SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #9
JUICE
FARIBAULT, MINNESOTA
“Throw a hard fucking jab, then a right to the body and a left to the head. That’s all you’re gonna have to fucking remember in these kinda fights. When they get in close to you, push ‘em back and bang hard to the fucking body. I can guarantee you that none of the assholes you’re going to be fighting are in half the shape you are.”
Jake had stopped ripping shots to the heavy bag to stop and listen to the instructions of his uncle. His Uncle Billy sure didn’t look like he’d know shit about boxing. He looked more like Tommy Chong, only with dragon and snake tattoos all over his thin but muscular arms, but he had learned how to box in the army and was now trying to pass his limited wisdom onto his nephew.
Billy had come up with a real bright idea, and Jake, although he was going along with it, was secretly hoping that he just didn’t get killed.
Once a year, a guy who owned a farm over by Faribault, promoted his own illegal tough man contest. Twenty four men could enter with a thousand dollar entry fee. The fights would be four two minute rounds.
Winner of the last fight would win fifteen thousand dollars. Runner up would get two thousand. Everyone else would get jack shit. It was an all night affair filled with cockfights, gambling, drinking, drugs, strippers, and hookers, along with the fights.
Billy had attended several of these gala events and thought that his young nephew had the brass nuts to win the tournament for them.
Jake had been a high school dropout for six months and had been working at the corn packing plant over in Waseca, lifting weights, and making his Uncle’s drug deliveries for him. When Billy came home with the idea of the tough man contest he had jumped at it at first.
If he could get his ass whipped into shape and pull off a win he could use his share of the winnings to get his ass on the road and out of New Richland.
Dawn was less than thrilled about it. She was furious at her husband to even think about getting their nephew signed up in a human cockfighting contest but knew better than to question him about it. Vietnam and Stillwater prison had hardened Billy against any authority figures to the point to where he listened to no one, even her, once he had his mind set on something.
“How do I know that one of the guys that I have to fight isn’t some ex-fighter and I wind up getting the holy shit kicked out of me?” Jake asked.
“It’s against the rules of the tournament.” Billy answered with a grin.
“Rules? What kinda rules are they gonna have in something like this?”
“Listen to me, Jakey boy. The dude that runs this show doesn’t allow any bullshit at all. He knows that if anyone tries to slip in a ringer that he’s gonna get a bad rep and no one will ever sign up to fight again. And this guy is one bad motherfucker. If anyone is stupid enough to try any shit they’ll probably wind up in a swamp with cinder blocks attached to their nuts.”
For four solid weeks, Jake got up in the early morning hours to do his roadwork, go to work, make his deliveries, and then come home to pump iron and work out on the bag. He knew he was in good football shape but wasn’t sure about fighting shape. The only fights he had been involved in were short scraps during a game or practice that were quickly broken up.
His size alone had intimidated most people.
They drove to Faribault in Billy’s four wheel drive. Jake was silent but his Uncle chattered on like a fucking monkey, wired to the gills on crank, and drinking out of a tall can of Grain Belt.
“Just let ‘em come to you. Let them do the work. They come to you, you just unload on them. Push “em off, and do it again.”
Billy was ranting like an wired up Angelo Dundee.
“That stick and move shit won’t work here. Just hard fucking shots to the body to soften them up and then go to the head.”
“Goddamn it Billy. Will you just shut the hell up for a minute so that I can think?”
Billy glanced over at his nephew and took a swig of his brew. “Sorry kid. I’m just nervous is all. Should’ve taken half a ‘lude along with that zip.”
“Yea, I know. I’m sorry too. I’m just ready to get this thing going.” Jake replied.
They cruised through Faribault and passed by the state mental hospital and continued out of town for about three miles and then turned down a long private drive ending up in a wood covered natural hollow.
Cars and pickup trucks were parked all around a brand new bright red barn. You could hear the sounds of men drinking, and men already drunk, emitting from the open doorway. They got out of their truck as a large biker with a clipboard approached them. It was hard not to notice the .357 magnum strapped to the biker’s chest.
“Name?” The biker asked.
“Billy Morrow and my fighter, Jake Morrow.”
“I.D.?” The biker looked at his clipboard.
Jake and his Uncle both showed their state driver’s licenses which the biker glanced at. “Through the door.” The biker pointed to the barn, obviously a man of few words.
When they walked through the door, Jake was surprised to see what looked like an official boxing ring set up in the middle of the barn. In each far corner of the barn, small stages were set up, and there were nude dancers on three of them. A bar was set up on two sides of the barn and men were in a circle watching what appeared to be a rooster fight in action.
The place was packed. It smelled like sawdust, pot, booze, blood, and fear.
The fattest man that Jake had ever seen was waving them over to a card table with a schedule taped up behind it on an easel. He grinned and shook hands with Billy. “Hey you old douche bag, how the hell they hanging? The fat man yelled.
“Always lower than your tiny dick.” Billy laughed.
Fat man grinned. “Same old asshole Billy. Man you never change. Still giving head to the brothers for cigarettes?”
“You know, me and you could in the ring tonight.” Billy joked as he raised his fists.
“I’m too busy tonight, maybe some other time. This your boy? He pointed to Jake.
“Sure as shit is. This is my nephew, Jake. He’s a tough motherfucker. Jake, meet Don Lang, one of the meanest pricks to ever walk the cell blocks of Stillwater.”
Jake reached out and shook the fat man’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Good to meet you, kid. I just don’t think you’re going to be as happy though when you see who your first fight is against.” He pointed over a corner of the barn.
Standing and grinning like an idiot in front of one of the strippers was a huge black man wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
He looked close to weighing three hundred pounds and stood way over six feet tall. He was flanked by two smaller white men.
“That retard’s name is Charlie Johnson. He’s a patient from the nut house in Faribault.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Don?” Billy demanded. “From the state hospital? What the hell is he doing here?”
The fat man shrugged. “Those two guys with him are attendants who work his unit. They run kind of a loose ship over there with all the budget cuts and shit so they’re always low staffed. Gonna turn the place into a prison. Their supervisor is on this, so they just walked him out a side door and drove his ass over here.”
“Why’s he in the hospital?” asked Jake.
“He raped a little girl, shot her in the head with a .22, and shoved her down the hole of an outhouse. He’s a retard so he couldn’t go to the joint. He was over in the maximum lock down in St. Peter for years, but I guess he was a good boy for a while, so he got transferred to Faribault.”
“Can he fight?” Billy piped in.
“Fuck if I know. But those two boys and their supervisor chipped in the grand so I don’t give a shit. I heard one of them tell him that if he wins they’ll buy him one of the hookers. I don’t know which one would fuck a coon. Especially that one.”
The three men stood and watched the giant retard swaying in his tracks and groping his crotch through his hospital issued pants. Everyone couple of seconds he would laugh and scream out “pretty lady.”
Don laughed and slapped Billy on the back. “Ain’t that a kick in the nuts?”
Billy grinned sickly. “It’s a kick in the nuts on all right.”
He turned to Jake. “Come on man, let’s get you warmed up.”
Don was still laughing. “Don’t get too warmed up, you’re not on until the fourth fight. Maybe you’ll be lucky and the big dummy will have shot his wad by then, the way he’s grabbing at his Johnson.” The fat man
bent over and rested his hands on his knees, he was laughing so hard.
“I should have run a shank through that fat fucker in Stillwater when I had the chance.” Billy mumbled as he led Jake to a vacant spot to start his warm up.
“Jesus Christ, Billy! Did you see the size of that son of a bitch?”
“Big fucking deal. Here’s the plan. Soon as the bell rings, charge him and stick him hard with your best shot. If he doesn’t go right way, get on your bicycle and let him punch himself out. He lives in a fucking nut hatch. What kind of wind could he have?”
The bell rang for the first bout of the night. Two burly biker types hammered away at each other and in less than a minute one of them was punched right through the ring ropes and onto the barn floor where he was
counted out. The crowd roared like they were watching Ali - Frazier.
The winner leaned over the ropes and barfed onto one of the judge’s score sheets.
Jake grabbed his jump rope and began to try to break a sweat.
The crowd roared again as a topless dancer climbed into the ring and began to dance a jig to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gimme Three Steps.
The second fight was between an obese Mexican who was covered in jailhouse tattoos and a middle aged truck driver. After pounding each other for thirty seconds, they spent the rest of the fight wrestling and
clinching. At the final bell the ring was showered with beer as the crowd booed and screeched their disapproval.
Billy snorted another two lines of crystal and reached in to their gym bag and retrieved the warm up mitts. Jake fired out the only combination he really knew in succession. Left jab, straight right, and a left hook.
The crowd roared at the lesbian act that was going on in the ring, the promoter felt bad at the poor showing of the last fight and felt he owed the audience a little treat.
Fight number three was between a tall lanky redhead with a farmer’s tan and a bodybuilder. The redhead knew how to box. He spent the first two rounds backing away from his opponent and snapping out a solid left jab which bloodied his opponent’s nose and mouth. In the third round the redhead got a little cocky and tried the old bolo punch like Leonard tried against Duran in their second fight.
Only in this fight he didn’t pull back quick enough and the bodybuilder threw a smoking right hand that drilled the redhead right square in the kisser and sent him down and out. When they pulled his mouth piece out, his two front teeth were wedged inside.
Don the promoter walked by and announced they were up in ten minutes. The between fights act was a woman firing ping pong balls out of her vagina. Drunks at ringside were scrambling to pick up the balls and a couple of them were popping the balls in their mouths.
“Classy bunch of assholes, ain't they?” laughed Don as he walked away.
A greasy looking man who looked like he might have spent his life working as a carny approached them. He handed over a set of boxing gloves. As Billy started to lace them up on Jake’s hands they noticed one of the redheaded fighter’s teeth lodged in the glove.
“You’ve got me into a nice fucking situation here, Billy.”
The crank was hitting Billy hard. He was talking a mile a minute.“Zone into the reptile side of your brain, kid. This guy’s a fucking retard for shit’s sake. You’re a trained fucking athlete. He lays around all day jerking off and smearing his shit on the walls. Get out there and kick his motherfucking ass.”
Jake stared hard at his stoned uncle. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Billy leaned his head back and screamed out like a possessed wolf as they headed toward the ring.
The giant retard was already in the ring with his “handlers.” A fantastic looking blonde stripper wearing a Tilt A Whirl t shirt that was cut so that the top two thirds of her jugs and her tollhouse cookie nipples were exposed to the hooting crowd, was strutting around the ring. Jake’s opponent openly leered and screamed out “pretty lady” at her as she passed by him.
“Here, take a swig of this.”
Billy had tipped back a water bottle. Jake took a long swig and felt the inside of his mouth go numb.
“What's in that shit?”
“Spring water with a gram of coke.”
They began to walk to the center of the ring to get the referee’s instructions. He looked like he had been let out of the nursing home on a day pass to officiate this fight. He was also wearing a Tilt A Whirl t shirt.
“What’s with the Tilt A Whirl shirts? Are they sponsoring this thing?” asked Jake.
“What? Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?” Billy was beyond manic. Too much crank.
“Why is everyone wearing those fucking carnival ride shirts?”
“Oh, the shirts. They make Tilt A Whirls in Faribault.”
Now Billy was leering at the ring girl.
As they reached the center of the ring, Jake’s foe raised his glove and said “Hi.”
The referee began his instructions. He had obviously been drinking and he smelled like a urinal that had been cleaned out with rum.
“OK men, keep “em up at all times, follow my instructions and break when I yell break. Touch ‘em up and return to your corner.”
The two fighters touched gloves and Jake’s opponent said “Bye.”
Billy was so worked up that Jake thought he might have a seizure.
“Did you hear that shit? Hi, bye? He’s a fucking idiot. This will be a cakewalk.”
The bell rang. Jake fired out of his corner on a coke induced rush and as soon as he was in punching distance he wound up and threw the hardest overhand right that he could muster. His grinning opponent walked right into it and it caught him directly in the nose. The giant shrieked, held his nose with both hands and staggered backwards, knocking the geriatric referee down on his ass. Jake took advantage of this and stepped forward and fired a screaming left hook to the retard’s balls. He screamed in agony and dropped to both knees.
Jake ran to a neutral corner. But the referee had yet to get to his feet. One of the giant’s seconds jumped on the ring apron to protest the nut shot but was grabbed by the back of his pants by one of the judges, an enormous biker, and was pulled back on to the floor.
Finally, the ref staggered to his feet and began to start his count.
The crowd was going absolutely batshit.
All Jake could hear was Billy screaming out “It’s a long fucking count. It’s goddamn Dempsey and Tunney all over again.”
The coke was making Jake hyperventilate.
The retard was up at the count of eight. He must have been down for close to twenty five.
Jake charged and attacked his foe. Left jab followed by a right followed by a left hook. They landed in succession as often and as hard as Jake could throw them. Blood was pouring from the giant’s nose, mouth, and a gaping cut under his eye. He just stood there and took it.
After about thirty or forty seconds of this shit,Jake was totally exhausted and dropped
his gloves.
Then the giant went on the offensive. His arsenal was even more limited than Jake’s. All the retard threw was a round house right to the side of Jake’s body. But wherever it landed it felt like a sledgehammer hitting bone.
The first one landed on his kidney and the force of the punch picked his left foot right up off the floor. The second punch landed on his elbow and it felt like his arm was broken. Jake was too exhausted to retreat and tried to tie his opponent up but his foe had learned to fight on the floors of the state’s finest mental institutions. He grabbed one of Jake’s arms with his left hand and pounded away to Jake’s body with his right until the bell rang. Jake slumped onto his ring stool.
Across the ring he could hear the retard screaming out “pretty lady.”
“Fuck. Jake, drink some of this shit.” The coke spiked water numbed his throat going down.
“Box this fucker, Jake. Long range. Don’t get in close. Stick and move. Stick and move, goddamn it.”
The bell rang.Jake was revived for a few seconds by the cocaine concoction and began to stick out his jab. It landed almost constantly, snapping his opponent’s head back. But for every five jabs he landed, the giant was land one crippling shot to his body. The retard’s face was a mask of blood.
Jake’s left side of his body was already turning purple. After less than a minute into the round, Jake was spent again. He stopped moving away from his foe and once more, this time in pure desperation, tried a round house
shot to the nuts of his opponent. But he was too tired and the punch landed on the giant’s hip.
His opponent reached out, fast as a cobra, and hooked Jake’s head with his massive arm and tucked Jake’s head securely in his vile smelling armpit while he whaled away at Jake’s unprotected body with his right.
Jake went down to one knee. “One… Two... Get up Jake…Three...Pretty lady....Four...Five...I get to fuck pretty
lady...Six...Seven...Eight...Get the hell up Jake...Nine…”
He got up. He couldn’t raise his arms. His foe advanced on him. Jake tried to raise his hands The retard threw another of his right hands only this time it was at Jake’s head.
The ring floor was soft but it was bouncing up and down. Jake began to sit up but almost blacked out so he lay back down.
It took him several moments to realize that he wasn’t in the ring but in the back of his uncle’s truck. He recognized the car freshener that Billy always bought. Smelled like coconuts.
The truck was still bouncing up and down. With a groan Jake grabbed the back of this seat and pulled himself up. He looked out the back window. Billy had the stripper with the Tilt A Whirl shirt spread eagle in the box and was laying the wood to her. Hard!
Jake lay back down and went back into his fog.
Jake was bedridden for four days after the fight. He had no recollection of the drive back to New Richland, being carried into the house like a baby by Billy, or hearing the huge screaming match between Billy and Dawn after she had seen the condition that her nephew was in.
The first two days Jake drifted in and out of consciousness. He woke up only to drink some water and to take a leak. When he urinated for the first time he passed out in the bathroom after seeing the blood colored urine. His kidneys had taken a pounding.
The last two days he was able to
eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches washed down with some orange juice. Dawn had him smoke some hash to help smooth over his pain and to stimulate his appetite. The knockout punch that had been administered by
the boxing mental patient had landed right between Jake’s eyes.
It hadn’t broken his nose, but it was swollen as hell, and both of his eyes were blackened. On the morning of the fifth day, Jake finally got out of bed and joined Dawn at the kitchen table as she was weighing out and packaging up a recent shipment of grass.
“Where’s Billy?”
“He had to make a run over to Owatonna.”
“I guess I let him down.”
“Jake, you didn’t let him down. He’s just disappointed in himself. Sometimes the drugs and the booze and what went on in Nam just clouds his judgment and he doesn’t think things out too clear. He spent almost the whole time after you guys got back from the fight out on the porch, drinking Jack Daniel’s and talking about how shitty his life has become.”
Jake sat silently.
“He was proud as hell of you, Jake.”
“I’ve gotta get out of here, Dawn.”
“I know you do, sweetie. This is a no where place to live to begin with. And after all you’ve been through all ready in your life, I think it’s time you got out into the world and explored your options. These dumbass rednecks around here will never let you forget what’s happened. They have no future so they live in the past.”
“I just don’t know where to start.”
“You thought about joining the service.”
“Yea, but I think I fucked up by not getting a high school
diploma.”
“Well, that’s not going to be a problem. I supply speed to a gal who works over in Albert Lea in the high school office. A gram of crank will get you a beautiful framed high school diploma with your name on it, and a
transcript to boot. No problem.”
“Sounds like you and Billy must have thought this all out already.”
She smiled. “Well it wouldn’t hurt to get you stationed in some place like Hawaii or Thailand and every once in a while you could drop a pound or so of their local weed in the mail. Stuff like that around here would draw top dollar. But that’s all up to you. Billy and I would provide all the cash and you’d just have to score and mail it to us. We’d put one third of the profits in a account for you when you get out.”
Jake leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.
“Let’s do it.”
