chapter 8: the night of the fight

I drank way too much, and now I’m sitting in my car in the Friendly Beast Brewery parking lot. My car is running and I’m listening to a podcast about the Manson Family and the murders they committed. The Manson family believed Charles Manson was god. Maybe he was. There is more proof that Charlie Manson lived than there is proof that Jesus Christ lived. He also could have been the devil. Everyone thinks of Charlie like some giant demon. Grinning at the camera. Making those weird faces. All I can ever think about is how his mother traded him for a pitcher of beer when he was a kid. If he really was the antichrist, though, I’d say she got a pretty good deal.

I’m nervous. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in my fair share of drunken brawls over the years but I never really remember what happens. The next day I just wake up with cuts and bruises, and the occasional rushing memory from the night before. The glimpse of a fist. The smell of a boot. The sound of angry yelling. The metallic taste of blood. The crushing feeling of shame.

I have absolutely no idea what to do in a fight and I’m not drunk enough to operate on animal instinct. What if I land a lucky punch and kill the guy? I’ll have to go to prison for life. What if he kills me? I can’t say that thought bothers me a whole lot. Fighting to the death would be a good way to go. Gladiators used to fight to the death. Fighting and killing were just ordinary, everyday things. Someone told me once that when a gladiator was on a winning streak merchants would bottle up their sweat and sell it to women for lots of money. The women would use the sweat like perfume. I think it made them horny but I don’t know. I bet when the gladiator finally died his sweat was worth a lot. Then again, after he lost, people probably only wanted to buy the sweat of the guy who beat him. We only remember celebrities if they die while they’re winning.

In nature things die every second of every day. When we see a beautiful creature slaughtered in the wild we say stuff like “well that’s just nature,” or “that’s the circle of life.” That’s what you’re supposed to say, but think about it: a living, breathing creature was walking through the woods alive one minute, and the next minute it's lying on the ground with another beast chewing on its intestines. It doesn’t seem natural to me, but it is the most natural thing in the world. It only doesn’t seem natural because very rarely do we go into nature, and if we do we usually have a guide or walk on a trail marked so well any city idiot can follow it. I wonder what it’s like to stare a lion in the eyes, right before it pounces on you and rips you to shreds. When do you stop fighting, and just accept your fate? How much of your body does the lion have to eat before you lose consciousness and fade to black? Do you feel it chewing your feet? Then chewing your ankles? Then chewing your legs? That feeling has to be worse than what I’m feeling right now, and there is no alcohol in nature. Think about that. You must go through life completely sober. I guess you don’t have time to be anxious or depressed when you spend every day of your life hunting for food while also being hunted by something else. When a fox evades a hunter, and has enough to eat for the day I bet it lies its head down at the end of the night and has a sleep more blissful than anything we can imagine. As soon as it wakes up, the game is on, and the life of the fox is back up for grabs. Imagine living like that. Usually when I am the most at peace is when my mind has no time to think about anything other than survival. Alcohol can simulate this feeling, but that’s the only thing I’ve discovered so far. Maybe this fight will give me that rush.

I keep thinking of Muhammad Ali. I wish I could fight like him. When most people think of Muhammad Ali they think of the phrase “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” They see him gracefully dancing around the ring like an artist. Like a ballet dancer. Beautiful. Untouchable. That’s a really beautiful thing, but I like to think of Ali during the Ernie Terrell fight when he kept saying “What’s my name?!” I love the image of Ali jabbing Terrell in the face and demanding “What’s my name?” “What’s my name?” “What’s my name?” The truth isn’t as good as the myth, but the truth never is. The truth is Ali struggled in that fight. He got worn out, and barely won. He bobbed and danced. He took it the distance, and the judges named him the winner. He was the clear winner that night, but he was hardly the brutal gladiator everyone says he was; toying with his prey, refusing to put him out of his misery. The media wanted Ali to be the villain, so they wrote him as the villain. The surgical killer. The ruthless sociopath. All he wanted was to be called Ali, and that was his god given right. I’m gonna make this motherfucker say my name. The stupid fucker probably doesn’t even know my name. This dumb piece of shit. I’m gonna toy with him. I’m gonna make him say my name. What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name? I’m drinking those little bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey while I wait. “Say my name. What’s my name?”

A big truck is pulling up. I don’t know anything about cars or trucks, but for some reason Ford F-150 pops into my head. I think I heard that on a commercial. F-150. The truck is loud and it pulls up into a space across the parking lot. I’m gonna jab at the guy’s face. If it goes well, I'm gonna keep saying “What’s my name? What’s my name?” while the bloody little turd lays bleeding out on the parking lot. I’m going to kill this guy.

A short, stocky man with a fitted backwards hat gets out of the car. He’s hunched over, and he’s walking slow. He’s flexing his back muscles. He looks like a killer. He’s not fat or muscular, just somewhere in between. Like a baseball player. He looks swollen. Like his whole body was stung by a bee. I’m getting prepared. I’m starting to flex my muscles and square up for a fight. Another tall lumbering man gets out of the passenger side of the car. The parking lot light is only shining on the backs of the men, so I can only see their figures, not their faces. I hope this guy hits me. I hope he hits me hard. Like the red-haired girl. I want to feel a little pain. A little pain could do wonders for me right now. Sometimes when I get a bruise I push down on it as hard as I can. It feels good. Sometimes I pick at scabs until I feel that sharp stinging feeling. It feels good. Sometimes I pick up a dish that I know is too hot, just to feel that quick rush of panic. It feels good. I like that kind of pain. That’s the kind of pain I want right now. Win or lose, this fight is going to be just what I need tonight. The stocky man is screaming, “You still think I’m inbred, mother fucker? Do I look like I’m inbred to you?” The guy actually does look inbred. I must have spoken the truth again while I was drinking. I glance back over at the tall lanky man to make sure he doesn’t catch me when I’m not looking. As he steps into the light I immediately recognize him. It’s Tanner.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Tanner says to me.

“Do you know this piece of shit?” the stocky man yells at him.

“Yeah man. This is my friend. This isn’t the guy. We got set up.”

Tanner starts to laugh. Not a loud laugh, just the kind where you kind of look down at the ground and smile while you breathe loudly out of your nose.

The stocky man looks at me. I walk towards them.

“Fuck man,” he says to me, “You’re not the guy. The guy I was looking for was talking shit last night. He was saying shit to everyone in the bar. He was some stupid hipster guy. Lanky. Wore some brown fedora thing. Total piece of shit.”

I ask the guy what kind of car the hipster was driving.

“It was some stupid pretentious, vintage thing.”

“A Hudson Hornet,” Tanner says, “Actually a pretty cool car.”

“Yeah, but this guy is just driving it to get attention. He doesn’t even know what type of engine is has.”

“Well, since we’re all here, let’s go to “Al’s,” Tanner says.

I agree, and we all get into the truck.

We’re at Al’s. It’s this bar Tanner is always going to. It’s the opposite of the brewery. Drinks are cheap. Everything on draft is light and domestic. People sitting at the bar are smoking. People are casually chatting. Talking about things they actually find interesting. Not caring one bit if they are being heard, trying to get as drunk as they possibly can. There’s no judgment here.

I throw darts with Tanner, and his friend whose name I find out is Billy. Tanner orders us round after round of Budweiser Light. Then he gets wings for all of us. Then he orders nachos. Then he puts AC/DC on the jukebox. Billy turns towards me and tells me: “There was this serial killer named Richard Ramirez. They called him the night stalker. I guess he worshipped the devil. He would break into women’s houses and rape and kill them. He only broke in if their door or window was unlocked-almost like a vampire-he needed permission to go inside. Anyway, when he appeared in court for multiple murder charges he asked how AC/DC was doing. It was his favorite band. Then he held up his palm and there was a pentagram carved in blood on his hand. He yelled “Hail Satan,” or something like that. Real twisted guy. I can’t listen to AC/DC now. It makes me nervous. Makes me think the devil might possess me or something. Tanner, why don’t you put on something else? Put on Metallica if you have to listen to metal.”

We throw darts and get really drunk. I get the whole story from them. It turns out Tanner and Billy went to the brewery to meet up with some girls from Billy’s work the night before, and they drank like you would at Al’s, which is excessively. A lot of people at the brewery were staring at them. This hipster in the brown fedora kept making comments about how dumb they looked. Billy was wearing a camo hat, and the man in the fedora was loudly saying how he looked “inbred.” Billy went over and knocked the man’s fedora off his head. They got kicked out immediately, and I guess the bearded bartender told them to never come back. He said he was going to call the cops. Before they left I guess one of the girls snuck back in and asked the fedora man for his number so Billy could meet up with him later and kick his ass. The fedora man gave her the number, probably thinking she had a thing for him, or maybe he didn't want to appear weak in front of a woman. But it turns out he gave her my number. How does he have my number? This man really is stalking me. I ask Billy if he knows what the man’s name was. “I think it was James, or Jim, or Jeff. Something like that.”

After the bar closes at 3 am I call a cab and take it home. I’m lost in thought, but drunk enough that I’m willing to talk to the cab driver. He tells me he is going to finish reading The Brothers Karamazov tonight. He says his wife was dying. He says she went blind. He says she had cancer in her eyes. He says that he read to her from The Brothers Karamazov every night before they went to bed together. He says they still had sex up until the end. He says she was the love of his life. He says he held her. He says she loved to hear him read. He says the night she died they were on the last chapter. He says he wished he was a faster reader. He says his wife was an angel. He says right before she died, she broke out in song. He says the last words of the song she sang were: “What a friend we have in Jesus.” He says “What is Hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” He says that line is from the book. He says now he’s in hell. He says one of his wife's goals in life was to read that book. He says now she never will. He says tonight he’s gonna finish reading the book by himself. He says “is this spot okay?” I tell him it is and he drops me off. I thank the man and give him a tip. I really need to get some rest but now I know two things for sure:

1. Other people have seen the man in the brown hat.

2. He has a name: James, or Jim, or Jeff.