asconian's blog

   Lee Jones wore white. Eddie Hadfield wore black. Twenty years old, the same shoulders, the same jaw, the same way of looking at the world as if it owed them something. Fighting dogs. Each of them knew Calder Bay was not going to hold both. That night the black cars stopped in front of the abandoned garage on Dock Street. The drivers did not quite kill the engines. The doors opened. 

The two of them got out. Same bearing. Same held-in rage. Both ripped. The cars left. The sheet-metal door groaned shut. They were alone under a dirty bulb that flickered. They looked at each other. Neither took a step back.

 "This has to end, you piece of shit," Lee said. 

"There's no room for both of us in Calder, asshole," Eddie answered.

 "Then we settle it here. No families. No witnesses to tell it some other way afterward. Until one of us doesn't get up. Or until both of us understand there's nothing left to prove." 

They clenched their fists. No more words. Eddie threw the first punch: a straight shot to the face that Lee did not quite slip. The lip split at once. Lee answered with a hook to the liver that folded Eddie for a second, only a second. Then they went at each other. It was not boxing. It was a yard fight, an alley fight, the fight of men who have watched their fathers fight and learned that the rules break before the bones do. Punches to the temple, the neck, the mouth. Knees when the other came in too close. Lee grabbed the black lapel and slammed his forehead into Eddie's. Eddie drove an elbow into the brow. Blood started mixing in the shirts: the white went a dirty pink; the black shone where it soaked through. 

They gasped. They stepped a yard apart, looked at each other, and came in again as if the air between them burned. Outside, the men of both crews heard the blows against the metal and did not open the door. They knew what was happening inside: their young bosses were tearing each other apart alive. Inside, Lee already had a swollen eye. Eddie was spitting blood and a loose tooth. They grabbed each other by the jacket collar and rolled on the concrete. Short, dirty punches. Lee split Eddie's brow with an elbow. Eddie opened the corner of Lee's mouth. They got up. They went down. They got up again.

 They stopped against a rusted hood, a pillar, their own knees. They breathed like broken bellows. And they charged again. The jackets were in shreds. The shirts, open, hanging. The knuckles, split. They were bare-chested. An hour passed. An hour and a half. Lee smashed Eddie's nose. Eddie cracked one of Lee's ribs with a kick. Both of them went down. They crawled. They hauled themselves up leaning on each other, like two drunks who hate each other and have no one else. At two hours there was no style left. There was stubbornness. Lee, his face unrecognizable. Eddie, bleeding from the mouth and the nose, limping, and still he raised a fist one more time. The punch did not really hurt. Lee answered just as weak. They went to the floor almost at the same time. A rest. And they came back. On the ground they fought like cats. Like kids. Lee drove a forearm into the throat. 

Eddie dug his fingers into the split lip. Headbutt. Another. Another. 

"Son of a bitch."

 "You more. You've always been second." 

"And you the cowards." 

They came apart a yard, on their knees, gasping, and went back in. Eddie looped a chain around Lee's neck to pull him close and hammer his face. Lee stamped on his foot, broke the hold, and slammed him onto the hood. Three headbutts. Eddie's brow opened.

 "Look at you. You look like a dog." 

"And you like a funeral groom." 

A knee to the stomach. They folded. A pause against the same pillar. 

"You're not going to be able to." 

"Neither are you." 

They went back in. Lee dragged him by the hair. Eddie turned and bit his shoulder. A hook to the temple. A kick to the thigh. Both of them limped. Always even. Every advantage lasted three seconds. They rolled. Elbows. Heads against the concrete. Lee jammed a finger in the eye. Eddie reached down and grabbed his balls with his whole hand, squeezing for real, not as a joke, with the rage of a man who does not mean to let go. Lee lost his air for an instant and, instead of asking, he reached for him too. He found the same thing and squeezed the same way. 

They stayed like that for a second that went long: two bodies locked on the floor, forehead to forehead, each with the other's balls in his fist, squeezing, shaking, not giving in. There was nothing of a bed in it. There was power. There was pride. They did everything by the balls. This too.

 "Let go," Eddie spat, his voice broken. 

"You let go," Lee answered. 

Neither let go. They squeezed harder. They looked at each other. And still, neither asked. Because asking would have been losing. They let go at the same time, coughing, insulting each other so they would not admit it had reached them. 

"Faggot in a white suit." 

"Thief in a black suit." 

"Your old man hides behind the church." 

"Yours hides behind the dead."

 They laughed an ugly second and went at each other again. Lee slammed him into the shelving. Tools fell, a jack, a can of oil. Eddie cracked the can against Lee's temple. Lee hit him back with the jack. They threw themselves on top. Short punches. A reversal. On top again. Always the same strength. Always the same pride. They wore out chest to chest and pulled apart as if it burned. Another pause. Lee on a tire. Eddie on his back, looking at the bulb. 

"If you keep this up you're going to die here." 

"Then you die with me."

 They got up. The fight turned slow and cruel. Shoves into the wall. Knees. Hair. Ugly kicks. None of them put the other down for good. They had been raised the same kind of animal. Outside they heard the blows. No one came in. Inside there were no whole insults left: 

"Bastard."

 "Son of a bitch."

 "Give up." 

"You first." 

They dropped to their knees at the same time. Forehead to the concrete. A second of silence. Then Lee, barely lifting his body, threw a weak punch into the face. Eddie took it and gave one back. Another. Another. Like in a western, when the powder is gone and they keep pulling the trigger. They thought the next one would finish the other. It finished no one. Until the arms would not come up. Lee coughed. Eddie coughed. And they laughed. A broken laugh, of blood and dust. 

"What bastards we are," 

Lee said. Eddie held his side and nodded, laughing too. They looked at each other. There was no clean hate left. There was the certainty that the other was not going to break. 

"We can't take each other." 

"We've settled it. Here. Both of us. Nobody won." 

They held out their hands. Open palms, shaking, dirty. They shook. The door opened. They came out together, in shreds. Both crews understood. There was no winner. Only two pups who had bitten each other to the bone —and to the balls— and had decided not to swallow the other.

The war between these two subborn dogs fight wasn´t fixed yet. Two guys ready to colide soon.