Off to the Races

There was a moment of silence and disbelief as the greasy, sweaty men in suits stared at the bloody mess being taken out of the ring. It was like everything was in slow motion. Truly all I could do was smile, but I knew I shouldn’t.

Slowly, without a scream or shout of anger, each man moved towards the door to pay the pied piper and head home. This was the first, last, and only fight of the night. All who was left in the room was me, Hardy, an older suit, the bookmaker, and Emily with her boy toy Ron.

He was a weasel, quite literally. His nose jutted out farther on his face, and his jaw and chin weren’t far behind. He was tall, lanky and tanned dark from all the grease and oil he worked on. It didn’t matter how fancy of a suit he wore, you could tell the difference between high class and dress up.

“Hey, I, uh… I’m gonna go home with Ron tonight. Apparently there’s an eight ball with my name on it. Leave the door unlocked this time please, will you?” She whispered quite loudly in my ear, which I never understood why she did that. It was as if she wanted the whole world to know she was a coke whore.

I didn’t respond, my eyes were fixed on the older suit that was talking to Hardy. What an odd name for a man… Hardy. I genuinely hoped that wasn’t his actual first name.

“Hey, miss googly eyes. Did you hear me?”

I nodded in response, stepping down from the chair I stood on.

“You gonna go home with Rocky then?” She asked, a laugh in her tone loud enough to turn heads. She was careless, I swear.

My head snapped towards her, I shot her a smile and she knew. It only took one look for her to know, that’s one of the things I loved about my dear Emily. She understood my ways and knew to stay out of them.
With a flick of my wrist for approval, I shooed her away.

“Do you always have power over people like that?”

The bookmaker stared at me. I raised my eyebrow and walked towards him, gunning for the money in his hand. I just laughed, taking the wad of cash from him.

“Darling if only you knew.”

I grabbed the shall that was so carefully placed behind the chair I had been sitting on and headed for the stairs. I looked over towards Hardy to signal my leave. I didn’t want to be in that smelly death trap any more than the next.

It wasn’t long after I was out the door of Marty’s that I heard the sound of his sneakers squeaking on the pavement. I didn’t bother turning around while he caught up, I was on a mission to get home, and whether he came along or not was his prerogative.

“Quite an exhilarating show you put on back there, Hardy.”

My eyes gazed towards the stars, the sky was clear for once. The sounds of the city enveloped me with comfort and I took a deep breath of the night air. It felt good to be out, it felt good to be apart of something.

“Yeah, about that, how the fuck do you know me? And why’d you bet for me? What kind of person bets on someone who’s clearly getting the living shit beat out of him?” His voice was harsh, deep and tired. He was quick to speak, his British tone flowing out of him and into my eardrums, embedded in my mind.

I turned to him, walking backwards, a grin on my lips.

“The kind of person with faith, Mr. Hardy.” I let my eyebrow raise slightly, before turning back around again.

“Well what about my drink then?”

“You’ll just have to follow me to get it, won’t you?”

The sound of his sneakers stopped, and then started again. I never stopped walking.