It’s the same limousine I first climbed into two years ago.
It’s the smell I remember first. The sticky leather… it makes me feel sick instantly. It’s a wet smell, something that coats itself to the inside of my throat. Something I can almost taste.
I guess I’m just not used to luxury.
Glass hasn’t changed a bit. He’s still got those crooked, smoke-stained teeth bracketed by gold ones, the gold watch, the completely bald head, the hard, mean eyes.
I don’t let my guard down for an instant, and I won’t ever around him. I didn’t trust him as a kid, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Now… now I understand the trepidation I felt when I climbed into that limousine. I was faced with the choice of taking something given to me, and then finding out how not to be controlled by it. Glass is a serial controller.
Or I could have returned to my life as it was… destined for nothingness.
I hate the idea of being nothing, of being worthless. I have worth.
They used to say that every human being, inherently, had worth. But even as those words left the social worker’s mouth, I could sense that they were empty. She couldn’t hide her true, sad thoughts behind that well-practiced smile. A warm smile in the winter wind. She may as well have said nothing.
But bless her. Bless all of them. They stand in the way of the storm, try to block it with words and compassion and sometimes, in rare cases, even love.
It won’t work. It will never work… not in this God damned world.
But rare is it that the cards you’re dealt can be exchanged. That’s why I climbed into that limousine. That’s why I followed a man like Glass who just stank of something rotten.
I got to turn my cards in, get dealt a new hand. How many times can people say that?
“I’ve set up a gym for you in the back of the house. It’s my old one, but I’ve got all-new and modern equipment. We’re going to get you on a proper diet. I’ve got the best supplements, some experimental ones too, testosterone boosters, everything.”
I nod at Glass, lick my lips.
“And I’ve got a trip set up, we leave tomorrow. We’re going to talk to Jim McNamara in Omaha. You ever heard of him?”
I shake my head.
“Well, he trained some of the best boxers this country has ever seen, and he owes me a favor. He’s got a compound a ways away from the city. You’ll live there, train with him and the other boys. I’ll stay with you, spar with you, show you the ropes, show you my best moves.”
“Got it,” I tell him. “For how long?”
“Around six months. You’re going to be the best, boy,” he says, gripping my shoulder, squeezing it tight. “A man like you is welcome into my family.”
“Thank you,” I tell him.
The truth is, I do feel gratitude, but I also recognize the tongue of a snake. That was my education; learning how to tell the good people from the bad. I suppose that’s everybody’s education, really, but in my life, when you see bad people all the time, you start to notice patterns.
It’s always the promises… the promise of greatness, success, money, whatever. You learn to tell that they aren’t promising you these things… they’re promising themselves these things.
You’re just the tool, the instrument.
Well, I’m no tool, though I’ve been called one before.
“We’re fighting strictly underground in the beginning,” he says. “Nobody will know you. They’ll think you’re easy pickings, bet against you. I’ll sell it. Don’t worry boy, I’ll play my part.”
“Your part?” I ask.
“Yes. We all have a part to play. Life is a stage, don’t forget that, and we all have roles. All my men understand this. My daughter understands this. Play your part, I’ll make you rich. I’ll make you the underdog nobody wants to back. I’ll sell you short.”
I don’t say anything.
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” I tell him truthfully.
“Good. You’ll be the guy who is supposed to lose. You understand, Duncan, you’ll need to sell it. Look like you’re getting beat, then wham!” He claps his hands together. “Then you fucking take them down and submit them.”
“So you want me to take a beating,” I say.
“Precisely. I knew you were smart the moment I saw you,” he says. “You got a good head on your shoulders, Duncan. You’ll go far in this business.”
“What happens when everybody knows who I am? What happens when you’re no longer taking bets against me?”
“We shut it down. Nothing lasts forever. You go pro.”
“Pro, huh?”
“UFC, whatever. Then we go big on a national stage, international, even. The money there will be amazing. But you need a reputation first, and we’ll build it in the underground cage. Your name will echo.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”
“Damn right I do,” Glass says. “How the fuck do you think I got to where I am? How the fuck do you think I ride around in a limousine all day? Drink only the best whiskey? Own a house like the one that I do?” He gives me a big grin. “We’re going to make a lot of fucking money. I know it.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “We?”
“You’ll get your cut, boy, don’t you worry about that. Five-percent of the pot, non-negotiable. I expect the pot will climb to over ten million some fights, so you’ll be good. Don’t ever say I wasn’t a generous man. I take care of my own. Just ask Frank. Frank! Frank!”
The intercom hisses to life. “Yes, boss.” Frank’s hoarse voice is made scratchier by the static.
“Don’t I take care of my own, Frank?”
“You do, Mr. Marino.”
“See?” Glass says, looking at me.
I swallow, nod again. Promises. But maybe Glass will be good for them. There’s more to me being a good fighter than simply him making his quick buck. I’ve been a years-long investment.
There’s emotion behind this whole thing. This is more than just business, even if he claims the contrary.
“You want me to be the fighter you never were,” I tell him. “You want to live through me.”
The words silence him, still him. I call it how I see it.
“I won’t lie to you, Duncan. We’re family, and family don’t lie to each other, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ve treated you like my own son. I’ve given you a life. I want you to carry my torch.” He slaps my chest, holds his hand there.
His torch. The one he never held.
Glass continues: “You don’t know what it’s like having my body, being robbed by my body. This piece of shit!” He thumps his hand against his own chest. “This stopped me from being the best. Brittle bones and inelastic tendons. Genetics.” He scrunches up his face in disgust. “I hate my body. But you… you have it all. You were blessed. Your name may still be Malone – and I’m really fine that you kept your own – but legally you’re my son. You are Johnny Marino’s son!”
He shouts it triumphantly, like a trumpet blaring in victory.
I just nod at him.
“You’ll make me proud, won’t you?”
“If you mean that I’ll fight to the best of my ability, yes.”
“Good, good.”
“I don’t like to lose,” I tell him.
“You and I are similar,” he says, clasping me around the shoulder, pulling me into him.
No we’re not, I think to myself. But this is an opportunity, not one I’m going to turn down.
Not to mention, I’ve got another motive for being diffident toward Glass, one that I’m sure he wouldn’t like.
“We’re nearly there,” he says. “Frank, go a little faster would you?”
The speakers in the back of the limo crackle to life again. “Right, boss.”
The car speeds up, and we take the bends breezily.
“There,” Glass says, pointing out the window. “That’s your home now.”
I see a huge house, three floors high with a… I don’t know the word… layered back garden. I see trees, like a small forest, and sitting on a bench I see a lone girl.
Dee.
My heart starts to quicken, and I swallow. The last time I saw her she was just a little girl, all of fifteen, nervous, insecure.
But even then she was pretty. It was plain as day that she was going to grow up to be a beautiful young woman. Those generous lips of her small mouth that sits above a soft chin, those big, black eyes, that voluminous, wavy hair, a light shade of brown, pulled back tight into a ponytail.
I blink myself out of the past, distantly wondering if my thoughts are wrong. I’m not insecure about what I think – I think what I do and I won’t apologize for it – but sometimes I still wonder. Was she too young? Was I too old?
It doesn’t matter. We’re both adults now.
“Your room will be upstairs, next to Deidre’s,” Dad tells me. “The third floor is off-limits, though. That’s where my office and bedroom are.”
Fair enough, it’s his fucking house.
“Now, do you have any questions?”
I think about asking him if I should stop wanting to fight, then what? But he strikes me as the kind of person who would inform me that I only stop fighting when he tells me to.
It’s better not to ask the question. When I’m ready to quit, I’ll do it and leave. It doesn’t escape me that he’s simply using me, and so I’ll use him in return, leave on my own terms.
I think about Deidre in Thailand. She said those exact words, that Glass was just using me. I make a mental note that she’s smart. She was right on the money. She saw straight through her father. She saw it before even I truly did.
Better play it straight with Dee.
I started calling her Dee in my head the moment I tried to write her that letter and realized I didn’t know how to spell her name. I tried anyway, knowing fully well I probably got it wrong.
There’s conflict in me, a kind of still storm. I haven’t stopped thinking about Dee, her face, her voice, her shy smile.
All this time, for every punch I took, for every kick I skipped over, for every jab I slapped away or took above the eye, she was in my mind. Not always consciously, not always right at the forefront, but still there.
If I wasn’t consciously thinking about her, I was definitely subconsciously doing so. Sometimes I’d wake up at night having dreamed about her.
I wondered what her life story was like, tried to piece it together from just the bits and bobs I had gleaned that day we met. An overbearing, asshole father who is a mob boss no doubt played a huge influence in her life.
But no sight of her mother. I guessed that that meant she didn’t have a mother, because I can’t imagine a mother not being there to protect her daughter from Glass.
He’s a capable man, of that I have little doubt. But his responsibilities do not lie with his daughter… of that I have even lesser doubt.
But in the end I realized I’d never be able to put together her story. The only way to ever truly know it was to meet her again.
And the only thing standing in the way of that was doing what Glass wanted. So I wasn’t just training to be the best fighter, I was training to ensure that I didn’t let down Glass, that I got glowing reports from my instructors.
Because I knew he would take me back to the States.
I knew, through him, I would get to see her again, learn more about her.
She’s become an obsession.
The limousine vibrates as we start crunching over the gravel of the driveway, and eventually we round a fountain with winged baby angels spitting water.
I can see her, standing there, hands in her pockets, looking awkward. It makes me smile. She’s grown more beautiful, more mature. It’s the only way I know how to describe it. She looks more like a woman now.
And I just can’t take my eyes off her. She makes me feel a kind of tense anticipation in my gut, makes my temperature rise. Just the brief glimpses I get as the car rounds the fountain, and I feel like I’m ready to burst.
We slow to a stop, Frank lumbers around, and as Glass gets out I struggle to look past him, to see Dee.
I finally catch a glimpse of her big, black eyes. I’m lost in them in an instant, swimming in her gaze, feel like I’m pulled to them by some magnetic force.
She breaks eye-contact, looks down at the ground, doesn’t look back up at me until we’re reintroduced by Glass.
I can’t take my eyes off her, and my heart hammers in my chest as we shake hands. I don’t want to let hers go, but she pulls her shy fingers from mine. She leaves my skin tingling.
Glass guides me into the house, but I keep looking at her over my shoulder. I smile at her, and for a moment she smiles back at me, and it’s like I’m shocked by the electric paddles doctors use to save lives. It hits me right in the chest, takes my breath away.
She leaves my world reeling as we walk inside the front door.
Glass takes me on the grand tour. I don’t pay a lick of attention.
Then we get to the gym. It’s first-class, better than anything I’ve ever seen, even on gym advertisements on the television.
I’m actually impressed, and when I see Glass grinning at me I can’t help but to smile back.
“It looks good,” I tell him.
He laughs, claps me on the back, then puts an arm around my shoulder.
“We’re going to make a lot of money,” he says. “And a legacy. You’re not my real son, you’re not my blood, but legally, you are my son. I expect, if you have any children of your own, they will carry the Marino name.”
I meet Glass’ eyes, and tell him slowly, “Children are a long way off for me.”
“Right, right,” he says, before hastening to add, “But make sure they are a consideration. Find yourself a woman, someone who will listen to you and not make trouble. Someone who’ll be happy if you just give her a child. This is important to me, Duncan, you understand?”
I make sure not to show any expression on my face, even if I find what he says outdated and disturbing.
Slowly, I give him a non-committal nod.
“Good, good.”
I keep my eyes level on his own. We stay locked for a moment, like two fighters measuring each other up before sparring.
“Right, well, this is your home now. Do as you please. But tomorrow we set off, remember.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“We’ll teach you how to fight old-school.”
“Got it, Glass.”
“You’re going to be the best, boy!” he says. He can barely contain his excitement again. I picture him rubbing his hands together like some cartoon villain staring at a stack of cash. “I’ve got some business to attend to.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll take you out tomorrow and we’ll get you some clothes before we set off. It’ll be a long drive.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I’m wearing everything I own.”
“You wear it better than me,” Glass says, rubbing his belly. “See you tomorrow morning.”
“Right.”
He walks off, and I stand in the gym alone for a moment, gazing around. Free weights, machines, treadmills, bikes, punching bags, supports for calisthenics, tires, medicine balls… it’s fully loaded.
It’s a God damn paradise for anyone who needs to train.
I need to train.
I turn around, leave the gym.
Find a girl, he said.
So I’m going to find Dee.