Grimsby pt. 6 (Patreon)

I think I surprised myself more than anyone else that I was early for work. Peter put me to work right away with ice and boxes. Not much different than yesterday, and quickly became a mindless routine. If I had started off the day as a zombie, I soon wished I was one. Or on drugs, still. It would be helpful to block all the muscle ache if nothing else. There was quite a lot of fish coming in compared with yesterday. Since it was a Friday restaurants stocked up for the weekend, and the ordinary shoppers came by for their Friday evening projects. But as I was in so early I kept up with work, and by lunch Jamie sent me home early with full pay.

“Real good work today. Rest up for Monday. You look like shit.”

I grabbed a mis-shapen fried cod on my way out and ate by the bus stop. I decided to do as suggested and get back home as fast as possible and take a nap. Then perhaps I could deal with cleaning out the kitchen, or even laundry if I woke up in time. I had just finished the fish when the bus arrived, and this time I actually paid the proper £1.80. Again I opted for a seat in the back, by the window, though there wasn’t many people on the bus.

Two stops later a teenager, probably younger than he tried to look, swaggered on and went straight to sit next to me. All blue and grey adidas joggers and sweatshirt, Nike shoes and a buzzed head. He sat down with one foot on the seat, legs wide. He effectively blocked me in my seat, but he didn’t do it in a threatening way. It was like someone getting comfortable next to someone they knew.

“Oi. Got fag?” 

My instinct was to not give any of my cigarettes to him, but then were they really mine? I was still working my way through the 200 pack Declan bought me. I suppose once it was gone I would have to buy a new one, but it didn’t feel like it was my money. As long as I’m pretending for Butcher Jones I don’t have to be too careful with money.

“Hey. Sure.”

I got one of the last ones out of the box and handed it to him. He lit it and started to smoke, in the bus.

“Thanks mate”

Almost instantly I was jealous of him. I so craved a smoke. Sure, it was on the bus, but I wasn’t the one who had lit it. I held out my hand towards him. He looked up and handed me the lit cigarette. I made a few deep drags and handed it back to him. Some stops later he got off the bus with a “cheers”. It felt like I had passed a test of some sort. That I was convincingly playing my part. It felt both reassuring and unsettling at the same time. I couldn’t see my reflection in the window, but I could kind of imagine what I looked like now. I touched my head, and it still felt alien to me, with the smooth skin on the sides and the island of stubble up top. I almost missed my stop, lost in thought. I was so tired, and walked on autopilot from the bus stop to my bed. I did greet someone from yesterday’s party, but instantly forgot who. I kicked off my shoes and lied down on the bed.

“I said yous ready to go?”

My wheels were spinning wildly with poor traction in my sleep drunk state. I didn’t understand what was happening. I wasn’t drunk or high, was I? No, I hadn’t had any all day? Big Jace was only inches from my face, one hand on each of my shoulders. Damn, how sore my entire body was.

“G…*cough* go where?”
“The club. Imma beat you in boxing like FIFA.”

He reached out and grabbed me in that way where the thumbs interlock and your fingers grab the outside of the hand. Instinctively I grabbed his hand as well, and he pulled me out of bed. “There’s plenty of napping once we get the gloves on.” I was still too disoriented from having been waken up mid REM sleep to realize what he meant. As I stumbled down the stairs after Jace, I managed to grab a new pack, get a cigarette in and light it before we were out the door. Why did I agree to do this again? Right. I was high. Where was Declan?

Jace turned the other way down the street, not saying a word as usual, with me following him. He had a black Nike duffle bag over his shoulder. Despite his height it was hanging below his hip, swinging more than I would have had patience for. It was mesmerizing to look at, as I worked on my Richmond Blue King and tried to not wake up properly. By the time we reached the end of the street I felt like I was hypnotized, and was jolted back to sentience as he walked straight through a bush and across the lawn of however lived there. I followed him. Right, I remembered. Declan had left. I took a few faster steps to walk up beside Jace, and not behind him.

He led me over some public and private properties in the confident manner of someone who had long ago worked out the best shortcut to something they attended often. He wasn’t rushing, though, and despite my overall soreness and fatigue it felt refreshing. About 15 minutes later we entered the Grimbsy Adrenaline Club building, a large free standing brick building designed by someone without any aesthetic sense at all. I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone how we got there if I wanted. As soon as Jace opened the front door and I saw the locker room signs I realized I had nothing with me to change into. A home full of athletic clothes, in a sense, and nothing with me. Though I guess the adidas outfit I had on was as good as anything, and it was about time to throw that in the theoretical laundry basket.

Jace tossed the bag on a bench as soon as we entered the locker room. It landed with a loud thud that startled the only other guy in the room. Jace smiled a wry smile, like scaring the guy was the best thing that could have happened. Like the exterior, the room was well worn with furniture crafted in place. It smelled of sweat and mildew. Jace sauntered to the bag, unzipped it and pulled out a pair of old boxing gloves. They looked just as I imagined boxing gloves should look like, rounded, as inflated balloons, orange-red leather with yellow-white trim and long, white laces. They were really worn, and a bit frayed in the lining. The laces looked brand new, and just about long enough to lace them up. Someone had probably replaced the original string with laces from a pair of sneakers. He held one up, opening towards me.

“Hand.”

I put my hand in the glove, and he pushed it in place. He quickly tightened the lace, told me to push, and tied some sort of knot. He then grabbed a roll of duct tape from the bag and put a wide strip over the knot, and around the glove, almost two turns.

“Shit gloves innit. Should hold.”

We did the same with the other glove. He then picked a black piece of rubbery plastic, a bulky mouth guard, out of the bag and inserted it in his mouth. Finally he picked up a pair of much more modern gloves from the bag, red and black in some synthetic leather, put them on and velcroed them tight. He did two rapid fistbumps, making a bright thuds.

“Come. I’ll show you the basics.”

I could barely make out the words for the mouthguard. I followed Jace through the building. It was almost deserted, with a few people in the machine room doing their work out. I realized I had no idea what the time was, but early afternoon on a Friday was obviously not peak hour. We ended up in a large room with different punching bags along one wall. He stopped in a cleared area.

“Now hit me.”

I punched him softly in the chest.

“OK, that one’s free. Hit my head.”

I made an attempt and he easily danced away. He spurred me on to continue and to make better and faster attacks. He clearly enjoyed his superiority, dodging everything with ease. He was starting to mock punch me, missing on purpose. “Faster, or I’ll hit you for real” I was tired and sore, and I had no idea what I was doing. We were going faster and a faster, my heart was racing and I was sweating, but my arms moved sloppier and sloppier. Somehow I was getting angry that I didn’t hit him, and got more and more determined to actually hit something other than his blocking gloves.

Suddenly he stepped back, giving me a big, black rubber smile. How long had we been at it? Five minutes? Fifteen? He opened a glove, took it off, removed the mouth guard and held it out in front of him, offering it to me. “Bite this. I’ll show you the punches.” Without thinking I stepped forward, leaned down to where he held the mouth guard and bit into it. Exactly when I closed my mouth it hit my how off the cliff I was. I was exhausted on every level, sure, but I was just blindly doing whatever this younger, rude, drug dealing chav told me to do. How had he conditioned me so quickly? At the beginning of the week I wouldn’t even touch something dripping in someone else’s saliva. Now I put it in my mouth before I even realized anything wrong with that. I was desensitized.

“This is a jab.” Jace said with no emotion and punched me straight in the face. I was totally unprepared and fell back on the padded floor. I managed to break the fall a little with my gloved hands, and ended up on my ass. My nose hurt. I tried to feel it, and check if it was bleeding, and manged to punch myself in the face, if ever so softly. “Wa a uh!” was my rendering of “what the fuck”, but the mouth guard was clearly not fitted for me. If anything Jace was enjoying this more than sidestepping my blows, and spent seconds just observing me on the floor before he stepped in and lifted me with one glove in each armpit.

I felt light headed and steadied myself on Jace before regaining balance. “Hits can come from front, sides and below” he explained. “Jab is from the front.” I didn’t feel it mattered much what it was called when you beat someone up. “This is a hook” he said and hit my head from the side. This time I was more prepared and managed to lean away. It still connected, but wasn’t as bad. I avoided his other hook even better. The uppercut however connected with my chin properly and I lost consciousness for a few seconds and woke up looking up at Jace.

“You need to block”

He then appeared to hold back, and went through all the punches, telling me how I could attempt to block them. I got punched plenty more, but nothing that knocked me out. He then placed me in front of one of the punching bags and told me to repeat a motion, while he went on to do his exercises. Occasionally he would change my exercise or adjust me technique. All I could do was to grunt “ae!” with the mouth guard in.

“Fifteen more”

I was really emptying whatever energy reserves I had left, and I knew I was doing really shitty work, but I did as Jace told me and hit the punching bag with fifteen more left hooks. He had taken off his gloves, and was just watching me. As I did the last punch, he tapped my shoulder with one of his gloves.

“Solid work, mate. I’m chuffed.”

He walked towards the locker room. I trailed him, exhausted. My body must have glistened in sweat, had it not been for the adidas set, which clung to the body. I was breathing heavily through the nose. Well ahead of me I saw him toss his gloves into the bag, then turned and waited for me.

“Footwork next time. Tuesday.”

He wasn’t asking. He then ripped the tape off my gloves, and undid the knots. As soon as I got a hand free I removed the mouth guard. Jace looked at it as if surprised I still had it. “Toss in the bag”. I sat down on the bench to catch my breath.

Jace stood still and just looked at me for a moment, then he reach down inside his polo shirt neck, undid a brass looking chain necklace. He stepped forward and clutched it around my neck. I looked at him in surprise.

“There. You’re family.”