Hated to get hit. Couldn't stand the sight of blood. One time Loco had even cried because the punching bag had torn apart under a series of double lightning bolts.
Collie was good to the Kid though. Good to him and good for him. Made him eat a lot of bulls' balls for courage. Made him look at lots of John Wayne movies where the Japs or Heinies were being crucified and beat to shit. Tacked up Boy Scout motto boards: Be prepared. Courage. Be brave.
Turned out that in the fight for the bantamweight championship, Loco Lazarus, who had beaten many an opponent senseless on his climb to fame, had revealed another peculiarity about himself that Collie hadn't known about.
Loco couldn't stand the smell of underarms. No, not his own, the other guy's in the ring. Especially when they went into the clinches.
So the opposing team knew about Loco's weakness. And they exploited it. And how.
They made sure Hurricane didn't get a rubdown before the fight. Rubbed four-day-old fish heads under his arms. And the only pre-fight instructions given Hurricane were: "Get the fucking kid in the clinches. Tie him up! Now get out there and fight like a fucking man!"
And Hurricane had fought like a man. But he didn't smell like one. Smelled like a carp, like salmon eggs and sturgeon roe.
Holy mackerel.
After the fourth round, Collie had thrown in the towel on behalf of his fish-drunk fighter.
Thus went another chance of being the trainer of another promising World Champion.
Collie sat up, heard the bones creak in his spine, felt his knees flop like rubber against the training table.
There was one last chance.
Buster Hyman – Heavyweight Champion of the World. Yeah, sure sounded good.
Collie looked up at the wall clock that had hands capped with miniature boxing gloves. The boxing gloves were pointing straight up. As if in victory.
Where the fuck was the next Heavyweight Champion of the World?
CHAPTER NINE
Ramona Rathers was making her annual jog through the park.
She did it once a year. To show the community of Weedley that jogging was good for the tits and thighs.
It was spring, and the birds had already flown north from Galveston, or wherever the hell they went for their winter vacation, and they were very perturbed by a man who was up in the trees with them disturbing them while they rutted.
The man was Bernard Drew. He was perched like a vulture on a low-hanging limb of a sycamore, lying in wait for Ramona Rathers to jog and jiggle beneath him so he could rape the shit out of her titties.
Here she comes now.
Jog. Jog. Jog.
Jiggle. Jiggle. Jiggle.
Ramona looked very carefree – as carefree as those mountainous tits that did earth-quakey things under her sweatshirt as she jogged down the path, listening in the nightingales chatter nervously because of the vulture in their midst.
Bernard drew in his breath like they had taught him just before be washed out of the 82nd Screaming Vultures. He yelled: "GERONIMO!"
Eula was explaining to Kirby that the waterbed was not a typical waterbed.
This waterbed was made of clear, tough, durable vinyl. And because it was clear enough to see through, Kirby was shocked at what he saw.
First, he saw the goldfish that swam playfully in his waterbed.
"Eula, you're pulling my leg. Don't ya think this has gone far enough?"
Eula shook her head. Lay down on the waterbed and scattered the herd of goldfish to one corner of the waterbed.
"Oh, come on, Kirby, don't be so mad. It only cost eight grand."
Kirby couldn't help being mad as he watched Eula spread her ass all over the waterbed, then roll over and talk to the fish encaged in their vinyl aquarium.
Why shouldn't he be mad?
Shit, in the last four weeks Eula had spent over half of his inheritance money. Christ, there was only about a quarter of a million left.
And what the hell was he left with? A house now called Atlantis. A living room that looked like the Sargasso Sea. Shit, he wasn't Captain Nemo living twenty-thousand leagues under the sea.
"Oh, Kirby, Lance'll love that fat one. We'll call that one Oscar. Isn't that a cute name?"
Kirby stewed, then brooded. This was love? How the fuck had he gotten engaged in the first place?
The answer was simple: Eula had threatened to tell the Weedley police that he had raped her if he didn't marry her.
And who the hell was Lance? One of her lovers?
"Who the hell's Lance? One of your lovers?"
"Oh, don't be silly, Kirby. Lance's my son. And you'll be his step-dad after we're married. Just think – only a week to go."
Kirby had a million things to say. But he couldn't say them with his teeth gritted. Whatta mess he had made of his fortune. Whatta mess he had made of his fucking life. Better to be a lazy asshole than an instant rich stepfather. Christ.
He wanted to kill Eula.
Thought about it seriously.
Envisioned a great white shark named Oscar swimming in the waterbed as Eula spread her ass all over the vinyl.
Death was also on the mind of Becky Jane Johnson as she stormed out of the Rathers Wrench Company clutching a pair of torn lemon-yellow panties.
Whatta pervert!
Whatta fucking pervert!
Wendell Rathers was nothing but a fucking dirty old man who sat behind a dirty desk all day jacking off and looking at the crotches of secretaries.
Becky Jane had never felt so humiliated before. She had threatened to sue Wendell before she stormed out of his office. But he had been too busy repairing his charred cock to pay attention to what she said.
That motherfucker.
Creeps like that deserved to die.
Treating her like a piece of shit.
The nerve of him. Staring at her pussy while she took shorthand. Writing bogus business letters while her pussy was being spied on.
Who the fuck did he think she was?
Just an ordinary, off-the-street slut.
Shit, no! She'd show him. She'd knock his block off. Knock him clean out of his high-society saddle.
If only she had the money to hire a thug. Why couldn't she have been blessed with an Italian name and have a godfather like Marlon Brando? Then she'd show that dirty old man where to get off.
Then it came to her. A thug. Well, not a real thuggy-looking guy, but one who looked as if he could scare the shit out of Mr. Wendell Rathers.
The heavyweight guy. With the big prick. Buster… Buster Hyman!
Yeah!
CHAPTER TEN
Rapes are usually violent things. Usually judges give five to ten for first-timers because of the seriousness of the offense.
The rape of Ramona Rathers in the park was not a violent one. And the judge would have to be on LSD or just plain drunk to sentence Bernard Drew to five to ten for raping Ramona.
Because the attorneys for the defense would have had a cakewalk in proving that Ramona Rathers was a willing victim. Very willing.
First of all she had no business jogging without wearing bra and panties – just sweat jogs.
Second, she had no right jogging in a section of the park that had been posted with warning signs that said: Beware of Rapists!
Third, there were no signs of physical violence. No bruises on her body, no chafe marks on her pussy, or her asshole, or her mouth.
Fourth, Ramona herself would testify that she had not yelled "Rape!" or "Help!" or "Fire!"
So it had not been rape at all when Bernard Drew had parachuted from the sky and bowled Ramona over and started tugging off her sweat suit.
And he had not even violated her physically at the start of the rape. Simply pulled out his prick and said: "I wanna fuck your tits! Boy, ever since your tits were on TV, I've been dreaming night and day of fucking your tits! And now I'm gonna fuck them!"