The Boxer, Part 2b

The saloon was noisy, as he expected.  He walked in with the rest of the carnies, and the place calmed down, as he also expected.  Most towns didn’t like strangers.

He and the rest sauntered up to the bar.  They started asking for brandy, rum, whiskey, whatever.  When one got rum, he pointed to it and pointed to himself.

“Ya don’t talk?”

He shook his head.

“What happened?”

He pointed his finger, and raised his thumb, then pointed to his throat.

“Gunshot wound?”

He nodded, drinking the rum down.    He put down a nickel and pointed to the glass.  By now, the noise had started back up again.  He leaned his back against the bar to look out at the people.

A woman sauntered her way up to him.  “Look at those arms,” she said, running a lace-gloved hand down his bicep.  She wore too much makeup and a too-tight corset.  “I bet you could pick me up.”

He said nothing, drinking the rum, but looking her up and down.  From her large bosom where a tiny pear teardrop lay from a necklace, all the way down to her wide hips.  He put one hand on one of those hips, and drew her in close to her.  He looked into her eyes, and leaned down, but she chuckled and pulled back.  “Easy, tiger,” she said.  “You have to pay for that.”

He pulled out the rest of his dollar and handed it to her.

“That’ll do,” she said, and flipped her head.  She took his hand and started walking through the bar, to the catcalls and hoots of the rest of the roustabouts.  He was grinning, as he followed her upstairs.

The room upstairs was definitely a woman’s room, with a vanity with makeup and perfume, and probably other trinkets.  After they undressed and she worked him to a frenzy – she did most of the talking.  He didn’t want to hear about how he was better than the other men, knowing that he had paid her for that.  He only wanted one thing, and she gave it to him, again.

When they left the room, there was silence around them.  The saloon had closed.  He went down the stairs, and looked out the window.  His friends had left without him.

He let out a small growl of frustration.  She had locked him out of the saloon, and there was no one around.  He looked up at the moon, having no idea what time it was.  He wasn’t sure how to get back to the carnival.

He stomped around a little, going out into the street.  The street had two entrances, so he started toward one of them.

As he did, he noticed a light on in the store.  He wondered if anyone was there, if he might at least know the direction of the carnival.  He walked up to the store, looked inside and saw a man seated at the counter, writing with an old quill and inkwell.  He rapped sharply on the window.

The man looked up, and the boxer started.  It was the man he had beat in the ring today, and, at the same time, came the realization of who he was.

The man got up, carrying his lantern and bringing it to the window.  He held it up to see who it was.  He nodded, and went to the front door, unlocking it.  “It’s you again,” he said.  “That was quite a headache you gave me.”

“Uhhh,” the boxer said in response.  He pointed down the street, then up the street, then gave an exaggerated shrug.

“You’re lost.”

He nodded.

The man – Casey was his name, he remembered – stepped outside of the store and locked the door from the outside with a key on a ring.  “I’ll walk with you.  I don’t sleep, anyway.”

“Uh.”

Casey held up the lantern and stared at the man.  “I remember you from the War.”

The man nodded slowly.

Casey chuckled, brought the lamp down and he started walking.  “So that’s why you hit me so hard.  You remembered too.”

The boxer shook his head vigorously.   He began to follow.

“No?  So we play guess what you’re saying?”

“Uh.”

“I remember your name, Neil Kincaid of the New York Second.”

“Uh.”

“I remember having to fill out your damn paperwork.”  He pointed to the store they were starting to leave behind.  “As you can see, it doesn’t end.”

“Eh.”

“Do you like what you do?”

“Eh.”

“I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Eh.”

They got outside of town, and in the moonlight he could see the hill that they had gone over.  Just beyond the hill would be the carnival.

“I remember when I brought you to the rear that you still had your voice.  A damn loud one, too.”

“Eh.”

“Somebody did it to you in the POW camp?”

“Eh.”

“Damn.”  They walked in silence for a while, up the hill because it was steeper and both of them were slightly out of breath when they crested it.  The boxer could see the carnival set up in the moonlight, which made it look gray.  Gray like the uniform the man beside him used to wear.

Neil turned and tapped Casey on the shoulder.  Neil held out his hand.   Casey had done that to Neil, when he brought him to the rear saying, “No hard feelin’s, Yank.”  Neil, and most of the prisoners, had refused it.  Casey looked down at the offered hand.  Neil thought for a minute he wouldn’t take it.

“Good luck, Mr. Kincaid,” he said in the light Virginian accent they both knew.  Casey took the offered hand and shook it firmly.

When Neil got back to the carnival, he went to the roustabout’s camp.  He grabbed one of the men who had abandoned him, putting his hand over his mouth, and dragged him out of the camp, over to his own trailer.  The owner would be angry that some of the roustabouts would have broken bones, but he didn’t care.  Forgiveness can only go so far.

 

((I noticed this was taking place later than the 1880’s, since traveling carnivals didn’t exist until the 1920’s.  Therefore I added the term “old” to quill and inkwell because by then, fountain pens were in use.))

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