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to the dirt, he stomped it out with his bare foot.

 
    “What a punk.
Just the kind of guy I need.”

 
    “Say what? ”

 
    “Look, you
little fucker, you look like you can take a hell of a punch. Probably give out
a worse one, too. That sound like you? Ring any bells in that stupid head of
yours?”

 
    I growled,
ready to turn on my heel. What was this
guy’s fucking DEAL?

 
    “Yeah,
thought so.” He chuckled, sizing me up. “Listen, pal, you look like you haven’t
had a fucking shower in days. How’d you like to make a good eighty, maybe hundred
bucks tonight?”

 
    “Doing…what,
exactly?” I was ready to beat it at the first glimpse of anything funny.

 
    “The boys and
I, ‘round back. We have a little bit of what you might call a, uh, street fighting thing going on. Real quiet-like.
We’re down a guy, so I’m scoutin’ for talent. It’s your lucky goddamn day. You
think you can knock out a few motherfuckers?”

 
    I stiffened
up, but I didn’t turn my back on him. “…Probably. Been a while since I’ve
fought.”

 
    “How long’s a while? ”

 
    “Couple of
months.”

 
    He looked
doubtful for a moment. “You a, uh, seasoned fighter?”

 
    I thought
back to every time I’d recreationally goaded someone into a one-on-one brawl…and
the very few times that I’d lost. “Might say I’ve seen a few.”

 
    “I see…” he
paused, pausing to study me again. “Listen. Your shirt. Pull it off.”

 
    “The fuck? ”

 
    “No homo,
bro. But if you ain’t got anything worth shit underneath that stained scrap of fabric on your back,” he waved a finger at
my shirt, “this little discussion is a waste of my time. Shirt. Off.”

 
    Begrudgingly,
I complied. Dropping my duffel bag to the pavement, I reached my hand for the
opposite sleeve and whipped the shirt off in one fluid, instant movement. The
stranger glanced at my chest, his eyes falling down my abdomen, then across my
thick arms.

 
    “Little
lighter than I’d hoped…but if you can take one, maybe swing a meaner one,
you’ll do. You think you can be ready in two hours?”

 
    “Yeah. How is
this arrangement going to work?”

 
    “Crowd of paying
spectators around back. No entry fees. One-on-one fights. Three teams. Winning
team splits half the pot. The rest go as consolation prizes, then to the
proprietor of our little fracas. Me, I’m a slippery little fucker with fists of
steel. The other two guys, they ain’t so bad either.” He eyed me again. “Better
than you.”

 
    “What’s the
consolation prize?”

 
    “Ten bucks
and a bottle of aspirin. Cute, little Japanese character on it. A cat, I think.
Fitting, for the pussy who got his ass knocked out.”

 
    “Those aren’t
exactly good odds.”

 
    “Yeah, well.
It’s fucking street fighting, man. Unsanctioned. What the fuck do you expect?
You gonna waste my time with this bullshit, or you gonna quit being a little
bitch? Hell, the stink coming off of you, we might call that a pre-emptive strike in the box. Might
just lay a motherfucker out from the get-go!”

 
    This guy was
seriously getting on my nerves…but I had a lot of steam to blow, and I was
feeling dangerous. “Fine,” I told him. “I’m in.”

 
    “Welcome
aboard, fucker. That’s your name, by the way, until you smack a guy to the
ground. Fucker. I think it’s
becoming, personally…” He paused to pick his cigarette butt back off the
ground, tossing it into the trashcan nearby. “Come on, then. ‘Round to the
back. Meet the rest of us. We might be about to slap the shit out of each
other, but we’re a right bunch of gentlemen.”

 

 
 
    PENNSYLVANIA

 
    ONE MONTH AGO

 
 
 
    S eeing my father again was as
difficult and humbling as I thought it would be. I wasn’t sure what to expect
when I saw him. Sure, we had spoken a few weeks before, but a brief, awkward
conversation over the phone was nothing like seeing him in