Rebels & Lies (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

An intense feeling of pleasure consumed Ryan
Kaspar the first time he knocked someone out. His opponent laid flat on his
back, his extended arms twitched, making him look like a crucifixion victim who
suffered from epilepsy. Kaspar tried to fight back a smile. It was the only
fight he lost.

The official entered the ring with a black duffel
bag overstuffed with credits. Enough credits to live on for the next month, to
keep that cracked and yellow stained roof over Mother’s head, enough to endure
more of her cooking. Kaspar took the bag from the official. He unzipped it and
looked down into its contents. Another smile. The official grabbed the victor’s
right arm, extended it upward, and the crowd roared…

What would be the result tonight? He was summoned
to fight the monster that went only by Razor. The behemoth stood at six foot
four, weighed a solid two hundred sixty pounds, not an ounce of body fat to be
found. He had brought his personal kill count up to nine just last week after
he bludgeoned a poor, skinny father of four. The father, with no job and his
government welfare spent up, had nowhere else to go. He gave his life for the
prize fighters and greedy bookies when, without mercy or an ounce of empathy,
Razor killed him with one punch.

Kaspar breathed in and another river of vomit
flowed through his mouth. The citrus bile only added to a flavor that came
straight from the underworld itself. He tried to catch his breath while his
frozen blue eyes stared into the mixture of toilet water, half eaten noodles,
and a reddish-orange sauce. The sight caused another wave to pour through. When
would it end?

Someone started to pound on the stall door.

“You quite done?” Danny, Kaspar’s trainer,
demanded.

“Just enjoying mother’s cooking a second time
around.” Kaspar replied. He stood and flushed the mixture. He wished the sound
of the commode would drown out Danny’s voice.

“Never knew your mother’s cooking to be that
good.”

Kaspar ignored him and grabbed the one hundred
percent recycled tissue paper to his right. He used the sheet to wipe the
remains of the vomit from the stubble that grew on his chin. After throwing the
tissue in the toilet, he opened the stall door and stared at his beloved
trainer. Why did he take it from the old man all the time?

Danny stood a full half foot shorter than his
fighter and gave up one hundred pounds with it. Kaspar estimated that he could
knock the ornery old man out with half a punch, maybe even a third. At least
his trainer cleaned himself up on fight night. No white T-Shirt with yellow
stains under the arms. No baggy sweatpants or khaki moccasins, either. Instead,
a nice, clean white T-Shirt, blue jeans, and black tennis shoes.

“Ready to go out there or are you just going to
blow chunks again?” Danny asked.

“How about I practice my knockout punch on you?”
Kaspar replied.

“Jokes! He’s got jokes!”

“What if I wasn’t joking? Calm down.”

Danny shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Calm down?
You expect me to calm down? I am about to enter the biggest fight of my career,
but my fighter is jerking off in the toilet, enjoying his vomiting sessions.”

“I’m fine,” Kaspar said. He turned and walked to
the row of sinks. “Nerves. Just nerves.”

“You really are turning pussy on me, aren’t ya? I
could smell that stank from a mile away.”

“You want to step in the ring? Be my guest.”

“You don’t pay me to fight your battles for you.
They don’t pay you to be a little chicken shit. You want to get evicted from
that rank apartment you hide yourself in?”

Kaspar ignored Danny again and turned on the
faucet. He splashed the ice cold water on his face. Words telling him to get a
grip ran around in circles in his mind. The odds of a victory were slim enough
without bringing doubts into the fight. Danny was right. This was the biggest
fight for Danny as a trainer. For Kaspar, it might turn out to be the fight of
his life. Win and get a huge pay day. Lose…and…

Don’t think about that.

It was hard not to think about it, though. He
couldn’t help but envision Mother if he lost. She would be forced to make a way
for herself out here. Away from the simple pleasures of knitting and watching
old reruns of her favorite soap operas. The same soap operas she used to watch
before everything changed in the blink of an eye.

Kaspar took a mouthful of the water and swished
it around in his mouth, swished it around in his mouth, and then spit out what
remained of the vomit. He took another mouthful and swallowed. He felt the cold
liquid run down his throat. It was now or never time. He took one last handful
of water and rubbed it into his buzzed sandy blonde hair. Kaspar turned off the
faucet and looked at his own expression in the mirror.

He thought about what must be done tonight, that
strategy that he and Danny had gone over endlessly. The fight would all be over
in a matter of minutes—maybe even seconds. No time to be nervous now. There was
only time for getting his head in the game. His expression turned stone cold.

“You ready now?” Danny asked.

“You don’t even know.”

***

Steam rose from the spaghetti and tempted Kaspar
as he went in for another mouthful. He spun his fork around the limp noodles in
organic tomato sauce. His front teeth cleared the fork of its tasty contents.
He chewed as he looked across the table at his mother. Jenna Kaspar had not
taken a single bite. She kept a blank stare at her plate. She looked up and
gave that same look to her son. It was like she was looking at him for the last
time.

Kaspar dropped his fork into his plate. “What’s
wrong?”

“Hmm?”

“You haven’t said a word. Haven’t even taken a
bite.”

“What do you think is wrong, dear?”

Kaspar paused. He reached down for his fork and
shoved another mouthful in and swallowed. Never before did the pre-fight ritual
feel so awkward. He knew now that he should have never disclosed Razor to her.
Kaspar cursed himself and his unwillingness to keep things from Mother. She
continued to stare back at him.

“Don’t ignore me, son.” Mother said.

“I know what’s bothering you.”

“Then, why did you ask?”

Another forkful. Mother remained expressionless.

“I don’t know. I’ve just never seen you like this
before.” Kaspar replied.

Mother’s expressionless face changed. A single
tear rolled down her right cheek. He felt nothing but guilt at the sight of it.
For the first time ever, he considered walking away, to be done with it, to
take her advice and get a real job to occupy his time with.

A real job? What was that anyway? Be like the
slaves who worked for the Crimson Corporation? Those people who were beaten by
their slave master’s whips—their impossible deadlines and low wages—and took it
all in with a smile and a sense of entitlement? Be like that kid at the diner
who was forced to skip school so he could support his family? Or, how about
that pimply faced guy at the lobby desk of the apartment building, who found a
way around the government health regulations and still became obese?

No. Kaspar had to fight Razor so he could win
that prize.

“I do not want you to go!” Mother cried out.

A single, warm tear could be felt running down
Kaspar’s own cheek. He hated to see her like this. He hated having to put her
through this before any fight, but this one was different. There was a
legitimate chance he was not coming home.

“I have to.” Kaspar cried.

“You keep saying that, but you do not. You do not
have to if you change your mind.”

“You don’t understand. This fight…this prize…will
feed us for weeks if I can win.”

“If you can win?”

“I can go out. I promise you that I will go out
and find work after this fight.”

“Promise me,” Mother said in between short
breaths, “that you will not fight tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“Then, at least promise me you will come back and
that you will never fight again.”

Kaspar shook his head. Why did he have to go
through this? All week, he tried to not think about the consequences of
entering the ring with Razor. Mother, she seemed to only be interested in the
negative: that Razor outmatched, outweighed, and most of all outclassed her
son.

“Listen, don’t you worry about me.” Kaspar said.

“How can you ask me to do that?”

“Because, I won’t lose, I never have.”

“Your ego is going to get you killed.” Mother
replied.

“What would you have me do?”

“Go out there and find something for yourself.
Something, I do not know, meaningful? I hate to see you waste your youth in a
boxing gym.”

“I’m feeding us and paying the rent. How is that
meaningless?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“So, what then?” Kaspar demanded.

“You need to find someone special…” Mother
started to say.

“Now, there is the best advice I’ve gotten all
day. Yeah, just shack up with some woman, get her pregnant, and then leave her
ass to raise the kid alone?”

Mother slammed her fist on the table. “Goddamn
it, Ryan, you are not your father!”

“Damn right I’m not.”

“And, you know something? You just need to get
over your hatred. You don’t know what the times were like back then, do you?
You weren’t around for the Purge, were you? You were lucky.”

Kaspar smirked. Mother had struck a nerve. “He’s
my father, he could at least have checked in from time to time. Checked in on
me.”

“You weren’t the only lucky one.” Mother said
with moist eyes. “I was lucky that I could find a doctor to deliver you without
reporting it. Sure, he left us, but it was not like he didn’t have a reason.”

More excuses. Kaspar hated that about Mother. She
was always the first one to make an excuse. He didn’t know what his father
looked like, didn’t even know his name, but at least father got the benefit of
the excuse. Sure, he must have been scared for his life, but he should have
been there for his family. Not run off like a coward.

He stood up from his seated position and walked
over to the garbage can. He scraped off the remains of his half eaten dinner.
He could not stomach another bite with his appetite long gone. Kaspar walked
his plate over to the sink and placed it inside. One last look at Mother, who
continued to weep, and the guilt clouded him once more.

“Please,” Mother cried, “come back to me in one
piece.”

“I will.” Kaspar said. He hoped it wasn’t a
promise he couldn’t keep.

If there was anything in this world worse than
waiting, Kaspar didn’t know it. Thoughts of his dinner, perhaps his final meal,
with Mother kept spiraling around in his head. Focus on the fight was of the
utmost, and here he stood, thinking about anything but. Outside the red curtain
in front of him lay the arena that the leaders of the illicit boxing league
built. It only had five rows of wooden benches stacked on top of one another,
but with the hundreds of citizens who crowded each other every fight night, it
felt like a coliseum. Danny said it reminded him of old Madison Square Garden,
whatever the hell that was.

There was a different buzz in the air for this
fight, however. The combatants would be Kaspar, unbeaten in twenty-seven bouts.
He would fight Razor, unbeaten in fifty, with nine kills, the heavy favorite
for this fight. The negative thoughts were erased from his mind. There was
nothing but a deep feeling of anticipation now. His heart rate increased, the
adrenaline flowed through his veins, and Kaspar fed off of it. Despite all the
positive energy he accumulated time seemed to just inch its way along.

Come on, just announce the fighters and let’s be
done with it.

The roar of the crowd outside told Kaspar that
the official for the fight had entered the ring and it was about damned time,
too.

“Ladies
and Gentlemen,” Kaspar heard from the other side of the curtain. “Tonight is a
special night.
Two undefeated fighters will collide
in this ring. We ask that nobody enter the ring at any time, nobody throw
anything into the ring, and that you all enjoy tonight’s fight. For those
attending for the first time, the rules are simple. This is bare knuckle boxing
at its very best. The only way to win is by knockout. Are you ready?”

The roar of the crowd gave the official his answer.

“Introducing first, a man with twenty-seven wins and no defeats, a
man that we have all grown to love for his tenacity and fighting spirit. He
stands six foot two, weighs in at two hundred fifteen pounds—RYAN KASPAR!”

As soon as he stepped foot outside the curtain, the once loving
crowd cried out in boos. Kaspar would fight their hero tonight, and no matter
how much they cheered him on in previous bouts, tonight he would be public
enemy number one. The crowd of men and a few women (who dared not step in the
ring with him) shouted obscenities.

He didn’t care what they said about him, but Kaspar heard someone
shout something about his bitch mother, and he almost lost it. He turned and
looked into the crowd, trying with desperation to find that son of a bitch and
beat the shit out of him. He felt Danny’s hands on his back and continued his
walk forward.

Danny pulled the cheap blue ropes up and Kaspar bent down to
enter. His feet met the white mat which did little in the way of cushioning the
fighters from the solid concrete underneath. Blood spatter from previous fights
stained the ground. There was one red blotch on the mat that Kaspar always
looked at. It reminded him of that first knockout when the blood from his
opponents mouth spilled everywhere. He walked over to his corner and peeled off
his moist black shirt. He stood in his black shorts while Danny wrapped white
tape around the knuckles on his fists.

“Remember,” Danny said as he taped, “this guy is going to come in
hard, looking for the kill early. Just survive that initial burst and he’ll be
worn out.”

Kaspar nodded his head. He liked how his trainer put it: survive.
Survival was something foreign to him. Most nights his opponents were like that
desperate man Razor killed. They lacked size, but they made up for it by
lacking any kind of fighting ability. He estimated that just under half were
even a remote challenge. It always amazed him the rumors, most perpetrated by
Danny, which centered on his fights. He was taking the form of some kind of
legend if they were to be believed. Now, during this fight, he would have to
learn how to survive on the fly.

The once rowdy crowd grew quiet with anticipation. Kaspar started
to rub his right fist into his left hand. Their hero was about to be introduced
into the ring: the man that they all hoped would beat the underdog into bloody
submission. A strange feeling hit Kaspar as he stared down that red curtain in
the back corner. His body started to tremble. He did not know if it came from
adrenaline or fear. It was probably a mixture of both.

“And, now,” the official shouted to the crowd. “Your champion,
with a record fifty wins without a defeat. Standing six feet four inches tall,
weighing in at two hundred ninety-five pounds—RAZOR!”

Razor, with his jet black Mohawk and thick black chest hair, ran
through the curtain so hard he almost ripped it down. The crowd roared to life
in awe. Once he reached the entrance to the ring, he ducked and slid underneath
the bottom rope. Kaspar put up his guard. Razor came charging in at him.

The official tried to get in between them so the fighters could
touch fists, but Razor shoved him to ground. Before Kaspar knew it, the
behemoth was in his face with a murderous look in his eyes.

Kaspar raised his arms up in defense. Somebody on the outside rang
the bell. Razor threw a flurry of lefts then rights in quick succession. Kaspar
managed to block most of them, only three or four shots landed. With the sheer
amount of adrenaline flowing in his veins, the hard hits felt like love taps.

A shot snuck up on Kaspar and landed in his left rib cage. Razor
was starting to change tactics. He moved his arms down and blocked another shot
to the ribs, but left himself exposed to a shot to his right eye. He kept from
falling somehow and moved his body backward. Razor continued his flurry of
punches.

“Get outta there!” Danny screamed.

Kaspar moved left. Razor came in hard with another quick flurry of
lefts and rights. Arms protecting his face, Kaspar moved his body from left to
right in anticipation of the blows. Kaspar tried to remain composed. He kept
telling himself that his opponent couldn’t keep up this pace. Just survive.
Like Danny said: just survive.

“I’m gonna fuck you up!” Razor shouted.

Razor backed away from his assault and raised his right fist. He
taunted Kaspar with a motion to come get some more. The crowd roared, but
Kaspar knew that this was only a ploy on his opponent’s end to catch his breath
and play to the crowd.

He wasn’t worn out, yet, just be patient…

Out of nowhere, a right hook connected to the right side of his
face. Kaspar’s head snapped in that direction. His neck was the only thing that
kept his head from flying into the crowd. His entire body went stiff like a
dead man’s and the left side of his body hit the hard concrete.

1…2…3…

“Get up!” Danny shouted.

He could see a vision of Mother sitting on a street corner. She
had an empty, rusted canister in her right hand and she begged for loose
change. Nobody gave her any.

4…5…6…

Kaspar sat next to her, an empty can in his hand as well. Impaled,
unable to work, he should have listened to her all along.

“GET UP!!!” Danny cried once more.

7…8…

He started to come back to his senses. The shouts of the crowd
were audible once more. Kaspar was back on his feet just before the ten count.
The official moved in front of him to check his vital signs. The official
stared with amazement that the fighter hadn’t toppled back over, yet.
Everything seemed to spin. Kaspar felt no strength in his legs, yet he still
stood…

Razor shoved the official out of the way. He went in for the
killing blow. Kaspar managed to raise his right forearm in time. The block followed
up by a hard right hook to Razor’s face. The visions while he was on the mat
created a new found vigor deep inside.

The monster was stunned. Nobody ever fought back against him. The
underdog followed with a left hook. Razor raised his arms in defense, but was
hit by a left and a right to the torso. Kaspar rose up and hit his enemy with
two shots with his right, then one with the left. The crowd went into a stunned
silence.

The behemoth backed away and rubbed at his cheeks. Kaspar stayed
back and remained cautious. Razor no longer played to the crowd. Instead there
was nothing but an intense focus in his eyes. The sleeping giant had been woken
up.

Razor approached with caution. Kaspar raised his arms in defense.

“Your father,” Razor said in between breaths, “must have been a
real bitch to have a son like you.”

Something inside snapped. Kaspar looked to his opponent, who
looked back with a grin on his ugly face. The pain in his eye and body went
away. He no longer felt woozy from the knockdown. He could feel his face burn
red with anger. Razor just smiled and went in with a finishing hook. Kaspar
ducked underneath it and hooked his opponent’s throat. He used his right leg
and swept Razor’s feet from underneath him.

Both men crashed to the mat. Kaspar landed on top. He started to
swing at the monster’s face below him. Right, left, right, left. He landed blow
after blow until he could feel the official’s hand rest against his shoulder,
but he didn’t stop. Father would be ashamed to have left his son. What did this
fat son of a bitch know about family, anyway? When he came to, Razor spit out
three blood stained teeth. Kaspar’s eyes went wide at the sound of the word
disqualified.

What have I done?

Kaspar stood and backed away. Two men rushed in to check on the
fallen, bloodied mess that lay on the mat. Two pairs of hands grabbed at
Kaspar’s shoulders. H turned and saw Danny, who looked shell shocked right back
at him. The trainer said nothing and led his fighter out of the ring. The crowd
started to throw empty bottles of water and half eaten veggie sandwiches onto
the mat.

Danny kept his grip on him all the way back to the locker room.
Once inside, he shoved his fighter forward. Kaspar lowered his head and found a
bench to lie down on. He rested his back and head on the hard wood. Danny
approached with a red face.

What have I done?