyway? A dilapidated hotel looms from across the street, faded graffiti smearing its doors, the windows like punched-out teeth. I walk down the street a bit, searching for a street sign—most are missing—but I find one finally. There’s a sprawling brick housing project on the right, just past some low-rise buildings, and cars are flanking the street.

I fish my cell phone from my pocket with the motor skills of a toddler, and an echo of footsteps has me
spinning toward an empty alleyway between two abandoned buildings. The hairs on my arms stand and my throat dries. I don’t fear the dark, just the distant sounds of the things I can’t see, and when it’s quiet enough for my breathing to sound like a freight train. I turn to face the way I came, and there isn’t another soul in the street.

Every building around me is vacant, gray, and crumbling, with black holes where windows used to be. I’ve wandered farther down from Vegas than I needed to.
Tipsy brain is hardly conducive to staying aware of your surroundings, and I realize that I could’ve just asked someone inside Vegas for the address to give a cab. They probably could’ve called me a cab.

“
Aye, Americano
…” I hear the gravelly male voice almost as soon as I see the shadows splayed across the asphalt in front of me. Three shadows, actually. Three shadows belonging to three menacing figures that are standing side by side when I turn around. One is wiry, his ponytailed hair under a black cap, another is short, kinda pudgy, with a mustache, and the third is tall and muscular with a bandana tied over his mouth. There’s also a car parked along the curb that wasn’t there before.