Red Barber
By jessc3
- 742 reads
Red Barber
It wasn't beneath Red Barber to hit below the belt. His unsuspecting
opponent was the latest to incur the opprobrious wallop to the groin.
Then, with dramatic flare, Red would declare his innocence by swearing
to the referee that the foul was unintentional, while the poor
recipient was doubled over with pain, saliva drooling from his
contorted face. Even with his protective mouthpiece, one could discern
the distorted grin of Red's sadistic pleasure.
The crowd meanwhile booed and spat venomous threats at the spectacle
that was momentarily frozen under the phosphoresce glare.
Except for Red. He took exception at the crowd's abuse and fueled
their disdain by circling the ring and beating his chest like a
victorious Gorilla, challenging the raucous mob. Then Red found himself
dodging projectiles of bottles and food until order was finally brought
by the goons in uniform who threatened to silence the crowd with the
swollen end of their nightsticks.
The ref spoke to the judges, instructing them to erase points, but Red
wasn't concerned. He'd soon finish the whole affair by leaving his
wounded opponent lying flat on his back, gaping up at the ceiling in
total bewilderment; another nameless and forgotten fighter. It happened
so many times before. But it was always in the latter rounds, when the
crowd was impatient for blood. The shot to the groin was just a
softening up precursor to the final punch that would knock his foe into
oblivion.
Red no longer fit his namesake. He was clearly beyond the handsome and
lithesome individual that had pranced and preened within the four
stanchions where he earned his money, and reputation. His hair, once a
thick mane of strawberry curls, had dissipated into baldness. His
temples had grayed, and his belly was no longer hard and narrow.
But Red still had a ferocity that kept his career alive. It was fueled
by hatred-a hatred for his father who drank himself to death, hatred
for the crowd who cursed him as he battered opponents into submission,
and a hatred for humanity in general. There was no love in Red's heart,
except for the love of hate.
When Red was a kid, his father George was a heavyweight contender. He
was a decent fighter, known around Chicago as "Bull Barber." He always
fought his heart out, even when he was beaten almost senseless, which
garnered the respect of Chicago's blue-collar masses, who valued a man
by his heart and fistic doggedness, rather than a God-given gift of
grace and adroitness.
The people of Chicago loved their underdog's-the ugly, the
downtrodden, the down-and-outers, the perpetual hard-lucker's; but they
despised the wealthy snobs, the monopolistic oppressors, and the
industrial magnates with their callous feelings for the working class.
Bull Barber was one such underdog and the people adored him.
But there was little adoration at home. Bull was mean and subject to
bouts of depression. He beat his wife and Red on many occasions and
drank heavily to numb the disgrace. Red remembered the blood that pored
from his mother's nose and mouth, just like the fighters he saw when he
helped in his dad's corner-but they were fighters who could fight
back.
His mother left home after one night after Bull had passed out on the
floor, drunk. Red remembered how she looked at him while she
frantically packed her suitcase-apologetic and ashamed. She stooped
down to kiss his cheek and to straighten his collar, then tearfully
asked him to forgive her for leaving him. She said she hoped he would
someday understand. Then she picked up her bag and walked out the door,
gone forever.
Red, alone now with a drunken and abusive father, fended for himself
mostly. His father had soon retired from the ring, and took to the
streets, shaking down tourist for enough money to get himself a bottle
of cheap wine.
Eventually, he was arrested for aggravated assault and given five years
in the big house. Remarkably, he returned to the ring when he got out,
but it was a short-lived. Terribly out of shape, he looked like a
corpulent sideshow barker than anything resembling a fighter.
Bull finally drank himself to death. He left no money and nothing
behind except a pair of boxing gloves that he kept pinned by its laces
to the wall. Red took the gloves and moved in with his Uncle Charlie in
a filthy little tenement. Charlie had emphysema and collected a small
pittance from a previous job as a crane operator.
Red would lie awake at nights while his uncle hacked up gobs of
phlegm. Staring up at the ceiling, he would dream about being a boxer
and using his fist to hurt people and make them wish they never met
him.
He had visions of breaking bones and tearing through flesh. His
opponents would beg him to stop the pain and then he'd watch them drop
like marionettes. Once they were crushed underneath his feet, Red would
find contentment, and then, sleep.
But the visions would turn on him. They were haunting visions of
himself trapped in the ring with his dead father; then coming to life,
springing to his feet-feinting, dodging, punching, blocking,
dancing-taunting him. There was no bell to end the nightmare. All was
silent.
There was no clamoring of the crowds, no flash bulbs, no hissing or
swooshing, no sound at all. The only thing that seemed real was the
terror of his father's eyes-like the terror one feels when he's being
chased on a dark night and your feet feel like their planted in
cement.
Then one morning, as the sun's rays broke through the nightmare's
tenebrous strong hold, he had an epiphany that jump-started his spirit.
"A call to arms" was the call-a voice from the dead, a voice from the
grave. "Become the terror! Become the terror!"
The words pulsated through his arteries and his brain, cleansing his
thoughts, filling him with absolute clarity and intensity. He shook off
the demons of fear; his body vibrating like an ignited rocket.
He felt no guilt or self-loathing from his metamorphosis, only euphoria
and vigor. He was alive now, and never more so, for he had awaken from
the dead.
Leaping from his mattress, he stood before the gloves that hung on his
wall. With an act of solemn reverence, he held them to his face and
cried, "No more nightmares! I have become the terror!
Red climbed the pugilistic ladder of success quickly. Every fight left
his opponent writhing on the canvass, bloodied, broken, and ruined.
With each smash to the head or body he would spit out his declaration,
"I am the terror!" His opponents would cringe in fear at this saying,
and would tremble at the obsessed evil machine as he chased them from
one corner to the other, battering them into submission.
Red found an outlet for his hatred, but it was only fully sated when
his man was carried away in a stretcher, never to return to the ring
again. He was King of his domain, the absolute ruler of the ring, and
the awful terror that filled men's hearts.
After two decades in the ring, Red decided he would have one more fight
and then retire. Most aging fighters wanted to go out comfortably,
protecting what's left of their face and faculties, but not Red Barber.
He asked for the toughest contender in the fight circuit.
He was granted "Titanium," Tom Braxton. He was a tough veteran who used
to show off by knocking out stolid cows with his fist at the
slaughterhouse where he used to work.
Braxton was the only fighter who didn't fear Red. He grew up poor and
fought since the day he started walking to survive the gang infested
Bronx streets of New York.
He and Red were built similarly large, their age showing around their
torso and scarred faces. Braxton's tactic was to lure his opponents
into fatigue and then come at them with a whirlpool of punishing blows
to their body, disabling them with deep contusions to the muscle
tissue.
Everybody knew Red wasn't lured into anything-except the smell of his
opponent's blood. He was like a hungry shark let loose in a fishbowl
where there was no escape from his single-minded savagery-a blood-lust
frenzy that was always fueled by his hatred for his father.
On the night of the fight, Red prowled the ring like a caged lion. He
cursed the crowd and they answered him with projectiles of coffee cups
and cigarette butts.
Braxton stood in his corner, smirking at Red's antics. He knew it
wasn't a show with Red. Red really hated the crowd and he hated Braxton
even more. That sentiment would be returned once the bell rang, Braxton
thought. Tonight, he'll go out in style, spread out on a
stretcher.
Red met Braxton's eyes as they stood toe to toe while the referee
sounded off with the rules. Red's eye's glared with rage, but they
failed to burn fear into Braxton's heart. When told to return too their
corners and come out fighting, Red venomously warned Braxton, "I am the
terror!"
"And I am your worst nightmare," said Braxton.
The answer stopped Red in his tracks. It wasn't what Braxton said, it
was the way he said it. It was a familiar voice, a voice that haunted
him most of his life. It was a disembodied voice from his nightmares,
the sound of a stalking shadow that lurks in the corner of your
bedroom.
Red's skin flushed with trepidation and his heart raced dangerously. He
turned quickly to find it was only Braxton who waited on the canvass
across from him, and not some demon from his past.
The bell rang and Red immediately slipped an uppercut to Braxton's
groin, but Braxton was ready and stepped to Red's right, smashing him
in the solar plexus. Red expelled air, and was knocked off balance for
a moment, giving Braxton a clear shot to his kidney. Red doubled over
and dropped his arms.
"Your finished boy," said Braxton, as he closed in on Red. "I knew
you'd never amount to anything." Braxton caught Red with a huge right
hook to his head.
Red saw everything go black and the crowds with their cheering and
cursing became silent; the only light that remained luminated the ring
itself. "What's going on?' Red moaned. "Why is everything so
dark&;#8230;what's happening?"
"Did you think you could escape me boy? Did you think I would just
disappear?"
Instead of Braxton, Red was suddenly looking into the face of his
father, Bull Barber.
It was the face he had remembered from his youth; a mangled, grotesque
face that growled out malevolent threats after he'd stumble home when
the bars had closed. It was a face that froze him with fear while
sinister shadows became alive and breathed the heavy tempo of a
drunkard's breath above him. It was the face of a man, who, while in a
drunken stupor would pummel Red's body as hid under his covers. It was
his father's face that sent him to the canvass, cowering in fear.
"Get up and fight like a man!" said Bull. "Become the terror!"
But Red could only lay paralyzed, his whole body stiff as the
apparition taunted him and moved around him beating his chest and
swinging his arms out toward the blackened space beyond the ring.
"But your dead," Red said piteously behind his gloves. "You're not
real. How can you be? You drank yourself to death. I must be imagining
this&;#8230;yes that's it&;#8230;I must have gotten hit real good
this time."
"Get up!" spat Bull, through yellowed tobacco stained teeth. "Quit
crawling and face me like a man. Now is your chance to get even with me
if you've got the guts."
Red's leg's shook as he managed to get to his feet. Bull taunted him
some more. "What's a matter Red? Scared of your old man?" Bull threw
some jabs to his face, splitting his nose. Red backed up into the
ropes.
"Leave me alone," Red cried, as he hid behind his gloves.
"Don't you get it Red? I am the true terror and always will be. I'm the
one who haunts your dreams at night and fills your mind with terror.
I'm the one you who stares back at you when you look into the mirror.
It's my voice you hear that commands you to hate and destroy your
enemies. Don't you see Red, I am you!"
"No!" Red cried, as he fell to his knees. Your
dead&;#8230;dead!"
Braxton stood over Red, perplexed by Red's uncontrollable sobbing.
"What do you think has gotten into him?" he asked his trainer after
returning to his corner.
"Don't know," his trainer said. "Looks like he just snapped. Maybe all
the hate was too much. Strange game were in ya know."
"He kept mumbling some strange things while I was pounding him. He
acted like I was some kind of ghost or something."
"Sometimes we meet our demons face to face in the ring," said the
trainer. "Maybe you'll meet yours someday."
"Maybe," said Braxton, as he watched Red being carried out of the ring,
sobbing. "Just the same, it's kinda sad to see the great Red Barber end
up like that."
"Good riddance I say," said the trainer. "He was always trouble. Never
played by the rules. Now get out there and wave to the crowd. I ain't
never seen them so happy."
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