We Lucky Many

“Come on, punch me in the face!”

The old man looked at Gecko as though he was completely crazy. He’d been enthusiastically waving his red gloves under the buzzing fluorescent light. Gecko was not particularly fond of his boxing coach. So, as he did with all noteworthy things in his life, he found a name for him. Harbinger was an old man with a white patch of hair plastered over his bronze head. His wifebeater was stained with sweat and other things.

“We’re sparring, kid. Relax. This is your first day. I’m not gonna hurt you.” He showed a row of hungry teeth. There was nothing like a maniac screaming at you to calm down as he punched you in the face. The old man would probably break his back trying to catch Gecko.

“Ow!” Gecko let out after the old man crashed his glove into his temple. It felt worse than he’d expected.

“See that? You’re doing it again: thinking! Stop thinking. Thinking is bad for you. You ain’t gonna start pondering when them clowns throw their hands at yo’ face.”

Gecko looked at him again, red bulging gauntlets rising at the periphery of his view, an angry old man squashed in between. He would have rolled with laughter at the sight if he didn’t have to avoid getting bashed.

A punching bag always stayed back and waited for you to go ham on it, and, well, Gecko was no different. Harbinger pointed that out quite clearly.

“Tuck in your belly and bring your hands up! Running away, are we? Look at my feet. Don’t look at my feet, stupid, look at my hands! My feet ain’t gonna punch you.”

And this all reminded Gecko of his first driving lesson. Their car was speeding on a straight lane. The instructor had yanked on the steering wheel when he clearly didn’t have to.

“Watch for the centre line, man! You’re going to kill us.” Signal this. Gas that. All the shouting got old and Gecko was figuring out how to drive on his own. But he couldn’t really learn to fight on his own, could he?

Harbinger landed another punch. “What, are you havin’ a damn flashback?”

“So, how’d it go?” Starch asked from behind the counter. Nothing like a seventeen-year-old bartender with a single customer on Friday night. It was hard to explain why Gecko called him Starch, but if you took a look at his face, it would make sense immediately.

“Pretty poorly,” Gecko said, feeling his poor temple. “You can give me your bartender wisdom now.”

Starch chuckled and leaned in closer as if to divulge the darkest secrets of mankind, elbow over the counter and all.

“Listen man, women are like hyenas. If you try to take them together, they’ll all jump you, so you gotta find them on their own. Anyway, they’d like a dude who dresses up like D&D or something,” he said, motioning for Gecko’s black trenchcoat that hung nearby. Truth be told, Starch wasn’t the only one to tell him that he looked like a wizard.

Starch took a sip of brandy and continued. “But you can’t just sit there and stare at them like you’re doing now. You gotta try your hand at a couple lines. ‘Hey, I like your eyes…’ ” He then scratched his chin. “Actually, don’t compliment the eyes ‘cuz you’re born with them. ‘Hey, I really like your outfit!’ That’s better. Then, fifty tries later, boom! One of ‘em will say yes.”

“Alright, Don Juan.”

“Who?”

“Alright, Casanova. You must be a real hit with the ladies, then. How many of them did you bait with this strategy?”

“It’s in the works, sweetheart.”

Gecko had thrown one punch the entire day and it was a complete miss. It got him on the ground, actually.

“May you come back stronger next time, Princess,” Harbinger said, looking down at him with his fists crossed.

He went merrily on his way, unable to look ahead of him for more than a few seconds.

“Tinkerbell, my man,” Gecko said to his brother in all but blood. “How you doin’?”

“I’m doing just wonderfully,” he said, and took one more swing. He’d earned the name Tinkerbell as he was broader-shouldered than everyone around him. He laughed at weights under which other men would crumble. He also let out that Tsch! that boxers let out with every strike. The punching bag swung this way and that, tied to the ceiling by its rusty hook. It sure did remind Gecko of someone.

“Tinkerbell, can you teach me how to do that?”

Tinkerbell removed his glove to shake his hand. They tried twice, then three times until they got the satisfying Pow!.

On his way home, Gecko rounded a corner at a crossroads. There, painted light blue with a dark roof, was Starch’s house. He gazed at the white curtains, all frail and leaning on the window, trying desperately to conceal the obscure blackness they couldn’t cover. The two apple trees in the garden were all shrivelled up now, leaning over an old bench whose wooden planks were drained of all colour. Beneath, leaves rustled round, taken by a tiny whirlwind. The whole place seemed abandoned. Gecko resumed not seeing anything again.

“He just uses them to relax,” Starch said as Gecko found a spot on the bench. “All the homework, and all the stuff with… you know, with his parents bears down on him,” he added. “He just uses it to calm down once in a while.”

“Yea, I get it.”

Gecko would regret saying this for the rest of his life.

It was nighttime at the gym and everyone was gone. Anyone could enter as they pleased so long as they had a keycard. Gecko kept feeling something twist up in his chest. It had been there for quite a while. He had to release it. He walked into a separate room where the punching bag swayed absently. Where there was a punching bag, there was Tinkerbell. He had that look in his eyes someone has when they’re about to throw a bottle at you.

“Thanks for teaching me how to fight,” Gecko said. “I’ll body Harbinger tomorrow… ugh, later today.”

“My pleasure.”

They put on their rubber hands now. Now it was about to get almost real.

“Hey, dad,” Gecko said to the phone.

“What’s going on, Tony?” His father’s voice came right after, blurred and staticky.

Gecko’s face lit up. It always did when he heard his name come out from his dad’s lips. At least there still was someone who could listen to him. He never heeded the advice he received from his dad, it largely made little sense, but at least it helped him turn things over in his head.

“I don’t know if I can do this boxing thing, dad.” Gecko shuffled uncomfortably in place. It was only now that the words he’d been rehearsing all week began to sound pathetic.

“I know everyone wants me to, and yes, I really do want to do it, but I’m too scared; I run away too much.”

“Son, you’re not gonna like this, but… In life, there are two certainties: that you’ll suffer and that you’ll die. You might as well suffer the way you please.”

The slightest dip in Tinkerbell’s shoulder told Gecko he was going for a right hook. His chest twitched as his blue glove flew into Gecko’s. He ducked under an uppercut. Before long, they removed their headgear, livid, dishing out kicks and taking punches. Then, out of breath, they took a break.

Gecko emptied and crushed a beer can. “You punch like a baby.”

“You still block with your face.”

Why not put on some music while they continued to murder each other?

“I need to free this thing in my chest, Tinkerbell. I need you to beat the crap out of me. Not like Harbinger; Harbinger can’t do it. You can do it.”

A blink of the eyes brought Gecko before Starch whose round face was slick beneath the streetlight. Skin yellow. Eyes sunken and black. Muscles that were previously bulging were now gone.

Maybe Gecko could have said something to him. Something like, “Why are you throwing your life away?”

Starch would have sneered and said, “I’m not. You’re missing out.” Then he would have probably screeched with laughter.

“Starch, you have to stop. We can get you some help. Come on! You gotta leave this stuff, man.”

He would have tried maybe for an hour to talk him out of it, all while being overcome with a specific kind of dread. Unfortunately, you know the one. Someone has it when they’re trying to talk someone else out of doing something bad, but they both know it’s all in vain, that the recipient of all the bad consequences that come with that one bad thing will simply ignore them. It’s a kind of resignation.

What were the reasons to quit something like that anyway? All he could do was go back to the life that pushed him all the way here in the first place.

So Gecko never tried. There was no point in saying something so useless at which he would probably scoff years later. And maybe, just maybe, the tiniest smirk would decorate his face, since he did all he could.

“I’m here for you, man.”

“Thanks, Gecko.”

“Just go home and forget about this, alright? This is too insane. Hey, I will be checking up on you.”

“Okay…”

Sure. That’s better. Much better than saying, “Yea, I get it.” Good job, Gecko! You had one shot and you completely messed up. Good things will never happen to you.

Tinkerbell threw an empty beer can at Gecko and sped forward. The latter put his hands up and began to take punches. His own gloves thudded against his temple. He threw a kick, his mouth filled with the taste of salt. He swiped at his foe who ducked underneath and threw a jab. Gecko’s teeth bit at his tongue and he spit out blood on the rubber floor. He kicked at Tinkerbell’s ankle. They both fell forward and everything became a blur of blue and red gauntlets flying about them. It was hard to tell who was doing what and which limb belonged to whom.

“We’ll have a hell of a time cleaning after this.”

Gecko laughed, standing back up. Tinkerbell was looking arguably more sorry than him.

“I could do this all night. This is rehab, this is therapy!”

Loud music. Jabs thrown. Breath driven out. There was no escaping this place.

Gecko tipped his head toward the buzzing fluorescent light above, nose bleeding over his lips, and laughed. The thing in his chest came just a bit loose.

“Feels good, right?” Tinkerbell looked at him with swollen eyes.

“It hurts like hell, man. Maybe we should stop before I crack your ribs.”

Not long passed before they found their seats at the bar, and thankfully no one asked about their bruised, bloodied faces. No one even spared them so much as a glance, save for a man in a striped tuxedo that was playing a grand piano in the corner. He had a lustre about him that did not fit right in this decrepit place.

“Beers are on me, alright? Two beers, master of potions.” Tinkerbell waved his bloodied knuckles at the bartender.

“Thank you, man.”

Gecko let the jazz piano fade away along with the dozens of callous voices in the bar, and stopped seeing anything for a moment.

“You know, you survived a lot of things. Have a little bit more pride.” Gecko’s dad said.

The call ended after thanks and goodbyes.

He had one more to make.

“Is Starch okay?”

Gecko had been holding his breath as he called the mother of his friend. Every beep of the phone brought him back to the hallway of his home. It made him aware of his itching hand that grasped the phone tighter and tighter..

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Jones… I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, I just… Is Starch okay?”

Then there was silence and Gecko could hear his own heartbeat. He should not have asked anything. He should have believed the news he’d received from Tinkerbell. Why did it have to be more than just a sick joke?

“Anthony died of an overdose.”

Gecko’s chest grew tighter, pushed inward. The air he tried to breathe hovered around his nostrils and never filled his lungs. Starch stared at him from a picture pinned to the fridge. Gecko knew he would tear it down, and it would be the last time he looked at his friend.

“Let us know if we can do anything,” he murmured. Better than, “Yea, I get it.”

“I appreciate it, Tony,” she chuckled. “Gecko.”

The call ended. It was hard to believe the words even as they came from Starch’s own mother. Gecko would withdraw in the bathroom until his tears dried up, then he would return and calmly deliver the news to his own mother. For a few minutes, he wondered how many times Starch had said, “Sorry, man. I’m kind of tired. I don’t want to hang out today.” There was something wrong… everyone could see that there was something wrong. Everyone knew he looked all pale and messed up, and they all just watched. There was little else to do. It was so obvious it had to be a lie. It couldn’t happen to them, not to their friend.

Thinking about that call made Gecko’s heart feel heavy again. He slumped over the counter, turning his attention to his bruised eye instead.

Tinkerbell returned with three half-litre beer bottles. One for Gecko, one for himself, and one left on the counter. At this point, the two were getting dizzy, yet they couldn’t tell if it was from the sleepless nights, or from the booze, or from the bleeding.

“To Starch.” Tinkerbell raised his bottle. “Now you’ll never get your dating advice.”

“Yes, sir. To Starch. Next time we come here, we should drink for ourselves.”

“Darn right.”

They emptied their own bottles pretty quickly, and Tinkerbell grabbed the third one and downed it even faster.

“We should have done something, Tinkerbell. I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately.”

“That’s a decent way to lose your mind completely.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I don’t think it matters. He’s gone now. You need to move on.” His thick fingers protruded from his bloodied fist and wrapped themselves around the beer bottle. “I talk as if I can do that. At least you try to do it if I can’t.”

“What’s the matter with you?” Harbinger asked. “You were on fire last week and now you all rusty?”

“I’m just not feeling well. Things happened, and…” Gecko sunk his head between his shoulders.

“Yes, these things happen! And they should make you angry. Furious! Put more spunk into it, come on!”

Harbinger began to hurl fists at Gecko’s headgear.

And for a moment, nothing else was of any importance.