Paul watched the workers finish.
“You know,” he said, “for years I thought being a good boss meant working harder than anybody else. I still show up before dawn most days. But when my back went out last winter, the place ran better once I let other people do their jobs.”
“You never told me your back went out.”
“I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t manage.”
The two men looked at each other.
Then Paul laughed. “Well. That sounds familiar.”
That Friday, George received his first full week’s wages at the new rate, less the usual deductions. He sat in the truck before driving home and read the pay statement twice. It did not erase the past-due medical bills or the rent that would be due again. But the hours were there, consistent and complete. The number would return next week and the week after, as long as he kept doing the work.
A thousand dollars earned in four seconds had nearly broken him.
This money had taken forty hours of asking careful questions.
The distinction mattered more each time he looked at the page.
Chapter Eighteen: The Anvil Without the Lights
Vincent Maddox left the hospital with a concussion diagnosis, a broken nose, a list of instructions, and a bill he did not know how to pay.
The world looked different outside the cage. In the ring there had been lights, music, and people who shouted his stage name as if they believed it. In the emergency department, he had been called Mr. Maddox, told not to drive until cleared, and asked to report any worsening symptoms. The nurse had not looked impressed when he explained he was a fighter.
His promoter was not impressed either.
“Bad luck,” Denny Pike said during a telephone call the next afternoon.
Vincent sat in a rented room above a mechanic’s shop, holding a cold compress against his face. He had propped his phone beside a water glass so he would not have to keep moving his head.
“He was some kind of professional,” Vincent said.
“He was a guy with a cane.”
“A guy with training.”
“You were supposed to be the one with training. That’s the whole show.”
Vincent stared at the blank wall. He had heard variations of this accusation all his life. He was supposed to win because he was bigger. Because he was strong. Because that was what people had paid to see. The possibility of losing had always been treated as a failure of character rather than an ordinary risk in a sport where two people tried to impose their will on each other.
“He shouldn’t have been allowed in,” Vincent said. “He had a bad leg.”
Denny snorted. “You weren’t complaining before the bell.”
Vincent had no answer. It was true. He had enjoyed insulting George because he expected the older man to retreat. When George turned around, Vincent felt delighted. When the gate opened, he felt the excitement of an easy victory. He remembered raising his fist, and then he remembered looking up at a white ceiling while a paramedic asked what year it was.
That gap frightened him more than the bruises.
“People keep sending me the video,” he said.
“Don’t watch it.”
“They’re calling me a fraud.”
“Then do another show. Beat somebody. People forget.”
Vincent put the compress down. “I’m not cleared to fight.”
“So get cleared.”
After the call he sat in the room for a long time. A strip of afternoon light crossed the floor. His gym bag lay open near the door, full of damp wraps and a T-shirt bearing the name THE ANVIL in letters that now seemed absurd.
He had grown up in a small apartment with two younger brothers, his father disappearing for months at a time and returning with stories about how people had cheated him. Vincent learned early that being large could stop people from mocking you. Once it worked, he kept using it. A coach introduced him to wrestling. For several years the discipline gave the anger a place to go. Then he began mistaking applause for affection, and afterward it had been difficult to tell the difference.
His mother called that evening. She had seen the video, though Vincent had asked his brothers not to show it to her.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Don’t give me the answer you give strangers.”
He stared at the window. “Concussion. Nose. Nothing permanent, they think.”
“And the man you fought?”
“I don’t know.”
“I saw him with a little girl.”
Vincent closed his eyes. He remembered the child only now: small, wrapped in her father’s jacket, watching the cage with an expression he had never associated with his audience. Most crowds in his experience were made of anonymous faces. He did not have to carry their feelings home.
“I was running my mouth,” he said.
