I
There's grass that cuts you and it’s a cunt to run through. Kerrod knew blokes who ran this shit at 4 am with head torches. Kerrod ran at midday. He didn’t need to be anywhere else. He ran through gravel crunch, skittering rocks, dust, weeds, over the jagged rust of bleached Coke and Southern Comfort cans.
Small bloodied marks opened down his legs, one bled like a teardrop. He could jog a footy field all day, blow his lungs out. But Kerrod ran this track to bleed. His legs, a troposphere of bruises, blue, purple, black. Skin thin over sharp bone from bagwork: low kicks, lead body kicks, spinning hook kicks. Beneath the bruising, his postcode tattooed down his left shin. 2340. Bent over, hacking, sweat-stained Muay Thai singlet, thin hands on wire knees. Head shaved, rude shock of hair at the back. Kerrod spat and wiped white from the corners of his mouth.
Fight in two days. Some idiot in Gunnedah. Fights meant footage. Good tape could get him a camp invite in Thailand. A proper camp, not a rumpus room for rich cunts. He’d go tomorrow if they'd have him.
Kerrod spat white-green, approached his ute, unlocked it. Checked his phone under his jumper. Heard a dirtbike out in the scrub, its engine a chainsaw whine. Text from Curtis, the fuckhead. "Do you want to make an earn today?"
II
Curtis was a goose, a gronk who sold ice and paid Kerrod to stand around. Once or twice, Kerrod had flogged someone for him. “There’s a bloke in here who owes me money. He’s a dog and a grub. Help me, Kezza, and you’ll get a drink.” They pulled up to a butter-bricked shithole unit block. Scorched grass and dirt front yard. A neighbor had the races on, open window, radio full bore. Each unit shared a wall, each with a shut eggshell screen door and thick black curtains, pulled shut at midday.
Curtis’s fat fist rattled the screen door on Unit 1. Coughing and a throat clearing from inside. It sounded like two different people. The door locks rattled and the screen door creaked open. An ugly bloke Kerrod didn’t recognize stood there.
“G’day Curtis.”
“G’day Rob.”
“Who's your boyfriend?”
Heat surge in Kerrod’s brain. Synapses bubbled and deep-fried.
“Fuck up, Rob, and let us in.”
Clack of the door unlocking, and Curtis and Kerrod stepped inside. A dump. No fridge in the kitchen, just yard furniture and a round glass table. The cat-piss stink of shard filled the room. A power adapter lay on the floor, surrounded by a mess of chargers and phones. A black massage table stood in the room. Kerrod glimpsed another in another room down a bare hallway. Another cough echoed from deeper in the flat. Curtis and Rob started arguing about tick. Curtis was acting hard, but Kerrod was unimpressed with the tantrum. Rob sat back on the lawn chair and sounded bored:
“The next run of women are about to cycle down from Brisbane and the Coast. Money is good. The girls need ice to run, you’re a part of this show, Curtis. Chill out. Money is coming.”
Kerrod felt like his head was in a bucket. Cough, cough, cough in another room. Curtis lunged, wrapping his big hands around Rob’s throat. They crashed into the wall. Kerrod started punching Rob in the ear and cheek. Bang, bang, bang. Rob dropped. Kerrod kneed Rob in the face, feeling bone crack. Kerrod’s head buzzed, bubbling like fat and grease. Flying now. Shaking, Kerrod kicked Rob in the ribs. Curtis jumped on Rob. A scream. Kerrod turned. A woman, old and Asian, in a red nightie, grabbing at him, trying to pull him away. Kerrod shoved her. She screamed, “Fuck off, fuck off,” clawing at his cheek. Her nails cut him. Kerrod pivoted and hooked her across the face, dropping her. The woman and Rob lay on the floor, groaning sacks. Rob mumbled something through blood. Curtis leaned in to listen. Kerrod saw a tooth on the filthy carpet. Curtis opened a cupboard, then another, finding a Weetbix tin filled with yellow $50 notes. He counted them out. Kerrod touched his cheek and looked at the blood on his fingers. His hands ached. They stepped out of the flat. Black curtains parted. Asian faces watched them leave.
III
A car held four men. Two men in the back seats were kickboxers, Kerrod was one of them. The owner of their gym drove and the owner’s mate was up front. Both Kerrod and the other guy had lost. “Shitty little card” said the gym owner, to nobody. “Shitty little card.” It was dark out of town, and they were quiet. Defeat had turned them all into monks. Old mate in the front seat was smoking a cigarette. Kerrod and the other guy sat glumly in the back, sweating in Champion trackies. Kerrod was glad he had not fought at home, and hoped his loss would shrink with distance and time. Kerrod’s teeth felt loose. His ear was hot. Kerrod had received a hiding. He suspected he was concussed. He caned. For relief Kerrod held his face against the cold glass of the car. The car smelt of smoke, sweat, and blood. Kerrod’s hair was pulled tightly into a braid. His left eye was swollen and closed. There was an older scratch on his face, and it had vaso rubbed deeply across it. Kerrod’s legs felt hot. He knew he would hurt in the morning. His fight had been filmed on his phone, but that would be tomorrow’s job. Kerrod wondered if he would piss blood. The highway was empty and dark. A passing truck’s lights shimmered with the cold stars of the sky, lights which blinked themselves into nothing. Kerrod felt as skinny as a greyhound. Head against the window, Kerrod felt a great dislocation within his brain. His mind gently rose from the car into the proscenium of night, and he was overcome with vastness. Untethered only for a moment, Kerrod felt the raw burn of rope across his limbs and knew he had been fettered to a tree. Kerrod felt no fear; he could smell eucalyptus. Unseen archers fired arrows into Kerrod, and he felt joy as each bolt punctured him. Where blood should flow, beams of light emanated. Summoned by the light that poured from his body, Kerrod felt the hands of a woman delicately withdrawing each arrow from his body. The rope loosened around his arms. Kerrod was in the car again.
-- AW Donnelly lives and writes in regional New South Wales, Australia. His poetry has appeared in APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL and Bruiser Mag.