“And I suppose you’d get a percentage of my take?”
Louie smiled. “Of course. As your manager, how does fifteen percent sound?”
Kimball shook his head and turned away.
“All right then. How about ten?”
“I’m not hearing you, Louie.”
The pudgy man moved beside him. “You’re wasting your talents, J.J. You always said the only thing you ever wanted was an honest job. Well here it is, sitting in our lap. It’s totally legit; the circuit has top-notch billing and everything you could ever ask for. And the bottom line, J.J., is that I see six, maybe seven figures a year once you hit the top.”
“Not interested.”
“You’d rather pull trash for the rest of your life?”
“Just temporary duty, that’s all.”
“I don’t get it. Why won’t you fight?”
Kimball looked him squarely in the eyes. “If I’m going to fight, Louie, there has to be a cause behind it.”
“Money ain’t cause enough?”
“For me? No.” He went back to emptying the cans, placing the bags in a rolling trash cart.
“Will you at least think about it?”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” he said. “I’ll think about it along with other things.”
Louie smiled, his emotions uplifted with slight hope. “That’s great,” he said, his smile blossoming. “That’s really great! You just tell me when.”
How about never? Kimball returned the smile and kept his mouth shut.
“Got a gig coming up in two weeks,” he added. “You just let me know, J.J. You just let me know. I hate to stand by and see a man like you waste your life away, that’s all.”
Kimball’s smile slowly melted away.
Louie turned and began to walk away, calling out over his shoulder. “A guy’s gotta have purpose in his life, J.J. So I’m telling you that fighting is yours. I can see it in your eyes. You’re a warrior. Think about it.”
Kimball roughly tossed the trash in the bin and watched Louie disappear behind a bank of slot machines. He seemed to have prophetically hit the nail on the head. Was he fated to fight and do nothing more with his life? In a moment of self defeat, Kimball sighed. No matter how fast or how far he tried to run, Fate was always standing at every corner waiting to hand him the scepter of war.
He looked at his watch. Ninety minutes to quitting time.
He went back to work.
After clocking out Kimball took leisure and headed off to one of the neighboring casinos that offered a parfait glass of shrimp for a $1.99, and ate beneath the lighted canopy of the Freemont Street Experience. Music blared to the beat of the Rolling Stones and The Doors, as cartoon images played overhead. When the show was over, he placed the glass aside and headed east on Freemont where the neighborhood was severely depressed with motels in disrepair and meth whores working for fixes. Homeless people gathered in small groups with shopping carts filled with treasures when people of comfort often considered them trash. Further east towards Boulder Highway, where the motels were sitting on the fulcrum point of becoming condemned but not quite there, was Kimball’s apartment. It was the only place he could afford on his wage without applying for government aid and possibly draw attention.
It was night, the air hot and dry. It was always hot. And the smell of the city was all around him. The sweat, the ozone, the smoke from tailpipes and the smog of big-city air all twisted into a terrible cocktail.
But it was home.
As he turned down an alleyway he noted a figure of a small man, perhaps a teenager, standing next to a Dumpster. The closer Kimball got to the shape; it would counter with steps to confront Kimball in the middle of the alleyway, ultimately coming face to face by the time their paths crossed.
“Something I can do for you?” Kimball’s sixth sense kicked in, meaning that they were not alone.
“Got any smokes, man?”
“Sorry. Don’t smoke.” When Kimball tried to sidestep him the man stepped in front of him, blocking him. Kimball could see that he was neither a teenager nor a man, but on the cusp, perhaps twenty and wasting away.
“What about money? You got money, don’t you?”
“How about you get out of my way? That way you and your friends won’t get hurt.”
From the shadows came movement. Three others, all in the same condition of being wasted and thinning on drugs, were positioning themselves so that Kimball was flanked on both sides with another behind and the punk in front.
“You don’t want to do this,” he told the kid. “Trust me. You really don’t.”
There was a snicker as a blade shot out from a stiletto in the punk’s hand. Another three followed in concert: …Chic!… Chic!… Chic!…
In Kimball’s mind it was an easy estimation of four knives total.
“Give me your wallet, dude.”
“The only way you’re getting my wallet,” he told him, “is if you come and take it.”
“Are you kidding me? There’re four of us.”
“I see that,” he said. “Unfortunately for you, the odds favor me quite a bit.”
The punk cocked his head and gave a questioning look.
“Last chance,” Kimball said sternly. “Get out of my way.”
The punk did not hesitate, but came at Kimball with unskilled and reckless abandon, the point of the blade going in as a straight jab.
Kimball pivoted and sidestepped the punk, the blade missing its mark and going wide, the punk tripping and sprawling to the ground in the face-first approach as his chops hit the pavement hard, his teeth fracturing and breaking.
Kimball took a step back to access the situation, barely able to choke back the laugh which irritated the punks to no end.
The attacking punk gained his feet, and put a hand to his bloody mouth. “You think that was funny?”
“Are you kidding me? That was friggin’ hilarious.”
The punk attacked in rage, swinging wildly, the blade cutting the air in diagonal Xs, back and forth, side to side, Kimball falling back, waiting.
And then the former Vatican Knight struck.
Kimball lashed out with his left hand, caught the punk by the wrist, and twisted, snapping the bone and causing the knife to fall. He then brought up his right leg and kicked the punk with such force that the young man went airborne and carried across the alley in what appeared to be an impossibly long distance, the kid landing on a pile of trash bags where he remained unmoving.
Keeping his eyes on the other three, he slowly picked up the knife.
They faced him. And it was obvious to Kimball that they were determining if attacking him would be the wrong thing to do. To help them with their decision, Kimball began to play the knife across and over his fingers like a majorette twirling a baton. The motion was poetic and effortless, the skill taking years to achieve, the ability displayed unlike anything the punks had ever seen before.
“Your choice,” he said.
The punks backed away, two of them withdrawing their blades and pocketing their knives. The third wasn’t so sure, keeping his knife ready.
“We just want to take our friend and go,” said the skinny punk with the knife.
“Do what you want. I’ll give you thirty seconds.”
The punks hustled, stirring their friend who was half conscious and murmuring nonsensical syllables. When they gathered the punk to his feet he cried out in agony as the pain in his wrist suddenly became white hot.
One of the punks came forward. “Can we have his knife back?” He held out his hand as a gesture to receive.