After a full day of searching for any signs of Rose or Ash, the sun started to set.
Traveller eventually circled back to his car and leaned against it tiredly. He felt slightly relived by this, as if it was inevitable. At least now I can get back to the rules, he thought. Travel alone; the last piece of advice that Mao gave him.
His life would have been so much simpler if he just stayed out of everything from the start. He wouldn’t have had to deal with Ron. He wouldn’t have had to deal with Alberto and all those other mercenaries. He wouldn’t have had to deal with Hook’s Tows. He would have been able to travel down the road freely.
Traveller drove across the bridge, leaving the beach behind him. It was time to leave it all behind. Rose, Ash, his memories, his past. All of it. Time to finally move on like he should have in the beginning.
Driving down these roads at night now felt vaguely familiar.
He’d been here before. On a job for Mao…
Following his memories, he parked across the street from a crowded, suburban house. He couldn’t remember the name of the crime family, but he remembered the house. A house filled with music, alcohol, drugs, and gambling. If I was a young, reckless guy who just stole a big bag of cash, Traveller thought, this would be the place I’d go…
He found it strange, however, that the crowds were swarming away from the house.
Traveller stood from the car and approached one them. “Where’s everyone going?”
“Oh man!” the clearly high surfer-bro exclaimed. “You seriously haven’t heard?” He placed his hands on Traveller’s shoulders. “Ash is fighting again, but not in here. It’s going down in, like, thirty minutes at Cappelli’s!”
Traveller pried the sandy hands off his shoulders. He didn’t know what the hell this guy was talking about, but he mentioned Ash by name; he’d find out the rest later.
“Show me where.”
“Why Cappelli’s?” Rose asked.
Ash had been tightening his hand wrap around his wrist. His left hand was already wrapped, all that was left now was the final few spins of the right. “You made a deal for me without even knowing what the hell you were saying?”
Rose didn’t answer.
“Up here in Wasaga, there are two rival gangs. Ramone and Cappelli. Ramone’s always been on top, but Cappelli’s been slowly catching up. Both gangs hate each other, but neither wants to be the first to start a war with the other. So, how do you keep the other in line without starting conflict?”
Rose finally started connecting the pieces. “… You rob them without them ever finding out they’ve been robbed…”
“Exactly. Put a pro fighter with a perfect record in their ring against some up-and-comer—not too weak, but weak enough that the odds will be stacked in the pro’s favour, then bet an absurdly large sum against the pro and have him throw the fight.” Ash finished the hand wrap.
“Did you say perfect record?”
Ash smirked devilishly. “Hell yeah.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “Never been knocked down yet.”
“But… How? Not to sound rude, but you don’t exactly have a lot of muscle…”
She was absolutely right. Although not scrawny like Traveller or Rose, he was nowhere near as built as any of the other fighters they’d seen today.
“It’s not about the power,” Ash said calmly, raising his fists to a defensive position and began shadowboxing. His entire body moved in smooth, quick pivots with each punch, which audibly sliced through the air. “It’s all about the technique.”
Someone knocked on the door to the changeroom from the other side. “Almost time, kid!” a voice barked into the room.
Ash smirked at Rose. “You’d better get going if you want a spot with a good view.”
Rose wasn’t exactly sure she wanted a spot with a good view to a fight fixed against Ash… “How are you feeling?”
Ash shrugged in an attempt at stoicism, but his face gave the truth away. He looked like a child about to step onto their first rollercoaster.
Rose smiled warmly. “Close your eyes.”
“Eh?”
“You don’t want to be nervous out there. You’ll get stiff and give away that the fight is fixed. Close your eyes.”
After a moment of reluctance, he did as she said. “Is this the part where you tell me to take deep breaths and find my happy place?”
Through the darkness of his eyelids, he felt two warm lips press up gently against his, like two warm, heavenly clouds.
Ash opened his eyes suddenly. Rose’s face was inches away from his.
He was no longer nervous.
Her smiling lips pushed against her blushing cheeks. “Good luck.” She ran out of the room.
Rose didn’t know it, but that was Ash’s first kiss.
Traveller flowed into the bar’s basement with the drunken crowd.
Compared to his memories of the Ramone ring from his last visit, this place was much nicer. The ring at the center of the room looked professional—if not a bit worn down. The Cappelli crew likely bought (or stole?) the old ring from a nearby boxing gym.
“Alright fellas!” the voice from within the ring boomed out. Although this man wore a tux, it failed at making him look any cleaner than he was. His fatty muscles pressed up against the suit, stretching the fabric in all directions. The hair on his chest, which was much thicker than the thinning, messily buzzcut hair on his head, puffed out of the spaces between his shirt buttons. He looked like a gorilla in a tux. “It’s time for the last-minute fight you’re all here to see!”
He pointed to one side of the ring. “In the red corner—weighing in at the bantam weight’s upper-limit of one hundred and eighteen pounds, with only one loss to his name—anyone whose been watching fights here recently already knows who he is! He’s the soon-to-be champ! The one with the bite! Ladies and gentlemen: Terry ‘The Teeth’ Gonzalez!”
Terry burst through the door and boastfully made his way towards the ring. The audience yelled a mix of cheers and boos, all of which Terry replied to equally enthusiastically. (“You got this, Teeth!” “Hell yeah brother!”) (“You’re about to lose a few teeth yourself!” “Don’t worry, I got more than enough teeth from your mother last night!”) Reaching the ring, he raised his fist in the air as if he’d already won.
The gorilla continued. “In the blue corner—weighing in at the bantam weight’s lower limit of one hundred and fifteen pounds—back from his hiatus and ready to continue his perfect record—Give it up for Ash, ‘The Wild Kid!’”
Ash entered the room like a zombie—a sleep-deprived labourer, whose morale had completely disappeared over the years. All of his enthusiasm that Traveller had come to expect was gone.
Terry smiled cockily as Ash entered the ring.
Ash’s face remained stone cold.
“Alright, boys,” the gorilla spoke to the fighters. “You know how it goes. Keep it clean. Keep it above waist.”
Ash nodded.
“This is gonna be fun,” Terry chuckled.
A moment later, the bell rang.
Traveller noticed Rose at the back of the crowd between the second and third round and pushed his way towards her.
“What are you doing here?” Traveller asked as soon as she was within hearing range over the audience. “Why’s Ash fighting? And why’s he doing so bad?”
Traveller noticed now that Rose’s face had been in a stern frown. “He’s doing it for you.”
“What?”
“The fight’s fixed!”
The bell for round three rang.
“Some thug stole the bag back at the beach,” Rose explained. “So, we made a deal. Ash goes down in round three, and he gets it back.”
Traveller looked at Ash’s distant, bloody face. Fresh bruises were already forming above the recent bruises from Hook’s Tows. Although he left his fists raised and moved his head around, he made sure to give plenty of opportunities for Terry to land hits.
Although the three-pound weight difference was clearly all in Terry’s muscles, his technique was abysmal. All of Terry’s power came from his arms, not his body. His punches were mostly duds, not hitting more than skin-deep.
Ash would have loved nothing more than to knock out the cocky bastard and show him what a real punch felt like...
Just over a minute into the third round, Terry landed another dud on Ash’s face.
Alright, Ash thought. That’s about as convincing as it’ll ever get…
Ash forced his face to follow through with the punch’s lack of momentum. He threw his body back onto the floor and lay there.
“Oh!” The announcer yelled out excitedly. “There it is! The first down of The Wild Kid’s career!”
The referee slammed his hands onto the ground with each count. “One...! Two...! Three...!”
Ash pretended to struggle. He acted as though his arms couldn’t even lift him up to his knees.
Terry stood directly above him, smirking. “Look at how weak you are. Your face is covered in blood, but there isn’t even a spot on me.”
Terry shut his eyes as he laughed.
He felt something wet and hot hit him in the chest.
Opening his eyes again, he saw a bright red stain flowing down his abs.
Ash wiped away the spit of blood dripping down his lower lip.
Ash stood up to his feet with a sudden burst of energy that nobody—not even Ash himself—had expected. Terry was suddenly assaulted with the kind of furious, rapid punching that could only come from someone called The Wild Kid.
The entire audience, who had been shouting the entire fight, was completely silent now. All anyone could hear were Ash’s swift, powerful punches, slicing through the air.
Rose’s frown turned to fear. “Ash!” she yelled out.
Ash glanced at her out of the corner of his animalistic eyes.
Her worried expression caused his rage to melt away.
His defensive stance loosened just enough for Terry to land a punch.
Even Ash had to admit that one wasn’t a dud.
He fell to the ground—genuinely this time—and stayed down until the referee reached the count of ten.
“You had us worried there,” Ramone said.
Ramone and his son had come to visit Ash in the dark, back alley of the bar. Ash leaned his head back against the brick wall. His tired eyes remained shut.
Ramone cocked his head towards his son and clicked his tongue.
Ramone Jr. removed the purple bag from his shoulder and held it out to Ash. Ash opened his eyelids just enough to grab at it.
“It was good doing business with you,” Ramone said as he and his son walked out of the alley. “We should do this again sometime.”
Ash felt small.
Traveller and Rose were waiting for him by the front of the bar.
Ash kept his head down. He lifted up the purple bag and held it out to Traveller, like a dog returning a torn-up sock to its owner.
“Why don’t you hold onto it until we get to the car?” Traveller said with a smile. “I trust you with it.”
“Screw you, man, my everything hurts." Ash threw the bag into Traveller’s torso. Traveller’s arms instinctively curled around the bag with a grunt. "You picked a hell of a time to start doing that!”
As they walked back to the car, Traveller found himself thinking back to his encounter with Alberto. The way Ash fought reminded him of it. Both of them used technique to make up for their lack of physical strength.
“Hey,” Traveller spoke through short, winded breaths. “You think you could teach me some of those moves?”
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