Out of the Woods: Stories

Tough People

The bell rang for the first round and I stepped across the canvas holding the red gloves high to guard my face. The crowd was rooting for my opponent, a big Indian with plenty of reach. All I could do was duck, go inside, and go to work. I’d never fought before and I was scared.

We circled each other and I blocked two jabs, then dodged a roundhouse right. The only rules were no kicking, biting, or elbows. Blurred tattoos covered his chest and arms. He came at me again. I ducked and popped him in the face, and the jolt went up my arm and into my body. I stung him twice more the same way. My mouth was dry. It seemed like we’d been fighting for hours. He led with his jab and I ducked again, but this time he was waiting for me. His haymaker got me on the temple and I felt two days pass.

When I woke up, the cornerman was removing the gloves. He led me out of the ring to a folding chair. I sat there breathing hard, mad at myself. A little piece of my mind wondered if Lynn had run off with the guy who’d beat me, but I knew that was bad luck talking in my head. Bad luck was how I got here, and now my luck had dipped again.

Lynn dropped into the chair beside me. She doesn’t sit in a regular way. She gets near a chair and lets gravity pull her onto the seat. It’s her only bad habit.

“Are you hurt?” she said.

“I’ll have a shiner.”

“I wish I took some pictures.”

“Where you been?”

“I signed up for tomorrow.”

“I’m out of it. You only get one chance.”

“Not you,” she said. “I signed up for the Tough Woman Contest.”

“No way.”

“Way,” she said. “There’s only three women so I’m automatically in the finals. I get five hundred bucks for stepping in the ring. We can go back to Billings.”

She and I had been traveling together before we went broke here in Great Falls. Entering the Montana Tough Man Contest had seemed like a good way to raise bus fare out of town. Now it just seemed stupid.

Lynn held my arm as we walked to the motel, and after a quick shower, we put that mattress through its paces. I guess the main reason we were together was sex. I know that has a bad sound to it, like we’re just wild, but that’s not exactly true. I’d left Kentucky a while back and was a cook at the same diner where she worked as a waitress. She was a photographer, but had pawned her camera to cover our motel bill. We’d been hanging out for two weeks. We got along okay. We talked. It’s just that our bodies could sing.

In the morning my eye was puffed and black as a burnt biscuit. I’m not even an athlete, let alone a fighter, and my body was pretty sore. Lynn went out for coffee while I took a long bath. The notion of her fighting for money went against my raisings. It made me feel responsible for her and I didn’t want that. Neither of us did. We just wanted to be free.

She came back to the room and held her hands in front of her face, thumbs touching, fingers pointing up. She tilted her head and squinted. It was how she practiced taking pictures.

“That would make a good photograph,” she said. “The boxer in the tub.”

“I don’t want you to fight,” I said.

“It’s not up to you.”

“I ain’t trying to tell you what to do, Lynn. Going broke was my fault and I hate you had to hock your camera.”

“Get off it,” she said. “I bought it used. I’ll get a better one next.”

“We could sell our blood,” I said. “Maybe volunteer for medical tests.”

“It’ll take too long. I can make a half a grand in three minutes.”

“It just ain’t right. A woman ain’t supposed to fight for a man.”

“What’s fair for you is fair for me. Besides, I might win. We’ll get two thousand cash and have a great life. This is just a rough patch. Even rich people have it rough sometimes.”

“I reckon.”

“Let’s pretend we are rich,” she said. “Let’s just think that way and act accordingly.”

“First thing is to get a fancy camera.”

“I’ll take a thousand pictures of you a day. That’s like twenty-five rolls.”

I got out of the tub and dried myself while she practiced taking pictures, squatting to change angles, and making a whirring sound as she advanced the film. Even though she was faking, I felt embarrassed by a nude shot.

“Let’s go to Seattle,” she said. “Everybody I know is moving there.”

“It’s your money.”

“No, it’s ours. There’s better jobs there.”

We laughed and talked and made plans to open a photo gallery and diner in Seattle. It would be old style, with good food cheap. Lynn’s pictures would hang on the walls, and the menu would be shaped like a negative with holes along the side. We’d have specials called F-Stop Burger, and Zoom Lens Soup. Photographers and Kentuckians could eat there free.

Lynn needed rest and I took a walk. The sky was haired over solid grey. There was no sun, just a dull light, and I figured snow was coming. Great Falls reminded me of towns in Kentucky that hadn’t changed since the fifties. The buildings were low and made of stone, and people strolled from store to store. I thought about home and wished I’d never left. Kentucky’s idea of a tough man contest is to get through the season at hand.

In a pawnshop window was a camera that came with a bunch of lenses. I wanted to buy it all and go back to the room and throw the whole rig on the bed. That would make Lynn and me square. I hated the idea of owing somebody. I stood there for a long time thinking that having money gave you freedom, but getting the money took freedom away. What I needed was luck.

I started worrying that Lynn might get hurt in the fight, break her nose or lose a tooth — and blame me. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. Inside I felt like I was about to bust, but there was nowhere for me to go with it.

I went back to the motel and stopped at the bar. It was called the Sip & Dip, and had a tropical decor with plastic parrots, bamboo walls, and fake torches. Any minute you expected a cannibal to jump out at you. An older couple was arguing at a table shaped like a kidney bean. A tall man about forty came in, ordered a whiskey ditch, and began talking to me. He was from Mississippi. His southern accent made me feel good, as if I were talking to a countryman.

“Luck always turns,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do when you’re running bad but develop yourself a leather ass. How did you happen to be here for the Tough Man Contest?”

“I borrowed a car from a guy at work. Me and Lynn wanted to get out of Billings and run around.”

He told the bartender to bring a couple of drinks.

“On me,” he said. “You’re a guy who needs a lot of outs right now.”

“You know I can’t buy the next round.”

“There was a time when all I owned was on my back. So you and Lynn were on the loose.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We had a couple hundred bucks and four days off from work. We’re thinking maybe we’ll hit the Chico Hot Springs when bang, we’re pulled over by the Highway Patrol. I’m sober and we’re not carrying dope, so I’m not worried. I’m good with cops, I say yes sir and no sir, and all that. They have a tough job. I respect that because my job ain’t the best. When you’re a cook, everything will cut you or burn you.”

He said he understood. The older couple who’d been arguing were kissing now, pecking at each other’s faces like a pair of chickens.

“Do you live here?” I said.

“No. I have a cabin up in Big Sandy. I’ll do some bird hunting this week.”

“There’s a river in Kentucky with the same name.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” he said. He looked at me like he was gauging worth. “Is Lynn beautiful?”

“Definitely.”

“Beautiful women make me fear death.”

I sat and studied on that for a while. Dying never scared me, but life does every day. I couldn’t tell him that, though. I wondered if he was sick with some disease, or maybe he was older than I thought.

“What’s your name,” I said.

“Jack,” he said. “Jack King. I’m in the deck.”

“I don’t get you.”

“A deck of cards.”

“Is that your real name?”

He gave the bartender the sign for more drinks. The older couple had quit smooching and seemed to be resting. Keno machines blinked in the corner.

“I’m a gambler,” Jack said. “I’ve been down to those riverboats in Louisiana for quite some time. I like to come up here and hunt and play a little poker.”

“Whereabouts do you play?”

“The Butte game goes all night.”

“Is that what you like?”

“The minute you sit down, you have to be willing to play for days. You could learn from that.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You need to cowboy up.”

“I’m doing the best I can. It just don’t feel right to have your girlfriend out fighting for money.”

“I once had a girlfriend who worked as a dancer in a topless joint. It was the worst two weeks of my life, but she made a bankroll to choke a horse. We had a nice run.”

He twisted a heavy gold ring, and I noticed that he wore them on the last two fingers of each hand. He spoke without looking at me. “You never finished telling about that cop pulling you over.”

“Well, that’s when everything just went to hell in a handcart. The guy I borrowed the car from had stolen it. The cops held me in jail for three days until they found him. Lynn had to stay in a motel. When I got out, we pretty much blew the rest of our money at karaoke night downtown.”

Behind the bar was a glass window that looked into the deep end of the motel pool. You couldn’t see past the surface of the water, which made the swimmers seem headless. A pair of pale legs floated past the window and I recognized them as belonging to Lynn. She wore a black one-piece. I liked watching her, knowing she didn’t know I was there.

The older couple was working on another drink. He was singing to her, one of those old songs you don’t hear anymore, and I imagined Lynn and me still together at their age. Jack was right. Things were about to change.

“In your line,” I said, “you must learn a lot about luck.”

“I knew a gambler who ran into a losing streak for three months down in Reno. By the end of it, he’d sold his watch, ring, and belt buckle. He owed money to everyone he knew. He sublet his place and slept in his car. Then he sold his car and kept playing. Out of the blue he got so lucky he could piss in a swinging jug. Won a hundred grand in two days.”

“Wow,” I said.

I wondered if Jack’s story was about himself. He told it in a personal way, as if recounting the good old days.

“Tell me,” he said, “do people bet on these fights?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seeing as how you’re on the ankle express, I’ll give you a ride over there. Meet me in the lobby at six-thirty.”

He left and I wished I could go somewhere and start all over, which is how I’ve felt all my life. As soon as I get somewhere, I’m ready to leave. I finished my drink and went back to the room, where Lynn was sitting in bed. There was an intent look on her face that I’d only seen during the height of breakfast rush at the diner.

“Hey,” I said, “I got us a ride.”

“Borrow another car?”

“I met this guy who said he’d give us a lift. You’ll like him.”

“I’m not in a frame of mind to like anyone.”

“You don’t have to fight.”

“I don’t see any choice.”

“We can get restaurant jobs here. In a month we’ll be in Seattle.”

“I don’t care about Seattle,” she said. “I just want out of this hotel, this town, and everything else. I don’t care how.”

She looked at me like I was her enemy. I could see she wanted privacy so I stayed in the bathroom until time to meet Jack. I didn’t know if she was getting mad because she had to fight, or so she could fight. Either way, it gave me a bad feeling.

We met Jack in the lobby at six, and when I introduced them, she wouldn’t talk. We went outside to his car. I’d never been in a Cadillac before and it was not something I minded. I’ve heard they can go anywhere a pickup can go. We followed the Missouri River to a filling station with a store attached. I asked if he wanted me to gas it up, and he shook his head and went inside. Lynn stared through the windshield at a neon sign that glowed orange. I tried to think of something to say. Jack came back with two quarts of water, an energy bar, a box of band-aids, and a ballpoint pen. He made Lynn eat and drink.

We parked at the fairgrounds and walked across the lot to the arena. Jack was talking to her in a low voice, his arm across her shoulders like a coach. It was a nice night, the clear sky covered by stars like dew. At times I missed Kentucky, but never at night. When I couldn’t see the land out there, I forgot I wasn’t at home. Sometimes I wished it was always night.

We checked Lynn in, then went to the fighters’ area, which was just some metal chairs in the corner. The center of the arena held a boxing ring on a platform, surrounded by rows of people who’d paid extra to sit close. Along two sides were rising sets of bleachers. The lights gleamed above the ring. Jack used three band-aids to build a strip across Lynn’s nose, holding it open to get more air. He told her not to drink the water yet, and walked away. I sat beside her.

“You scared?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Jack said it was okay to be scared. He said if I wasn’t, there was something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I don’t want to get hurt.”

“The gloves are thick and the headgear covers you. Plus women wear that belly pad.”

“They’re still hitting you.”

“The time goes fast, Lynn.”

I looked away when I said that because it was a big fat lie. That round I fought was the slowest minute of my life. It felt like a month of Sundays.

“Whatever happens,” I said, “you just remember I’m right here and I always will be.”

She looked at me with an odd expression on her face, then stood and began to stretch. I walked to the concession stand. The arena was jammed with Indians and I looked them over carefully. They dressed like people in the hills at home — flannel shirts, jeans, boots, and work jackets — men and women alike. Quite a few wore glasses. I thought maybe Indians just had bad eyes, until I remembered that a lot of people at home wore glasses because they couldn’t afford contact lenses. I wondered if it was the same here.

The first bout had just ended. The fighters left the ring to sit with their families. Smoking was not allowed, but you could drink beer, and a few people were already staggering. A couple of young men gave me dirty looks for being white, until they saw my black eye. Then they said hello.

The guy who knocked me out stopped and shook my hand. He was a little bit drunk. His name was Alex. He wore a rodeo buckle and fancy cowboy boots. His long braids were tied together behind his neck.

“I lost the last fight last night,” he said.

“I didn’t see it.”

“Came all the way from Browning to find a man who hits as hard as my horse kicks.”

“Well,” I said, “ours was a good fight.”

“You got your licks in.”

“You won it.”

“Yes,” he said, “even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.”

The P.A. announced the women’s finals. When I got to Lynn, Jack was already there, rubbing her shoulders and whispering in her ear. He’d used the pen he’d bought to write on her fists. Her left hand carried the word “kiss,” and her right hand said “kill.” He was telling her to jab with the left, kissing her opponent on the mouth, then kill her with the right.

We walked Lynn to the ring. She wasn’t blinking.

“Go for the face,” Jack said. “Keep your chin down and your eyes open. Circle but don’t back up. Say this over and over — kiss, kiss, kill.”

She nodded and climbed the stepladder to the ring. The other fighter was a short Indian woman with a powerful body. I knew Lynn would lose and I felt awful for having put her there. If I hadn’t left Kentucky, she’d be with a guy who had more to offer.

The bell rang. The crowd was yelling, and the announcer chanted into his microphone, “Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” The Indian woman moved slowly, waiting to see what Lynn would do. Lynn’s little white legs looked pathetic below the torso pad. She wore her swimsuit, and I wished she was still in the pool, that they were fighting in the water where Lynn would have a chance. They circled each other three times. Jack stood beside me muttering, “Kiss, kiss, kill.”

The people in the crowd were yelling for blood. Lynn’s fists were up and her chin was down, and suddenly she jumped through the air, swinging both fists wildly at the woman’s head. Lynn connected two or three times before the woman shoved her away and hit her in the face, opening a cut above her eye. When I saw the red smear, my guts just folded up on themselves.

The doctor called time and the referee took the fighters to neutral corners. The doctor examined the cut, put ointment on it, and left the ring. Lynn had a look I’d seen when a customer stiffed her at the diner. She was mad. The other woman just looked serious, like she could face a sideways ice storm and walk all night. She moved forward a step at a time. Everybody in the place understood that Lynn was no fighter, but she was in there, and she wasn’t afraid.

The Indian woman walked to Lynn as if to shake hands and hit her very hard on the cut eye. Lynn’s head jerked to the side, spattering blood on the canvas floor of the ring. I started to cry. When I looked up, the fight was over. The doctor had stopped it and the crowd was booing.

The doctor worked on the cut while a man from the judge’s table handed Lynn an envelope. Jack helped her to a chair. He held her chin with one hand and lifted the water to her mouth like a baby’s bottle. He was very gentle. I sat beside Lynn. She was gasping for breath, her chest rising and falling, barely able to drink. There was a butterfly bandage across her left eyebrow. A sheen of sweat covered her skin.

“The doctor said it won’t scar,” Jack said.

“I want it to,” she said.

The woman who won the fight leaned over the chair to hug Lynn. Her arms were strong, with raised scars on them. The two women reeked of sweat in a way that I had only smelled on men in a work crew. They whispered in each other’s ears. After Lynn got control of her breathing, Jack helped her to the rest room where she could change clothes.

I sat there thinking that Lynn was tougher than me. She hadn’t gone down, she’d just got cut. I watched the winner walk the aisle. Someone gave her a cup of beer and someone else gave her a cigarette and I suddenly wanted her for a girlfriend. I wanted to treat her as tenderly as Jack had treated Lynn. The woman was beautiful in the garish lights of the ring that spilled shadows on the bleachers. Whatever she’d gone through to get so tough soaked me with sorrow.

Lynn and Jack joined me. The flush had faded from her skin. She’d wet her face and hair, and she looked fine. We went outside, past teenage boys smoking cigarettes and faking punches at each other. The dry cold air snapped against my face. Snow drifted down, one of those early autumn snows before the hard cold sets in. The flakes were the size of silver dollars falling from the sky, turning the black night white.

“If they hadn’t stopped it,” I said, “you’d have won. It was your fight.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Lynn said. “It was never my fight.”

Jack unlocked the Cadillac and sat behind the wheel. Lynn gave me the envelope that contained her prize money.

“I’m going with Jack,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded.

“The motel is paid through tomorrow,” she said. “We can drop you there, if you want.”

I shook my head no.

“This isn’t about you,” she said. “This is about me.”

She hugged me then, squeezing me tighter than she ever had. My face pushed against her neck and I smelled the cheap soap from the rest room. I put my arms around her, but I couldn’t hug back. My knees felt wobbly. She stepped away. She was sad but trying to smile. A strand of hair fell over her face. I lifted my hands and pretended to take a picture.

She got in the car and I watched the red taillights move around a corner.

I headed for the motel and stopped at the bridge that crossed the Missouri River. I stood there a long time. Snow was thick in the air. My family had been in the hills for two hundred years and I was the first to leave. Now I was pretty much ruined for going back. The black water ran fast and cold below.

I started walking.