Raucous Read online

  RAUCOUS

  By Ben Paul Dunn

  © 2016 Ben Paul Dunn. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address the publisher at:

  [email protected]

  To My Parents

  CHAPTER ONE

  Raucous was free for fourteen days before he made the call. He walked, looked, saw the world dressed different but thinking the same, took a breath and was ready. The Turk’s answer was an immediate yes, "But you fight who I put in front of you.”

  The night arrived five days later. A Saturday charity gala to raise money for someone the Turk had killed. Raucous had waited ten years for this. Ten years since he heard the truth.

  A Victorian London Ballroom in November, high-class circular tables surrounded a fighting ring. The tables were surrounded by uneducated men, all rich on undeclared money. Old and young with cash to burn and no taxes to pay. All suits and smiles.

  Raucous entered the arena alone. He looked up at the ceiling and its hand-painted designs of religious motifs and cherubs floating on clouds. He felt the weight of his twelve-ounce gloves covering his heavily wrapped hands. He wore white trunks with a single black stripe and a black toweling poncho. He looked to the ring and smiled. The Turk was good to his word. Jim was there, looking the sixty-five years he was in his black trousers, white shirt and bow tie. Grey stubble, which covered his liver-spotted scalp, sparkled under the low-hanging chandelier lights.

  Raucous stepped up onto the apron using the small steel steps. The ring measured twenty-feet by twenty-feet, a ballroom in itself, too big for brawling, a dancer's ring, a speed freak's dream. Raucous had been that once, fast, real fast. He bounced, up on his toes. The crowd gave him silence.

  Raucous could hear their thoughts; the crowd knew his story better than anyone. Dumb old Raucous, they thought, got caught, didn’t he, but kept quiet like a good old boy. Dumb bastard.

  Raucous glided to the middle of the ring and came close to Jim.

  “Why are you here?” Jim asked, “Your time has gone.”

  “My time has come. You’ve hung around too long, old man.”

  “I wanted to be around to see you hurt.”

  “Sure the Turk didn’t make you?”

  Raucous looked around the ring. It had been a long time. He used to be on the under-card, an up and coming head-case kid, a teenager that would fight three-rounders with older men who liked the tear-up but had no skill. He was fast back then, really fast. He could see himself, all blurred and sharp. Throwing a jab like a schooled amateur before they changed the rules and it became another sport. One clean strike and in the referee steps. There would be none of that here tonight. Tough guys don’t dance, but Raucous had and he’d won, he’d humiliated and they hated him. He hadn’t defended with his face and gone all out. He’d used space, chased men down, cut them up with a jab, cornered them, worn them down, and best of all he’d seen them break. That glorious moment when the expression on a man’s face changed and they knew they had given everything and there was no way the boy was being beat. But Raucous knew his speed was shot. He had sacrificed fast triggers and reflexes for bulk, for power, for solidity. Like he’d sacrificed his clean pale skin to ink designs of bullshit that meant nothing. They weren’t those Russian gulag tattoos of beauty and significance, the stars and faces, eyes and daggers, pistols and angels, they were scrawls, pathetic doodles, scars of boredom, black marks that told the story of a boy who grew up inside.

  Jim waited next to Raucous.

  “They used to speak about you,” Raucous said.

  “I used to be worth talking about.”

  “They say you only got beat once.”

  “Once is always enough,” Jim said. “Tonight you get yours.”

  Raucous knew, had known every day in his cell, every yard workout and every prison fight, that this man was a reason to come out strong and get back what was his. Here he was, the man, a face he visualized every day.

  His opponent appeared. Timothy Taylor-Lock, the voice boomed out from an unseen speaker. A local voice of cockney vowels and chirpy intonation. The lights dimmed but the room stayed lit.

  Taylor-lock wasn’t a name from here. He was flanked by two women who were attractive in these parts, which meant they were the best of those that hadn’t left. All the would-be models went uptown at seventeen or to the maternity ward soon after. There was a break of beauty until the twenty-forth birthday brought bingo wings and double chins, loud mouths and past glories. Miniskirts and boob tubes with orange skinned thighs, and meaningless tattoos, yellow teeth and cackles. Shakespeare’s witches in good old London town. Timothy had his gloved hands raised; milking a crowd of thousands when only a hundred sat and digested their venison downing red wine opened seconds before and unaired. The caterer could exchange this Brunello with Lambrusco and the fat ignorant fuckers would smile and pat themselves red with their upper-class act.

  “I waited seventeen years to find out nothing changed,” Raucous said.

  “Judging by the lines around your mouth," Jim said, “looks like you spent it sucking dick.”

  Jim looked directly at Raucous for the first time. Raucous smiled. Let him have his moment.

  Timothy walked slow to the music of an electronic buzz built around a bass of reverberation. The kid was playing to the wrong crowd. He bounced and span and the girls pulled trout lip faces as if gurning up like Mick Jagger gave you instant sex appeal.

  Every beat the kid thrust his right gloved-fist at Raucous. Raucous leant back on the loose ropes and yawned.

  “Does he think this is Madison square Garden?” he asked.

  The double-barrelled kid was oblivious. So secure in his ability to ride through life that he cared not of the atmosphere but was trading on being too obtuse for the masses to understand. This was his sold-out Wembley for a title fight no one outside the British Isles gave much about. He jumped up to the apron and bowed to the silent crowd, the bass-line on his entrance music seeming so alone without green lasers and dry ice. Cigar smoke and stares were their replacement, and the kid was smiling like he owned them all. He jumped the top rope and bounced around the ring firing short fast burst of uppercuts on an imaginary, yet static, dwarf. He danced in front of Raucous, and showed his teeth. Straight white teeth, not one of them real. No fighter at that age ever had their teeth fixed, Raucous thought.

  “Who the fuck is this arsehole?” he asked Jim.

  “This is the Turk’s man,” Jim said. "He hasn’t given you a bum. This guy is real. He does all that foreign shit. Jitsu from some Latin slum.”

  Raucous looked to ringside and saw the Turk. Twenty stone of the blubberyJabba the fucking Hutt, the white Soloman Burke, smiling now because he knew Raucous had found out. Turk’s right hand rested on the bare thigh of a woman whose eyes were large and unfocused, a giggling late teenager dolled up to be a woman. An object, like the suit he wore. Tailor made, grey and a modern equivalent of the Al Capone’s Chicago style made popular by black and white films. The girl was pure drug addict, and the Turk pure blubber. But he controlled the night, the room, and the area.

  “I know,” Raucous said, as Timothy bobbed and warmed up. “I was told.”

  “The meaning of life?” Jim asked.

  “The reason I spent all that time inside.”

  “Seventeen years for someone to explain you’re a prick. Brilliant. Taxes well spent there,” Jim said. “You want to be warming up.”

  “I am.”

  Jim called them both to the centre of the ring.

  “You know the rules,” Jim said. “Defend yourselves at all times. Not too much foul play, and make a fight of it.”

  Raucous and Timothy touched gloves. Timothy smiled and pulled the
box splits like acting as if he were Van Damme in his prime might scare someone. He jumped to his feet and shadow boxed to his corner. The least ugly of the two women placed a gum-shield in his mouth. He turned to the corner post, crouched to one knee, crossed himself and started to pray.

  “Years ago,” Jim said, “I wouldn’t have let him get in the ring. I would have taken him outside, on the cobbles as it were.”

  “Tooled?” Raucous asked.

  “Whatever it took. Flash nonce. But he is good. Fast. Boring to watch. A dancer. Like you were once. Before you got to be the prison woman.”

  “I heard you got beat back then. A man named Duke. God rest his soul, eh?”

  “God never had much to do with the fella.”

  “Were you there when he died?”

  “Not me,” Jim said with a smile to imply he was. “I don’t think anyone was.”

  “A foundation in a building, right?”

  “So the legend says.”

  “Believe it?”

  “Would have taken a lot of luck or a lot of men. He wasn’t one for being jumped. You find that out?”

  “I’ve found out a lot."

  Raucous stared into Jim’s eyes, looking for a chink, a little light to give a bigger clue to the insinuation. Jim scoffed,

  “You still know shit.”

  The bell rang and Jim motioned for them to come together. They circled like they had been taught as kids, looking for the right distance and an opening. A cagey start that the crowd did not appreciate. They wanted violence; they wanted hurt, blood and a knock out. To see a man starched, spread-eagled, without senses, was the only way they could enjoy. They were not here to rub chins about the quality of defense or salivate at how a shoulder shrug can slip a shot when standing in the pocket.

  The Kid feinted with his left from an orthodox stance, and threw a right cross. A whiplash shot that rested back in its start position before Raucous had time to register the reason his face was pointing skyward. The Kid started to jab as he circled left, fast flicks, nothing powerful, but each annoying. As soon as Raucous set his feet, tap, tap, tap and away The Kid danced. Raucous moved to the centre of the ring. The Kid moved in and out, different angles, different speeds, always moving always sharp. Raucous couldn’t touch him. He tried not to grow frustrated. But within the first 120 seconds, the kid was bringing out the red in Raucous. His cheeks and forehead glowing, a blush that might as well be from embarrassment. The Kid was good.

  Raucous maneuvered the fight to a neutral corner; he cut off the ring, backing The Kid into an increasingly tight space. Simple moves, sliding feet, judging the angle. Raucous had him trapped. He threw a left jab, ready and loaded on his right to hook into The Kid’s liver. Slow him down, take his breath, and stiffen The Kid’s legs. The left jab didn’t connect, The Kid slipped under, threw a three punch combination as he spun out, ribs, hook to the head and uppercut and felt his gum shield sail free from his mouth. The bell sounded and Jim turned Raucous around and walked him back to his empty corner.

  Raucous sat on his stool and watched The Kid. He was standing, arms aloft, playing the crowd. One of his women held a water bottle and he drank as she squirted. The other gave a massage. She had never been to a physiotherapy class and showed no delight at touching a sweaty blood splattered torso. An act, a show, a gladiator without a care for an opponent. Raucous breathed deep, and a hand from the crowd gave him back his gum shield.

  The minute break ended. Raucous had spent it breathing hard. Raucous jumped to his feet. He felt his legs stiffen as he put his weight down. The Kid moved to the centre of the ring with his arm outstretched. Raucous reached out and touched his glove.

  “You need to quit. The Turk doesn’t want to see you. You’re the past. You have nothing. Quit and go home,” The Kid said.

  Raucous glanced to the front row. The Turk nodded. Raucous looked back at The Kid and threw a right, straight down the pipe. The Kid took the shot on the forehead.

  “I don’t quit,” Raucous said, “Not to little flash pricks like you. Not after seventeen years.”

  Raucous charged and threw his right again. The Kid blocked most of the power with his raised left shoulder, as he swiveled from his hips. But the huff of air he gave showed he didn’t like the contact. The Kid danced back, out of range, shook his arms to his sides, shook his head and then looked up at Raucous. The Kid smiled and took his guard.

  Raucous smiled too, an exaggerated effect as his white gum-shield made him look like a child who had been visited by the tooth fairy in her drug-addled years. Raucous waved The Kid in and The Kid came before Raucous could set. Smack, smack, smack, a jab, a left to the body, leading to a straight right. Each landed, each accumulating the hurt, each smoothly transitioned in one easy flow. The final shot spraying confusion in Raucous, his inner ear vibrating. Raucous wobbled, not hurt, not muddled of brain, but shook up because he couldn’t see them coming. Raucous covered up, but The Kid found gaps in the defense. He pushed through shots, each thrown with venom. Raucous reeled and tried to grab, but The Kid moved before Raucous could act. The punches came in, The Kid wanted a finish. The crowd reacted, as blood started to spray from the nose and mouth of Raucous.

  Raucous thought, use your brain, take a knee. He started to sink but The Kid saw it happening and met Raucous clean on the chin with a short sharp uppercut. Raucous fell, sitting down and bouncing back. The Kid had one more shot cocked but not thrown like the Muhammed Ali he wanted to be.

  Jim appeared in front of Raucous.

  “Set up again, Raucous. A seventeen year plan for this humiliation? Wow, that’s a long time. Shall I count, or are you going to quit?”

  Raucous focused, saw the glint of anger in Jim’s eyes. He took it in and made it his own.

  “We’re on three,” Raucous said, using the middle rope to gain his feet.

  The Kid came charging and Raucous backed off, holding up his guard to protect his head from the flurry of shots. They came fast and from all angles. Raucous hoped for a break. And he got it. The Kid lent too far, reaching on a punch and Raucous grabbed him up in a bear-hug. The Kid slipped an arm around the right of Raucous, and applied pressure, bending the elbow the wrong way. A bicep and pectoral beat down a tricep no matter how much you train. The ligaments bent, Raucous felt pain shoot through to his neck. Raucous dropped his head onto The Kid’s temple, and sunk his teeth into The Kid’s neck. And The Kid, as pretty as he looked, kept hold like the only thing that mattered was his need to break the arm. Blood popped from the teeth marks going deeper. Raucous released his bite, and the pain in his arm stopped as he fell again.

  Jim started his count.

  “You getting up?” Jim asked after he had shouted four.

  Raucous couldn’t focus, Jim’s face was a blurred 8-bit pixel image.

  Raucous heard the numbers, but he couldn’t respond. His voice had been knocked out. He had shut down anything he didn’t need. Conversational techniques were not essential now. He rose. He remembered. The beating on the first anniversary of his incarceration. The pipes they had hidden, the thick towels they folded to leave no bruises, as they beat him until he lay, breathing quietly, ready to give up, let it go, drift away and hope in reincarnation. Come back a better man, someone who would stay clear. But he didn’t give up then, he wouldn’t now.

  He planned then too, in the hospital wing. He made it, three of them scarred for life, one blinded. That became his specialty. Take the eyes. Ruin vision. People care about what they see, and prisoners stopped seeing the young Raucous as bait.

  Raucous saw The Kid dancing, pirouetting to a laughing public. They were laughing at him, at Raucous. A faded star believing he had it in him still. A joke of a man, back from oblivion to be broken down again. Raucous scanned the room. Slow motion movements of jeers and drinks from men grown too fat to be scary. They laughed at him. Raucous stood. Jim held his gloves.

  “You are fucked, and you aren’t quitting. This is over. Go out like you should. Change your
plan,” Jim said. "Find another way in.”

  The bell rang to end the round, but as Jim started to lead Raucous to his corner The Turk barked for the fight to continue, and Jim backed off.

  The Kid rushed in as Raucous stood with his legs buckling and his guard down. The Kid threw a right, straight and for the chin. Raucous moved slightly, took the glance on his ear and hugged The Kid hard, picking him up and slamming him down on his back, Raucous fell too. He used his shoulder to drive the air from The Kid’s lungs. Raucous was on top, clamping moving limbs and wrestling for position.

  The Kid’s gloved hands gave him no means to grip. His close quarters punches stung, but were not strong enough to push Raucous away. Raucous chopped down with pointed elbows. The Kid blocked most, but although his technique was superior, his size was small and even if he could make the leverage, he had no position or strength to move.

  Raucous drove in elbow after elbow, and The Kids face started to cut and swell. The Kid turned his head right, Raucous drove his elbow into The Kid’s temple and The Kid lost consciousness. But Raucous wouldn’t quit. Raucous chopped, and Jim pulled him up. Raucous turned and threw a right hook. Jim was still good enough to move and let the punch graze. Then Jim threw his own. A short sharp dig to the liver, and Raucous dropped. He looked up, saw Jim, saw the Turk at ringside.

  “I know what you did, Jim,” Raucous said. "Parker knows. Remember that name, Jim? Parker. He knows it all. Where’s the boy? Where’s Christian?”

  “You killed him,” Jim said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ben saw the kid, saw his expression and smile. The flash of realization as to who Ben was. Ben the target. Ben knew that. He didn’t hide, not any more. He had Jean and Mitch to protect him. But he saw what they saw. He was a slouching Geoge McFly, comic books and Sci-Fi, technology and porn. A hunched man-boy of no social skill on his way home from the seafront comic shop wrapped up warm against the winter ice.

  A sea-side town of twenty thousand people, and always one teenage delinquent hanging out on streets in early December..