Fiction by the numbers, by the sea

Franklin "The Fist" Jones, a hopeful with dreams of a shot at the title.

It seems while Jones was bringing home nickels and old fish from his job at the docks or beating patched sacks of sand at the gym, his younger brother Timbo was living the fast life. Too fast. And now he needed help; he was in over his head in debt to local shark and dilettante, Glitterface.

"How much do you owe, Timbo?"

"More than you got, but I've got this plan, see?"

Timbo had a gun, it was their old man's service revolver. And with the old man long since dead in a box, Timbo felt the pistol might as well see the light of day.

"Where'd you get that, Timbo?"

"Aw, you know Ma kept this on the shelf in her closet. It'll be easy, nobody has to get hurt. Look, it's empty!"

"Don't point that at me. I don't like this; I could just get another job."

"Save your strength, killer. I know you do rounds on the weekend. You work too hard as it is. Get a little more sleep and you'll dodge that fist a little quicker next time, eh?"

He chuckled and Jones looked away, the shiner still raw on his face from the night before.

"I won that fight, Timbo."

"Sure you did. Now listen, big brother: here's what we need to do."

Timbo had a plan, a heist; simple and easy.

And as Jones listened, watching his brother's eyes dance with cunning and the way he fingered the cylinder on the gun he remembered the two of them as boys, skinny and nervous by the deathbed of their father. That flabby hand on his shoulder and those eyes that'd seen too much war.

"You, my son. My eldest. You are the man now. Watch over your mother and Timothy." The hand in his hair and then folded over the other on that rattling chest, eyes closing, "My good boy."

The gun wasn't even loaded, nobody would get hurt.

Wobbles drove the car. Jones and Timbo went in, easy as you please. Tim had a grin on his face the whole time. He was jovial about it, joking around with that iron in his hand. Jones had a baseball bat. He felt ridiculous and terrified, wearing his mother's hose over his face and asking some pretty piece to put the money in the bag. The teller looked at him with utter fear in her face and he felt the old man's hand in his hair, his thumb rubbing his forehead.

But he was a fighter and he tamped all that down and shook his fist to get her moving.

"That's it, champ. Way to handle the ladies." Timbo was laughing, waving the gun at the guard. He hadn't been drinking, but he was drunk all the same. The rush of it all. "That's my brother. He's going to make the papers, one day," he said, then cackled, "and not just for this!"

And they were in and out. Mere minutes. Wobbles cranked the wheel this way and that, yapping to Timbo who still had the gun in his hand. He couldn't keep his eyes on the road, he kept looking at the cash. Timbo had dumped the bag into his lap and was rocking back and forth with it. The two of them like jackals.

Jones slumped deep into the back seat and looked at the bricks and steel swirl by. His head was pounding, his black eye pulsing and tender. Later that night he was home cooking for his mother, and later, sitting in prayer with her.

Tracy was on the case. Witnesses described two men, one was a talker, kind of a weasel, the other a brute with a bat. Scuffed knuckles and a black eye. The teller remembered his hands. Someone else remembered the "champ". He was a detective and he was on the case. In little time, the police were snooping around, dropping in to the gyms around the city and asking about fighters.

But it was all settled, they'd gotten away clean and nobody knew nothing. So when the coppers came around he lied with a straight face. He was in the ring, pounding on Sully for practice. Both had the headgear on. He was heated and loose, he spit to the side and gave his alibi. On his way out, Tracy wished him luck with his local title fight. He knew something, alright. He knew nothing, of course. Jones was rattled.

And of course, that wasn't the end of things. With the robbery, nothing was settled. Glitterface was happy to get his money back, but he was no fool. It was in all the papers. And who owns the banks? The mob. The mob had a hand in everything, and some punk with a gun wasn't going to last long stealing their hard-earned bankvaulted cash. But to someone like Glitterface, Timbo had his uses. To deliver Timbo into the right hands might make a don or two a little grateful, might earn a few favors, down the road.

"A pleasure doing business with you, Timbo, a real pleasure," he said, with oil and promise in his voice.

Jones was furious. There in the kitchen with Timbo and Wobbles, the two of them dressed in ridiculous fashions.

"Hey, keep it down, killer. You don't want to wake Ma, do you?"

"How can you be working for that trash, now? Just last week he was going to break your legs."

"It was business, big brother."

"Is that what you are, now? You two businessmen?"

Timbo had a plan. And bullets; this time the old man's gun was loaded.

The fights kept him busy, kept him keen and numb at the same time. And he kept winning. He came home to find his mother asleep in front of the radio and he kissed her forehead. She woke with the voice of a child and called him by his father's name. The wins came, the honest prize money came. He needed to smuggle home fish less and less.

Then, across the hall, this dame moved in - No, not a dame - that would've been Timbo's word for a woman. And she was too mousey and plain for all that, anyway. But there she was and they both fumbled awkwardly around each other in passing on the stairs. She wore a cross and no wedding ring.

"Franklin, come and see who's here." His mother was sitting with her on the couch. He was just in from training. He was sapped and bruised and felt too big for the small apartment. She was sitting there with his mother and they were holding hands.

"Franklin, look. This is Mary, she lives right across the hall. Isn't that funny? I made such a fool of myself today with the groceries and she was kind enough to help me. Oh, we've been talking all evening!"

Jones grunted and pulled his hat from his head.

"That's great Ma," then to her he nodded, "Miss."

"Franklin works by the water, dear."

And life went on accordingly. Eventually. Predictably. These arcs are obvious and gracefully simple. Timbo's little schemes get out of hand. He seems to think he's clever and a survivor, but it's only because Jones has always been there to save his ass. He thinks he has it all under control. Wobbles is an idiot, but a loyal follower. Glitterface is brutal and cold-blooded. He strings Jones along, letting him dig his grave a little deeper and using him in the meanwhile to advance his own agenda, eventually turning on him. He finds a way to coerce Timbo into getting Jones to throw his title fight. Perhaps it's the girl. Perhaps it's their mother. There's another heist. This time without Jones. Jones wants nothing more to do with Timbo's "business" ventures. It goes badly, perhaps Wobbles screws up. Somebody is shot but not killed. The threads get only slightly fuzzy after that. But you know the rest, I'm sure. Eventually it all reduces to Jones facing down an oncoming, obliterating, last wide fist to his broken face and deciding to embrace it or not. These things are all about choosing to throw the fight. You enter into and leave this world alone.