Once, when I was in the city, A guy nailed a hundred dollar bill to a telephone pole and told me all I needed to do to get it was fight this big latino guy standing next to him. Now, this guy, he's got a shaved head, tattoos of snakes coiling around his arms, and I'm guessing at least three gold teeth. I'm a skinny white kid who's never been in a fight, never had a black eye, and who has only ever seen a ghetto on those re-runs of Cops. This latino guy, he probably wants the money for cigarettes or drugs or booze or something in that general field. What the latino guy doesn't know, and what the guy in the dimestore salmon-colored suit and lime-green tie next to him doesn't know is that I just happen to be a hundred dollars short of a new video game console - I might as well be on crack or speed or steroids, or any combination of the three. In twenty four hours I could be sitting on my couch playing a new video game. I've just found God.
I tell the guy, yeah, sure. Why not? Latino guy smiles, cracks his knuckles, cracks his neck, licks his at-least-three-gold-teeth teeth. Looks down at his feet, looks down at my feet, looks me dead in the eye. Initiate cocky smile. We have liftoff. I've been staring at his abs, trying to read the tattooed words that keep rippling and changing as he breaths and flexes. Inhale, exhale, flex. Repeat.
As the guy lunges, I figure out the words are in Spanish. Duck, dive, punch, roll, punch, left hook, duck again, kick in the groin, slap in the throat, scratch at the snakes tattooed on his arms. They hiss at me. Next thing I know, I'm bitten. Blood in my mouth. It tastes awful, but I have my ecstasy, I'm bringing in fifteen solid years of mortal combat and knockout and call of duty. I'm not in a fight right now, I tell myself, I'm at home on the couch, just tapping buttons. A, X, right bumper, left trigger, X, rapid-fire right trigger.
Long story short, I'm sitting in the hospital two hours later, smiling for the doctor, showing off the blood oozing between my teeth. He's frowning at me, shining a bright light into the tiny black-and-blue slit that is my eye, inspecting the stitching that goes from the bottom of my nose up around the multicolored grapefruit of my cheekbone to just above my eyebrow. I'm laughing now. Hahaha. Blood dribbles over my lip and I shut up. The doctor asks me if i'm on drugs. No, I say, never. Don't be rediculous. He looks over to the other bed where the latino guy is unconscious and hooked up to a bunch of machines feeding him life through a tube. Why did I do it then? He asks this off the record. He's just curious. I don't blame him. Was it a gang thing? No, I say, grinning. Did he threaten me? Nope, I say. Why then?
I look the doctor dead in the eye - first I swallow back some blood that's still running in my mouth. They haven't fixed that one yet - and I tell him that I did it for a video game. I pull out the hundred dollar bill sitting in my pocket with the hole at the top from being nailed to the telephone pole. I wave it in front of his face so he can see my victory, tangible and real. I won for this, I say. He shakes his head. He doesn't get kids these day. The hospital bill is on the insurance. I tell my parents I got jumped. That happens in the city, right? They nearly cry for me, ask me if i'm alright. mentally they mean. Yeah, I say. Totally fine. I say this as I'm pulling the videogame console off the rack.
I get to the register. This is it, this is everything, I think to myself. I'm finally getting the payoff. I get to the register and hand the lady the money. Cash. The hundred dollar bill with the hole from being nailed to the telephone pole is on top. I'm so proud of it, I want everyone to know I won it in a fight. I've still got the scars to prove it. I'm smirking because I know this. The chick at the register takes the money and looks at it, looks at the hundred dollar bill with the glory hole drilled right through it. This is fake, she says, handing it back. It's fake, and if I can't come up with the money, she's calling security. Call security, I say. I'm flat broke.
Well, at least I still have the scars.
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