And the Blood Ran Black Read online




  And the Blood Ran Black

  And the Blood Ran Black

  Written by

  Nathan E. Harvey

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2015 Nathan E. Harvey

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the expressed written permission from Harvey Brothers Publishing.

  Harvey Brothers Publishing ™ 2015

  ISBN 978-0-692-59409-4

  For Mom

  -One-

  “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” -Isaac Asimov

  John Chow struggled to regain his balance despite the dozens of hands stinging his back as they struck him. He winced at the sharp pain that raced out from each swollen mark on his skin. He wondered if those at fault even understood the pain they were inflicting on him. Was their intent to cause him pain? He pictured the unseen owners of the hands. Any one of them individually would be little cause for concern for a trained soldier such as himself. Together, though, they were a formidable force.

  The irrelevant thoughts were quickly pounded from his mind by the onslaught still raining down on him from the primary attacker who stood before him. One particularly forceful blow forced John even deeper into the crowd behind him, and John tried to gather himself by grasping for the loose, rope barrier that served as the ring’s perimeter. A man from the rabid crowd shoved him forward violently, and John found himself once again lying face first in the moist sand.

  An impressive mob had packed the bar’s appropriately named “Pit” well beyond its intended capacity. Though walking paths and a perimeter around the ring were usually established, tonight there was an uncontrollable horde spilling over into the usual buffers. Their collective body heat lingered in the stagnant, tight quarters. The hot, humid air was so thick that one could almost sense its weight pressing down on them. As if the heat and the pain pulsing with each heartbeat weren’t enough, the deafening cheers were now condensed into a constant moaning from the multitude that had assembled. The dull roar augmented the throbbing of John’s head, making it hard for him to focus on the task at hand. His own muffled groans sounded to John as if his head was submerged under water, and everything slowed to a dreamlike state, except for the pain. The pain was immediate and real.

  John raised his hand to his face and felt that the warmth of the damp sand was from his own blood, which was now flowing freely from his mangled nose as well as the deep laceration above his right eye. John exhaled violently, in the way that a horse would snort, and sent a spray of blood to the floor and across his bare chest as he steadied himself back to his feet. The sweat and blood mingled as it spider legged through each crevice in his toned frame. John blinked rapidly, trying to disperse the involuntary tears that blurred his vision, finally bringing his opponent back into focus.

  John’s anger and overall presence appeared to visibly swell as he grimaced and dropped his fists to his side, rotating each shoulder. His adversary’s back was still turned as the man continued to celebrate and play to the crowd. John walked to the edge of the ring and snatched a beer out of a spectator’s hand. He kicked his head back as he tilted the bottle’s bottom to the ceiling and forcefully downed the brew as quickly as its neck would allow.

  John had learned early on to never end a fight too quickly. The gamblers didn’t come just to lose their money; it was more about the show than the result. Any longtime gambler, if you could find one honest enough, would acknowledge that it’s more about the rush than the money. Because any gambler worth his salt is well aware of the fact that eventually, the house always wins. They pay for the adrenaline, and there is no rush quite like that of riding a comeback into a big payout. That brief moment of ecstasy he’d give to those who had already counted tonight’s bet as lost would make him their hero. To the others, he would undoubtedly become infamous. It really didn’t matter to him if he was loved or hated. It mattered only that he was remembered.

  John would normally stumble around in an awkward American style of boxing, letting the opponent grow overly confident. The locals loved watching their quicker, more agile fighter run laps around the big, slow American. John gained a lot of satisfaction out of letting the little guys grow arrogant and play to the crowd before he would strike down their hopes with a speed and ferocity that The Pit never witnessed in other fights. He enjoyed the game of toying with them, like a cat with its prey, letting them think they stood a chance. One way or another, though, the ending was always the same. Having seen it all before, many spectators who attended the fights with any kind of regularity had come to embrace the American, and many would continue to attend solely to watch John fight.

  Though dominating, John usually let his bouts remain relatively tame compared to some of the other beatings that went on in The Pit due to the anything-goes nature of the establishment. But tonight’s opposition had cheated in a place where almost nothing was considered cheating.

  Early in the fight, while John had been sandbagging his efforts, the opponent had landed a lucky blow straight to his nose. Once Corporal Chow’s eyes had begun watering, the man had open season as John swiped blindly at the attacker. John wasn’t unaccustomed to losing some blood for the good of the show, but this time was different. The young fighter was below average at best, but had found a way to severely bloody John’s face. The bleeding was so significant that it was impairing his vision considerably.

  As the anticipation of the crowd palpably grew, his opponent sensed the change in atmosphere and turned back to face John. With both of his fists slowly descending from their celebrative position above his head, the under-matched opponent had almost no time to react to the fact that John was not only back on his feet, but rapidly approaching. A barrage of flying fists to the mid-section from Chow had the Asian man hunched over and bug-eyed in shock with his facial complexion quickly flooding to a sickly greenish tint. The kid blindly swung in desperation and wound up swinging straight over the top of John’s ducked head and connecting with his own face in a tremendous whiff. Sensing the impending loss, the large crowd of John’s antagonists re-directed the hurling of insults and threats toward their own fighter for his idiocy.

  John sensed the brief window of opportunity as the young man’s center of gravity had rocked back to his heels, and John caught him with a forceful leg sweep, strategically lifting the man’s feet out from under him. The gambit proved a decisive one as he followed through with his attack for just a few extra inches than most fighters would’ve, lifting the man’s legs up so high that the first thing to make contact with the ground was the back of the man’s skull. Even the sand could provide little cushion to the violent fall, as the blow to the cerebellum sent all of the man’s muscles into a spastic, convulsive state. His arms quickly pulled to his chest like those of a cerebral palsy patient, and the crowd couldn’t decide whether to cheer or gasp at the sudden brutality.

  The crowd stood with jaws gaping as John’s upward momentum from the perfectly executed leg sweep had carried him off the ground and into a twisting motion until the length of his body was parallel to the ground and positioned directly above the fallen foe. Everyone that was in attendance had their next breath stolen for the brief moment that it took for John to fall back to the sand with the full force of his weight striking through his right elbow into the over-matched opponent’s chest. The fluidity of the dance-like agility that was being displayed was abruptly broken by the gruesome, echoing thud that only a chest cavity can produce when its framework has been struck with a debilitating force. Then, with his left hand grasping the man’s throa
t, John proceeded to batter the barely conscious man mercilessly. The opponent’s efforts to protect himself grew less and less inspired, until he finally lay motionless, leaving the blood-thirsty crowd standing in awe.

  Chow stood, breathing heavily as he straddled the man, and glared down at him. After a long, silent pause, the solemn crowd began to slowly react with favor to the ominous force before them. The shouts of praise started in the back as John was already exiting the ring, and grew into an uproar of appreciation as John tried to navigate his way through the massive crowd.

  There were more congratulatory slaps to his bare back as John pressed to get through all of the people pushing and shoving to get as close to him as possible. The hand slaps now felt much different than those during the fight--fearfully respectful if you could describe a slap in such a way. John kept his chin to his chest and his eyes down as the adulation of the crowd reached levels that no one in the arena had ever seen before or would likely ever see again.

  John had initially intended to collect his winnings and make a quick escape as the next fighters entered the ring, but all of the attention remained tightly concentrated on him. He would just have to leave and hope that his manager could collect his share of the money.

  His half-brother, Moto, more often intoxicated than not, stumbled to catch up to John as he fought his way toward the exit.

  “John, man, let me take a look at your nose. Just because you haven’t had any excitement since the cease-fire doesn’t mean you have to stand around with your hands down and give the other guy free blows.”

  John blew another stream of blood from his nostrils with no regard for the spray splattering across Moto’s pants.

  “I didn’t let him hit me,” John grumbled. “The kid blinded me with a jack shit little jab before we ever even really got going. He must’ve snuck a razor blade in the padding of his glove. I didn’t mean to go off like that, but that cheap shit pisses me off to the point of just…”

  “You don’t have to justify it to me, big guy. No one would’ve blamed you if you’d have killed the kid,” Moto laughed.

  John let his shoulders sag, and let out a displeased grunt as he shoved open the exit door, avoiding eye contact. “I swear they let that stuff slip into the ring against you if you start winning too often. I’m done with this.”

  “You might just be. I don’t know if there’s anyone stupid enough to go toe to toe with you after the show you just put on! I’ve never seen anything like it!” Moto said cheerfully as he slung John’s shirt over his blood spattered shoulder. “C’mon, John, I’d be floating three inches off the ground right now if I were you. At least crack a smile. I’ve never seen you this solemn after a fight! You must’ve won yourself a month’s salary in there tonight, and I’m pretty sure you’re never gonna have to buy yourself another drink in that hole. Speaking of which, hold up for a second, I need to return this beer I rented.”

  Moto staggered over to the outside corner of the bar to relieve himself and leaned up against a propaganda littered telephone pole as he yelled over his shoulder, “Every fighter knows the risk of stepping into that ring, man. And you said it yourself, the punk had it coming. You think he didn’t have some ill intent when he snuck that razor in?”

  John purposely changed the subject and asked, “Where’d Marty get off to anyways? He usually comes to find me right after the fight.”

  “I don’t know; he was with me until the fight was just about over. An Asian and a local looking guy came and got him about the time you had the dude on his back. I didn’t think anything of it in the moment, but looking back it was kinda weird.”

  John looked up, attempting to ignore the disgusted, judgmental glares from some of the exiting locals. When he wasn’t in uniform and carrying his rifle, John found it much easier to decipher which of the Puerto Ricans was an ally and which had given in to the growing Chinese influence. John expected the hate from the Chinese, and even understood it. Everything about John was what they were taught to hate. The disloyal Puerto Ricans were the ones that kept him up at night. It was impossible for the visiting U.S. troops to truly ever know who they could trust on the island, and their intentions were anything but obvious.

  One Asian man muttered something about a turncoat as he made brief eye contact with John before spitting at the ground near his feet. Since several months had passed with no real violent exchanges with the Americans, this sort of behavior had become more than common. John had grown accustomed at an early age to the bigotry of others when it came to his mixed race. The dramatic rise in Chinese aggression and the resulting change in people’s opinion of him while he was still only in grade school had fueled John’s mental and physical transformation. As he often did, John chose to say nothing in return to the passing men, answering the foolishness with nothing but an unwavering confident eye until the previously confident man was forced to look away.

  John turned impatiently, “What’s the holdup over there, do you need me to aim it for you?”

  “Stop changing the subject,” Moto’s loud voice shook as he drunkenly battled his zipper, beginning to worry that he was going to lose the battle against time. “What I want to know is why are you acting so remorseful over some little Ho Chi Minh that was just taunting you back there?”

  “Idiot, Ho Chi Minh was Vietnamese,” John whispered in hopes that it would cue Moto to talk more softly. “Being my brother, I would really expect that you would know the difference. Puerto Rico may not have officially fallen, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re surrounded by Chinese.”

  “Whatever, man, I don’t see the point in learning all the pre-World War 3 stuff. Besides, growing up with your Chinese ass is probably the reason I assume every Asian is Chinese.”

  John always got defensive when Moto brought up his ethnicity. He couldn’t help but imagine how much easier his life might’ve been if he’d been born a full-blooded American--if such a thing even existed. But still, he’d lay awake some nights, imagining a life where his father might’ve been a white man. Anything would’ve been a welcome change from the soldier that took advantage of his mother all those years ago. Even Moto’s biological father wasn’t much of a step up in the dad department, but John would’ve taken him in a heartbeat.

  “First off, never call me Chinese. We were raised by the same people. The way you talk, it’s like I had to choose which side I was gonna fight for.”

  Moto sighed, finally winning the battle with his zipper, and leaned into the wall with his one free hand. “Explain to me how a tough guy like you is so sensitive? Why is being PC everybody’s first priority now. Call me Miguel con Queso for all I care. It don’t change nothin’.”

  “…and second, it’s not smart to piss somebody off when you’re pissing,” John said with emphasis as he punched Moto hard on the shoulder.

  John pretended not to give it much oomph, but he hit him hard. Moto reacted quickly by pretending to lose his balance and spin around, peeing on John’s shoes. John jumped back a moment too late and motioned his hand in a crude gesture. He stopped short of his planned comment after realizing that they’d drawn the attention of several local men who were slowing and staring as they passed. Without further conversation, the brothers began their long walk back from the bar.

  Moto realized that he had overstepped his bounds with his racially insensitive comments and, in doing so, had lost the privilege of speaking with John. He was relieved when two of their squad members, Andrew and Garrett, caught up to them and relieved some of the tension.

  “Why the hell did you guys take off so fast?” Andrew asked.

  “Yeah, man. We’ve gotta celebrate! I’ll even cover your tab,” Garrett said with as much enthusiasm as John had ever heard him speak. “I knew that guy was doneski the second I saw him climb into the ring. You won me almost a grand in there.”

  “You hear the man?” Moto asked. “Let him buy us a few!”

  “Well, I’m glad I could be a cheap date for you,” John said,
slapping Garrett on the back. “If it’s really gonna bug you, I guess I’ll just have to let you owe me.”

  “Man, you two are getting’ old on me,” Andrew said. “You can’t even stay up for one drink anymore?”

  “Whoa. Whoa,” Moto said with a hand pressed up to Andrew’s chest. “Weren’t you watching the fight? John already had his first drink in the ring; that was my favorite part.”

  “I completely forgot about that!” Garrett laughed as they crested the last hill before their bunkhouse. “Totally disrespected that fool. Easily the best fight I’ve ever seen.”

  The men returned to their bunk and found that none of the other squad members had yet returned.

  “Maybe we really are getting old,” Moto said as he plopped onto his bunk and attempted to untie his shoes.

  “Nah, don’t listen to Andrew,” Garrett said as he walked by. “He just gets antsy when there’s no women around.”

  “Ah, don’t be like that!” Andrew said as the two walked to their end of the large tent. “Who needs women when I’ve got you guys?”

  The Chow brothers laughed as Andrew snuck up behind Garrett and went in for a hug. Garrett instinctively ducked under the outstretched arms, and shoved Andrew away. He hated nothing more than being hugged and almost everybody knew it.

  John halfheartedly wiped at the blood spatter from his face and chest before climbing up to his bunk above Moto’s. He climbed across the mattress as he did in the exact same fashion each night, but tonight he did it with muddy boots and all. By the time he recalled the reason for their muddiness, the damage to his sheets had already been done.

  When Moto’s drunken fingers had finally won their battle with his shoelaces, he flopped onto his back with a thud. Moto couldn’t ignore the feeling that something was still wrong, and decided to interrupt the silence.