Casino Moon

60

AS SHE DUCKED THROUGH the ropes to begin herpromenade around the ring with the Round 10 card, Rosemary heard the assholes down in front make that “alley-oop” sound again.

A thousand dollars a seat and they behaved like the morons back at the club. CEOs, heads of insurance companies and law firms, for God’s sake. Men who’d built successful businesses. You’d think they’d never seen a half-dressed woman before. It didn’t help that her sequined red swimsuit was riding up her butt again and giving her a wedgie in back.

The television cameras swung past her without much interest. Her arms ached from holding the giant card and the hot lights were melting her makeup. The ring smelled from sweat and desperation. When she’d first agreed to put on this ridiculous costume, she’d somehow convinced herself it would impress Kimmy watching on TV at home. Not like being a soap opera actress maybe, but something for her daughter to be proud of: “My mommy was on TV.” But now she was starting to accept that she looked like a cheap Vegas showgirl. Hoping Kimmy was already in bed, she affected a hotsy-totsy walk like her pussy was a bowl with boiling soup threatening to spill over the sides.

She passed Elijah Barton’s corner and saw Anthony. Would he be around later to give her what he owed her? She wondered. She finally understood that nothing he’d ever told her was true. The run-in with his wife the other day had finished it forever between them. Forget it. Kimmy had enough stress without strange women lurking around her front door. When this was all over, Rosemary would take whatever money she could get and move to the West Coast, whether she could afford it or not. If she could put up with this headdress, she could survive on food stamps. Whatever.

She looked back at Barton’s corner. The fighter literally looked dead. It was as if someone had scraped out his insides. All that was left was a husk. The cut man shoved wads of cotton into his nose and took them out all violet and wet with blood.

Is that what being a man was all about? Taking physical punishment? Forget that too. She’d caught a few beatings in her time and the pain was nothing compared to childbirth. Men talked about blood and guts and going to war, but having a baby was more than that. It was war in reverse. Shoving all your guts aside to make room for the life and vital organs fusing, pulsing, and growing in your belly. What was the pain of losing a fight compared to the pain of losing a child?

But pain wasn’t the point of it, she was beginning to see. It wasn’t enough just to get by. The point was surviving with some part of yourself intact. And making it. Making it for yourself. Making it so your kids wouldn’t end up giving blow jobs in the back of Honda Preludes. She looked over at Terrence’s corner and saw his father and trainer Terrence Sr., trim and graying, kneading his son’s shoulders like he was trying to mold him into some exact replica of himself. Perhaps that was the main difference between men and women. A man was always trying to teach his son to be as tough and brutal as he was, so that one day he could turn around and say the kid just didn’t measure up. Leaving women to try and protect their daughters from these ferocious, frustrated boys.

What had she said to Anthony’s wife, that sad girl with the gun in her bag? You couldn’t depend on anyone else to rescue you. Rosemary had known that before. But she was only truly feeling it now.

She crossed one foot in front of the other and felt the muscle stretching from her hip to her thigh go as taut as a fishing line. She hoped she’d shaved high enough so there wasn’t any pubic hair showing at the bottom of her outfit. A couple of guys in the fourth row were pumping their fists in the air and making ape noises, so she wasn’t sure.

Fuck them. She was a survivor. She bared her teeth and jutted her hips out. Not even caring if her stomach bulged anymore.

She was coming up on Terrence’s corner. She wished she could climb out through the ropes right there, but then she figured he was too busy to notice. After all, he hadn’t said anything up to this point. His father was still giving him orders. Terrence had his mouthpiece out and his head turned half away, as though he wasn’t really listening. He was looking right at her now and his eyes narrowed a little.

She was sure he couldn’t really be seeing her. He had to be thinking about the fight and what was going to happen next. But she still had an eerie feeling like he was about to jump off his stool and come charging after her for the way she’d set him up. His father put his hands on the boy’s shoulders to get his attention, but Terrence kept glaring at her, even drawing his own lips back to show he still had his teeth. And when she was directly in front of him, he said something to her. At first, she couldn’t hear it above the crowd noise, and she hurried the rest of the way around the ring to get out sooner. But by the time she climbed out through the ropes, she’d put it together in her mind.

“You and me after this is all over, bitch,” he’d said. “We gotta go another round in the sack.”