CHAPTER TWO: Nick Patron

I could give you a hundred reasons why I hated Kyle Cassidy, but that would take up too much of your time and mine, so I’ll just give you the main reason.

Kyle Cassidy is an arrogant prick who goes out of his way to be a thorn in my side; personally, and professionally. Our companies often do business together, albeit reluctantly on my part. My company, Patron Sports Entertainment (PSE), stages mixed martial arts tournaments all over the country. MMA, it’s called. It’s the hottest thing going. Millions of people around the globe tune in to watch MMA bouts on ESPN, and millions more fill huge arenas to see rock hard men (and women) beat the living shit out of each other for prize money, a title, and a gaudy gold belt.

I got into MMA ten years ago as a heavyweight fighter. It was a natural progression, given that I had spent most of my life fighting on the streets for free and in back alleys for bets. Remember that old Clint Eastwood movie where he was paid to fight guys in junkyards and in empty warehouses? Well, that was me. I’d take on all comers for a couple hundred bucks, then I’d immediately blow that on booze, coke, and pussy. Very quickly I’d be right back where I’d started; broke, angry, and alone. It was after one such fight that I met Jesse Rose, the man who would change my life.

I had never given fighting professionally a moment’s thought until I walked into that seedy bar one night and struck up a conversation with Jesse, an older black gentleman who looked like he’d spent considerable time in the ring, given the crook of his nose and thickness of his brow. He had just watched me knock out a guy with one punch in the alley behind the bar and asked if I’d ever thought about fighting professionally. I said no and he told me that he trained boxers and MMA fighters. He said he would pay me a couple hundred dollars a week to spar with his fighters. And if I was interested, he would train me to fight. I said I already knew how to fight. He said I knew how to brawl maybe, but not fight. That got me interested right way. I can punch guys and make money? Shit, man, sign me up.

The next day, I met Jesse at the gym where he trained his fighters. He wrapped my hands and laced on boxing gloves and told me to get in the ring with a skinny black kid who looked like he wouldn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. I was big and muscular, covered in tattoos and scars. I was strong as an ox and hit like one. I figured I’d make short work of the skinny black kid and prove to Jesse that I did indeed know how to fight.

When Jesse rang the bell, I moved in quickly on the skinny kid and found out that I wasn’t the powerhouse in the ring that I was in the street. The kid bobbed to one side, hit me once in the jaw and once in the nose. That was it. I went down like a ton of bricks with blood gushing out of my nose.

I learned three things that afternoon: one, even though I could street brawl with the best of them, I didn’t have a clue how to fight in the ring. Two, getting your nose broken hurts like a motherfucker and produces an inordinate amount of blood. And three, getting your nose broken by a skinny kid half your size can be pretty fucking humiliating.

I remembered Jesse standing at the side of the ring with his thick arms looped over the ropes, laughing his ass off as I struggled to sit up like a toddler waking from his nap. Turned out, the skinny black kid was Jesse’s son Jimmy, a golden gloves champion at the ripe old age of nineteen. Jimmy hooked his gloves under my arms and helped get me to my feet, then went off to find some other cocky asshole to teach a lesson to.

“You okay?” Jesse asked, not bothering to hide the grin on his battered face. He handed me a dirty towel and told me to wipe the blood off my face. “Boy hits like a fucking bull, don’t he?”

“Boy hits like a fucking Mac truck,” I said, wiping my nose on the towel.

Jesse’s head bobbed. “You rushed in and he put you on your ass.”

I gave him the bloody towel, then cupped my chin and worked my jaw back and forth. I tried to act tough. “It was a lucky shot.”

He chuckled. “It was two lucky shots.”

I smiled. It hurt. “Yeah.”

Jesse put his hands on my cheeks and peered down his nose to look me in the eyes. “You’re okay. Just got your bell run a little. Hold still.” He put his thumbs on each side of my nose and gave it a quick twist. I heard a pop and felt searing pain and saw flashbulbs popping before my eyes. I thought I was gonna vomit. Jesse put his hands on my shoulders to keep me from falling over, then picked up a trash can and shoved it at me.

“Hock and spit,” he said. I wiped the tears from my eyes and sniffed back the blood that was filling my nose, then spat blood and snot in the trashcan.

I wiped my mouth on the back of my arm. “Thanks. I’m okay now.”

Jesse leaned back against the ring and crossed his arms over his chest. He narrowed his eyes at me. “You really wanna learn how to fight MMA or are you just fucking around?”

“I really wanna learn,” I said.

His expression told me he wasn’t convinced. “You willing to put in the hard work? Workouts every day? Sparring, weights, road work. Do everything I say?”

“Yes.”

“No more staying out all night? Give up the booze and dope? No pussy except on weekends? Stop fighting in back alleys for chump change?”

My head bobbed to his words. I said, “Yes, goddammit. yes. You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Jesse eyed me for a moment, then put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face the ring. “Okay, then, get your ass back in there and this time don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”

Jesse was a hell of a trainer and I was a quick, eager learner. It helped that I was 6’4 and two-hundred-thirty pounds of hard muscle. My first year I won ten amateur fights, all within three rounds. The second year I won ten professional bouts against ranked fighters. I worked my way up the rankings and midway through my third year, I knocked out the reigning world champ and took the belt. I was the MMA champion of the world.

Within six months I had successfully defended my belt twice, then I climbed into the octagon with an Irish fighter named Danny O’Shea. Danny O, they called him. He called himself Danny O’Shit.

“People see me coming and they say ‘O’Shit!’, he told ESPN in his backstreet Irish brogue.

Needless to say, we were not friends.

Danny O was 6’4 and three hundred pounds, a goddamn Irish bull that loved to trample his opponents into the mat and knock them out with sleeper holds that refs had to force him to break. He was a sadistic motherfucker and a cheap shot artist. In the third round, he hooked a right fist around the ref when he was trying to break us up and hit me squarely in the temple. I went down like a sack of potatoes and didn’t get back up. It was the blow that ended my fight career and almost cost me my life. Jesse and Jimmy had to carry me out of there. I woke up three days later in a head trauma unit with all kinds of wires and shit hooked up to me. It hurt like a motherfucker just to open my eyes.

“We were worried you might not wake up, Mr. Patron,” the doctor said, flipping through my medical chart. He was standing at the foot of my hospital bed with Jesse by his side. Jesse had his knit cap between his hands, nervously kneading it. He looked tired. His brown eyes were bloodshot. I’d never seen him look so defeated before. Never.

“We thought you might be braindead,” Jesse said with a little quiver in his voice.

“That would require me to have a brain,” I said. My voice was barely above a hoarse whisper. I tried to laugh, but it made my head throb and my throat burn.

The doctor closed my medical chart and tucked it under his arm. “We’ll monitor you for a few days to make sure there’s no bleeding in the brain that we’ve missed,” he said. He glanced at Jesse and nodded at me. “He needs rest. Don’t stay long.”

“Yes, sir,” Jesse said, giving him a respectful nod.

“Water,” I whispered.

Jesse filled a plastic cup from a pitcher of water on the tray and put a hand behind my neck to lift me up.

“Drink it slow,” he said, carefully tilting the cup to my lips. “Then, get some rest. The doc says rest is the best thing for you.”

“The best thing for me is to get the fuck out of here,” I said, swallowing, wincing at the pain of the water sliding down my throat. It felt like I was swallowing fucking razor blades. “Did they give that cocksucker my belt?”

He gave me a confused frown. “What cocksucker you talking about?”

“Fucking O’Shea,” I said. “Did they give him my belt?”

“Naw, they disqualified him.”

I managed a smile. “Good. So, I’m still champ.” I tried to shake my head, but it hurt too much, so I lay back and closed my eyes. “Fucking O’Shit. I’ll take care of that son of a bitch as soon as I get out of here.”

Jesse didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say. He knew I’d never fight again. He just didn’t have the nerve to tell me because he didn’t wanna break my heart. He sat down in the chair by the window and watched TV as I drifted off to sleep.

The next day the doctor returned with x-rays and a death sentence. He told me that if I ever got hit in the head again it would probably kill me, or at the very least, render me braindead. I said bullshit. He said call it whatever I wanted, I was one good lick in the head away from the grave.

I told him to get the fuck out. I told Jesse to leave. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. For the next few days I went through the stages of grief over my dead career; shock, denial, pain, anger, bargaining, depression… but mostly anger since that was the emotion I was most comfortable with.

Slowly, grudgingly, I accepted the fact that I would never set foot in the octagon to fight again.

I wanted to fight, but I also wanted to live.

So, I quit fighting and started putting on bouts featuring up and coming fighters that Jesse and a few others trained. I put on boxing matches and MMA tournaments all over the city, then all over the state, then all over the country. Slowly, the fighters got better and the purses got larger and the crowds got bigger. That led to the founding of Patron Sports Entertainment, which today is a twenty-million-dollar company with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo. We put on MMA events all over the world.

I am no longer a fighter, but I am one rich motherfucker.

So is Jesse. He just doesn’t show off about it like I do.

And I owe it all to Danny O’Shit, that Irish cocksucker who ended my career with a cheap shot to the head. Danny was eventually drummed out of every MMA organization for his dirty tactics. Today he is Kyle Cassidy’s personal bodyguard.

But I digress…

I was telling you why I hated Kyle Cassidy. The fact that he employs Danny O’Shit was just an interesting side note.

So, like I was saying, my company, Patron Sports Entertainment puts on boxing matches and MMA tournaments all over the country and they usually go without a hitch. Kyle’s company, or more accurately, his daddy’s company, Cassidy Event Management, was the booking agent for every big venue in the city, which meant to put on an event at the city arena or city stadium, I had to deal with Kyle and his band of merry idiots.

Dealing with Kyle was kind of like the old story of the frog and the scorpion. Here’s the short version: the scorpion wanted to cross the river but knew it would drown, so it talked the frog into taking it across.

“But you are a scorpion,” the frog said. “How do I know you won’t sting me and kill me as we cross the river?”

“Because if I sting and kill you, I will drown, too,” the scorpion said.

So, the scorpion climbs onto the frog’s back and the frog begins to swim across the river. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog and the frog starts to die.

“But why would you do that?” the frog asked. “Now you will die, too.”

“I know,” said the scorpion. “But that’s what I do. I am a scorpion. It’s just my nature.”

In this scenario, Kyle Cassidy was the scorpion and the rest of the world was populated by frogs he would not hesitate to shove his stinger into. I didn’t like being a frog. I wanted to be a large boot that squashed the shit out of the scorpion.

He stung me good earlier today. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about it. We were in his office reviewing the contract for a big event I wanted to stage in the city in the fall.

“This is bullshit,” I said after reading the latest addendum to the standard contract I would sign to rent the city arena for an MMA event in a few months. Under Kyle’s terms, a hundred thousand dollars of my money, a so-called “gratuity fee”, would find its way into Kyle’s pockets even before the event was staged. I booked two or three events in the city every year and each time the gratuity fee grew.

“It’s the cost of doing business in my city, Nicky,” Kyle said with a shrug, making it sound like he owned the fucking city and everyone in it. O’Shit was there, standing off to the side with his thick arms folded over his chest, glowering at me with eyes that sometimes acted independently of one another.

“This isn’t your city, Kyle,” I said, giving him a hard look that made him roll his eyes. “And this is highway robbery.”

“It is what it is,” Kyle said, waving a hand at me as if I were a bad smell that had wafted into his office. “Sign it or don’t. But those are the best terms we can offer you. The price is based on market demand. If you don’t want to book the arena that weekend I’m sure I can find another place for you. Maybe the old National Guard Armory across the river. I hear it’s pretty nice this time of year if you can ignore the mold and rats.”

“You’re a cunt, Kyle,” I said.

“I am a cunt who holds the keys to the city, Nicky,” he said, smiling as the insult rolled off his back like water off a duck. He leaned back in his chair and began to rock. He was wearing a heavy gold Rolex and a black onyx pinky ring on his left hand. He played with the ring, spinning it on his finger as he waited patiently for me to sign the contract. Who the fuck wears pinky rings? Who did this asshole think he was? Tony fucking Soprano?

We both knew Kyle had me over a barrel. I had no choice but to sign the agreement and pay his price. Cocksucker. I picked up the pen and leaned over his desk to scratch my name on the contract. I tossed the pen on the desk and slid the contract toward him.

“Awesome,” he said with a smile. He leaned forward and picked up the contract, then flipped to the signature page to make sure I’d signed my name. The first time we’d done this dance I’d written FUCK YOU in big letters across the signature line. Kyle casually pulled out a fresh copy of the contract and told me to try again. Motherfucking cocksucker.

“All we need is your check for fifty percent of the rental fee up front and I can have our lawyers send you a copy of the fully endorsed contract. And as always, the gratuity fee needs to be paid by separate check, also up front.”

“I know the process,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “You’ve fucked me before.”

“And I’m sure I’ll fuck you again,” he said, grinning at O’Shit. “You’re just so much fun to fuck, Nicky. Isn’t Nicky fun to fuck, Danny?”

“I enjoyed fuckin’ him,” O’Shit growled. “I’d love to fuck him again.”

My hands balled into tight fists in my lap. I wanted to slam my fist into O’Shit’s fucking face so hard it came out the back side holding his pathetic brain. Then I’d shove O’Shit’s brain down Kyle’s fucking throat until he choked on it. It was not a new fantasy. I had it every time I had to deal with these two motherfuckers.

Kyle got to his feet and stuck out his right hand. “Thanks for doing business with Cassidy Event Management, Mr. Patron. We hope you have a very successful event and a lovely day.”

“Fuck you,” I said, pushing out of the chair and walking to the door. O’Shit grunted at me as I walked past him. He reeked of cigar smoke and cheap cologne.

“Oh, Nicky, I almost forgot,” Kyle said. “I have an invitation for you.” He handed a white envelope to O’Shit who handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I asked, holding up the envelope, which had my name embossed on the front in gold leaf.

“A VIP invitation to the charity benefit my parents are holding tonight at the Ritz,” he said, lowering himself back into the chair. “Wounded vets or sick kids or something like that. My mom asked me specifically to give it to you.” He gave me a condescending smile. “For some reason, she likes you. Or more to the point, she likes your money.”

I wanted to tear the invitation into a hundred pieces and shove them down his throat, but I tucked it inside my jacket instead and opened the door.

“Should I tell her you’ll be attending?” he asked, lacing his fingers together on the desk and leaning over them. “I know you’d hate to disappoint the old girl.”

“Will you be there, Kyle?” I asked. “With your pet gorilla?”

He chuckled and cut his eyes at O’Shit. “Fuck no. We’ve got better things to do.”

“Fine. Tell her I’ll come.”