Chapter 32 #2
I try to keep my eyes on Smitty’s plaid button-down as he leads me deeper and deeper into the crowd by my wrist, but I can’t look away from each face I pass.
I think I see Mr. Copeland in a back corner with a Kangol covering his eyes, and I swear Lorenzo brushed past us in a daze with that cast still on his arm. There are others I think I recognize, like Old Man Hester, and one of the janitors who cleaned the Public Affairs building at Lockwood.
The hair on the back of my neck stands when I spot Arnez in the front of the crowd with her arms crossed even though she said she didn’t care about Rich anymore. Smitty speeds up, elbowing his way through a group of older men until we’re right next to her.
He lifts my wrist, nudging me her way. “You lost something, didn’t you?”
Her nostrils flare. “She should learn to keep up.”
My heart beats fast.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You left me!” I holler over the music and voices.
“You shouldn’t have even said anything to that boy! You shouldn’t say anything to anybody in here!”
An angry throb pushes against my temples. I close my eyes and try to shake off the pounding music, smells, and all the bullshit being thrown at me.
I need out.
I pry my eyes open. “Where is Rich?”
She points past me, and I turn around, following the direction of her finger. He’s there on the other side of the garage, wrapping that same tape she took from his house around his wrists.
My stomach jolts as if I didn’t just see him less than twenty-four hours ago.
I search his face for the man Arnez says he is, but I can’t find him.
All I see is the man who made love to me last night—the one who likes to hold me and listen to my darkest secrets.
The one who cried while inside of me because deep down he’s just that tiny little scared boy who followed his daddy around everywhere.
His eyebrows dip as he pulls his wrist to his mouth and rips the excess tape with his teeth. He spits it on the ground.
I step forward to rush toward him, but get yanked back.
“Don’t!” Arnez yells over the music and murmuring crowd.
“I need to talk to him! You said I could talk to him!”
“We came too late. You have to wait until he’s done! You can’t just run into the pit! Are you craz—”
“Next up! Pup vs. Primo! Clear the pit!”
I recognize Lucky’s raspy voice over the intercom.
“Last call for wagers at the cashier’s window. Remember—no more side wagers over a thousand, folks! You get caught, you get put out. Also, if you love your fighter, tip your fighter. Leave all tips at the cashier’s window, please. Do not put money into fighters’ hands!”
I scan the room for the pit they all talk about, but there’s nothing—not even a ring.
There’s just a natural circle the crowd makes where splatters of maroon and black paint the ground.
This isn’t anything like the random boxing gyms Uncle Kenny used to drag me and Aunt Faye to around the city.
The air even feels different. I taste the grit every time I inhale.
“You saw that right hook on Primo last week?” somebody murmurs in excitement from next to us. “Now that’s how you throw a motherfuckin haymaker. Pup ain’t gon’ take this one. It’s simple—the anatomy of a good jab starts in the upper body…”
The crowd drowns out the man’s amateur musings as soon as a bald, shirtless, tawny-skinned man takes a step into the man-made circle with layers of ink covering his face.
His stocky body glistens, and his long arms dangle at his sides.
He shakes his hands as if he’s waking them up and priming them for whatever is to come.
He’s not bigger than Rich, but there’s a dark aura that floats around him, and I can see how he could convince people he has the upper hand.
“I’on know if Pup got this one,” that same man grunts. “Look at the size on ole’ boy.”
“Man, what the fuck is you even talkin about right now?” somebody rasps back.
“Pup beat a motherfucka to the ground last month for breaking his jaw. Shit, he merked a nigga with his bare hands. If he did that and got away with it, what makes you think he won’t do it to this random Salvadoran nigga?
If you bet against Pup, you a dumbass and a sellout. ”
I whip my head towards their voices, searching for their faces.
Arnez was right.
Everybody knows.
Everybody except me.
Smitty squeezes my side.
“Don’t look,” he murmurs in my ear. “Just let ‘em talk. Pup can’t hear it.”
His voice drifts off and gets swallowed by the rowdy crowd.
As soon as I turn back, I catch the lights reflecting on the paw print dangling from Rich’s neck as he steps into the pit and my stomach drops to my knees.
“Relax…” Smitty says. “You shakin like a whore in church.”
“I…I need to go outside.”
He lets out a low whistle. “That’s gon’ be a hell of a journey in the middle of a match.”
I try to pull my sweatshirt from Smitty’s fingers, but he holds it tighter. I even try to back away, but it’s too late because out of all the faces in the crowd, Rich’s eyes land on mine as if he already knew I was here.
A loud bell dings and Rich and Primo bump fists.
His brow furrows, and I read my name on his lips. “Baby?”
“Rich!” I whimper, pulling away from Smitty.
Rich shakes his head right as a balled fist smashes into his cheek. Bloody spit flies from his mouth.
“What the fu—Rich?” I yelp.
He stumbles off to the side while his eyes flutter in a daze.
“Shit. Get up, Pup,” Arnez says. “Shake it off.”
Primo doesn’t give him time to do that before he walks up on him and drives his fist into his side.
I feel this one.
He hit us right in our ribs.
Rich’s arms fall in front of his stomach, and mine aches. I try to run toward him again, but this time Smitty grabs me by both arms, forcing me to stay.
Rich looks our way, blinking and shaking his head.
“Take her out!” he yells. “Get her—”
Pow.
Another hit.
I feel this one too.
It lands on the left side of our faces and makes us double over, jumbling our thoughts. All the people who didn’t want us to win were in this one—Uncle Kenny, AJ, Blake, Arnez, Melo, Jamari’s ghost.
I grab my throbbing, wet cheek. “Rich!”
“Pup, you better get the fuck up…” Arnez mutters. “Get up.”
Smitty’s hands tighten, and he digs his fingers into my arms.
Primo takes another jab at Rich’s body, and he curls into himself even more.
“Stand up, Pup! Beat his motherfuckin ass!” Arnez hollers. “I swear to God, if you don’t get up, I’ll come out there and kill you myself!”
There it goes.
That fucking word that just won’t leave us alone.
My insides lurch as Primo circles Rich like a predator.
“Stand up,” Arnez says. “Stand the fuck up! Who gives a shit about her being here!”
Smitty takes an arm from around me and holds it in front of Arnez. He blows out a whistle that rings in my ear, signaling her to hush.
“Stand up, Pup,” he mutters under his breath. “Stand up and walk him down.”
Rich hawks up a glob of red spit and pulls himself up just as Primo goes in for another punch.
He ducks it so fast that when I blink, he’s back up, drilling his fist into Primo’s face like it’s one of those tires swinging off the tree in his backyard.
That deafening bang sounds worse ricocheting off flesh and bone than it does rubber.
The crowd hollers in horror and excitement.
“Gahhhh!” Primo screams as blood spurts from his nose and onto a group of guys standing too close to the pit.
They wince while he grabs it and my skin prickles so much that I tug at the collar of my sweatshirt to get it off my neck.
This is nothing like a boxing match. This is a brawl with no gloves or rules—just two men trying to survive. There’s nobody to make sure Primo is still fit to defend himself, so we all stand around, staring and waiting for him to realize his nose isn’t in the middle of his face anymore.
“Stupid,” that same voice from earlier grumbles. “There goes my six hundred. Nigga just broke his nose.”
My stomach gurgles as I choke out a dry heave.
Rich’s low eyes find me again while Primo stumbles toward the edge of the pit with globs of blood trailing over his hand.
“Forget her, Pup,” Arnez mutters. “Put him out his misery.”
His eyes flutter with something that looks like regret, but I don’t trust myself enough to read his expressions anymore.
He stalks toward Primo with a straight face, forcing Primo closer to the edge of the pit, and I close my eyes just as he raises his fist.
I don’t see the hit, but I feel the surge of the crowd and hear the yelling afterward. I open my eyes back just as Primo’s eyes roll into his head and his body folds and falls to the ground with a thud that nobody hears over the crowd’s yelling.
“That’s all, folks,” Lucky drones from the intercom. “Pup takes it home.”
The music starts back, life goes on, and a man who looks like Primo wraps his arms under Primo’s armpits and drags his limp body out of the pit.
The chicken I ate bubbles up my stomach while I dig my nails under Smitty’s fingers, forcing them off me. I turn around and take off with my arms pushed in front of me while the crowd turns into a blur.