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205 pages

English

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Billy River has hit rock bottom. Ten years earlier, he achieved his dream of fighting in Madison Square Garden, but the great Hector Gomez turned his dream into trauma, disfiguring Billy's face and leaving him with a disabling brain injury. Downing double shots of Jack in a smoky bar and shadowboxing with his failed life, Billy shares the story of his shattered life with a dancer and the bouncer. Billy has lost his identity, his wife is about to divorce him, his son despises him, and God seems like an impotent voyeur watching his suffering. Billy fears he is becoming his father, the man he called the "wrath of God," and that he will end up like his sister, who committed suicide. With the help of his two unlikely companions, Billy fights to save his family, discover a God capable of blowing the roof off his heart, and come to terms with his childhood traumas. His son's disappearance and near-death experience is a turning point for Billy and his friends as they face choices and events that could lead to Billy's self-destruction or renewal through forgiveness.

Sujets

Religion

Christianisme

Literary

Fiction

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Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	20 mars 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977211767
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

It’s a Hell of a Thing All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2019 Tim McDowell v3.0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-1176-7
Cover © 2019 Outskirts Press, Inc. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
ONE - A BARE-KNUCKLE BRAWL
TWO - DUSK
THREE - HOMECOMINGS
FOUR - THE CATACOMBS
FIVE - ROCKING CHAIR AND HEAVY BAG PRAYERS
SIX - THE SCAPEGOAT
SEVEN - FISHING AND FIGHTING MEN
EIGHT - DADDY’S BOY
NINE - THE DANCE OF DAVID AND GOLIATH
TEN - BREAKING THE RULES
ELEVEN - A FLICKERING CANDLE
TWELVE - ANGELS CHANTING ON AN UNPLUGGED RADIO
THIRTEEN - SISYPHUS
FOURTEEN - THE GYM
FIFTEEN - SNOWFALLS OF TRAUMA
SIXTEEN - THE SECOND HONEYMOON
SEVENTEEN - THE SKY BURIAL
EIGHTEEN - DREAMS WITHERING WITHIN COMPROMISES
NINETEEN - A BLESSING OR A BUSINESS DEAL?
TWENTY - THE UNDERCARD TO THE HECTOR GOMEZ FIGHT
TWENTY-ONE - THE GREAT HECTOR GOMEZ
TWENTY-TWO - THE ANGEL OF LIGHT
TWENTY-THREE - A CHANGE IN GOD’S PLAN
TWENTY-FOUR - SAMUEL’S BLOOD
TWENTY-FIVE - A GLORIOUS RIGHT HOOK
TWENTY-SIX - THE BACKSTAGE ALLEY
TWENTY-SEVEN - THE CREEK
ONE
A BARE-KNUCKLE BRAWL
B illy River drained a double shot of Jack straight up, no chaser. He was brawling with bare-knuckle memories from his life before his brain injury, and they were fighting dirty. He slapped the bar for another round and covered against a flurry of remembering.
Billy and his wife Tracy paid their dues early in Billy’s boxing career. A hot wind whipped through the open windows of their used Buick clunking down a deserted highway toward the next tumble down arena on their “Journey to the Garden,” as Tracy coined their boxing dream of fighting in Madison Square Garden. Billy stored his boxing equipment in a duffle bag in the back seat, while Tracy stuffed her cornerman and training gear in the trunk. The Buick rattled, and Billy turned to Tracy as he wiped the recycled sweat off his arms. “You’re hitting forty again.”
Tracy punched the steering wheel. “You try driving on this highway. I’m marking time with billboards advertising John Deere tractors and the love of Jesus.”
Tracy fiddled with the radio, searching for the Cubs game, and tugged on her ponytail jutting out the back of a Cubs cap. Tracy worked the radio until Harry Caray’s voice sliced through the static. She perked up and set the Buick on a rattling jag.
Billy watched Tracy deciphering the radio’s static into play-by-play, stuck on her ferocious participation in the game. She was the revivalist, the Pentecostal fire, and his second wind that propelled him toward the goals they pinned on their kitchen wall.
After the game, Tracy turned off the radio, and they drove in a silence that felt like a pair of leather high-top boxing shoes laced tight, ready to shuffle on a canvas dance floor. The silence and the hot air swept the topsoil off their dreams and fears. Tracy reached over and gripped Billy’s hand. “You know, we’re going to be fighting in a empty arena that smells like a traveling circus or a church revival. But, I want you to know, Billy. I’m having the time of my life with you.”
Good Lord Almighty, her confession hit him like an unexpected blast of swing music. In his mind, he spun her away from him, skirt flaring, a smile the size of the crescent moon, and brought her back to his body, his heartbeat, and his awe. “We’re inseparable, babe,” he testified.
After ten billboards of swing, the music slowed in his mind to Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful,” which was “their song.” A jazz saxophonist named Bone Man sang the song at their wedding, which took place in the ring of their home gym, with teary-eyed old-timers hanging on the ropes and the women wearing throwback outfits from the 1920s or 1950s. Bone Man and his trio took over the ring at the reception, and his gravel voice gnarled and twisted the words of their song into a tender longing for the beloved.
After Bone Man’s aching voice finished the words, he lifted his sax to his lips and took the love song on a ten-minute exploration of melodic improvisation. Tracy and Billy’s bodies melted and melded into one, and they swayed and merged with the riffs softly carrying them toward their future. Tracy’s head pressed against Billy’s chest and the drummer’s brush soothed the ache of their syncopating heartbeats.
When Bone Man finished, the crowd erupted as if they’d been listening on the radio as Joe Louis dismantled Max Schmeling, Nazi supremacy and American racism in the first round. Bone Man wiped his brow with a handkerchief, nodded to his drummer and piano player and “ragged it up,” sending the joint into a jumpin’ jubilee.
At one point, as Bone Man found a foot-stomping swagger, Billy pounded the heavy bag with the beat. He had done Tracy right. By the gleam in her eyes, he knew he had made her feel like sparkling champagne and the love of his life. In the process, Billy felt like a man of distinction, dressed to the nines, with his beloved on his arm and an effervescent joy bubbling into a sense of immortality.
“Where’s your family?” an old-timer named “One Eye” Johnson asked as the jazz pulsed and they shared Billy’s flask.
Billy acted like the music had smothered the question. He shoved his flask into his back pocket and worked his way through the crowd to Tracy. Her smile closed the cut opened by One Eye. He had refused to let Tracy invite his Dad, his Mom or sister Pam to the wedding. Tracy had replaced a dreamless childhood with a future as defined and cut as a hungry boxer in a rundown gym.
Billy pulled away from the memory of their wedding and glanced at Tracy as she continued to drive stoically toward their fight. He cherished her as his emotional cornerman, his spit bucket friend, and his cool jazz lover. Billy softly traced the birthmark on Tracy’s neck, evoking a tender reverence and a hard-thrusting lust. Tracy glanced at Billy and winked. “Not until after the fight, Billy River.”

The schizophrenic strobe lights in the bar jabbed black and white, black and white. Sitting on his stool at the bar with regulars and dancers scattered down the line of seats like stitches of despair, Billy shadowboxed, throwing a tight left hook at an imaginary opponent and bobbing his head and shoulders as if he were slipping punches.
He glanced at Kitty perched on the stool next to him. She was his favorite girl and the reason he came to the club. During his “alley cat” years after his brain injury, he would have ached for passion with Kitty, asking for a lap dance or going to the VIP room. But he was past lust as an escape. His guilt flogged him every time he had cheated on Tracy. She knew. He didn’t hide the carousing. She had to know, and her silence reminded him of the unacknowledged bruises on his sister Pam’s arms after his Dad beat her.
His son Toby knew. He became Tracy’s confidant and protector and his words hardened into a pickaxe he constantly swung at Billy’s soul. Billy’s cheating became an unforgiveable sin in Toby’s mind.
Billy gradually wearied of the temporary relief of lust. He was growing old and tired. He preferred drinking, talking and reliving his boxing stories with Kitty, telling the tales until he discovered something new.
On Kitty’s side, he speculated that their odd connection was based on the money he gave her on thirty-minute intervals and her gift of empathy, which plumbed the deepest trenches of his stories and identified the emotions he couldn’t feel. She was a hell of a listener.
Kitty adjusted her shawl and clutched his hand. “Billy you’re acting a little crazy. Slow it down, babe.”
Billy peered into her eyes, her soft brown eyes that felt safe, like sparring gloves. He twisted an empty shot glass in his hand. “Sometimes the old memories of Tracy seem sacred, but they hurt.”
“I can tell. You change when you talk about them. You lighten up a little. Maybe you idealize those times, but who cares.”
The images of Billy and Tracy’s barnstorming during the early years, the poor years and the best years seemed radiant white, woven whole and seamless, as holy as the tunic worn by God in the flesh.
Billy stared at the liquor bottles behind the bar. “The problem is that the old stories are no longer self-contained and never stand on their own. I start thinking about Tracy driving around town in a green Jaguar with Boomer Eason, and Toby despising me and knowing it’s my fault. Then the old memories turn coarse, like sackcloth.”
Billy unleashed a flurry of jabs and hooks, remembering the moment he realized that Tracy was having an affair.
Six months ago, he saw Tracy and Boomer standing beside the Jag in a Target parking lot. Tracy bounced on her toes and lightly touched Boomer’s arm as they worked to fit an outdoor grill into the trunk of the car.
Billy screamed into his hands as the Jag drove off. Tracy was having an affair. Her church retreats and potluck dinners were cover.
Billy slammed his elbow into the side window and honked his horn long and hard. Every sound needed to blare in order to be h