Guy Challenges Audience To Lifetime of Fights

Guy Challenges Audience To Lifetime of

Fights to the Death

By Adrian Holdsworth

The annual telethon had rolled around once again, and Barty was shitscared. He was expected to sell the damn thing. He felt he had enough pressure as it was with his football career, and Barty worried that the added pressure to perform for the fundraiser and to win a much-needed tournament trophy at the club might cause him to crack. And he did.

‘Mr. Ploom, you’re on in five!’ the stagehand called from the door she forgot to knock on before she opened.

‘Shit!’ I cried out.

Everyone was panicking, I had ruined everything. I didn’t read the script, so I wasn’t sure exactly what I did or didn’t do, but I do know that it ruined everything. I was on to do some shit with a magician and some other garbage to fill ten minutes. I made sure I still had the check for ten grand in my shirt pocket. Safe. I might need to run for the car when this is done. I got dressed after the stagehand left and rushed to the stage, where the director was turning purple because of a ‘make me happy’ I slipped his vodka earlier. I said ‘Relax, man. It’ll work out’ and gave him the rest of my orange juice (and vodka). I patted him firmly on the back and after he hit the floor, I made my way out with a big smile.

‘How are we doing tonight, people? Good night?’ I asked, clapping and pretending to look at people in the audience. They clapped and laughed and the director caught a glimpse of the success he had hoped we might possibly achieve as he was hoisted into an ambulance and rushed to the E.R.

I forgot my line.

There was silence and I could tell by the familiar shade of purple the assistant director was turning nearby that HIS ‘make me happy’ was kicking in.

‘So, does anyone here like magic?’ I asked.

The audience roared with forced laughter and applause, and I brought out the magic guy. He introduced himself because I forgot his name and some genius rigged the teleprompter, so I’d see three of every word. And I’m the hack.

I kept looking at the camera, and wondering if there was really film in there. Were they just fucking with me?

We proceeded into a card trick, and I guessed the wrong card. Then I accidentally (not really) killed his rabbit. I nipped at my flask just as we came back from commercial, and began to feel irritation from the stage lights.

‘Can we turn those fucking lights down?’ I thought and simultaneously said aloud. The audience gasped in shock. I singled out the smallest and meekest looking man with the slightest look of discomfort in the audience and got in his face. The producers rushed out and restrained me as I rained blows upon him, and the show cut to commercial. I engaged in a fist fight with the second assistant director, and managed to knock him out before my best friend injected me in the back with a horse tranquilizer he had bought from some guy outside by the parking lot. He said he had already injected himself, and it would take the edge off. And also that hepatitis wasn’t transferable.

Once I had finished fighting the crew, I fixed my suit and swore to finish the show. I suppose I had chosen the wrong time to commit to such a cause. The combined pressures of trying to secure the club a comp trophy and raise money for whatever group was responsible for this whole thing as well as realizing that poisoning people was a felony was beginning to weigh on me.

Not to mention the five dry grams of psilocybin mushrooms I ate a few hours prior were starting to kick in. The stage began to glow, the lights grew wide and the darkness consumed me. I rushed back out towards the stage, past the people taking calls (which were coming in fast and furious) and through the curtain.I assured what was left of the crew that I could finish the show, and they let the cameras roll. I decided to try out a heart felt monologue, to win the audience back.

’You know - sometimes things aren’t what they appear. We think one thing, we see another. I mean, I’ve been through my fair share of ups and downs, ins and outs. I remember one game, last year I think, might have been the grand final qualifier. I was so hung over when my best friend dropped me off at the arena. We had just come from the horse track. I knew the game was a big one - and I wasn’t taking that lightly. And being the star player in the team, naturally I held the teams management to ransom prior to kick off. I mean, no fucking way I was going to out there to win the game unless I had a juicy contract extension with ridiculous perks and unfair concessions waiting for me by the time the full time siren sounded. When all that was sorted, I managed to find my way out for the last ten minutes of the game. Even though you fuckers out there, you so called fans, gave me a hard time for scoring a self goal not once, not twice, but three times before throwing up on the coach and being escorted out on a stretcher - I let you know, I let ALL of you know via satellite from my beach house in Maui that I would be back the next year to give it the same amount of effort. And I’ve lived up to that promise. Hold on one second, this story gets better,′

I stepped over towards the call takers and threw up behind their counters. I picked up a garbage can and began tossing bits of crap at the closest camera, practicing my signature pass. By this time, my suit was filthy, covered in crumbs and left-overs;all kinds of shit. So I took it off and threw it at the meek guy from earlier as he rushed out with his children under his shelter. I told people the story would get better, and I knew I had only one more chance to save the telethon. I said ’to hell with the spinning and swirling text on the prompter these bastards are throwing at me to test my mettle, I’m going off script!’.

’Y’all wondered what happened to Vinegar? Our beloved mascot after the big win. We all assumed, and I definitely lit the flame under the grill that cooked this whopper, that our rival team took him. Probably murdered him and sold him.That was my guess, and we went at them hard based on that guess. We knew we couldn’t get that donkey back, but we could avenge his loss by taunting the rival town with hate mail,petty spite TV ads and sabotages to the towns toilet paper supplies’.

The shirt I was wearing was now soaked in sweat and was continually doused in the trash I was still hurling at the cameras from the garbage can I was holding. Periodically, I would stop to nibble on some left over eclairs or finish what I hoped was leftover beer from nearly empty bottles. The audience was basically all gone, but the the calls were rushing in. The crew continued and the police, fire brigade and ambulances began to show up.I took the shirt off and vowed to finish the story.

’It turns out I took the donkey. Son of a bitch, jackass, was stealing my spot light all season. Plus one time he ate my lunch, and everyone laughed and said ‘let’s make this a tv bit’, and I ran off and hid in the locker room and when I finished crying I vowed to get that donkey. I kidnapped him and then I drove him across the country and sold him to a guy that does donkey shows for biker gangs. Then I farted out that story about the other team taking him and I settled in nicely to being the town hero. So fuck you. Guy holding the camera; fuck you. Producers? fuck you. Cops over there, medics, even you firefighters as well, fucking heroes, fuck you too! Let me say this -′

The cops rushed at me and the cameras got on us. I wrestled my person out of their grips, and managed a three stooges-esque triple slap to three officers. I rushed to a camera and shoved my face in it.

’I’ll fight any one of you bastards, anywhere any time for the rest of my life. I’ll fight ya to the death and I’ll win because I’m invincible! I’m tired of you people, I took the donkey and I also took a dive in last year’s semi’s for a jet ski and a pet kangaroo from the owner of the team. Fuck you!′

The cops came at me with the clubs, and waited for the signal that the show was off the air. This usually would have come earlier, but I pulped the guy who pushes the ‘on air/off air’ switches and everyone else was scared to do his job. What with the clear and present threat of a pulping.

The guy came to. Turned it off and the cops beat the shit out of me until I passed out. I think I saw the medics laying into me too before it all went black.

I got into twelve fights in my first two and a half minutes in lock up. I remember them saying of the last chap to try me - ‘Jesus christ, the guy is eighty and hung over...’ as they carried him to the infirmary. That was actually a close one, as I was far more hung over than the old man. I thought there was two of him, like I was fighting twins here. I didn’t think anyone would take me serious, but it was looking more and more like I was in for a life time of fights. It was a word of mouth sensation.

Me and a guy I called drunkey were arguing from our cells, opposite one another. It was still dark out, the moonlight filled the space between us.

Drunkey kept insisting that he wasn’t drunk, but I referred to the adage ‘it takes one to know one’ - meaning that because I was drunk and smelled of hard spirits, I knew the smell and insisted I knew that Drunkey smelled of about a barrel full of really cheap port.

‘You’re really a son of a bitch for taking that donkey’

I took a swing at him from my cage. He was clinging onto the bars with his face pressed between.

‘They could have made me the mascot’ I said.

‘Make you the mascot!? Are you fucking crazy son?’

’You’re old as fuck, you don’t understand things that young people enjoy. Like happiness. It would have made me VERY happy to be the fucking mascot’ I snapped.

’You’re already the star player, highest paid in the game, you need to be the fucking team mascot too? You couldn’t let the donkey have that one?

I took out a joint I hid from the cops and lit it, then I began smoking it and relaxing a bit. The fights had really taken it out of me, and I had about sixty years of them left to look forward to.

‘I had the design all worked out,’ I opined,‘it was me humping the ball-’

‘Let me stop you there,’ the old guy cut in, ‘you’re a fucking idiot!’

‘We get out of here gramps,’ I said, blowing a huge cloud of smoke at him, ‘you’re next’.

He retreated into the darkness of his cell.

‘Mr Ploom!’ some voice called.

I rolled over in my bed and got comfortable.

‘Mr Ploom! Wake up, some one has made bail on your behalf’

‘Fuck off! I’m sleeping’

‘Get up!’

‘One more hour!’

The cell gate opened and the voice became a guy who yanked me out of bed and marched me out. My dad was there in the front office waiting for me, with a stern look on his horse face.

We got into his car and drove off.

The coast line was a blur of colours as I stared out of the passenger seat window, traveling along an emptyhighway.

There was silence. My dad looked like Tom Skerritt.

My dad looked over at me as we came into the backstreets near home. I could tell he was ashamed.

‘I can’t believe you took a dive in the semi’s last year’ He finally said.

‘Jet ski’ I replied.

‘I had ten grand riding on that game, you son of a bitch!’

‘Not now, dad,’ I replied, ‘I’m not in the mood for this’.

The car ceased at a stop sign about a block from the house. It was a nice neigbourhood. There were rarely fights, unruly neighbours or large scenes of mayhem.

‘It’s you all over, kid. What’s this crap about challenging people to fights?’

‘eh’

’Don’t ‘eh’ me, Barty. You’re gonna get your ass kicked, this town is pissed off at you. Some guy tried to fight me today for god sakes. Says next time he sees me, he’s kicking my ass and calling me Barty. I got you to thank for that one. Your mother won’t shut up about what an asshole you are, thanks for that also, and I got hemorrhoids. You again!′

I finally had enough. I lunged over the seat and slapped the old man under my arm pit in a mean headlock. We began swerving all over the road in the nice Cadillac I bought my dad for father’s day. We took out a few trees and plants as we reached the lawn at home. I released the headlock and began laying in with punches. He reached down and pulled his shoe off and began swinging it at me wildly. The car sat idle near the mailbox as we fought. I landed a headbutt which seemed to knock the old man out, as he suddenly fell into the horn on the wheel and his feet hit the gas and the car took off, crashing through the neighbour’s fence and off across the street.

I fell out of the open passenger side door and rolled across the lawn. The car continued on and gained speed, swerving insanely across a two lane street before making a sharp turn and plowing into the front of an adjacent neighbour’s living room wall. Mom came running out of the house, wailing and waving her arms. She ran past me and over towards the scene of the crash. My dad was stumbling out of the car, which was half in the house, half out. He crashed out of the neighbour’s window and through their patio hand rail onto their lush green grass.

He could have fell onto a less forgiving surface, such as gravel as I had, so I felt good for him and a little better about our little ‘scuffle’. I called out to mom and dad and said ‘have a good one’ as I began running from the scene.

I managed to dodge the cops and get to my buddies house. I knocked on the door, identified myself at his request and then dodged his punch when he came at me hard with a left hook as soon as the door opened. We scuffled outside on the second story veranda before a mean double punch to the nuts and chest sent my buddy tumbling back into his house, which I informed him was a shit hole upon entering and slamming what was left of the door (but secretly, I liked what he had done with the place).

‘What’s your problem, buddy?’ I asked my buddy.

‘Don’t you get it - for the rest of your life Barty. There will be one, eventually, he’ll be remembered’

‘For what?’

’The one who kicked your ass and answered your challenge - which the state has licensed now as an official legal bounty, fifty thousand dollar reward, dead or alive’ my buddy replied.

’Dude...’I said to my buddy.

‘What?’ he asked in reply, rising from the ashes of one ass kicking, seemingly ready for another.

‘You’re not my buddy’ I told my former buddy.

He lunged at me and we fought some more. I intended to do at least fifty thousand dollars of damage to his apartment, just in case I lost this one. I had already ruined several things, most of which would cause sentimental damage. Big tv? gone. Tanning bed? gone. Fish tank? accidentally knocked over. Photos of his relatives posing with framed pictures of himself? Thrown at him and one successfully embedded in his spine. I kicked his ass some more and made loud gorilla noises as I slapped him and ate the bananas he left out for company. It was becoming clear that I was going to win this particular fight, so I got cocky. And what always happens when one is cocky happened this time; it worked out just fine.

I raided my former buddy’s formerly secret stash spot and took all the choice drugs. I decided not to kill him. This time.

I stole my former buddy’s car and began driving over town towards a secret black market trade. I figured things were done and I’d messed up too bad to ever fix things, what with warrants for my arrest and a god damn bounty. All I ever wanted to do was whatever I wanted all the time - how did things go so wrong? It was time to buy a new identity and become a new man...or woman.

The guy, Patfu, had been my provider for illicit things before. Pieces of hair and skin from celebrities, electrons, atoms, plutonium,really smart dolphin meat and so on. But I had never met him before, and a one on one was required to get something like a new identity. I slipped on a pair of brass knuckles while I was driving, just in case Patfu wanted the bounty. People always say you can’t do other things while you drive, well that’s just plain wrong. I slipped on the brass knucks, opened a candy bar, changed the radio station with my toe, adjusted the seat and managed to flip off and heckle other drivers with abuse, all without incident as I neared the location of the market.

Next thing I knew, I was crawling out of a flaming car wreckage, breathing in smoke and crawling over bodies. I noticed something hanging from the edge of the smashed window, which was now upside down facing the ground, with the car having spun out and crashed through a tree near a busy city carnival. I grabbed what I came back for, the rest of the candy bar, and got the hell out of there. No one was dead, but life wouldn’t be fun for a while for most of them. I promised to remember to write down a vow to gift them each a candy bar to aide their recoveries.

I found the haunted house, the entry way to the black market. The haunted house featured politicians dressed as ghouls - they jumped out at various intervals along the rail ride and shouted political rhetoric at you before receding mechanically back into the darkness.

I took all the good drugs my former buddy had at once, fought some guy who recognized me and drank the beer he set down nearby (thinking a victory chug was all but assured - why people thought they could actually beat an often sober pro athlete in a fight I couldn’t quite understand). Soon the drugs began to kick in, so I jumped in the first available rail cart and headed into the haunted house.

I took the ride and jumped off at the right spot to find the entrance to the market.

After a few fights with some friends I recognized there, I stumbled upon the enigmatic shack of the Patfu. I fought the guard (not because of my challenge, but because looked at me kinda funny) and then went in.

I nibbled on a few human horns from a nearby black market eatery. It stunk inside of potpourri and baked goods that were slightly overdone. There were curtains and drapes as a foyer and I got tangled in them and fell, and ripped them apart. Someone kicked the shit out of me as they rolled me out of the tangled mess, It was all darkness and pain, consistently. It was understandable, I think I’d brought down the Patfu’s whole shack. Evidently, the curtains were load bearing.

I finally was free and the Patfu was dragging me in a familiar headlock. He led me through the ruins of his shack, past the gawkers and past the rest of the stalls and shops in the black market. We went out through a secret exit, a door marked ‘just don’t’, and the Patfu shoved me into his Cadillac.

Cadillac?

Potpourri?

Patfu was my dad. I slumped into the passenger seat of my dad’s messed up Cadillac. We drove off.

‘Patfu, hey dad?’ I said, cleverly.

‘Shut the fuck up, Barty!,’ dad said, ’I’m getting you to the airport, you’re going to one of your god damned beach houses for a few weeks’

We drove in silence for a good three seconds.

I toyed grabbing the wheel, wondering if Patfu would get the joke.

‘Barty!’

I sat back.

Then I toyed grabbing the wheel again.

’Barty! Fuck off! You nearly killed me last time, and the damn neighbours too! You’re crazy’

’What’s with Patfu, dad? You’ve been getting me dolphin meat? Skin, atoms and shit? You should have told me’ I said, lighting up a cigarette.

‘Would ya put that shit out?’ dad asked, snatching the cigarette and tossing it out the window.

’Dad - is there any justifiable or even interesting reason that you are some underworld black market king pin named Patfu?′ I asked, lighting another cigarette.

‘Nope’ he replied.

We took an exit off the highway towards the airport. Dad snatched the cigarette and tossed it again.

‘Thanks dad’.

‘It’s Patfu now’ he replied.

We drove off towards the baggage depot, and dad stopped the car.

‘Listen, Barty. You’ve gotta hop in this cage, it’s the only way’.

I looked in the back of the car and saw a huge animal cage.

‘The fuck?’ I asked.

’It’s the only way. Once you’re on the plane, you can choose where you want to go and someone will let you out’ dad said.

‘You sure about this, dad?’

‘Patfu’

‘You sure about this, Patfu?’

‘Yes, Barty. It’s the only way’

End Part Uno