Fake (A Pretty Pill) (34 page)

“I just remembered what I do when I order Mexican and they make it too hot.  I usually only need to have a spoonful or so
, but this was significantly hotter.  I, I thought I had acid burns.” She shakes her head.  “It’s like you bathed the turkey in napalm or something.”

“I was thinking it was battery acid.” I supplied.
  I like the fact that we both thought we were dying from sort of the same thing, even though it’s kind of crap.

“I thought it was venom.” Ben says.
 

See Ben, you’re not for her.  You don’t
even think the same.

“I thought I’d poisoned all of us.  I mean I had no idea.  I will never buy from that stall ever again.”  She says.

Ben is turning the jar in his hands.

“Scotch Bonnet Peppers – t
hat’s the main ingredient.” He says.

“Main ingredient, w
hat else?” I ask.  “I mean did they milk fire ants and add that as well?” I question.

We’re all silently contemplating what this means, except for Isi, who has been on her phone since Ben said
Scotch Bonnet Peppers
.

Isi is
groaning at her phone.  She dumps it in front of me and she places her face in her hands.

I look down.

I read the information she’s found and offered to me.

“Motherfucker
.”

“Silas
… Ben!” Jade gasps and then shoves another spoonful into her mouth and sucks on it.

“He’s four months old
.” I whine.  “And he’s already heard every curse word that exists in the English language today.  He’s going to hear them for another hour at least Jade.” I reason. 

Ben’s clicking his fingers at me; non-verbally suggesting he wants to see what I’ve been looking at.  So I pass
the phone onto Ben.

He’s looking at the
phone and then looking at Jade and then back at the phone.  He’s breathing funny.  I think he’s a bit emotional.

I also happen to know that according to
Wikipedia, which he is currently reading; Scotch Bonnet peppers are extremely hot, as in mega extreme.

“Jade, describe the heat of a Jalapeno.” Ben requests.
  “Just, you know – your own take on them, not mine.”

“
Hot, almost too hot for me.” She says, “Actually, I think they lie at my limit.”

“Okay, so multipl
y the level of Jalapeno heat by, I don’t know,
40?
  And then you have the heat of a Scotch Bonnet pepper.” he shouts.

“How the fuck was I to know that Ben?” she screams.

“You read the fucking label Jade.”

“You read the fucking label Ben.
”

“I just did that, and you know what Isi did?  She didn’t know what it was, so she fucking
looked it up.
” Ben shouts.

“You can’t blame me
.” Jade screams back.

“Guys
.”  Isi firmly shouts, wading into a fight I’d steer clear of myself.  Ben and Jade whip their heads around.

“I want to thank you for singularly the best bonding experience I think I
’ve ever had.  I will never, and I do mean never, forget my first Thanksgiving with my new family.  It’s been educational.”

I am so in love with this woman.

“Now Silas, let’s go and settle on the couch and watch television with little Ben while Jade and big Ben sort out the left-over’s.”

“That
’d be good.” Jade says sheepishly.

“I’m sorry honey.” Ben says
to Jade.  “I love you, but I’m really annoyed that you tried to kill me.”

“It was more
of a murder suicide thing.” I point out to them.

Jade gives me a narrow
-eyed look, and coupled with her red eyes I think she looks pretty evil.  So I grab little Ben and carry him to the lounge area.

***

“Who’s winning?” Ben asks, coming around the corner into the lounge room.  “Oh, that’s not the game.”

“It’s
called Adventure Time.” Isi says.

“We went for the age appropriate programs.  You left it on porn.”  I explain.
  Ben grins at me.

“He can watch football.” Ben says
, changing the channel.

“What happened to the turkey?”
I ask.

“
We thought we should put it in the bin.  Seriously, it needs to go to landfill.  It could melt permafrost that thing.”  Ben points out.

“Did you sort out Jade’s psychotic tendencies?” I ask.

“I heard that.” Jade screams from the other room.

“It runs in the family.” Ben smiles.

“Well, I’m not looking forward to that meal coming out the other end.” I grumble.

“Who is?” Isi
moans.

Silas.

I’ve been working up to
a fight for the last couple of months.  There are no nerves; I’m just desperate to release some of my anger at the world.

Not that things are g
oing badly with Isi.  In fact, things there are really good.  Almost perfect for us; especially considering there’s an asshole yet to be found, she insists on having her mornings to herself working for Dr. Jensen and her God damn mother is continually trying to contact her.

That fucking
Darla is like poor Sabrina’s cancer.  It just gets worse and worse. 

I miss Sabrina.
Ben misses her terribly and it’s a good thing I got to know her in those last few months of her life, because when Ben talks about her I can contribute to the conversation.

As for
Darla; she’s a walking advertisement for how a mother shouldn’t behave.  I shouldn’t even mention her in the same sentence as Sabrina; they’re so not alike it gives me whiplash.

Darla
started trying to contact Isi after the time she saw us coming out of the theatre; the day after the Thanksgiving fiasco.  We had tried to avoid her when we saw her, and Isi was practically barging people out of the way to flee, when her mother made a huge scene in front of the crowd of people all lined up to see their movie of choice.

I would’ve kept running, but she didn’t.  She stopped, grabbed the tactless woman’s hand and dragged her from the cinema complex.  I fol
lowed, as did another young guy.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Isi seethed.

“Why are you behaving like such a bitch and ignoring me?”

“I’m the bitch?” Isi responded.

“I’m your mother.  I’m responsible for bringing you into this world.” Darla shouted.

I looked at the young guy beside me, observing
the two of them as was I.  He was slim, very slim.  He was handsome in a model type way; blond hair, blue eyes.  He kind of reminded me of Shae’s coloring.  He was 20?  He seriously looked like he was 16.

“I’ve got to ask.
Why?” I asked him.

“Why am I with an older woman?”

“No, why her?”

“She’s gorgeous,
are you kidding me?  Older and hot.” he said.

I look
ed at the screaming banshee; I just couldn’t see it.

“You’re younger than her daughter by 5 years.” I explained
, not that age mattered to me either.

He shrugged.

“What do you get out of it?” I asked.

“I love her man.”

“You, love her.” I pointed at her and made a sour face.

I must say that the way I was talking about Isi’s mother at the time wasn’t very nice.  My face was scowling and I
added a general sneering quality to my words.  He either didn’t register it, or he didn’t care; either way he continued the conversation like I was his friend.

If a guy came up to me and started talking to me about Isi like I was talking to him about
Darla, they’d walk away with a broken jaw and some teeth missing.

Go figure.

“She’s hot in bed.” he smiled.

I swallow
ed the vomit; it burned, probably a residual effect from the Thanksgiving meal the previous day.

“She’s fake.” I said
swallowing.

“I don’t care what you call it, but she’s got it.” He grin
ned.

“For how long?”

“Until I’m over it.” He stated.

“Huh,
you two were made for each other.” I responded. 

I’m in it for life with Isi.  I don’t
want to think of a time without her.  He obviously recognizes that his relationship with the screaming harpy has a limited shelf life.

I turned to him and demanded,
“Look man, you need to get your bitch into line and drag her sorry ass away from my girl before I hit the woman.”

He actually gave me a knowing look.  Like he’d had to do this before.  He walked forward and grabbed the screaming bitch and dragged her back inside.

Isi remained standing there, breathing hard and clenching her fists.

“Let’s go home and have angry sex.” I offered.

“You want angry sex?” she asked breathing hard.

“We can go to the gym and punch it out
?” I said looking at my watch.  “They’ll be open another forty minutes.”

She shook her head.

“Take me home; I’m really angry.” she’d said.

Damn,
she was really angry
for hours, it was great.

But not to be repeated
because the next morning it felt like she’d nearly broken my dick.

So
I’m over the mother thing, the whole Darla episode should never happen again.

However, right now I’m here. Getting ready to face a guy well known in San Marino and I’m on his turf and in his gym.  And I want to punch his motherfucking lights out, just because it’s my job and I need to win.

“You ready?” Hansen asks.

“Yes.”

“You nail this and show them you’ve still got
it; we’ll be able to negotiate a minor contract.” Hansen states.

I nod, “Good enough.”

It’s a start.  I was on a minor contract this year based on my Australian profile for boxing and Muay Thai, and a couple of small fights in other LA locations like this one.  I was unable to complete it however, so if I have to start from the bottom again, that’s just what I have to do.  It already helps that I’ve been seen before and won those fights.

“How does he look?” I ask.

“Hungry.”

Not good,
he wants this fight as much as me.  I don’t know much about him and he’ll be at an advantage since he’s had footage to watch of me.

But he doesn’t know the fucked up shit that’s gone on in my life over the last six months.  I have a lot of fuel to burn.

The centre supports a significantly smaller crowd than the UFC events; however, it reminds me of home.  And looking at the octagon, I recognize the absence of flair and fanfare for what it is; it’s functional.

My opponent is Tito Zavala; 77kg, and five ten.  I have f
our inches in height on him, and I weigh the same. 

He looks sincerely more muscled than me.

But it comes down to skill, not how many fibers you have wrapped around your bones, though they help too of course. Since hooking up with Ben I’ve been covering a whole lot of Jiu-Jitsu as well as my standard. 

Since returning to training with him in SLO, I’ve been working a little harder to add some more Jiu-Jitsu to my routine workouts.  Too many guys in my division h
ave it as a skill, I need it too.

***

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.  He’s essentially a wrestler.
He fucking wants you on the ground so he can wrestle you into submission.  I use submission too, but it’s not my only skill.  It’s not my main weapon of choice.  Diversify asshole.

Fuck off
.

Get off my ba
ck pony boy, and fuck this shit. I’m warmed up now; I have no idea what I’ve been doing for the last 30 seconds while trying to read him.

So I roll forward and to the side.  I throw my shoulders bac
k, since headbutting is illegal and I need to jolt him off of me.  It’s a messy break because he’s holding on like a leach.

He
scratches me as I remove myself, and I cop a slap to the face from behind, which slides off the goop Hansen smeared there earlier.  He’s lucky he missed my eyes.

He’s drawn first blood.  It won’t be the last.

Fucking pussy – slapping me. I need to teach this asshole how to fight.  He’s fighting like a girl.