When we passed a stand selling the Crash and fruit drink, Kasara pointed. Jennifer, Lee, and I groaned. Pretending to ignore us, Kasara looked at the people waiting, and chirped, “Oh well, the line is too long, anyway.”
“We haven’t had dinner yet,” said Jennifer.
Jennifer was the more sensible of the two. She did not flirt the way Kasara did, and she spoke less frivolously. Fun and flirtatious as Kasara was, I wondered what would have happened had Lee first met Kasara on the beach and I dated Jennifer.
We strayed into a courtyard in which people sold various kinds of foods from large, wooden carts. One cart had skewers of fruits, fish, chicken, and beef cooked over a charcoal grill. Kasara and I bought meat sticks and munched them while sitting on a bench overlooking the docks as Vince and Jennifer walked off to look for more options. We looked at ships and watched the sunlight vanish in the horizon.
“What’s it like on Olympus Kri?” I asked.
“It’s not like this,” Kasara said. “The night sky is kind of like the day sky, only darker. We’re pretty far from our sun, so it’s cold and gray. I mean, it’s not like we never see the sun. It’s like a shiny patch in the clouds.” She sighed. “We don’t have a moon.”
After our meal, we continued along the waterfront. I noticed that the sidewalks became more crowded. Men and boys were bustling up the street in droves. Then I saw the
distant lights. “Sad Sam’s Palace,” I said.
“Sad Sam’s,” Kasara said. “I’ve heard about that place.”
“We were here two nights ago,” Lee said. “Didn’t you say the fights were all fake?”
“You were there, too, weren’t you?” Jennifer asked.
“He went,” I said. “He just doesn’t remember anything.”
“I was drunk,” Lee said. “That was the night I had the fruit drink.”
Faked wrestling matches did not seem like something Kasara or Jennifer would enjoy, but they surprised me. “Can we go?” Kasara asked.
“You want to see the fights?” I asked.
I meant to ask Jennifer, but Kasara intercepted the question. “I’ve always wondered about this place.”
“Are you up for this, too?” Lee asked Jennifer.
“Sure.”
Lee and I shot each other amused smiles.
As we started toward the door, an old, white-haired man in a tank top called to us. He might have been a long-retired soldier. He had tattoos on his back and shoulders that looked ridiculous against his wrinkled skin. “Hey, you, you don’t want to go in there.” He had the gravelly voice of an old drill sergeant.
“We’ve been here before,” said Lee, though he certainly had no memory of that last visit. I went to pay for the tickets, or I would have heard what the man said next. Unfortunately, I did not hear it until several days later. The man said, “You want to stay clear of the Palace on Friday.”
Had I heard that, I might have thought twice about going inside. I might have noticed that as far as I could see, Lee and I were the only clones in the crowd. By the time I returned with our tickets, Lee had already told the man to mind his own business.
An usher led us to our seats. Coming late as we had, I expected to sit on the first or second balcony. Instead, the usher led us to the first floor. Threading his way around tables filled with screaming fight fans, he found an empty table just one row from the ring.
The venue had changed. Instead of ropes, ten-foot walls made of chain-link fencing now surrounded the ring. The fighters had changed, too. Instead of flabby men in colorful tights, the ring now held two large and muscular men.
“Are you sure they’re faking this?” Lee asked. “It looks real.”
One man grabbed the other by the hair and rammed his fist into the man’s face several times. Blood sprayed. The fight ended a moment later when two medics carried the loser out on a stretcher.
“It wasn’t like this last time,” I said. “It was all headlocks and bouncing off the ropes.”
A waitress came by our table between bouts and we asked her about it. “You came on Wednesday,” she guessed. “That was Big-Time Wrestling night. Tonight is an Iron Man competition.”
“What’s that?” Jennifer asked.
The waitress smiled. “Open challenge, honey. Anything goes.”
“Ladies and gentleman, we have your winner by knockout, Kimo Turner.” The announcer raised Turner’s arm and polite applause rose from the crowd. Considering Turner’s impressive size and the vicious way he fought, I found the lack of enthusiasm surprising.
“Which branch are you boys in?” the waitress asked when she returned with our drinks. All of us ordered beer except Kasara, who ordered something fruity with layers of blue liquor and white smoothie.
“Marines,” Lee answered.
“Where you in from?” the waitress asked.
“Scrotum…” Lee corrected himself. “The Scutum-Crux Fleet.”
“You’re a long way from home,” she commented as she took the money for the drinks.
“Keep the change,” Lee said. He was feeling generous. I was, too. It was a magical evening. We could feel the electricity in the air. In another twenty-four hours we would send the girls home, but not until we had made a complete night of it.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the next preliminary match, please welcome once again, Kimo Turner.” The audience applauded more readily that time. People shouted encouragement to the big man as he returned to the ring. Turner had a strong, rounded physique with bulging chest muscles, mountainous shoulders, and thick arms. I looked from him to Lee, a dedicated bodybuilder. Lee’s arms and shoulders were more defined, but Turner looked far more powerful.
“And now…your returning champion, with a record of two hundred and zero in Sad Sam’s Iron Man competition, Adam Boyd.” The crowd went insane. Three stories of spectators began screaming at the tops of their lungs. Someone in the balconies began clanking a gong. Men stood on tables and whistled. The clamor was deafening.
Boyd entered the arena, walking a path that led him right past our table. A spotlight shone from the ceiling, and the people around us rose to their feet. Though he passed within five feet of our table, I had to stand to get a good look at him. The man I saw was nothing like I expected.
I had thought this undefeatable Adam Boyd must be seven feet tall and built out of bricks. Instead, an undersized and thin fellow with a receding hairline strode past. I would have had trouble believing that he was even five feet tall without seeing him measured.
“Key-riste! That’s the champion?” Lee gasped.
“They’re putting that little man in with that monster?” Jennifer gasped.
“The midget is the champion,” Lee said.
The announcer left the ring, and the fight began. Boyd, whose head barely reached his opponent’s shoulders, moved in warily. He crouched low, held his hands high in front of his head, and circled the floor rather than charging straight ahead.
Kimo Turner lunged straight in, throwing a massive punch that might have decapitated Boyd had it landed. The punch was slow. Boyd easily dodged it, but Kimo was a cagey fighter. The punch was a ruse. His body pivoted with the massive momentum of the missed punch, and he threw a back kick that should have hit Boyd in the chest or throat.
It was a smart move that did not work. Boyd had the reflexes of a demon. He dodged, shot in under the kick, and swept Kimo’s other leg. Kimo fell. The crowd cheered.
Adam Boyd moved in for the kill without a moment’s hesitation. He pounced on Kimo, drilling punches straight down around his eyes and jaw. The entire fight lasted less than one minute.
“Shit!” howled Vince. “Shit, shit, shit! I’ve never seen anything like that. That guy is a friggin’ killer!”