I’ve never been in a real fight before—the kind with cursing and punching blood and guts egos and broken teeth. I can see why people like them.
"Can I have a sip?" She stares lazily into the bar mirror. It’s less a question than a statement. Belen Rodriguez dark and stocky and bad at Spanish. She lives down the hall, in 4B—plenty pleasant, plenty charming. Her roommates, too. She’s drunk now—enough, I hope, that she’ll remember to forget this whole business. Her hands are on my thighs.
"I didn’t know you liked, that’s so funny that you like, it’s funny we both like," Belen says.
"I know, isn’t it?" I say.
"My best guy friend Mike," Belen says. It’s always Mike. Mike, my best friend. Mike, the Mike with the six-pack, eight-pack, twelve-pack I hooked up with on vacation. Mike.
The place holds about eight hundred people, I heard somewhere. It manages to feel cramped anyway. The headliner is one of those strange indie-prog-hardcore animals, the kind that can’t afford to hire nearly enough tour musicians to mimic the orchestras and backup choirs that perform on their records. The drummer is shirtless, the singer paunchy.
There’s a scuffle on the floor. The smaller fighter has a dark beard and red hair, sloped chest, searching eyes, shirt torn. His left eye is starting to swell and he’s missing a shoe. His opponent is larger, with work boots and a hand around his belt, baseball cap askew. He throws a heavy punch and the crowd closes around them. A girl is screaming. The band is still playing, harder and angrier now, triumphant now though they’ll condemn it all afterwards.
"Cares about me so much," Belen says.
"That’s good," I say.
"Wake up next to him," Belen says.
The smaller fighter, let’s call him Bud. Bud probably starts out in a dorm room somewhere. It’s big enough and bare enough for two people to stand around awkwardly. There’s an acoustic guitar in the corner; a Union Jack on the wall; two raised beds; a twelve-year-old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comforter and a small bottle of scotch, about the same age. There’s a Wilco poster, homemade and pieced together in black and white from printer sheets. There are books, of course: Sartre, Dickinson, Hegel, Chekhov, García Márquez, the same strange and temporary list of moral theory and modernism and fancy with "USED" stickers, bookmarks and missing covers. There’s a mousey girl in a peacoat with frizzy hair, red-rimmed glasses and a Monroe. She probably reeks of weed or cigarette smoke, or both. He’s wearing tight black Levis, revealing more than the mousey girl ever could. They drink from the bottle and listen to bands like the one they’re seeing, but not the one they’re seeing. They want to be surprised, even though they’ve seen them live twice before.
They chat idly between swigs about financial jobs, shabu-shabu and professors who claim they don’t own TVs.Bud’s grandmother always told him to drink scotch, saying he would never get sick from it. He doesn’t much like the taste, but he enjoys the way the vapors burst from his nostrils after he swallows. He turns off the music and puts on his coat, a motorcycle-type jacket with a Nehru collar. He turns off the lights and lingers in the window to watch the Citgo sign carry out its pattern. It isn’t clear whether he and the mousey girl are dating or not. My sense is that they don’t even know.
The venue is within walking distance. As they double-time and smoke cloves for the cold, their conversation turns to films; he claims that people don’t understand Danny Boyle’s latest art-sci-fi endeavor, the one he just bought on DVD. She hasn’t seen it, but tends to agree. He suspects for a moment that she hasn’t seen anything. This inevitably leads to the suspicion that he hasn’t seen anything. He walks up closer to her. She tongues her Monroe thoughtfully.
Bud asks the bouncer outside when the headliner is on. He shrugs and marks black crosses on their hands in permanent ink. Bud thanks him, anyway. Inside, they buy t-shirts for twenty dollars apiece. Both have the presence of mind to tuck them away in their coats instead of putting them on then and there, like all the other quaint little concert-goers. They find a spot in the back and watch the roadies change out the drum kit. He remarks that the drummer is a lefty, which is rare; the mousey girl hopes they play "The Book of Job" as their encore. Bud agrees and is impressed. Maybe she knows something after all.
The smaller fighter has slid to the floor, fingering his teeth, looking for blood with his good eye. Most of the crowd looks on while a gaggle of girls search for his shoe and point angrily at the bigger fighter. The bouncers fight their way through the crowd, barking into their headsets, hunting for sport and meat. Their jaws are still set, but there is a fresh menace about them, a new business being there. I order another drink and think about flashing a grin at the red-faced barback. She’s slight, green-eyed and well-shadowed.
"Make him jealous," Belen says.
"Don’t do that," I say.
"You’re so nice," Belen says.
"Thanks," I say.
"Put forth your hand, touch all that I have," the paunchy singer moans. "Um-bah-um-baba-um-bah," the backing vocals buzz. The imaginary horns and strings, the smell of the liner notes, the ambitious tale of death and grandeur and the ultimate questions, they swirl in Bud’s mind. The keyboards haunt the place, and he bobs his head slightly to their wail. Bud thinks for a moment that this is what life is: straightening and crumpling, straightening and crumpling. But the moment passes, and Bud feels silly. He puts his arm around the mousey girl; she nuzzles him slightly, wrinkles her nose. She’s still wearing her peacoat.
"Are you uncomfortable?" Belen says.
"Li’l bit," I say. The bartender drops a Tanq-and-tonic on a napkin. Some people say gin smells like Christmas.
"Can I have a sip?" Belen says.
The bigger fighter, let’s call him Butch. Butch’s friends dive into the road in search of a taxi, flipping off each one that passes by and cackling for it, worked up so ready. He burps up peppermint schnapps and remarks that no one will stop if they keep acting like buncha assholes, and they compose themselves long enough to hail the next one. In the cab, they bet on the set list and hang cigarettes out the window, extinguishing them only when the driver threatens to kick them to the curb. They crack road sodas discreetly and toss quotes from movies and stand-up routines and wild nights to each other, alternately chuckling and catcalling passersby. One of Butch’s friends, let’s call him Benny. Benny packs a lip. "Hey girl, show us your junk!" He yells. Girl seems perplexed, naturally, as does the older couple she has in tow—most likely her parents come to visit her at college, their little, all grown up, why not. Benny spits across the gas cap.
In the front seat, Butch glances intermittently in the rearview mirror. They are flushed, glassy-eyed, tired of laughing. He suspects that the driver, chattering on his Bluetooth headset, is complaining about them—to his spouse, another cabbie, whoever will listen. He imagines one would get pretty good at that in his line of work. He remembers that he doesn’t care what some Haitian thinks, that he’ll never see him again, that he could crack his jaw quick enough. He’s embarrassed by that last part, looks again at his friends, who find themselves in a shaky sort of calm until Benny remembers that time in Daytona Beach. They have a long laugh. Benny spits. Butch picks at a shaving scab and wonders.
The barback is on the other side of the room now, stocking shelves with bottles, fitting bottles with pourers. The small of her back is blushing and visible in the mirror.
"Why aren’t we friends?" Belen says.
"I don’t know," I say.
"My best guy friend Mike," Belen says.
At the door, they manage. Butch checks his coat. His friends call him an idiot. "Waste of fuckin,’" they say, "floor," they say. He makes scuff marks in the bar step and bums a boilermaker from Brad, who nobody likes anyway, what a tool. He gives the barback a "hiya" look and starts chatting her up. She’s too busy for it, but laughs and drops a glass; it doesn’t shatter. Maybe he’ll bang her later. He enjoys the simplicity of it, seeing her flutter, feeling the feeling in her purple fingernails. He turns to regard the crowd. They’re spare, nervous, dressed in flats, old jeans, flower patterns, work shirts, thin cardigans, painted red by the twirling lights onstage. A pinnacle, Butch thinks and frowns. He’s not the sardonic type.
The bouncers have discovered the bigger fighter, who seemed to be trying to blend in without much success. He’s being carried off now, given a wide berth. The crowd is clapping; so is the band. His hat has fallen on the floor somewhere and his friends are close behind, protesting loudly and thrusting obscene gestures at just about everyone. Dragged along the bar by a collar, childlike, he manages a smile at the barback, then catches my eye in the bar mirror. "What the fuck are you looking at?" He asks.
"Are you uncomfortable?" Belen says.
"Li’l bit," I say.
Butch swallows his beer in painful gulps as the band comes on with smoke and lights. His friends push their way into the middle of the crowd, wiping, redistributing sweat. Benny spits. Butch’s friends hang on each other, scream out, push. He closes his eyes and hums. He doesn’t know the words, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the energy, the power, the something, that’s what matters. Each song melts into the next, and each roving elbow, shoulder and knuckle stokes the same dull flame. Eventually, Benny grinds out a hollow in front of the stage and a mosh pit starts. Bodies are tossed this way and that, fists and legs flailing in tantrums, smiles morphing into something different. Butch waits on the edge, feeds on the jostle of the crowd, throwing one person after another bodily into the melee.
Bud sees his chance and dives in. He hasn’t been in one of these since high school, when he wore sweatpants and a retainer, when he was going to be a professional skater, you’ll see, when he thought he knew what nihilism was. Those were the days, he supposes. It isn’t hard, he thinks, just contact. His shoulder connects with another, then another. A skull, a collarbone. It’s animal and odd, terribly odd. His shoe comes off just as he gets to Butch, who gives him a hard shove to the floor. There is a rush for both of them in it, and they are still, transfixed.
"Fucking meatheads," Bud says finally. He can’t believe it. Neither can Butch, and he laughs, thinking to himself might as well be Bud. Benny spits. Cherry-flavored tobacco splinters drip down Bud’s dicktight Levi’s. Bud gets up and makes a move towards him. Butch steps in. "Fucking what?" he says.
"Fucking spit on me, that’s what."
"Let it go, bud," Butch says.
"Out of my way," Bud says.
As his fist meets Bud’s face, Butch remembers a story he heard once, about a niceish kid who got beaten into a coma by some college basketball player from Eastern Europe. Croatia.
The show is over now. Belen and I are left at the bar. I wait for her to run out of breath and imagine an excuse I can use to avoid walking back with her. Milk, perhaps, and bread, Doritos, maybe, and no hint of an invitation.
The barback is leaving for the night. "Alwaysomething," she says, "Saturday," she says, too sweetly to the bartender who is stacking glasses in the corner. He doesn’t look up. My focus is failing. I’m drunk, I’m alone, the world is coming apart in sheets. I search the shelves for something, anything—the stubborn art of a Maker’s Mark wax drip, a bit of broken stemware somehow long forgotten, honey, amber, sapphire, all the colors of the inebriate spectrum. But the poetry isn’t enough. I’m alone, the world is coming apart in sheets.
My barback tosses her hair and plays with a pack of Parliaments. Then she does a phone check, the kind people use to fill the physical void, purely tactile. She walks out from behind the bar, suddenly complete, with a sliding gait and name-brand running shoes. I ask for her eyes as she goes by, I can taste her perfume, burnt paper and lavender and sweat reconstituted.
"Can we be best friends pinky swear?" Belen says.
"Pinky swear," I say
