Things as They Are by Guy Vanderhaeghe Page A

think I invested all this time in you so’s you can go out there and make me look like a loser? You get him mad, really mad, I’ll let you hit him. For Christ’s sake we got a plan here.” He paused. “Be a fucking man, Meinecke.”
    Meinecke went out and took another battering. He stood there with his gloves up, elbows clamped down hard on hisribs, chin ducked into his chest, and took his beating. Wobbling and staggering, he took it. He was flinching now before he was even hit, out of fear of being hit. But he didn’t try to run from it. And when the bell rang and Scutter turned to stalk back to his corner he tried more. There he stood with his arms hanging helplessly at his sides, his mouth working. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to take hold of those things that Hiller wanted him to say and fling them after Scutter, but his rage and his shame were obstacles to his finding them. Or perhaps he didn’t have mean, dirty taunts in him, only blind, suffocating rage. He stuttered, he stammered. “Yyy-ou,” he said. “Yyy-ou …” But it was useless, hopeless. The crowd was whooping and caterwauling. “Pardon me?” they shouted. “Come again?” “Take a seat, harelip!”
    Defeated, he blundered back to the rest of The Magnificent Seven in conference in his corner. Norman was not sympathetic. “I couldn’t believe my ears,” he said. “Who holds your fucking hand when you cross the street, Meinecke?” Kurt didn’t say anything. He dropped on the chair and covered his face with the gloves. I could only guess what was going on behind them. The sight of Meinecke sitting there with his face covered was quieting the hall.
    Norman exploited the hush for his own purposes. “Hey,” I heard him shout across the ring to Scutter. “Meinecke says for you to pull all the stops out. Either that or get a dress. He says you’re a pussy puncher, Scutter! And he eats pussy!”
    Scutter squinted, the mask of acne darkened. “Yeah?” he shouted back. “Yeah?”
    “Fucking right.” Hiller poked Meinecke. “Do I speak the truth, or do I speak the truth? Is that pussy over there, or is that pussy over there?” Meinecke slowly raised his face from his gloves. He scanned the hall with glazed eyes. “Pussy,” he said in a quiet, muffled voice.
    Hiller cupped his hand behind his ear. “What’s that? I’m not getting that.”
    “Pussy,” Meinecke said, loudly this time. “Definitely pussy.”
    “You heard it from the horse’s mouth,” shouted Hiller. “Go home and put a rag on, Scutter. Get ready to bleed.”
    “That flabby fuck is dead,” Scutter said. “Right where he sits he’s dead.”
    But Hiller wasn’t listening. Already he was squatting down directly before Meinecke, hands on his fighter’s knees, looking up into his face, speaking urgently. “Listen, he’s mad. We got him mad. The bell goes, he’s going to take a run at you. Just like round one. Take four steps into the ring and then wait. Wait for him. He’s coming on, he’s coming on hard, and you cold cock him. Same as hitting the heavy bag. Same punch. He’s bowling in, he doesn’t expect nothing, and you stiff him. Understand?”
    “You mean hit him?” Kurt asked. He didn’t seem to understand he was finally getting the green light.
    “Not
hit
him,” said Norman.
“Kill
the fucker.”
    Meinecke thudded his gloves together. He’d got it.
    I was holding my breath. I let it out when Dooey clanged the pie plate. Scutter was coming in, hard. Kurt stopped, braced himself per instructions, swung. Swung like he’d done a thousand times at the heavy bag, one of those economical, sweet punches with the hip and the shoulder behind it and something added to the physics of it – pure hate. All that and Scutter collided right in front of my eyes. I heard a sound like knuckles cracking, saw a head snapping back, the whites of eyes flashing as they rolled in their sockets, heels skittering, and down he went, head bouncing off the floor