Flesh Worn Stone (9 page)

“I can see where prison would be somewhat like this, if modern fiction is any judge, in a survival sense.” John was almost jealous that Darius had that experience. He’d had nothing of the sort in preparation for the Cave and the Game in his life. He’d never touched another man in anger, never been in any fight besides verbal altercations. There had been the few women and he could still feel the pleasure at seeing the occasional bruise. The women had been nothing, servants hired by his father to be used as he liked, as was his right. He’d never hit a woman he’d had any personal interest in. John had never even played any of the popular American sports through school, instead focusing on his studies in preparation for the eventual day he’d take over his father’s company. He knew where the real power was, even at that early age. Sure, in school, the football players were popular with the ladies, but he knew that one day he’d employ people like that—the brain dead sheep that made up the working class. They were his servants, his subjects, and even then, he’d looked down on his fellow students.

“You do what you have to do,” Darius told him. “Just like I’m going to do what I have to do here to survive. I’m getting out of here,” he said, rubbing his chin and staring at the mud-covered stone floor. “And no one is going to stop me.”

John didn’t doubt that and could see the passion—passion they both thought Steven was lacking—lurking behind the big man’s eyes. He too felt that same passion, though he knew he didn’t have the base physical skills Darius did. He simply didn’t know how to fight or how to perform when confronted by larger and more capable adversaries. He felt, though, that since Darius did, he was the guy to stick with. It was either Darius or the apparent leader of the Cave, Block.

“I don’t know these things, Darius,” John told him, sitting at his side. “I’ll admit I’ve lived a life of indulgence and pleasure. I never had to work for a thing in my life, and my father,” he said softly, remembering the gunshots in his own home, “gave me anything I ever needed or wanted.”

“Is this supposed to somehow endear me to you, John?” Darius asked curiously. “I don’t really give a shit what pampered life you came from. It might have mattered there, though it wouldn’t have to me, but it doesn’t mean shit here.”

“That’s my point exactly. I don’t know anything about this place, this situation. I…” He paused intentionally for effect and spoke softly. “I need help.”

Darius laughed out loud. “Seriously, that’s hilarious. I’m in the same boat you are, champ. I’m here and I have to survive, just the same as you. What in the hell would make me want to risk my own survival for the sake of yours, even if I could help you?”

“You can help me,” John insisted. “You can show me things that you know. Teach me.”

Darius shook his head sadly, still laughing. “The things I know…the things I don’t really want to know…they can’t be taught by someone. You have to learn them on your own, in your own way and on your own time. I can tell you what a man’s neck snapping feels like but I can’t tell how it feels in here,” he said, pointing to his chest.

The conversation didn’t get a chance to go any further as the same siren they’d heard previously before the Game sounded again. They heard several people wondering aloud about “two in a row.” From the look of surprise on their faces, John figured that the Game was, thankfully, not a daily occurrence.  Still the crowd marched merrily out of the Cave, many carrying garbage bags, bowls, and various cutlery in anticipation of the garbage feast afterwards. John’s stomach grumbled in fury, and suddenly a rotten apple was sounding pretty good.

* * *

Steven thought again that the Game resembled a baseball game back home at Minute Maid Park, and he remembered one in particular.

It was hot in Houston, the June heat oppressive, and Steven wondered how the Cincinnati Reds would fair. Did they get off the airplane with their eyeballs sweating and their pores threatening revolt? He wondered, briefly, how different temperatures and climates affected team’s playing abilities. It didn’t really matter, he thought with a smile as he looked to his right where Corey and Lonnie sat between him and Rebecca. It didn’t matter if they won or lost. He was here with his family, a cold Saint Arnold’s in one hand and a hot dog in the other, and the boys were having a great time. Corey had started t-ball the year before, so he studied the Astro’s catcher as if he were a college professor, intent on learning everything he could. Lonnie, a year younger, wasn’t as into the game yet, but Steven had no doubt that with the brother he idolized playing, he too would join in America’s Favorite Game.

Rebecca looked at him and smiled in that way only she could. “I love you, honey.”

He couldn’t hear her over the din of the crowd’s cheering, but there was no doubting what she’d said. He didn’t reply, but returned the smile in kind.

Steven tried to return to watching the game but was distracted by a man, three rows down, staring up at his wife. He looked confused, as if he were trying to decide if she was someone he recognized. Eventually, he got up, made his way up the stairs and then down the aisle to her. Rebecca hadn’t noticed the man’s staring, but instantly recognized him. She hugged him deeply and Steven couldn’t make out what the man was saying over the roar of the crowd. He though he heard
She’s alive for now
, but wasn’t sure.

The man, tears in his eyes, grasped her shoulder firmly and then left. He didn’t return to his seat, but instead left the game, and Steven didn’t see him return. Rebecca was crying at that point, and he rearranged the boys so he could sit beside her.

“Who was that?”

She hesitated at first, stammering, and then said, “He’s my cousin. I haven’t seen in him in years.”

“Is everything all right?”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked as if she didn’t want to say any more. He was confused, wondering why she would want to hide something from him. “Yes. It’s just that my aunt is in the hospital. She might not make it.”

“Do we need to leave? Do I need to take you to her?”

Rebecca laughed through the tears. “No…it’s a very long trip and I…” It looked like it pained her to say it. “I wasn’t very close to her.”

“Well…maybe we can send flowers, or something?” He couldn’t understand why she was lying to him but he knew she was. He could see it in her eyes.

“I’ll do that,” she told him, the tears gone. “Let’s enjoy the game for now.”

* * *

The crowd gathered just as they had the day before, in a U-shaped formation around the edges of the canyon. They were cheering the same gladiator cartoon again, the bare red forms of the outlined combatants doing epic battle, and he wondered if the same one won every time. His question was answered shortly thereafter as one fell to the other’s sword. It was the same one, repeated over and over again as the crowd settled. He still couldn’t find Rebecca anywhere, but Darius and John joined him.

“Have you seen my wife?”

“No,” John replied. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t. I’m sure she’s okay, though.”

“How can you be sure of that?” he asked, incredulous. “How can anyone be okay here?”

“I don’t know for sure,” John told him. “But it seems that all violence is centered here, in the Game. You notice Block’s men didn’t attack us, though they said they could? There were also no incidents last night that I could hear among hundreds of people sleeping, though you would think there might be.”

Darius agreed. “It’s like in prison. Most of the violence happens in the shadows at night, if you can get away with it. It doesn’t happen here. No one came to rob us or kill us in the middle of the night.”

Though insane, there was a twisted logic to what the men said. He even remembered Block telling Darius to ‘save his energy for the Game’. It didn’t change the fact that he was worried about his wife. As Darius and John prattled on about their current theory, he tried to ignore them and scan the crowd for his wife. There were so many faces, all dingy and dirt like they were wearing a layer of camouflage, and they all looked the same. The many amputees stood out. There were people like the old woman who were missing hands and feet, one he saw even missing both legs. The man was carried around in a haphazard sling on the back of another man.

He didn’t see Rebecca or the child anywhere as the Game began. The gladiators disappeared and were replaced by two identification numbers and the letter
R
. He looked down at his own encrusted tattoo in sudden panic, hoping against hope it wouldn’t be him that was called to the canyon floor. He sighed in relief when he found it wasn’t his, and it was several seconds before two men stepped out onto the canyon’s asphalt-covered floor.

“What do you think the R means?” John asked aloud.

“Well, K was kill, right?” Darius responded.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m guessing R might mean rape.”

“It’s two men,” John said, the horror in his voice evident. “They expect a man to rape another man?”

“Happens more than most would think.”

The two men walked up to each other slowly as the crowd quieted. They shook hands and hugged each other tightly. Steven thought for a moment that they might be homosexual and that this was simply a display of man-on-man pornography until one of the men, an associate of Block’s who was heavily muscled and tattooed, stepped back and then swung his fist forward like a bat, knocking the other man to the ground. The fallen man was nearly equal in size as the aggressor, the match much more fair looking than the previous battle.

The surprised man stood, his opponent giving him the opportunity, and the two laid into each other. Their reach and strength was mostly equal, each landing blows in drum beat with the roar of the crowd. They traded punches and kicks back and forth, like prizefighters, but Steven could discern no clear advantage for either man. They kept at it, one blow after another, tit for tat, for what seemed to Steven like hours, though it was only minutes. Finally, both men staggered back, faces bloodied and broken, exhausted. They looked as if they might not continue the battle and the crowd hushed, glancing up at the digital billboard.

“Fight,” Block ordered angrily from the sidelines, his arms flailing and his face puffed up and boiling red like a hot water bottle. “Fight or we don’t eat. Fight, god damn you.”

His man in the fight looked at him and nodded, stepping forward and slamming a fist home while the other man was distracted with Block’s ravings from the side. He fell in a crumpled pile with the other man coming down quickly onto his chest, pinning his shoulder’s down with his knees. Steven could see the man whisper
sorry
before pummeling his opponent. He lashed out, fist after fist, until the blood pouring from his knuckles was indistinguishable from the blood on the other man’s face. The crowd cheered frantically, almost orgasmically, as one. Even Steven’s heart raced, a combination of the crowd’s energy and the adrenaline from watching the fight.

When the pinned man moved no more Block’s man stood, blood dripping from his hands, and stepped back. He looked at his leader hesitantly.

“Do it, goddamn it!” Block screamed. “Do it for the Cave.”

The man nodded in agreement and bent, untying the hemp rope that served as a belt through his opponent’s dirty and torn trousers. He rolled the man over on his stomach and pulled the trousers down past his knees. Standing, he let his own ragged pants fall to the ground and then grasped his flaccid penis, stroking it to make it erect.

“Fuck,” Darius whispered, barely audible over the din of the crowd, “it
is
rape.”

The crowd cheered the man on like he was a runner heading home, but it didn’t seem to have any affect. He looked at his boss desperately for help. Block nodded to a couple nearby women who rushed out to the man, kneeling in front of him and working his penis and testicles in a mad effort to help him with an erection. The man leaned his head backwards, deep in concentration.

Minutes passed and the crowd hushed in anticipation of the grand finale. It became so quiet that Steven could actually hear the birds circling high above the canyon walls.

“This is insane,” he whispered. “How could a man perform like this?”

“You might have to, one day,” John whispered back. “You should steel yourself for that. We all should.”

Several more moments passed and the women, in frustration, pulled away from the still flaccid fighter in disgust. Block shook his head sadly and then signaled for his remaining men to enter the fray.

“No, god damn it,” the man with his penis in his hand pleaded. “I can get it up. I know I can.”

“I’m sorry,” Block told him simply as the dozen others tackled him. Steven couldn’t see the stricken man at the bottom of the pile, only the hands and fists of his attackers. He heard him scream, for a few seconds, and then there was silence. Once the man was dead, his attackers stood and lined up behind the other combatant who was still knocked out.

One by one, they took turns raping the man—none of them apparently having a problem with an erection. Halfway through he awoke, and his screams were audible over the roar of the crowd. Those not in the act held him down while the last few men finished. The audience went to orgasm with the final man, a collective climax, and then turned their attention to the screen.

The dozen men helped their bloodied and beaten comrade up, slapping him on the back and telling him what a fine job he’d done. He tried a smile but his face was so swollen and bloody from his fight that it looked more like a twisted jack-o-lantern carved by a three year old. They turned to the screen as well and the residents of the Cave waited in silence.