John Locke - A Girl Like You

Billy King’s walking back and forth on the far side of the ring like a caged tiger. He’s not just warmed up, he’s juiced. Steroids, probably. Or coke. He shouts, “Who’s next? Anyone else?”

“That your cue?” Jimmy says.

“It is.” I raise my hand and shout “Next!”

Jimmy says, “I s’pect my brother could handle Billy.”

“I s’pect you’re right.”

“Not many others could.”

“I’ll handle him,” I say.

Jimmy smiled. “You look a bit long in the tooth, you don’t mind my sayin’.”

I smile. “Nice to meet you.”

I turn and walk toward the ring a few steps, then stop and turn back to him. Jimmy’s hand is still extended. I walk back to him and take it.

“Donovan Creed,” I say.

Jimmy smiles broadly. “Jimmy Santa,” he says.

“Former Lightweight Champion, South Bronx Golden Gloves,” I say.

“Waaauuu!” he whisper-shouts.

I start heading toward the ring to meet Billy “the Kid” King up close and personal.

“Wait a minute,” Jimmy says.

I turn my head.

“He’s got this move,” Jimmy says, demonstrating a right cross that flies halfway toward an imaginary target, then hesitates, before snapping forward.

“Check hook,” I say.

Jimmy gives me a “thumbs-up.” Then he says, “You want me to work your corner?”

I shake my head.

“Why not?” he says.

“It’s not going to last that long.”

3.

I step down the levels until I’m at ringside. Billy sees me standing there with my gym bag. He trots over, spits on the canvass, and rubs his crotch.

Apparently Billy King has a lot of moves.

“Who the fuck’re you?” he says, leaning over the ropes, leering down at me.

“Donovan Creed.”

“Donovan? Donovan? ” He looks around for approval. “What’re you, gay?”

“Compensatory displacement.”

“What?”

I looked at my watch. “I hate to rush you, but can we move this along? I’ve got someplace to be.”

His nostrils flared, and his eyes were wild. He was definitely on something. Crack, maybe, or PCP. But if PCP, he was simply fortified with it, not completely whacked. I saw a six-foot-five, three hundred pound guy in a bar once in New Orleans who was so high on PCP, when a cop came in to arrest him, he broke a bottle and used it to gouge his own eye out. Then he started laughing and stripped off all his clothes, jumped onto a table top and defecated. It took the cop a full minute to realize what he’d just witnessed. He looked at the bloody eye socket, the steaming pile of shit, then turned and ran out the door, gagging. He practically vomited his spleen out in the parking lot. By the time he finished puking, all the other bar folk, including the bartender, were vomiting alongside him. Which made it just two people inside the bar: me, and the naked, one-eyed, three-hundred-pound table shitter.

I had a helluva time kicking that guy’s ass.

Billy, though highly skilled, would be a walk in the park compared to him.

“If you’ve got gloves in that bag, put ’em on,” Billy King says. “’Cos I’m not just gonna whip your ass, I’m gonna make you my bitch.”

“Compensatory displacement,” I say.

“Stop saying that. What are you, retarded?”

“You can wear gloves if you think you need them,” I say, “to protect your hands. Of course, I don’t plan to hit your hands.”

“You can’t fight in the ring without gloves,” he says.

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, ‘why not?’ They got rules,” he sputtered.

“Then climb out of the ring and fight me here.”

He glanced at the activity in the opposite corner. The med student was checking over the guy on the stool. Billy King turned his attention back to me and stared at me as if he were inspecting a bug he’d crushed under his shoe.

“What’s in the bag?” he says.

I hold it open so he can see the pen and single sheet of paper. I remove them and hold the paper up to him.

“The fuck is that?” he says.

I notice Guy and Z have entered the room and are standing by the doors.

“Don’t mind us,” Guy calls out. “We just want to watch.”

I nod.

“What’s it say on the paper?” Billy repeats.

“It’s a release. And down here on the left is where we’ll get the witnesses to sign.”

“A release for what?”

“In case I kill you by mistake.”

“ You ? Kill me ?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I could shit you for breakfast!” he says.

I wait.

He says, “Are you fuckin’ serious? Because I will flat fuck you up! I’ll make you my plaything ! You’ll be doin’ my laundry, pretty boy, and takin’ it in the ass when I come home after a hard day’s work.”

“So…you gonna sign it or what?” I say.

He yells at the men in the opposite corner. “Get that bitch outta my ring, and get this old motherfucker—”

He looks at me and says, “What are you, forty?”

“I’d rather not say. I’m sensitive about my age.”

“—Get this old motherfucker a pair of gloves.”

4.

There are a number of rules for winning a fist fight. Chief among them is, don’t fight your opponent the way he wants to fight you. I put the release back in my bag, hop onto the lip of the ring, slide under the ropes. Then get to my feet and stand directly in front of Billy “the Kid” King.

“I’m not fighting you without gloves,” he says.

“It’s quicker to take yours off than wrap my hands.”

“You might get in a lucky punch. It’s not fair.”

“ You might get in a lucky punch. I’m willing to take the risk.”

“You tryin’ to make me look bad? In my own gym?” he shouts, and launches his lightning-fast left jab.

I may be twice his age, but I’m light years faster. I can see it’s a feint. I can tell it’s going to stop an inch from my right eye. He’s throwing it to make me flinch. But I don’t flinch. I don’t even blink. Instead, I say, “Compensatory displacement is when you substitute something for the thing you don’t have.”

“What?”

“The thing that makes you feel inferior.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that, smart guy?”

“You lack courage. So you overcompensate by calling me names you think will emasculate me.”

“I’ll show you courage!” he says, and throws a left hook with bad intentions. I lift my right arm and catch his gloved fist in my hand, the same way Jack Johnson used to taunt his opponents. Then, in one quick motion, I release his glove, slap his face, then grab his glove again. He tries to pull it away, but I don’t allow it. Then I release his glove again, and slap his face again. The guys in the corner start snickering.

Billy isn’t snickering. He doesn’t like what’s happening. Doesn’t like it at all. When he shifts his feet I see his plan. He’s going to shove me, get me off balance, then finish me with an overhand right. But I side-step him, grab his arm, and use his momentum to hurl him into the ropes. He bounces off and comes at me, forgetting his jab. Throws a roundhouse right, but can’t find me because...

Because I’m on my back, on the floor, snaking my legs between his ankles so fast he doesn’t have time to regain his balance. I spin my body, and Billy “the Kid” King hits the canvass, face first. I jump to my feet and wait for him to do the same, but he lays there, stone cold. I turn him over and tell the guys who were working the corner earlier to elevate him so he doesn’t choke on the blood from his broken nose.

I slide under the ropes, hop out of the ring. Jimmy, grinning ear to ear, meets me there and says, “…And new Cruiserweight Champion of the World!” Then does that “Waaauuu!” thing again.

I open my bag, pull out the picture I took of Miranda Rodriguez yesterday, when I saw her bandaged face. I skitter the picture across the canvass to where the guys are working on Billy King.

“When he comes to,” I say, “show him the picture and tell him to stay away from her.” I stare at them until one of the guys nods.

I say, “Tell Billy I come to New York City four times a year.”

The guy nods again, says, “Okay.”

I say, “Then tell him every time I come here, for the rest of my life, I’m going to find him and break his nose again.”

“Jesus!” the guy says.

5.

When I enter the room, Miranda Rodriguez looks at her watch.

“You’re late, Mr. Creed. Punctuality says a lot about a person.”

“I’m sorry. I had some business across town.”

I take the chair opposite her and notice she’s studying me. I say, “I hope you don’t mind my dressing casual today. I tried to squeeze in a workout, and hadn’t anticipated the traffic.”

“Manhattan traffic is legendary. As often as you come to the city, I should think you’d know what to expect.”

I put my hands up. “Guilty. Sorry to keep you waiting.” I look at my watch and frown. “Not to be critical,” I say, “but I’m only two minutes late.”

She smiles wistfully and says, “Some people live a lifetime in two minutes.”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

She says, “Are we contentious today?”

“Possibly. How’s your nose?”

“Broken. But better, thanks for asking.”

“And you still won’t tell me who hit you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

She sighs. “You have a classic hero complex. I have no doubt but what you’d run off and try to hurt the man, and possibly get yourself hurt in the process. Neither of those events would please me, and neither would change what happened.”

“It might prevent him from doing it to someone else.”

“I’ve filed an assault report. I’m sure the police will track him down and take him in for questioning.”

“And what if he comes after you because you filed the police report?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“I could prevent all that,” I say.

“Thank you, Donovan. Truly. I know you mean well, but your tendency toward violence is something I don’t approve of. Speaking of which, have you thought about what I said yesterday about compensatory displacement?”

“I have. I even managed to use it in a sentence this morning.”

“Excellent,” Miranda says. She pauses. “What would you like to talk about today?”

“Tell me about this hero complex disorder.”

She nods. “Well, let me start by saying it’s not a disorder. Not officially.”

“But you think it should be.”

“I do. In extreme cases.”

“Let me guess: you consider me an extreme case.”

“I do. Nothing personal.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

“I can try,” she says. “The person with a hero complex has a compulsion to save people. Or rescue, or protect them.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“In extreme cases, he or she actually believes they’re making the world safe from some type of perceived threat that only they can prevent.”

“I still fail to see the problem. Seems if there were more of us, the world would be a safer place.”

She smiles. “Please note my use of the word ‘compulsion.’ It’s one thing to help others because you want to.”

“I want to.”

“Do you, Donovan? Or do you feel compelled to help them?”

“What’s the difference? If people need to be helped, or rescued, someone’s got to do it.”

“Do they?”

“Well, don’t they?”