asconian's blog

The beach was the same. Stone, ugly hour, wind from the side. Two Mercedes a hundred yards back. No one else.

Paul took off his jacket. He left it on the hood. Then the tie. Then the shirt. Tom did the same, unhurried. They stood in suit trousers, black belts, shoes full of sand. Fifty years old. Chests still high, stomachs still cut by the work and by not letting themselves go, shoulders of men who still ran things with their hands if they had to. Two bosses half-dressed. Too formal for a brawl. Too bare for a meeting.

“The peace is already done,” Paul said. “Our sons sealed it.”

“Their way. Two fighting dogs who fuck. And us here, like slaps ever fixed anything.”

“We haven’t got anything done.”

Tom ran the back of his hand across his chest.

“Then we show the balls. We’re still the bosses. This is personal. In secret. Like the old bar. What we didn’t finish then.”

Paul raised his guard. Skin pulled tight across the shoulders.

“Clean. No alley tricks.”

Paul’s first cross went for the bare ribs. It sounded different on skin, no cloth to soften it. Tom turned his hip, took it on the forearm, and answered with a short straight to the jaw. Paul spat to the side and came in again: jab, jab, hook to the body. The suit trousers marked at the knees when they bent. Tom’s belt caught the light for a second. Paul swelled his cheekbone.

They didn’t shout. Only breath and the sea. Two sweating torsos, two watches still on the wrists, two men who looked like they had walked out of a funeral to settle it on the shore.

They measured each other standing. Paul hunted the liver. Tom, the jaw. Each knew the other’s body: they had hit each other at nineteen and the map had not entirely faded.

Tom unbalanced him. They hit the sand.

The stone scraped bare backs. Paul mounted, knee to the hip, a short punch. Tom bridged, turned him, sand stuck to chest, to hair, to the black trousers already dirty. A blow to the side. Paul arched, hooked an arm, dragged him toward the water. The sea wet the cuffs of the suits. They came up locked, skin on skin, and let go into punches again.

A pause. Hands on knees. Chests high. Sweat ran down the stomach to the belt.

“You still close the left late,” Paul said.

“And you still fall the same way.”

They smiled a second. Ugly. And went back in.

Paul split the lip with a straight. Tom swelled the eye. They locked, forehead to forehead, hands on bare shoulders — the old-bar hold, now without shirts — and rolled. Sand in the mouth. Salt on the old scars. An elbow to the side. A knee to the thigh, controlled. The trousers were full of water and dirt. The elegance had gone to the ground and still they looked like bosses: the cut of the cloth, the watch, the way they did not yell.

Time passed. Every punch cost. They stepped apart, spat, looked, and charged.

Paul took him down with a clean trip. Tom took Paul with him. They stayed on their sides, punching short, torsos marked, until the arms would not come up well.

They got to their knees. Face to face. Tom’s lip open. Paul’s cheekbone closed. Chests rising. Neither on the canvas.

Paul raised a tired fist. Tom stopped it with the palm. Paul stopped the other. They stayed locked, shaking, and the laugh got out.

“Not this either,” Paul said. “We still haven’t got anything done.”

“Not back then either.”

“We raised the two hardest fighting dogs in Calder Bay.”

“And two faggots.”

“That’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is. They made peace their way. We made it ours. Draw.”

Paul held out his hand. Tom took it. They stood up together. Still shirtless. Still in suit trousers. Friends again, their way.

Paul smiled, a thin cut on the brow.

“See you, co-father-in-law, you bastard.”

Tom smiled too, mouth broken.

“See you, co-father-in-law you son of a bitch.”

They put the shirts back on, unbuttoned. Jackets over the shoulder. Each to his car. On the shore, two pairs of prints and two dark pieces of cloth shaken in the air. They had not become brothers. They had become buddies. The only way that fit them.