“I’m telling you, Ham. The fight was fixed!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, gimme a break! I’ve been kissing that rusty mic inside the ring for nearly forty years, and you’re gonna to tell me I can’t spot a fix?”
“Listen to me, Trenches. It’s my show. It’s my house. I can pinpoint a spare dime in the pocket of these guys by the way they limp. I would know about a fix.”
“Bullshit!” Trenches shouted, but the last half trailed off, startled by the echo in the empty clubhouse. The fighters and the crowds left long ago, leaving only Trenches and his thoughts, lingering in the heavy smoke of his cigar. He pressed the receiver of the phone to his ear, fighting the urge to hang up and walk away. “The fight was fixed,” he insisted quietly, almost pleading. His coarse voice cracked across each syllable, struggling to find clarity. “And it was fixed on both sides. Someone paid ’em both to go down in the fifth.”
Joseph Child, an old friend of Trenches, is on the other end of the call. Joseph’s closest friends call him Ham because he’s fat like a pig and gorges himself at everyone’s trough, whether they know it or not. Ham’s acquaintances call him Joe, because they know better than to insult him without the umbrella of his friendship to protect them. Ham’s enemies don’t call him anything, because they don’t live long enough. Ham owns not just the clubhouse, but the fighters inside it and half the city that comes to watch his fights.
Trenches is called Trenches because of his time served beside the ring, like a soldier stuck in the trenches, never moving from the edge of an endless war with no true victor. Trenches doesn’t touch the dirty side of Ham’s business. He likes to think that Ham likes him for that reason. He likes Ham because even though Ham is a crook, he’s honest. If he says he’ll do something, he’ll do it, and he doesn’t lie.
“A double fix?” Ham asked incredulously. “Really?”
Trenches twisted at the old receiver in his hand as Ham’s voice crackled through. Even the slapping of the fat man’s cheeks seeped out of the chipped end of the worn out old handset. Ham was probably eating. Ham was always eating. Trenches balled his fist and banged the wall, leaving a shadow of moisture on the cold concrete, agitated by Ham’s disbelief. His heart raced and his chest tightened, merely from the accusation of a lie. “So, it’s Thomas and Rankin, right?” he said, proceeding with the facts. “Both these guys are heavy hitters. Probably more knock outs between ’em than the next ten guys combined.”
“So?”
“So, since the start of the second round, no one was hitting!”
“They’re old dogs, Trenches. Not unlike yourself. Maybe they just wanted to go home without a headache for once?”
“Rankin and Douglas. You remember that fight? I was only twenty years old, but I remember that fight. Hell, I can still hear the sound of the crowd and taste the sweat in the air.”
“Yeah, I remember. Douglas went down for the count in the second round.”
“Douglas went down for life, Ham. He was never the same, because he left an opening, and Rankin pushed his nose in so fast it was like a cannonball hit it.”
“So?”
“Thomas did the same thing tonight! Fifth round. Arms at his sides. Arms at his sides! Rankin didn’t even swing. He just backed off. It was like watching a pair of marionettes with no strings on their hands.”
“Trenches, listen to me. This wasn’t a prize event. It was a sideshow, and no one but you even noticed. You’re seeing things, old friend.”
“What about the bookies? Check the bets. There’s gotta be some odd ones.”
“I run the bookies. You know that. I run the fighters, too. You know that as well. Why do you even care?”
Trenches heaved out his frustrations in a heavy sigh and slumped his forehead against the wall. The crunch hurt more than he expected, but it didn’t distract him. Truthfully, he didn’t know why he cared, but he cared. Someone fixed a fight and that was all that mattered. It could have been two kids in a schoolyard, slapping each other for a lollipop, and he still would have gotten mad if someone got paid to put their arms down. “I just do, okay. It’s dishonest, and I hate that.”
The sound of a napkin scraping loose grit from Ham’s lips prefaced his reply, followed shortly by laboured breathing that struggled to find its way up his throat and over his smacking lips. “I fixed the fight,” he coughed.
“What? On both sides?”
“Yeah, both of ’em.”
“Why?” Trenches demanded. No one fixed a fight on both sides. Especially not for the same round. That was just stupid.
“Because you’re an old dog, Trenches. How many fights you got left? Ten? Twenty, at most? You should’ve quit smoking thirty years ago, and now you sound like a cement mixer. I took you off the main bouts because the guests complained.”
Trenches didn’t need the reminder. He knew why Ham sent him to the sideshow, but he didn’t talk about it. Not then. Not ever. He understood it as a business decision, nothing personal. “You’re firing me?”
“You’re done, Trenches. A good fighter knows when to stay down, but you just keep trying to stand up. We can announce it this weekend. Bring the grandkids. It’s time to sit back and watch.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you fixed it.”
“Because it’s your last one. I wanted you to remember it.”
In that moment, Trenches only listened intently to Ham’s slow and heavy breathing, and felt his own chest relax as he matched his pace. He almost never remembered what he said during a fight. It wasn’t his job to remember. It was his job to keep talking. He always remembered the fights themselves, though. Part of him had been trying to bow out for years, but it never felt like the right time, as if he needed a reason to keep talking. Either that, or something to shut him up. Either way, words were all he knew, and Ham understood.
A double fix? He could talk about that forever.
“I could take it to the press,” Trenches said with a smile.
“I could burn down your house.”
Even if Trenches went to the press, no one would believe him. The entire situation was too impossible to believe, and they both laughed at the empty threats.
“So who went down?” Ham asked curiously.
“Those poor bastards,” Trenches replied with another laugh. “Neither of ’em. They both kept getting sloppier and sloppier, leaving wider and more obvious openings, until they were both dancing around as if their arms were paralyzed, chest bumping each other like a couple of dickheaded frat boys. You could see the fear in their eyes, Ham. Pure desperation. If either of ’em even dared to land a hit, the other guy was gonna drop like a twelve ton sack of potatoes. No doubt. I half expected one of ’em to just pretend he tripped and stay on the mat. It took all my everything to find some color for that circus. In the end, the bell rang and it went to the sixth. God damn, Ham. They probably think you’re gonna to kill ’em. You sending them off, too?”
“Yeah. They’ve put in their time. I got pensions lined up for both of ’em. I like making ’em sweat, though. It’s good for the liver. I’ll invite ’em to your retirement.”
A loud crunch tumbled through the line as Ham bit down on something hard. “Thanks,” Trenches said, listening to the chewing.
“It’s been a pleasure, Trenches. Say ‘hi’ to Mary for me. I’ll see you this weekend.”
