Suckerpunch: (2011) by Jeremy Brown Read Free Book Online

let what Burbank said work its way in to see how it felt. I could see the cameraman twisting in closer on my face.
     
    “Woody,” Kevin said, “do you have a reply to that?”
     
    “Yeah. I don’t care what he does. I don’t care how much he’s improved. I’m going to knock him the fuck out. And if anybody in his corner so much as cocks an eyebrow at me, I’ll put them down too.”
     
    Gil let the front door close behind Kevin and his crew. He spent a moment squinting through the window while they loaded up their van.
     
    I tapped the Thai bag with slow hooks and tried to look sheepish. It was harder than I’d expected.
     
    Without turning around, Gil said, “You’re going to knock out his entire corner?”
     
    I put a soft dig into the bag’s liver. “I may have gotten carried away.”
     
    “What about the ref? Should I tell him to wear a mouthguard?”
     
    “You heard him. They want to cut me on purpose? Come on.”
     
    Gil turned around. “What I heard was Eddie’s puppet strings yanking you all over the place. Cuts happen. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.”
     
    “Still,” I said, “you don’t call your shot like that.”
     
    Gil walked over and stopped the bag from swinging. “Leave it right here. Don’t carry it with you into the cage; it’ll burn you out in the first minute.”
     
    “Right.”
     
    “I want to see you drop it.”
     
    I took a deep breath and ran my hands up my face and over my head. Reached behind my neck and pulled my hands forward over my shoulders and held them cupped in front of my chest, let them come apart. “Happy?”
     
    “Damn near giddy.”
     
    “Woodrow! Look here, mate.” Roth tugged Edson toward us, Edson shaking his head and looking embarrassed. “You wanna talk about cuts? Show him.”
     
    Edson leaned forward, exposing a puckered line behind his right ear about as long and wide as my index finger.
     
    We all hissed and cringed.
     
    “How’d that happen?” Roth asked.
     
    Edson didn’t speak much English, but he understood the question. He started talking in Portuguese, his hands demonstrating something that looked like combat knitting. He paused to make sure we were getting it. Our faces made him frown.
     
    “Did it hurt?” Roth asked.
     
    Gil pointed to his own lip. “You got some stupid right here.”
     
    “What?”
     
    “Nope, missed it. Still there.”
     
    Edson started again and we got more confused. He gave up and called for Jairo but didn’t get an answer. He hollered again, and after a few seconds the hooded couch lump shuffled on bare feet from the back hallway.
     
    Edson said something crisp, and the feet might have moved a fraction faster. Edson rolled his eyes at us.
     
    The feet came to a stop on Edson’s left, and the hooded head turned to him and waited.
     
    Edson tugged the hood down and let a spill of black hair fall out. His cousin Marcela was in there somewhere. She was a few years older than him and, from what I’d heard from anyone who’d talked to her, terminally bored. The sleeves of her Arcoverde Jiu Jitsu sweatshirt swallowed her hands with a few inches to spare. She smacked one of the flaps into Edson’s face and kicked him in the shin.
     
    Roth loved it. “Sweetheart, will you marry me?”
     
    Marcela pulled her sleeves up and ran her hands through her hair. She produced an elastic band and made a loose ponytail with her dark bangs still wisping down to frame her face. She blew most of them out of her eyes and looked Roth up and down. She said something to Edson that made him cover his mouth.
     
    Roth panicked. “What’d she say?”
     
    “What are you asking him for?” Gil said. “He brought her out to translate.”
     
    Roth was on the verge of tears. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
     
    Marcela gave me the once-over too in case I had any ideas. We’d nodded at each other in passing since the clan arrived last week, but I’d been wrapped up in training for Porter. She was