“Rockbottom”
The place was nothing but a dingy sweatbox crammed with guys eager to forget themselves. Thirsty for blood. Starving for it. A dead end place where the lowest of the low came to entertain themselves with violence and gambling, where dirty money was thrown left and right while they placed their bets.
Ryan cracks his knuckles and paces the ring, jaw set, focused on the man opposite, tracking him. He squints and sweats in the spotlights. Cheering comes from all around them, Spanish and English, filling his head, raising his pulse. An empty beer can rolls out across the mat and he kicks it away.
The other guy is big. Over 6'5” for sure and wide. But big like that means slow and stupid. Means easy. Ryan’s not worried.
The bell clangs and Ryan lets the big guy unload on him for a few seconds, a barrage of inexperienced punches crashing down on his raised forearms. Frenzied. Ryan waits for the guy to tire just a little and kicks out at his left knee, bringing him to the ground with a meaty thump.
The crowd yells its dissatisfaction. They don’t want it over like this. Not so soon.
Ryan lets the guy up, wobbling on his right leg now. Lets him swing a massive fist and Ryan ducks swiftly under it, stepping back.
“Come on big guy.”, he taunts, fists barely raised. “At least try?”
The guy snarls like a wounded beast and lunges at Ryan, pushing him back into the post and knocking the air from his lungs. He coughs against the guy’s shoulder, sucking in a stinging breath and bracing himself on the ropes. He shoves his knee into the guy’s stomach, feels it swallowed momentarily by fat and the guy falls away from him, landing heavily on his back.
Ryan massages his sternum and watches the guy struggle up, breathing like he’s just run a mile, sweat pouring over his face and down his neck.
He lunges again and Ryan side steps him, catching a little of the force on his right shoulder and spinning to face the guy’s rebound from the ropes. Ryan kicks up high and catches him square under the chin and it’s lights out before he hits the ground.
The guy won’t be getting up anytime soon. He counts that as a good night’s work and bows out, ribs still aching. He hops down from the ropes and feels hands slapping at his back, roughing up his hair.
In the corridor away from the noise and heat of the ring, his mind quiets. He stretches his arms over his head and rolls his neck as he walks, feeling the adrenaline of the fight draining away and leaving a sore empty ache in its place.
He goes to the usual office to collect his pay, wanting a shower and the smell of the big guy’s sweat off him. The gym owner, a guy with too many dumb addictions and too few brain cells for Ryan to ever call him friend, sits with his feet propped up on his desk, a cigarette dangling from his lip. Security camera monitors flicker dimly in front of him, the light reflecting and glinting off the chains at his throat. He tears his eyes away and looks up.
“Hey, Ryan, that was a good fight. Ended a little too soon, but I ain’t complainin’. You always get the job done, right?” Boston accent. A little drunk.
“Danny I came for my money, not a pep talk.’”Ryan holds out his hand, hating the smoke that hangs in the room like a stale fog and fights to keep eye contact.
Danny looks at him for a moment and then smiles, taking the burning cigarette from his mouth and placing it carefully in an ashtray to his left. He pulls his feet from the desk top and pushes his chair back.“Of course. Of course you want your money. Always the business man,” he rifles in the desk drawer and Ryan can’t help but think he’s making a god damn show of it.
“See, thing is, Ryan,would you sit for Christ’s sake-”
“No thanks.’
“You’re making me nervous, standing there like that.”
“I just came for my pay, nothing else. Just wanna go home.”Ryan stares him down,blue eyes hard, hand still outstretched. He motions hurry up with his fingers.
“Look. I gotta tell you. You’re too good for these guys, okay? You don’t even give ‘em a chance-”
“Danny.” Ryan warns, something in the pit of his stomach telling him this is about to go bad somehow. Danny closes the desk drawer, cash clenched in his fist.
“This is all I can do, okay?”
He hands over the money and Ryan can see his hands shaking, marks where his yellowed fingernails have bitten into his palm. Ryan looks at the money for a few seconds, and then up at Danny. Now his stomach is sinking down through his gut.
“This is thirty dollars.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“It’s not even half. Where’s the rest of it?”
“Like I said, that’s all I can do.”He takes a stressed drag on his cigarette, maybe just to have something to do with his hands.Blowing out the foul smog he smiles. “You could always entertain people in the back for somethin’ extra. Can think of a few people that would pay for you.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Ryan says quietly, gaze not wavering from Danny’s increasingly pale face. Every word that came out of his mouth made him sick.
“I don’t want no trouble, alright? Things are a little tight right now, that’s all.”
Ryan let out a disbelieving laugh. “This is shit, Danny. How the fuck am I supposed to pay my rent? How the fuck am I gonna eat?”
“I’m sorry man,” and he looked it. “You’re just not bringin’ in enough money anymore. No one wants to see you tear a guy apart in two fuckin’ seconds. It's not sportin’. Like I said, you’re too good for these guys now.” Another puff of smoke drifts up to join the rest. “Maybe show off a little for the crowd, show some skin. Maybe that will bring in the money.”
Anger sparks up through Ryan’s body like lightning. White hot and sudden. He flings the money back at Danny and it drifts lazily through the air.
“Keep it, you useless piece of shit.” Ryan points a finger at Danny, dead still in the silence and smoke. “You’re lucky I don’t knock your teeth down your throat for this.”
He can hear Danny calling out to him as the office door crashes shut behind him. Can hear his voice following him down the hall to the changing rooms like a bad smell. Fifty eight steps of peeling green paint and worn lino to the showers. If he can get that far he might make it the rest of the way home without committing murder. He slams the changing room door open and comes to a dead stop.
“Welcome to Fabulous Sin City Wrestling”
A flyer that he had somehow missed was now staring at him dead in the face. His anger grew mild as his thoughts ran. Anywhere was better than a dead end place like this one. The only problem is, Ryan wasn’t a wrestler. At least, not yet.
Taking his focus away from the flyer Ryan furiously picks at the tape around his wrists and peels it off, tossing them aside. He was still so heated by the way he was played. This dump was really getting on his nerves, and knocking guys out was starting to get old. Still in front of the door he closes his eyes and breathes. But his moment of peace gets interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat.
A guy sits on the bench directly ahead of him, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the lockers. Wide shoulders. Military-like. For a second Ryan thinks this guy might be here to kill him; he looks so much like a hitman. Ice grey eyes and a shaved head, black jeans, boots and trench coat. Expensive watch.
“What is it my birthday or somethin’? Who the fuck are you?” Ryan says, palm still flat on the door, coming down from the anger that had flared in him so fast he feels dizzy.
The guy smiles a little, actually more of a smirk. Huge jaw on him and unkempt stubble. Difficult to read. “You Ryan?” arms still crossed, nonchalant. His voice is low and deep like the rumble of a Dodge.
“Who’s askin?”
The guy’s smile widens. “You know, when people say that it usually means I got the right guy. That was a nice fight out there.”
“Thanks. I still don’t know who you are,”Ryan’s hand is steady on the door, his palm a little clammy.
“My name’s Ortiz, Michael.” He nods a greeting. Ryan nods back.
“So what exactly are you doing in here? You know this is my changing room?”
“I was hoping so. I have a proposition for you. Shut the door.”
Ryan’s hand slips off the door and he steps back, leaning on the back of it and hearing it click shut. The guy, Ortiz, looks big but Ryan is sure he can take him. “How’d you find me?”
“I asked around.”
“Oh yeah? What d’you ask?”
“I asked who was the best.”
Ryan feels the corner of his mouth go up in the beginnings of a smile and fights it off. Ortiz uncrosses his arms and leans forward, looking at Ryan like he’s for sale. “You got any vices?”
Ryan keeps his eyes on Ortiz, trying to get a read on him that makes any sense. Too sharp and too tactful to be anything gang-related. Didn’t waste words, only said what needed to be said. Dressed wrong, definitely not from Vegas. Too rough around the edges, too dangerous–looking to be a serious professional.
“Nothin’. Just fighting.” Ryan hears himself say this and can’t quite work out why he isn’t half way to the parking lot by now.Michael nods like he doesn’t believe him and doesn’t care.
“You have a passport?”
He’s ticking things off a list.
“Sure. But I don’t think we look alike enough for you to get away with it, I’m much better looking.”
Michael breathes out a laugh and Ryan notices his eyes are blue, not grey. “Don’t worry about that. I have my own.”He pats his coat pocket.
“Are you gonna tell me what this is about, or are we gonna play twenty fucking questions all night?”
Michael holds his hands up like Ryan’s got a gun on him. “Alright, alright. Listen. This place is a hell-hole. I think you know that.” The light bulb in the ceiling flickers like it's making a point. Michael’s hands come down and rest on his jeans. Big, strong. Scarred knuckles. “You’re wasted, man. Too good for these assholes. I’ve been to your last three matches, and you’re about as good as it gets around here. But I don’t need to tell you that, right?”
“I’m getting déjà vu.”Ryan crosses his arms, shifting against the door. He is about ready to kick this pseudo hired-gun out on his ass and go home.
“I have an opportunity for you. To fight against real guys, to earn real money, real fast.”
“Sounds too good to be true.”
“It's in London.”
Silence weighs the room down like it's a sinking ship.
“As in, London, England?”
“The very same.”
“Why the fuck would I want to go there?”
“You sick of your life? Because you fuckin’ look like it. You want out? You won’t get another chance like this. Ever.”Michael's eyes are direct and nearly painfully intense and Ryan wants to look away, wants to break this up and forget all about this entire fucking day, but there is something niggling inside him. He could go. There is nothing for him here anymore.
“Legit?”
“Sure. Not legal, but I’m guessing that doesn’t bother you any. And there’s more money in it over there than here, I promise you that.”
Ryan is quiet, his mind running at a million miles an hour. Michael stands up and Ryan sees that he is a good few inches taller. Stands like he spends all his time slouching down to accommodate shorter people. He reaches into his coat pocket.
“Here. Your plane ticket.”
Ryan takes it, not even sure its real.
“I don’t care if we just go fucking sight-seeing and then you come straight back to this dump. But get on that plane. You got nothing to lose.”Michael looks him in the eyes like he’s cornering and simultaneously trying to comfort him. Its an unnerving effect. Ryan swallows and holds the ticket in his hands, trying to scrape his thoughts back into his head under that gaze.
“Take this. And call me when you leave.” Michael hands him a card with his cell number scrawled across it, UK digits. Ryan unconsciously takes it and steps aside, hearing him go, still staring down at the ticket.
*
Three days later he sits on the edge of his bed, with nothing but the flickering TV and faltering air con unit for company. He’s had the phone cradled in his hand for near on twenty minutes now, staring down at it like he"s waiting for it to ring.
He knows it won’t.
"She isn't going to call."
"Why would she?"
"How could she know?"
He clenches his fist around it for five more seconds, the plastic creaking under his grip – five, four, three - last chance – two, c’mon, please -- one -- and lets it drop to the carpet. The plane ticket sits on the bedside table, promising so much its almost impossible to believe. He fishes his wallet out of his pocket and counts the money he has left, cursing his temper and suddenly missing that thirty dollars. He doesn't have enough to pay for his room another night.
Pretending that’s what did it, and not that he’d known from the second Michael offered, Ryan starts to pack his things. Stuffs a toothbrush, a few spare clothes and his gym gear into a black duffel bag and realizes that’s all he owns. Feeling like something out of a cheap novel, he swings the bag over his shoulder and snatches the plane ticket up into his hand. Folds it in his wallet. He leaves the room, closes the door quietly behind him and doesn’t look back.
A cab to McCarran International Airport takes the last of his real money.
And a phone call to Michael takes the rest.
“Hello?" His voice is so low it’s like the phone shakes with it. Ryan thinks maybe he"s woken him up.
"I’m at the airport."
A few seconds of silence.
"I’m very glad to hear that."
"Really, you sound like you don’t give a shit," He looks around, in the warm dusk, at the lights and the people and knows he won't miss it.
Michael laughs softly. "I had faith in you. What time d’you land?"
"6am."
"Okay. I can pick you up from the airport, I’ll be outside." Ryan hears him yawn and the rustle of sheets. Sees him stretching in the dark or rubbing his eyes and feels bad for keeping him awake.
"Just sight-seeing, right?" I’m putting all my faith in you and I don’t know why -
"Right," He hears the smile in Michael"s voice.
"I gotta go. Check in time."
"Sure. Anyone you wanna call, let them know where you"re going? Better do it now."
Ryan reads between the lines and sees because you might not get another chance.
"I got no one to call."
The saddest words he’s ever said come out of his mouth and it's like the world opens up on him and he falls. He feels sick. Michael starts to say something back but the phone runs out of quarters and the line goes dead.
Ryan hangs up and rubs his face, trying to clear his head. Something about this feels so final, and he hasn’t had time to say goodbye. Not to Vegas. Not the heat. But to this life. Maybe to himself.New beginnings are around the corner, and this time Ryan was going to take a chance to make something of himself. To prove that he can do more than just fight for his next meal.
