Unstoppable (11 page)

He proved to be incapable of this, and never even made a half-hearted attempt to resolve my needs, wants, or sexual desires. As a result, I divorced him and have been single since. Slowly, it seemed, I was migrating into the person that my father was; a workaholic with no home life or a respective sexual or life partner. Desperately, I felt a need to change this about me, but had no time or actual reason to repair it.

“Mrs. Simon, a Mr. Ripp on line four,” the sound of Tonia’s voice startled me.

“Who?” I sighed as I opened my eyes and looked down at the phone.

“A Mr. Ripp. He must know you. He asked for Vee, ma’am,” she replied.

Oh. Ripp.

“I’ll take it,” I responded, knowing he could be
exactly
what I needed to complete my otherwise oddly unfulfilling week.

RIPP.
Trying to make sense of senseless acts can consume considerable time and produce minimal results. Knowing this doesn’t necessarily prevent us from pondering the
what-if’s
and
why’s
after something happens we aren’t necessarily ready to digest.

Trying to figure out Shane Dekkar’s mind was nothing short of impossible. The perfect citizen. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect potential husband. He was handsome, kind-hearted, yet tough when he needed to be. He was also able to discern when he needed to be tough and when he needed to be nice.

I, on the other hand, was always a shade or variance of mean.

“Well, what the fuck would you have done?” I was really having a difficult time with this pacifist bullshit.

“I would have handed him the keys,” Shane said.

“Oh hell no. I’m the way I am and ain’t nobody gonna change me or stop me,” I shook my head from side to side and tipped up my empty beer bottle.

“I need another beer over here,” I screamed as I waved my hand in the air toward the waitress.

“Well. It would have made it easy, and Liv wouldn’t be where she is now. Actually Ripp, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d have handed him the keys,” Shane said softly as he tried to reason with me.

“Well, you’re a weird fucker to try and figure out, mister nice guy. Beating the shit out of people who mistreat women. Knocking motherfucker’s out in the ring. And giving up your car to some meth junkie dope fiend,” I drew a deep breath and exhaled loudly as I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

“He would have had to kill me to take the car, Dekk. You’ll never understand it. That car? To me? That car is family. It’s…well, it’s not just a car. It’s part of who I am. Might seem weird to you, but giving up that car? It’d be like him saying,
Give me your leg, and I’ll let you go
. My right leg or my car. They’re the same. He wasn’t gonna get either one,” I stared at Shane and shook my head.

I nodded my head at the waitress as she placed the beer on the table. I guess the main thing which was upsetting to me was the fact Liv decided to leave me as a result of what happened. She felt I put her life in jeopardy. I really had a hard time with her feeling or thinking those thoughts. I told her to stay in the car, and I assured her,
I got this.
Men and women are certainly different and she was no exception. I would have never let any harm come to her, and although
I
knew that, apparently
she
didn’t.

It’s always easy for an outsider to look at an event or an act and pick it apart.
I would have handled it differently. I never would have done that. I can’t believe you did that.
How in the fuck do you know what you would have done? You weren’t there. It didn’t happen to you.

“Well, the car means a lot to you. That’s pretty obvious. To me, it’s replaceable. It’s a material object. Not worth losing a life over,” Shane said as he lifted his sandwich to his mouth.

“Nobody lost their fuckin’ life, Dekk,” I shouted as I stood from my seat.

This was starting to piss me off. Holier than thou bunch of motherfucker’s telling me I did wrong by smacking the guy. Telling me I should have let him take the Chevelle. Yeah, that would set real well with me. I hand the thief the keys, and he would take off in
my
car. I’d be left standing in the parking lot, carless, holding the hand of the girl that I was fucking behind the Japanese Grille. And. Everyone’s happy. We’d skip the four blocks home, hand-in-hand. Hell, maybe we could ride fucking Unicorns home. Bareback.

Oh
hell
no.

“You know what. I’m done talking about this. I don’t want to talk about Liv, that carjacking, or the fucking autograph seeking cops. Nothing. Don’t fucking bring it up again. Not one fucking bit of it. Nothing. And tell Shorty. Never bring up that bitches name in front of me. And don’t invite her over again. If she comes over, I’m fucking leaving,” I paced back and forth between the tables with my arms crossed.

“Alright. Damn, Ripp. Not a word. Fine,” Shane agreed.

“You know, all these women today want a bad boy. An alpha male. A biker. A tough fucker. And when they get one,
a real one
, they don’t know how to act. A guy stands up for what he believes in, stands up against someone that’s actually doing wrong, and all of a sudden, he’s the bad guy,” I stood, arms crossed and stared at Shane.

“Nothing? You got nothing?” I barked.

“I’m done talking about it,” he said.

“Fine. Me too,” I agreed.

I stood and waited for him to speak. After a moment of silence, I sat down and picked up my beer. As I took a drink, I inhaled a breath through my nose. I continued drinking until the bottle was empty and slammed it down on the table.

“Another beer over here,” I shouted across the patio as I looked for the waitress.

“Damn, Ripp. You just need to…” he began.

“Not. One. Fucking. Word,” I faced him and scrunched my brow.

Slowly and silently he raised his right hand and formed his fingers to make the
okay
sign. Dekk was as good of a friend as one could ever hope to find. Sometimes, however, we become aggravated with even our best friends. I really had no reason to be mad at
him
. I was just mad and he was the recipient of my anger.

“I need you to autograph something for me. You’re Shane Dekkar, aren’t you?” some muscle-head in a Wally’s Fitness shirt, sans sleeves, asked over Shane’s right shoulder.

Slowly, Shane looked up and nodded his head, “Yes sir, I sure am.”

“Hey dude. We’re trying to fuckin’ talk,” I said across the table.

“I was talking to
him
. I wasn’t talking to you,” the muscle bound sleeveless shirt wearing punk hissed.

“Well, all of that just changed, now didn’t it? Looks like we need to have a talk about being respectful,” I stood from my seat and wiped my hands on my shorts.

“Ripp…” Shane started to stand from his chair.

“Stay in your seat, Dekk,” I said, never breaking eye contact with Wally’s Fitness.

“Respect? You’re going to talk to
me
about respect? I asked if he was Shane Dekkar. What’s disrespectful about that?” Wally’s Fitness asked as he turned to face me.

“You interrupted us when we were talking. And then you popped off and started talking shit to me,” I said as I started walking around the table.

“Talking shit?” he asked.

“Yeah.
Talking shit
,” I responded.

“I wasn’t talking shit,” he stated.

“You’re doing it again
now
,” I assured him as I tilted my head from side to side and popped my neck.

“Ripp…” Shane stood from his seat, and now was between where I was standing and Wally’s Fitness.

“Dekk, he’s being a little prick,” I wiped my hands on my shorts and turned my palms up.

“I’m not little,” Wally bragged from behind Shane’s back.

“Well, you sure as fuck aren’t big enough to talk to me the way you are,” I barked over Shane’s shoulder. 

“Obviously I
am
,” he breathed.

“Move Dekk,” I demanded.

Wally peered over Dekk’s shoulder toward me. Dekk, standing facing me, rolled his eyes. Dekk knew this guy just crossed a line I couldn’t allow him to cross. Dekk hesitated, probably hoping I would settle down or change my mind. As I watched Wally prepare his mean-muggin’ face, I tried to remember the last time I was in an actual bar fight. My fights, in recent years, had been limited to Kane’s place and in the ring.

This poor fucker had no idea of how pissed off I was.

“Dekk…” I drew the pronunciation of his name out for two or three seconds.

And with that, Shane Dekkar stepped aside. Now, the only thing between Wally and I was a little bit of time and space. He wasn’t small by any stretch of the imagination, but he thought he was much bigger and much more capable than I saw him as being.

“You see, there’s a right way and a wrong way to talk to people.
Excuse me, gentlemen. I hate to interrupt, but I have a question.
That would have been a polite way to interrupt our conversation. Or, maybe wait until we were walking out. But you didn’t. You interrupted. And then you went on to start talking shit. Telling me how big you are. You still think your big now, little man?” I asked as I began to step closer to where he stood.

“Big enough,” he said as he bobbed his head back and forth in a mocking manner.

“You got cancer or something? Brain damage? I just can’t see how in the fuck you think you’re gonna make it out of this alright,” I chuckled as I slowly took the last step remaining between us.

Quickly, he jumped into a martial arts stance and began humming in some weird fashion. As the odd tone came from his mouth, his hands were criss-crossing in front of his face. His knees bent considerably, he had lowered himself about six inches, and now stood about five foot six or so. I guessed he was approximately six foot tall before he started humming and waving his arms.

Karate bullshit. Not again.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” I asked.

“No, I’m not. I’m gonna fuck you up,” he bragged as his hands waved in front of his face.

“That was rhetorical. I didn’t want you to answer. And I have news for ya. You ain’t about to fuck up a damned thing,” I growled as I threw a right jab at his chin.

His upper body immediately twisted, and his head quickly moved sharply to his right, avoiding my punch entirely.

Holy shit, this guy’s fast.

Alright, I’m not going to box this prick. I’m going to fight him.

To eliminate his legs and feet from the equation, I stepped in as close as I could. A table directly behind him prevented him from going back much further. I threw a quick three punch jab, cross, hook combination and caught him off guard. My last punch, the hook, caught him on the left side of his mid-section, caused him to stumble, and his head to come down a little. I imagine in Karate class, no one had ever actually hit him - at least not that hard. 

As his head came down, I threw another quick right uppercut and caught him on the chin. It wasn’t necessarily a solid punch, but it was good enough. It rang his bell. He shook his head and stared back at me with glassy eyes. His hands continued the windmill of motion they were previously waving. Now, he stood in more of a conventional fighter’s stance – fractionally more erect. Well, except for his hands. His hands and arms looked like he was having an epileptic fit.

I studied him as he stood there, waiting for him to move and give me an opening.
Anything.
After a few seconds of nothing, I threw a short, slow jab to lure him into fighting.

“Tyler, what the fuck!” I heard someone scream.

And, from behind where
Tyler
stood, a second, almost identical meat-head was fast approaching. He was sleeveless as well, and could have passed for Tyler’s brother. Same shirt. Same hair. Same ridiculous attitude and annoying voice. I saw Dekk step between Tyler and his savior.

Over Tyler’s shoulder, I saw the unthinkable. The new comer took a couple of swings at Dekk. Although I didn’t necessarily
see
what happened next, I certainly
heard
it. The unmistakable sound of fists hitting someone’s body and face. There’s really not another sound like it. To most, it would be disgusting. To me, it sounded like hitting the jackpot at a casino.

There’s something about being in the presence of a fight that drives other potential fighters to fight. That’s why a fight, in a bar, turns into a bar fight. It wasn’t my immediate opinion my fighting Tyler made Dekk start to fight, but his fighting started to feed my desire to finish this.

As Dekk made short work of the new guy, Tyler looked to his right instinctively. That split second, that instant of not paying attention, that small window of opportunity was all I needed. It’s all any boxer needs. We watch for it, we wait for it, and we make use of it.

The left side of his jaw was open, exposed, and ready. I smiled as I thought about hitting him. I didn’t want to hit him with one punch, although I was sure one would be enough. I wanted him to remember what it was like to be beaten. To be taught a lesson about respect. I threw a deep left cross, and caught him in the chin, followed by a right uppercut which landed under the bottom side of his jaw. The last punch, the one that sent him reeling back onto the table, was the left straight jab which landed perfectly on his nose.

As he fell backward onto the table, I saw Shane standing up from where the other guy was laying. I had no idea of what happened for sure, but I know the guy took a swing, and Dekk finished what the other guy started.

Dekk turned and looked at me, his face full of anger. Neither of these two guys were any form of threat, at least not now. Not for about a minute.

“Well, you ready?” I asked as I stepped away from the table.

“Yeah. I’m ready. This prick tried to hit me. Glanced one off of my cheek,” he said as he rubbed his cheek with his hand.

“Yeah, you got a little mouse under your eye. Future heavyweight Champion of the World,” I laughed as I pointed to the guy on the floor.

“Who? Him?” Dekk asked as he pointed at the guy who began to mumble and roll over.