September 1991

––––––––

Jesus Christ, Sherman was going to kill that kid. “Stay down, kid, stay down,” Maverick muttered under his breath, moving around the edge of the circle, trying to get close enough so the kid would hear him. He needed somebody in his corner.

But the kid got up. He was a bloody, broken, swollen mess, but he kicked out and knocked Sherman back, and he got to his feet. He was making some weird kind of noise, like a wobbly howl—or maybe he was crying.

Then Maverick got close enough, and he understood that the kid was laughing. Blood ran from his mouth in streams, and from his forehead in a rush, his face looked like the Elephant Man already, but through all that, the kid was back on his feet, laughing and swinging wildly. It was like he wasn’t trying to hit Sherman so much as keep him pissed off—like he wanted that tank to roll over him.

Sherman was happy to oblige. He unloaded both barrels and landed a monstrous right jab straight on the kid’s chin, and that was it. He went down flopping like dying fish. He was out.

No, he wasn’t—shit, he was trying to get up again, and, seeing that, Sherman dropped down and sent a flurry of fists, rocketing back and forth into the kid’s head and shoulders. The kid was trying to get up, not protecting himself at all.

Maverick had been fighting in this underground league for a couple of years, and there were some crazy-ass motherfuckers who liked to fight bare-knuckle with few rules, but he’d never seen anybody like this kid—he’d still be trying to get up ten minutes after his heart stopped.

This was nuts. He jumped into the center of the circle. “ENOUGH!” While the crowd around them, wild with blood thirst, booed, he hooked an arm around Sherman’s neck and got under his chin until he had him in a rear naked choke. “Back off, man. Back off. You’re gonna kill the kid.” The kid who was still trying to keep going. Jesus.

Sherman grunted and fought the hold, trying to pull Maverick’s arms loose. But he’d fought Sherman and won three times—he was likely due to fight him again tonight—and he knew his tells.

Finally, Sherman backed off, and Maverick eased up just enough to let him talk. “If he wants to die, what d’I care?” he gasped.

“Cops, man. It’s a mess. You won. Kid’s too crazy to know he’s knocked out.”

That got through, and Sherman relaxed and nodded. Maverick let him go to take his victory, and he went to the kid, who was still trying to get his feet under him. When Maverick crouched before him, he took a blind swing and dealt him a glancing blow in the temple.

“Easy, idiot. I’m trying to help you.”

“No help!”

The words were almost too slurred to be understood, but he was still trying to fucking fight. Maverick grabbed the kid’s head and tried to make him see him. Inside their swollen lids, his eyes were wild and unfocused. Shit, he really was crazy.

All around them, the crowd was yelling, and Montgomery, the guy who organized these fights, stood over Maverick, shouting for him to get this loco, half-dead boy up and out of the way.

“Kid! Look at me! C’mon. It’s over. You’re not dying tonight. What’s your name?”

“Fuck you!”

“Yeah? That’s your name? Your mama sure hated you, didn’t she?”

“She’s dead, asshole!”

Maverick winced, sorry he’d made that verbal jab—but the kid had made sense reacting to it, so he was coming back. His body was settling down, too. Maverick shoved his shoulder under the kid’s arm, hooked his arm around his back, and heaved him to his feet.

“C’mon, kid. Let’s find a place to clean you up and get your head on again.”

“Where the fuck’re you goin’ Mav?” Montgomery got in his way. “You’re taking on the top contender tonight—two more fights before that.”

“Not tonight, Monty. Tonight I’m cleaning up your mess. You should’ve stopped this one ten minutes before I did. Kid’s near dead.”

Maverick had once killed a man with a punch, but that had been in a professional ring, with rules and procedures, and he’d unfortunately hit just the right—just the wrong—spot full-force and broken the man’s jaw and neck at the same time. He’d been dead, wide-eyed, when he hit the mat.

Beautiful Ben Brodsky. Twenty years old. And never older.

Maverick had been Rumblin’ Ricky Helm back then, boxing in a regional division, trying to make his name—and starting to get noticed. He himself had been twenty-five—still young, but not for much longer, by boxing standards.

He’d picked up boxing at an after-school program in middle school, trying to put off going back to the group home for as long as he could every day. The home hadn’t been some horror house, it had been decent as far as places like that went, but it had been relentlessly chaotic, and he’d liked having something that was his.

He’d known a lot of men fighting a lot of ways for a lot of reasons—and some women, too. For all the years he’d been swinging his fists, he’d never seen anybody chase death the way this kid had tonight.

Montgomery made to block him again, and Maverick stood at his full height, still propping the kid up. “Do not fuck with me, Monty. I’ll be back another night. You can keep my buy-in for tonight. I’m getting the kid out of here.”

When Monty cleared out, Maverick dragged the kid to the edge of the circle and waited for the group—about fifty men looking to scrap on an abandoned parking lot at the farthest northern reaches of Tulsa—to part and give him passage.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

“You ready to tell me your name?” He handed the ice bag to the kid, who took it and pressed it to his left eye, which was all kinds of fucked up.

Shawna, one of the Bulls’ sweetbutts, who didn’t live far from the fight location, tightened her silky robe and lit up a smoke. She leaned against her kitchen counter and watched Maverick trying to get through to the kid.

He’d had his bike at the fights, and he’d known he wouldn’t go far with the kid hanging off his arm. So he’d dragged him to a phone booth and called for some help.

“Max.”

“Hey—we’re getting somewhere. I’m Maverick. Shawna here’s being nice enough to let you use up all her first aid supplies and sleep on her sofa tonight so you can get your feet under you a little bit. You have a car out at the fights? Or a bike?”

“Car.”

“Good. She’ll get you back to it tomorrow. If you’re not ready to drive, I’ll come back up and get you home.”

“Why?” He bent his head over the Tupperware bowl Shawna had put on the table and spat out a wad of thickening blood, into a deepening pool of the same. Behind them, Shawna made a grunt of disgust.

“Seems like you need a friend.”

“Fuck off.”

Maverick had grown up in foster care from the time he was four, all of that time in the boys’ home. He had intimate knowledge of all the different suits of armor boys in pain wore. So he only chuckled.

“Okay, Max. We got you as cleaned up as we’re going to, I think. And Shawna’s got her sofa made up all comfy for you. You need help getting over there?”

He shook his head.

Maverick stood. “It feels like hell, I know. I’ve been there, too. But it’s never as bad as it feels. If you can keep your head down and get through, just lean in and put your shoulder to each day, you’ll come up on a day that’s not so bad. Then one that’s pretty good. If you keep going, keep fighting, maybe you’ll get to have a great day. But you gotta fight to win, Max.”

“Fuck off,” the kid said again.

He wasn’t a kid—he’d been fighting bare-chested, as most of them did, and he had a fair amount of ink, far more than Maverick. Sitting here tending to his many wounds, Maverick had had opportunity to study some of the work. Most of it was shitty quality, but a few were well done. One of the better pieces was military—some kind of Army insignia, with a battalion number and the words Operation Desert Shield/Operation Desert Storm under it. Desert Storm had gone down earlier that year—Max wasn’t long out of the service, and he’d seen action, so he was no kid.

It had been a short war, with few American casualties, but they’d done some significant damage to their enemies. Maybe that was this poor guy’s pain. Maybe he had blood on his hands. That was no easy burden, even when there wasn’t much blame.

“I’ll see you, Max. Get some sleep.”

Shawna followed him to the door, and he caught her hand and pulled her close for a kiss. “Thanks, sweetheart. I know this is a lot to ask.”

She smiled and pushed firmly up against him. “I don’t mind, Mav. It’s sweet you thought of me for help.”

He kissed her again, lingering this time, to show her he appreciated the help. Then he set her back. “Call the clubhouse if you need anything. I’ll crash there tonight and check in in the morning, if I haven’t heard from you.”

“That’s fine. Mav—can I ask you somethin’?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“It don’t seem like you know this guy.”

“I don’t—but I think you’re safe. He’s in no shape to do you any wrong.”

“I know—I ain’t worried about that. Poor guy’s a mess. But...why’re you doin’ all this for him? You don’t know him, and it don’t seem like he’s grateful.”

Why was he doing all this? He hadn’t taken the time yet to think about it. Maybe it was guilt for Ben Brodsky, ending that young life and all its potential. Maybe it was seeing the kid’s crazy death wish and remembering the boys like that he’d grown up with. Maybe it was like when he was a kid and he’d find a stray dog in the neighborhood—he’d go door to door all over the place, sometimes miles from the home, looking for where it belonged.

Yeah, it was that, all of it. He was a sucker for lost things. He’d been one himself.

He looked back at the broken man slumped at Shawna’s table. “Just trying to do some good where I can, sweetheart.”