“The Bad Boys of Toronto,” Roger Greene mused as he clicked off his sixty-inch panasonic-plasma flat screen and tossed the remote down the short plush couch. He’d been watching the Daily Show and John Stewart had raised an interesting image on the screen. Mayor Rob Ford and Justin Bieber back to back. He let his gaze drift the well hung modern art, all hard lines and soft curves. The walls hummed with the force of the furnace. He listened to the white noise as his eyes fell to the remote, where it rested on the far side of the loveseat’s cushion. There his first wife had sat, and his second after the first divorce, and a dwindling stream of steamy-eyed kits he met at the uptown clubs. Greene massaged his temples then lifted the short crystal tumbler off its limited-edition coaster. He sucked back two fingers of rye, a little watered now the ice had melted, leaving the glass half empty. Liquid slooped to the rim but not over as he set the drink down heavily.
“What do you suppose happened to me?” Roger asked Xerxes, his purebred Persian long-hair. The cat looked up shortly then nuzzled back down atop the room’s central heating vent. “I’m a television producer, for crying out loud. That’s the job I used to tell girls I had when I was in college…” he looked back to the remote. “Maybe it’s the cat,” he murmured, eliciting an exalted mrowf from Xerxes.
The bad boys of Toronto. Greene rubbed his eyes as the walls hummed on. The room grew warmer as the well-fed feline rolled halfway off the vent, settling into slumber.
It didn’t take long for the gears to start clicking. Greene had been dabbling for a new reality series to back, and hadn’t heard many concepts he liked. There were a couple guys from Montreal who wanted to do a celebrity spin off White Collar Brawlers who had the right work ethic, but their idea had lacked flair and depth. They hadn’t considered how to convince celebrities to participate, for example.
It took some doing. Greene called in more favors than he remembered accruing to set up a special tribunal ruling. No one could deny that J-Beebs and Ford had broken city bylaws, and both were pulling strings of their own to try to wriggle out without so much as a slap on the wrist. There were several hearings, more than one tirade from the mayor, and permission forms faxed to Bieba Baby’s parents. Before long Greene found himself living out of an internet cafe on Princess, writing emails to the local gaming commissioners assuaging their concerns while hyping up JB on his razor-thin bluetooth earpiece. He even developed a system of calling for a refill via sign language with the long lashed, brunette-maned barista.
Roger had boxed in college, and made the mistake of mentioning it to Bieber during their first conference call with the kid’s lawyers. Ever since then the teen icon had been calling him for advice on how to bring down the larger Mayor Ford.
“Justin, B-Baby, relax, you got the footwork of a god!” Greene chattered as he signaled the waitress for more mocha. Damn if her apron wasn’t so tight the nameplate almost popped off when she breathed. “Just keep workin’ that jab with Freddie Roach and the combinations will come. You’re gonna be a speed demon kid!” The cafe was closing, the waitress using some wavering sign language of her own. “B-Baby, I’ve got another call on the line,” he lied, “I’ll call you right back!” As if.
“Get home safe,” Greene told the bosomy barista, one of the few sentences he shared with her.
“Sounds like you’re excited about the big fight,” she replied, “have you got a pool going at work or something?” Roger paused and turned, laptop case slack in his arm, Jag keys jingling in his pocket. He’d sort of been hoping this moment would come, and sort of dreading it.
“No, I’m producing the fight. It’s my show.” Her eyes widened in disbelief but then took in his freshly pressed two-button Tiger of Sweden suit and glistening Rolex.
“Wow, that’s awesome!” She exclaimed, “what’s it like?”
Where to start? Putting the whole thing together had been an incredible challenge, with each hurdle rising higher than the last. Greene’s job was ordinarily boring, all the conflict was on the screen. But setting up the great amateur bout between Crack-Mayor Rob Ford and Drunken-Punk JBieber had brought back his fighting spirit. As if he himself would be stepping into the ring that Saturday night.
“… and we all know Ford’s got rage, and rage means power… and he’ll have been cutting weight to get within eight pounds of Bieber, that’s the amateur regulation. But JB’s been bulking to weight up and meet him, and the kid dances like a praying mantis. I don’t think Ford can catch him, I really don’t…” Green coughed. His throat was dry. With a shock he realized he’d been talking rapid fire for five minutes. The barista had a funny grin on that pointed her chin out at an angle. “Sorry,” he stammered, “I should go…”
The night came, and both the Drug-Addled Mayor and the Star-Spangled Youth showed up. The wrapped up and laced up and warmed up in the locker rooms as the arena filled to the rafters. The crowd’s war was crazed, an animal starved and expecting a feast.
Greene sat up front, close enough to the media table to hear the occasional comment.
“Well, Rob Ford is looking slim,” a salt-and-pepper joe was slurring into the microphone, “but the real question will be… how did he lose that weight? Cardio or crack? Only time will tell I suppose…” In the ring the mic dropped, and the announcer brought the competitors down. Bieber bopped about like a jackrabbit, while Ford lumbered like a muskox.
The first two rounds flew by with Bieber looking like he had wings on his shoes. Ford’s wind-breaking roundhouses only grazed the kids shoulders on rare occasion. The teen was slippin’ and rippin’ and weaving in and out and side to side, just like old Roachie taught him.
The bell rang for the third round and Ford came out desperate. His shoulders showered referee and opponent alike with sweat as he threw a wayward combination. In a moment of freak luck, both Bieber and the officiator were momentarily blinded by toxin-rich saline.
Ford hit Bieber with a one-two to the body that had the color commentator claiming he’d taken a hit between rounds.
JB was on roller skates, barely dodging the followup uppercut. He was on the ropes and Ford was bearing down, and then he was ducking past and reeling away. The bell sounded the end of the round.
Roger Greene couldn’t sit down. He was jumping around in front of his seat like one of the thousand or so teen girls who were straining against the security barrier ringside, calling encouragement to JB. In the minute before the bell sounded again Greene felt he might have sweated through his Egyptian-silk undershirt.
Bieber was on his bike from the beginning, focusing purely on defense for the first half of the round. Ford swung both meathooks as his face reddened, from rage and Bieber’s peppering jab. But the Mountainous Mayor seemed to get stronger as the round wore on. He couldn’t catch JB though, the kid kept circling and sticking and moving off the middle. The bell clanged and the judges looked to their cards as the crowd roared.
Greene got a good look at the cards but couldn’t quite read them. The screams from JB’s fans drowned out the ring announcer, who stood beneath the dangling mic shrugging mutely. The security barrier surged and broke…
“What happened then?” The barista was asking. He was in the coffee shop after the fight – they stayed open late on Saturdays – and she was leaning over him. His gaze dipped, and not for the normal reason… he looked to the nameplate but couldn’t put the letters together. But he wanted to know her. Greene wiped his mouth and set his half-full mug aside. He’d been an absolute dick to the brunette waitress, and yet her kindness had never wavered.
I wanted to ask for your phone number, Roger tried to say, but his mouth could barely open. As if he’d put on a set of boxing headgear backwards, sealing his lips. Only instead of sweat he tasted…
The long Persian hair of a fat purebred cat.
Lover Fighter Writer 