THUGLIT Issue Four by Roger Hobbs, Eric Beetner, Patti Abbott, Sam Wiebe, Albert Tucher, Christopher Irvin, Anton Sim, Garrett Crowe Read Free Book Online

listened to the sound of the ocean wind come through the pine trees and watched the rear floodlight flicker over the dumpsters.
    Then, after a while, Vincent said, “You ever been in a fight, kid?”
    I nodded, but didn't say anything.
    Vincent smirked. He said, “Of course you haven't. Your hands are as soft as a baby's.”
    I said, “I got in a lot of fights when I was younger.”
    Vincent laughed and stared at me and took another deep drag off his Marlboro Red. He said, “That doesn't mean you've been in a fight. Not a real one. Maybe a few scuffles. Maybe some guy on your corner giving you lip, so you break his nose on a brick wall and put him down for a while. But I don't think you've ever really been in a fight. Not really. Not a drag out all-or-nothing brawl, the kind where you're spitting out teeth on the pavement and praying to God for it to just be over, before the adrenaline hits you full force and you let go with all your strength, pounding your fists into some guy and hoping that maybe one out of five makes contact because you know that when it does, you're going to straight up kill that motherfucker.”
    I said, “I don't like fighting.”
    “Nobody does,” he said. “Not if you do it right.”
    Vincent took another drag off the cigarette and I got a good look at his hands. His knuckles looked like a construction site, with deep brown scarred ridges and heavy bulging calluses at the top of his fingers. He held his cigarette like another man might hold a pencil. There was no finesse in his hands. His thumbs were the size of sausages.
    Mancini flicked the butt of the cigarette and took a set of gold-plated brass knuckles from his left jacket pocket. There were scratches along the ridges where the gold plating had flaked away to reveal the solid steel underneath. He slipped them over the glove on his right hand and flexed his fingers until they were snug right above his second knuckles. He formed a fist. The metal caught the light and glimmered. Mancini didn't say anything. He took a small vial of cocaine out of his pocket, poured a little on the soft spot between his first finger and this thumb, and snorted it.
    Vincent said, “You ever been punched with brass knuckles, kid?”
    I didn't say anything.
    Vincent said, “It's much more important to know how to avoid getting hit. You see, the knuckles preserve the force of the punch by concentrating it all into one small little place on the hand. Makes the punch stronger, and keeps you from breaking your fingers when you give it. Normally if you want to kill a guy with a punch, you've got to practically break your hand to do it. This makes things easier.”
    “Kill?”
    “Yeah, you heard me. Kill. A sap or a stun gun knocks a guy out. Brass knuckles don't. They break bones. Powder teeth. Snap ribs like a twig. You don't punch a guy with brass knuckles to incapacitate him. You punch a guy with brass knuckles if you want to crack open his skull and send fragments of his nose into his brain. You punch a guy with brass knuckles if you want to break a man's jaw so hard he bites off his tongue and swallows it.”
    I didn't say anything. Mancini stood there in the half-light, looking up at the flickering neon sign. He didn't move. He hardly even breathed.
    Vincent said, “Mancini here? He got hit by brass knuckles. We were just kids, you know. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. It was a fight outside church one Sunday afternoon. This dealer came up from the left while we were walking out of service and blindsided Mancini with a right hook, knuckledusters to the jaw. Mancini went down after that. Lost about ten teeth, bits of his gums, a good half his tongue. He spat it out on the pavement like chewing gum. Had a hole in his cheek he could breathe through. But Mancini got up. Kicked the guy in the kneecap to bring him down. Beat that kid to death, right there on the church steps. Took him by the collar and slammed his head into the marble until his skull broke and his