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

small, maybe five three and a sandwich over a hundred pounds. When her hair was loose, it fell halfway down her back. She had very thin, arched eyebrows over eyes the color of wet beach sand, a shade lighter than her skin. I liked the little bump in her nose on the way down to her lips, which were shiny with light gloss and looked comfortable wearing a skeptical twist.
     
    Her neck was thin, and everything below that was a mystery inside the sweatshirt that went almost to her knees. Her toes were unpainted and stubby. The tops of her feet looked calloused; she’d spent some time on the mat.
     
    I wasn’t sure why Jairo brought Marcela to the States. Maybe she wanted to see Vegas, but the brothers wouldn’t let her out into the city by herself, and they’d pretty much just given her a tour of the streets from their hotel to the gym and back, the boys either training or caught up in other pursuits. Javier wouldn’t shut up about some redheaded stripper named Pandora.
     
    Marcela held her arms out and asked Edson something.
     
    He replied and pointed at the scar, then at us.
     
    Marcela snorted. “Oh, you’re kidding, right? That stupid thing?”
     
    Edson pointed at Roth, who pointed at me.
     
    Marcela was disgusted with all of us. “You want to know about that scar?”
     
    “No,” I lied.
     
    “He was fighting Vale Tudo in Brazil, you know, this means ‘anything goes’? It was his first fight. His last too, I think.” She frowned at Edson. “He was fighting some skinny guy, all bones, and an elbow cut him in the head there, behind his ear. Edson had him in the guard, and the guy stuck his fingers into the cut and tried to pull it open to let more blood out.”
     
    “Awful,” Roth said.
     
    “The guy, he wanted to make the cut so bad the judges would stop the fight. It’s not easy in those fights. He pulled on Edson’s ear with one hand and pushed at his hair with the other. The crowd did not like it, but he didn’t care. You could see Edson’s bone in there, his skull.”
     
    Roth whistled. “Christ.”
     
    “Did the ref stop it?” Gil asked.
     
    “No,” Marcela said, “the blood wasn’t in his eyes, so he could still fight. But the blood was everywhere else. Edson wouldn’t tap because he’s stupid, and Jairo had to throw the towel in from the corner. It was a big towel, and they pushed it against Edson’s head, and it was full of blood before they announced the winner.”
     
    Edson saw she was done and smiled and nodded at us. He gestured like he was pulling curtains open and peeking inside; then he pointed to his scar. Gave everyone a thumbs-up.
     
    Marcela shook her head.
     
    Jairo walked up with another apple. “What are you talking about?”
     
    “The scar,” Marcela said.
     
    Jairo smiled. “That.” He looked at Edson’s head and became very concerned. “We did not see sign of brains.”
     
    Gil checked his watch. “You ready for the goat rodeo?”
     
    The weigh-ins. Everyone fighting tomorrow had to make weight today. Most guys fighting light, welter, middle, and light-heavyweight walked around ten to twenty pounds over their fighting weight and got down to four or five over by the day of the weigh-in. They cut those last few pounds of water in the sauna, stepped on the scale looking ripped from the dehydration, and couldn’t wait to get something down their necks.
     
    The heavyweights had a much larger bracket to work in, from two hundred six to two sixty-five, so we didn’t spend a lot of time consulting the scale. I didn’t trust the weigh-in numbers anyway. A heavyweight skipping around at two fifty today could easily be stomping at two seventy tomorrow.
     
    I asked, “Eddie said four o’clock?”
     
    Gil nodded. “It’s just past three now.”
     
    Marcela perked up. “You’re going to the arena?”
     
    “One of the convention rooms attached to the casino,” Gil said. “We can check out the arena, though.”
     
    “Let me shower,” she