Man Descending

“So tough titty. I didn’t. Who the hell cares? He had your suck card to slobber over, didn’t he?” He drilled the lady in the side pocket. No backspin. He’d hooked himself on the three. “Fuck.”

“The old man is on graveyard shift. You better go home and face the music before he goes to work. It’ll be worse in the morning when he needs sleep,” I warned him.

“Screw him.”

I could see Gene eyeballing the four. He didn’t have any four in his hand, so I called him over and showed him his cards. “You can’t shoot the four. It’s not in your hand.”

“Just watch me.” He winked. “I’ve been doing it all night. It’s all pitch and no catch with these prizes.” Gene strolled back to the table and coolly stroked down the four. He had shape for the three which slid in the top pocket like shit through a goose. He cashed in on the seven. “That’s it, boys,” he said. “That’s all she wrote.”

I was real nervous. I tried to bury the hand in the deck but the guy with the runny face stopped me. He was getting tired of losing, I guess. Gene doesn’t even cheat smart. You got to let them win once in a while.

“Gimme them cards,” he said. He started counting the cards off against the balls, flipping down the boards on the felt. “Three.” He nodded. “Six, seven, queen. I guess you got them all,” he said slowly, with a look on his face like he was pissing ground glass.

That’s when Duck Ass chirped up. “Hey, Marvin,” he said, “that guy shot the four. He shot the four.”

“Nah,” said Gene.

Marvin studied on this for a second, walked over to the table and pulled the four ball out of the pocket. Just like little Jack Horner lifting the plum out of the pie. “Yeah,” he said. “You shot the four.”

“Jeez,” said Gene, “I guess I did. Honest mistake. Look, here’s a dollar for each of you.” He took two bills out of his shirt pocket. “You got to pay for your mistakes is what I was always taught.”

“I bet you he’s been cheating all along,” said Duck Ass.

“My brother don’t cheat,” I said.

“I want all my money back,” said Marvin. Quite loud. Loud enough that some heads turned and a couple of tables stopped playing. There was what you would call a big peanut gallery, it being the beginning of vacation and the place full of junior high kids and stags.

“You can kiss my ass, bozo,” said Gene. “Like my brother here said, I never cheated nobody in my life.”

“You give us our money back,” threatened Marvin, “or I’ll pull your head off, you skinny little prick.”

Guys were starting to drift towards us, curious. The manager, Pat Bert, was easing his guts out from behind the cash register.

“Give them their money, Gene,” I said, “and let’s get out of here.”

“No.”

Well, that was that. You can’t change his mind. I took a look at old Marvin. As I said before, Marvin was big. But what was worse was that he had this real determined look people who aren’t too bright get when they finally dib on to the fact they’ve been hosed and somebody has been laughing up his sleeve at them. They don’t like it too hot, believe me.

“Step outside, shit-head,” said Marvin.

“Fight,” somebody said encouragingly. A real clump of ring-siders was starting to gather. “Fight.” Bert came hustling up, bumping his way through the kids with his bay window. “Outside, you guys. I don’t want nothing broke in here. Get out or I’ll call the cops.”

Believe me, was I tense. Real tense. I know Gene pretty well and I was sure that he had looked at old Marvin’s muscles trying to bust out everywhere. Any second I figured he was going to even the odds by pasting old Marv in the puss with his pool cue, or at least sucker-punching him.

But Gene is full of surprises. All of a sudden he turned peacemaker. He laid down his pool cue (which I didn’t figure was too wise) and said: “You want to fight over this?” He held up the four ball. “Over this? An honest mistake?”

“Sure I do,” said Marvin. “You’re fucking right I do, cheater.”

“Cheater, cheater,” said Duck Ass. I was looking him over real good because I figured if something started in there I’d get him to tangle with.

Gene shrugged and even kind of sighed, like the hero does in the movies when he has been forced into a corner and has to do something that is against his better nature. He tossed up the four ball once, looked at it, and then reached behind him and shoved it back into the pocket. “All right,” he said, slouching a little and jamming his hands into his jacket pockets. “Let’s go, sport.”

That started the stampede. “Fight! Fight!” The younger kids, the ones thirteen and fourteen, were really excited; the mob kind of swept Marvin and Gene out the door, across the street and into the OK Economy parking lot where most beefs get settled. There’s lots of dancing-room there. A nice big ring.

Marvin settled in real quick. He tugged the brim of his Massey-Ferguson special a couple of times, got his dukes up and started to hop around like he’d stepped right out of the pages of Ring magazine. He looked pretty stupid, especially when Gene just looked at him, and kept his hands rammed in his jacket pockets. Marvin kind of clomped from foot to foot for a bit and then he said: “Get ’em up.”

“You get first punch,” said Gene.

“What?” said Marv. He was so surprised his yap fell open.

“If I hit you first,” said Gene, “you’ll charge me with assault. I know your kind.”

Marvin stopped clomping. I suspect it took too much coordination for him to clomp and think at the same time. “Oh no,” he said, “I ain’t falling for that. If I hit you first, you’ll charge me with assault.” No flies on Marvin. “You get the first punch.”

“Fight. Come on, fight,” said some ass-hole, real disgusted with all the talk and no action.

“Oh no,” said Gene. “I ain’t hitting you first.”

Marvin brought his hands down. “Come on, come on, let fly.”

“You’re sure?” asked Gene.

“Give her your best shot,” said Marvin. “You couldn’t hurt a fly, you scrawny shit. Quit stalling. Get this show on the road.”

Gene uncorked on him. It looked like a real pansy punch. His right arm whipped out of his jacket pocket, stiff at the elbow like a girl’s when she slaps. It didn’t look like it had nothing behind it, sort of like Gene had smacked him kind of contemptuous in the mouth with the flat of his hand. That’s how it looked. It sounded like he’d hit him in the mouth with a ball-peen hammer. Honest to God, you could hear the teeth crunch when they broke.

Big Marvin dropped on his knees like he’d been shot in the back of the neck. His hands flew up to his face and the blood just ran through his fingers and into his cuffs. It looked blue under the parking-lot lights. There was an awful lot of it.

“Get up, you dick licker,” said Gene.

Marvin pushed off his knees with a crazy kind of grunt that might have been a sob. I couldn’t tell. He came up under Gene’s arms, swept him off his feet and dangled him in the air, crushing his ribs in a bear hug.

“Waauugh!” said Gene. I started looking around right smartly for something to hit the galoot with before he popped my brother like a pimple.

But then Gene lifted his fist high above Marvin’s head and brought it down on his skull, hard as he could. It made a sound like he was banging coconuts together. Marvin sagged a little at the knees and staggered. Chunk! Chunk! Gene hit him two more times and Marvin toppled over backwards. My brother landed on top of him and right away started pasting him left and right. Everybody was screaming encouragement. There was no invitation to the dick licker to get up this time. Gene was still clobbering him when I saw the cherry popping on the cop car two blocks away. I dragged him off Marvin.

“Cops,” I said, yanking at his sleeve. Gene was trying to get one last kick at Marvin. “Come on, fucker,” he was yelling. “Fight now!”

“Jesus,” I said, looking at Gene’s jacket and shirt, “you stupid bugger, you’re all over blood.” It was smeared all over him. Marvin tried to get up. He only made it to his hands and knees. There he stayed, drooling blood and saliva on the asphalt. The crowd started to edge away as the cop car bounced up over the curb and gave a long, low whine out of its siren.

I took off my windbreaker and gave it to Gene. He pulled off his jacket and threw it down. “Get the fuck out of