It was code.
Finally, he set his sights on the man who did this to him. There was no point in procrastinating anymore. Before he would receive another unwelcome adjustment, he figured that he had better get a move on. Surprisingly, Gunnar found it a bit taxing to come to his feet, even though the pain had mostly subsided. Then again, he was no young buck anymore and the years of fighting and toils have worn down his reflexes and stifled his physical abilities. He hated it because it was once the only thing he was good at. It was the only thing his wife first found attractive in him. She called him warrior and admired his only talent. As far as he was concerned, at least, brawling was his only talent.
Now here was another showdown in his mature years and he was not going to back down from the opportunity, not while she had faith in him to succeed. He got his bearings and found his footing — that well trained footing he was drilled to master as a teenager yet decades ago in another life, in Sweden. He shook his head like a furious bull at the ready for the charge to meet his nemesis. On his broad shoulders, his white mane shifted and he wiped his brow of the strands that fell over his face from the force of the fall.
In front of him stood a giant, swarthy Turk. With a beer belly and handlebar moustache, Gunnar’s opponent looked like a fat Greek thug with a rapidly receding hairline. He grinned at Gunnar. It was not a hearty Highland hello type of smile, but rather reminiscent of an Eastern European rapist. The sweaty thug grimaced, revealing two gold lined teeth glinting in the smoky half dark that Gunnar was very eager to dislodge with his fist. The Turk mouthed off to him in his tongue, obviously not versed enough in English to sound threatening. Gunnar heard nothing but his own racing heart and saw nothing but his wife’s eyes behind the enormous oaf.
While he was talking, the Turk never saw Gunnar pull a homemade knuckle duster from the back pocket of his jeans, but all the bikers and their ladies did. Preparing for what they knew well to come, some looked away inconspicuously while others merely dampened their grins as not to alert the dark foreigner. Jimmy, the bartender, picked up the phone hidden in the corner where the narrow corridor to the office turned.
“Good evening,” he greeted almost jovially, “This is Jimmy from Bootlicker Bar… r-righteo… aye, thank you, lass… right away would be good. Looks like just one this time, maybe two, if his brother wakes up in the next 10 minutes. Thanks luv.”
As owner and operator of Bootlicker’s, a well frequented biker bar, Jimmy’s name was familiar at emergency services from Glasgow Royal Infirmary to Southern General and Stobhill Hospital. And tonight was no different. They were sending the ambulance. Jimmy only hoped that it would not be for Gunnar.
After he completed his call, he leaned on the counter to watch the coming events calmly, “If you break anything, you pay for it!”
Gunner nodded without looking at Jimmy, panting to work himself into a good frenzy before slipping his thick scarred fingers into the holes of the steel crafted equalizer behind his back. Some of the patrons quietly left the bar. Gunnar kept his hands behind his back as if he was propping himself up. See, when he was a small boy in Gothenburg, there was only one thing better than being a good fighter and that was to be a good bluffer. Many of his rumbles were won by some sort of guile. Even when he was already well trained and beefy enough to pack a punch, he sometimes used cunning to defeat his opponents just because he was lazy that night. He did not warrant a bloody outcome every single time and sometimes it was just simpler, quicker and cleaner just to cheat — as it was with most things in life.
Before he could look at his wife again, the fat Turk lurched toward him with amazing agility, roaring like a charging boar from a jungle brush. Jimmy winced as he noticed the jukebox behind Gunnar and started tallying up the damages already. When the Turk reached Gunnar, and the Swede hooked him one with the knuckle duster, time stopped. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Gunnar could hear the bones in his hand get crushed under the force of the tourist’s jaw and teeth. His steel weapon sank into his skin and snapped two of his metacarpals instantly, but still the Turk propelled forward.
However, the bottom of his face distorted in the clash, he took the big blond biker with him into the colorful music box. The Turk’s tongue tore off just inside the line of his teeth and Gunnar could feel the warm blood splatter his arm and face. Gunnar howled in pain as his opponent’s weight drove his spine into the steel and electric insides of the machine and the shards of shattered glass ripped into his flesh as they landed. The Turk grunted in semi-conscious at the shock of his jaw unhinging and he did not even feel the injury to his mouth before he passed out on top of Gunnar. But the boys waited to see what would ensue next before anyone would help. It was code.
Gunnar felt the excruciating throb in his right hand. His flesh and bones had become one with the steel punisher he wore and he slowly lifted his hand up in the air to have a look at the damage.
“Oh my god!” he said plainly at the sight of his mangled hand. “I look like a cyborg!” he looked at his wife from under the shoulder of the Turk, “Baby, I look like a cyborg. Look at this!” he sounded more amused than shocked. She did not know what to say, but as she started toward him his head fell back and he went to sleep in the blood, snot and glass of the jukebox corner. The code came undone.
They rushed to Gunnar’s aid and pulled the Turk off of him with immense trouble. Outside the ambulance lights flashed against the neon of the beer ads and the Bootlicker logo.
“They are here, people,” Jimmy bellowed as he helped clear the way for the EMT’s.
Gunnar’s wife was by his side all the way to the ambulance. When they drove off with Gunnar and the Turks, she took her husband’s motorcycle and followed them to the hospital.
“You know, you don’t have to prove yourself to me, love,” Gunnar’s wife said quietly as she held his good hand in the emergency room. It was still quite busy with the influx of injuries from a visiting rugby team and of course the odd simpleton trying to mimic the Highland Games in the professionally graded conditions of their back yards. Especially those using proper tree trunks and makeshift hammers, weak rope turning tug-of-war into chronic lumbago from coming thrashing to the ground, coccyx first and the like.
Gunnar was heavily sedated, but his years as a drug addict helped him cope with the fogginess of anesthetics and he managed a conversation as best he could.
“I’m getting too old for this shit, babe,” he slurred, trying to see his hand again. “And I can never admit it. Not in front of the boys…” he looked heartbroken as his fingers trailed over her small hands, “…and I could never admit that to you.”
Her face changed between sympathy, mild vexation, and finally, she just frowned, being at the end of her tether with his warped sense of self. Gunnar was not a man for self-pity and he was very confident in who he was, but he somehow always felt a certain need to prove himself in her presence, even after 20 years together.
“Gunnar, you have to listen to me, for once. In the name of all things holy, please just listen to what I say to you and listen well,” she said in a low tone, keeping her voice as quiet as she could even though it shivered with impatience. His crystal blue eyes drooped as he looked up at her. She was not sure if it was the sedative or if it was her husband’s weariness with life. “I have loved you since the day I met you and I still do, more, every day. You are my sky, remember? Without you, the stars will fall. Without you I have no heaven, remember?”