Highway To Hell (2 page)

He remembered it like it was yesterday, a fact helped by his regular repetition of the tale at the many gatherings he attended. It had become his trademark party tale, one that could be rehashed as often as required without getting stale. Of course his children had also loved it, still did – or at least so they told him. He had only come into the gym to pick up his running shoes, but he had gotten chatting with some of the other fighters who had been milling around waiting to start training. Big Joe – one of the trainers – had spotted him, and came across telling him that Walter wanted to see him up in the office. He looked up and saw Walter’s shadow looking down on them from behind the dirty glass. He wasn’t alone; someone else was up there. Marcus had no idea who it was; his mind wasn’t thinking about his next fight, let alone a shot at the champ, Virgil Hill.

Despite the strange feeling that rumbled in his gut, Marcus ran up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. He buzzed past the dusty photos that lined every wall in the gym. They were nothing more than a random collection of old pictures and newspaper clippings of boxing events, and fellow pugilists going back to the days of bare knuckle fights held on the fishing docks. He had spent years staring at them, reading them all while he waited for his time in the ring or a spare heavy bag .

Marcus stopped himself just outside Walter's office, running his fingers through his then thick and bushy hair. He hadn’t shaved for a week, and the thick stubble threatened to become a beard. Bracing himself, Marcus rapped on the office door three times and then walked in without waiting for an invite.

Inside, Walter's office was as run down as the rest of the gym. The walls hadn’t seen a lick of paint in years; not since before Walter had bought the place. The lone light, nothing more than a bare bulb, hung from the ceiling, its fixture long since vanished. A thick, gray-green cloud hung in the air from the constant stream of cheap cigars that Walter insisted on smoking. Lighting one was the first thing he did each morning, and the glowing embers never left his mouth until he went to sleep at night.

He had died of lung cancer at the age of 63, an age that everybody who knew him was amazed he ever reached at all.

The eyes in the room turned to face Marcus, and the bad feeling (which to until his last days on earth continued to creep over him every time a bad call came over the radio) rumbled his stomach again, louder this time. There were three men in the room, and none of them were on Hill’s payroll. Walter ushered him inside and offered him a seat. The three strangers all wore expensive suits, which hugged their giant, steroid-enhanced muscular frames as if made of Spandex.

“Listen, Kid, you fight well, but to get the champ you gotta let him think he can win. D’ya understand?” Walter croaked. His voice was deep and scratchy from a lifetime of tobacco.

Marcus was only young then, a real talent in the boxing world, but naïve to the workings of the real one. He had nodded; what he heard made sense. He just hadn’t heard what they were asking of him. There and then plans were drawn up for him to fight Aleksander Papp, a young German fighter, who had a good reputation but who was not regarded as a title fighter because of his nationality and the fact his trainer was a Russian defector. Everything moved at lightning speed, and before Marcus knew it, his hand was clutched in the sweaty, powerful grip of all three strangers in turn. The fight had been arranged and dates confirmed. Many years later Marcus would realize that it had all been done before he had even arrived, and his presence was a matter of unimportant coincidence.

Tensions had begun to rise in Marcus’s camp eight weeks out from the fight. He felt as though he wasn’t being put through his paces enough. This had led to several heated arguments, and he started to work out himself in the garage of his flat. Walter kept telling him that the fight was more of an exhibition, just to get the champ’s teeth chomping. Marcus, who was foolish and young, had believed him.

It wasn’t until three days before the fight that Marcus began to get a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. He cornered Big Joe one day after training. It was the end of the day and everybody had already gone home. Joe was about forty kilos overweight, and would break into a sweat just climbing into the ring, yet despite his name and appearance was one of the kindest men Marcus had even known. He bred racing pigeons, and enjoyed tending to his own allotment whenever he had the chance.

Joe had crumbled like a baby before Marcus had even started to ask him any real questions. He told him that he was being undertrained in order to make the fight harder for him; to make him have to work hard for the win. Joe had started to sob when he confessed to knowing what was happening, and between repeated apologies he said that they were trapped in something much bigger than they could understand. Some big time mobsters from London had already bribed the referee to make sure that the German won no matter what he had to do.

Marcus stopped in his tracks. His heart pounded as he looked around the shopping arcade. He could have sworn he heard something, but he still got worked up when he remembered that incident. It had robbed him of his future, and he would never forgive Walter, not even if that simple act was all that stood between him and the fires of Hell. It wasn’t about being the champ, but that they were taking away from him the thing that he loved. Boxing made the world a simple place: you were given an opponent, you trained hard, looked after yourself and then you either won or lost. Or so Marcus had always thought.

Once Big Joe had finished apologizing and offering promises of redemption that included all the fresh vegetables he could eat, Marcus stormed straight into the local bar where he found Walter in the lap of some local woman for hire. Marcus ripped the fresh cigar from his manager’s mouth and after pulling him to his feet, struck him with a lightning fast jab, right cross combination that sent Walter flying into the table behind him, snapping it in two and upsetting the two large tattooed men who had been the occupants.

Marcus had walked away and never spoken to Walter again. He had turned up to the fight, determined to do it on his own. “Fuck the consequences,” he had told Big Joe in the dressing room. Walter hadn’t been foolish enough to show his face. His nose had been broken and a further slapping from the bikers he had upset put him under self-imposed house arrest for several weeks.

The fight began and Marcus knew from the first jab that his German opponent was clearly up to speed with what was planned, so Marcus just came out swinging.

Marcus survived the first few rounds with little damage. It was obvious to him that while his opponent was a good fighter, he wasn’t a killer. He lacked the look in his eye and the ruthlessness in his gut to move in and pile on the hurt if his man refused to fall from the heavy blows. Marcus’s long-term girlfriend was ringside; he looked over to her for inspiration at the end of every round. It was the beginning of the seventh when the realization of where he had seen the two large, shaven headed gentlemen (who now flanked his girlfriend) before. They had been present at the pre-fight weigh in, whispering with Papp's trainer and management team. By the end of the eight round, Marcus saw the two men stand and walk away. His future wife was in tears, her caramel colored face had paled, and she looked like she was about to faint. Her lips had blended in shade and disappeared from her face, while her eyes were expressionless. He looked at her, with his left eye beginning to swell shut from a well-placed series of blows, but she wouldn’t look at him. She simply sat staring straight ahead, her expression one similar to the abused women Marcus would later take statements from on a regular basis. She cried; he had never seen her cry before, but she had tears welling up that just couldn’t be held back any longer.

As he rose for the eighth round, Marcus knew what was happening, but he didn’t know what to do. Marcus didn’t know what to think as he walked out for what he knew would be the last few rounds of his career. He would go down swinging: win, lose or draw, the kraut would have to beat him. He told himself this, and believed it at that moment, he believed it in the aftermath of it all, and deep down he believed it to his dying day.

His wife never told him what they had whispered to her. She simply said that he didn’t need to know, he had retired and it was all in the past. They had planned on moving away, to start a new life together away from the corrupt nature of the sport that no matter what length of retirement was put in the middle, Marcus would continue to love and miss. None of them ever spoke about it, but both knew that had he been single, Marcus would have carried on fighting, not because it was manly or because he wanted the fame and fortune it offered, but simply because he loved it.

Marcy, whose real name was Michaela, had been the one who suggested to Marcus that he should try for the police. She was five years older the he was and had already been on the force for three years. Her father had been a cop and she had always wanted to follow in his footsteps, to make him proud of her. She had succeeded the moment she was accepted and he had told her exactly that every chance he got.

Marcus applied, and was accepted before he had completed the application form. He passed the physical test with flying colors, breaking the course record in the sprint and number of pushups he completed in one minute. A ‘staggering seventy’, the instructor had dubbed it that night over drinks in the training center bar. The actual number had been closer to eighty but the name sounded good and so stuck.

Marcus loved the force. Even on the hot summer days. Yet he could never fully forget the thrill of the fight either; it was part of him, and he knew it would haunt his dreams for the rest of his days. For years Marcus was plagued by a recurring dream; he was back in the ring, back fighting Papp. The German’s face was broken open and bleeding, his nose shattered, left cheek swollen so badly his left eye looked as if it had simply been erased from his features. They were in the last round, and he was pummeling the German who would (always) raise his hands up to cover his face, leaving his body open. Marcus had him trapped in the ropes and he was about to fall. Marcus would glance over that the clock and see he still had just under a minute to knock the guy out. He knew he wouldn’t get up, and so planned on taking his time. Then out of nowhere the bell began to sound: it rang and rang. Marcus stopped punching and looked around and that was when the German unleashed his lucky shot, and just as the punch hit Marcus would wake, his heart racing. The ringside bell would melt away and become the howling impatient cry of a baby woken from sleep. His blood would be pumping, his whole body tense. He would jump out of bed in a state of confusion each time, his mind lost until it all slotted back into place one piece at a time.

He hadn’t realized how deep he had been in the daydream, not until the ear-piercing cry of a young baby finally pushed its way through the image. It sounded like someone scraping their fingers down a blackboard it was so shrill.

Marcus turned around; a small crowd had gathered inside the covered promenade – predominantly elderly couples, sitting hand in hand on the various benches that were scattered at random intervals. He scanned the center, his brow once again plastered with sweat. His eyes stung and he felt his pulse increase without warning. His stomach lightened, butterflies spread their wings inside his organs and began to take flight. He felt his stance change; he came up onto the balls of his feet, ready to move, ready to rumble. It was instinctive; he hadn’t even thought about it. Marcus could sense it; his instincts as a fighter able to evolve from sensing where a punch was coming from into a danger detector that was more often than not correct.

Marcus reached for his radio to alert his protégé, but stopped his hand halfway. By the time Dillings got there, even with his rookie over-enthusiasm, Marcus would have taken care of it.

He looked around and saw the couple that were responsible for the scene he was about to join. A young woman, too skinny for her height… for any height. Marcus guessed from first glance that she was around 5’10”, although she stood with her back to him. Her strawberry blond hair fell greasily against her shoulders, and she wore a tank top that showed bony shoulders covered by tribal tattoo that traced a spiral path down her left arm. Its design was somewhat distorted; an obvious side effect to the weight she had lost since its initial application. Her outfit was completed by a denim skirt that was only just long enough to cover her hipless waist, revealing skinny legs that were bruised and covered with veins that, by the time she hit forty, would resemble a detailed road map of the British Isles. She tottered on a pair of high heels that made her even taller, and off to one side stood a rough looking pram, which rocked from side to side as the occupant continued to scream.

Marcus looked at the pram, wondering why neither the mother nor the person she was with was responding. Then he saw her head snap backwards, twisting to the left, and he understood it all. The woman fell backwards. She stumbled on her heels and fell to the floor, turning as she did. Marcus saw blood; her lips were broken, her left eye swollen shut. Yet the worst thing was the look on her face; it told him this was part of her everyday life.

Her skin looked dead, stretched taut over her rake-thin frame. Her large breasts swung unrestrained beneath her yellow summer-inspired tank top, and their size in relation to the rest of her frame and their lack of gravity defiance told Marcus two things. One, the baby in the pram was hungry, and two it was young, a matter of weeks old; this thought was confirmed by the sagging post labor stomach which took a while to recover, and on most women doesn’t look anything unusual. However on a frame as malnourished as hers, it shone out like a distress flare on a clear night at sea. The other clear giveaway with regards to the age of the child were the two large, wet stains on the point of each breast, where milk leaked from her nutritious teats.

“Hey!” Marcus heard himself shout, announcing his presence while letting others know that something had happened and that they should keep back. All thought of calling his partner was gone. He would never get there in time.