Gas Pedal

Friday Night Fights

*Camilla in the picture*
(to be clear, she is described with green eyes instead of blue)

I update once a week

The man left the chalked circle battered and bloody.  His head and back were bent in defeat and his arrogant smirk was gone.  He spat at the ground and the sea of onlookers parted for him as he approached.  Soon he vanished when the crowd knit itself back together. 

I stretched my arms across my body one at a time, working out the kinks.

One down.  One to go. 

Bets were collected and idle chatter was exchanged.  I bounced on my toes at my end of the circle, doing what I could to keep warm in the cold desert night.

Scottsdale Arizona was in the middle of a desert.  It was prosperous enough to sustain several wealthy celebrities and businessmen and women but out here, tiptoeing the edge of Phoenix, Scottsdale was barren.

The Underground congregated here Tuesdays and Fridays in various alleys of the secluded and abandoned strip mall that bordered a small slum section of Scottsdale. 

It was a twenty-minute walk from my house along one lane roads cracked by the intensity of the sun and coated by sand that wafted in from the occasional breeze.  The roads were lined with citrus trees.  The lemons grew the best.  All the trees were meant for an ornamental purpose, naturally, so the fruit that dropped often rotted or was scooped up by Peccary Pigs or desert birds.  When I wasn't meeting with The Underground and fighting, I was wandering the streets, plucking lemons from the trees and selling them.  It was an hour bike ride to get outside of the basin that Phoenix and Scottsdale resided in.  The basin caught water during monsoon season, when it rained relentlessly for about a week in the spring, but towns outside of the basin weren't as lucky.  Their lack of water created a harsh environment for citrus trees.  It made for an excellent market.  I sold my lemons in Saanvi, a city just outside the basin, and rode my bike back to Scottsdale every day that I could.

I remember my dad saying something to me about how Saanvi is Hindu and represents an elegant goddess, Lakshmi, who is said to provide wealth and prosperity.  Unfortunately, Saanvi is dryer than Scottsdale and there might only be one or two houses that are attached to the ground instead of sitting on a set of wheels in a trailer park.

I rolled my neck on my shoulders, cracked my knuckles and stayed light on my feet.  My joints were starting to get cold and stiff in the frosty night air.  I took short breaths, inhaling the scent of exhaust and the salt of sweaty men and women. 

Surrounding the chalk circle were twenty or thirty burly, intimidating figures.  Some had come to fight, the majority just came to watch and place bets.  Gonzalez, the moderator for the fights, held a notepad in his hand and was consulting with an Underground regular.  Gonzalez nodded and took a wad of cash from the man and stuffed it in his back pocket.  He began scribbling something on his notepad, showed it to the man who nodded his confirmation, before the two went separate ways.  I bit my lip wondering who the man had bet all that money on.

Gonzalez peered around at the crowd and noticed that no one was making their way to him.  He shoved his way through the inner ring of people that bordered the circle and as he broke through, a silence flew over the crowd.

"Valavanis, you ready?"  Gonzalez called in his thick Spanish accent.  Gonzalez was a man of wires; he was as thin as one, he had a mustache that curled like one, and he treaded one every day by moderating illegal street fights.  No one knows his first name and I'm not even sure if Gonzalez is his true last name.  He doesn't talk when he doesn't have to and he is always the first person to leave the alley after the fights are finished.