The Thirteenth Round - Excerpt

“Mankind is like dogs, not gods; if you stay humble they will bite you,
but stay mad and you’ll never be bitten.”
-Jack Kerouac

Physical injuries take days or even longer to cure, yet an emotional injury never scars. A thought along those lines drifted along the mind of Hyde, the “Beast”, two days after returning to the gym and three after the sparring incident with his best friend, Franky Canet. Walking along the maze of benches, punching bags, piles of tattered equipment and other things strewn about, he didn’t have to turn around to know everyone stared at him with a mixture of hatred and fear. All those furrowed brows and narrow snake eyes hardly fazed him; on the contrary, they amused him. Did they seriously think some stinky looks would hurt more than a real punch? Surely not. They were aware that they couldn’t lay a finger on him, hard as they may try.

Hyde’s destination was a locker room where a proper change of training clothes awaited him. He made it to the blue door not before being interrupted by coach Guido, who quickly and rudely summarized today’s training menu. The outlaw boxer pretended not to hear as he made his way into the next room. It took him one step to forget everything.

Favre

Madness only needs an outlet. Anything can be a fuse.

Any given Sunday.

Any given Sunday you can win the lottery, get a raise, buy that huge plasma TV you always wanted or, if you really want to be corny, find the love of your life. Any given Sunday you can lose your mortgage money, wind up run over by a drunk driver, end up with a pregnant teenage girlfriend or get killed over a pocketful of change and a bus pass. The world out there revolves around an axis of causality, that engine that makes bad things happen to good people and vice versa. You surely have told yourself before that life is not fair; I’m going to have to say you are wrong. Life, in essence, just is, even if it needs vessels to exercise its mysterious ways.

In my case, just now I have submitted my will to those incomprehensible forces, ready to provide Murphy’s terrible warnings with a purpose. Like a biblical plague, I shall destroy a charlatan, a despot masked as a saint, and I will turn his life into an eternal disaster. I will do it because he deserves it, because I want to see what it’s like. I want to see him suffer and whine. I want to remind him he’s no more than a man.

Amilcare's Pursuit Pt. 2 (END)

Is it coincidence, madness or fate?

Once emancipated, I did what I could to live on: robbing, diving into dumpsters, doing whatever oddjob was available but never begging. I was even paid several times to work my "fighting charms" on idiots that refused to pay their loan sharks or simply couldn't choose better friends. I did this just as long as they had the guile to try and answer my punches, so I hardly bothered myself with cowards -who happened to be most people-. Therefore, I would let out my frustration fighting the first hood or tough guy I stumbled across.

I suppose this is how I built a reputation around me. I never figured it would be that notable; however, in each new city I mysteriously woke up in, lacking any recollections of traveling, eating, buying new clothes or satisfying other necessities, there were at least two or three people who knew me. Shortly afterwards I was contacted for a job.

Killing Dead Men - Chapter 5 (Excerpt)

Here is an excerpt of my third novel "Killing Dead Men", a tale of violence, bloodshed and heartbreak. It is the story of a man unfortunate enough to survive death; now, as long as he remains alive, the streets of Frontier City will see carnage.


‘Franco’s not here. Joey’s not here.’ thought Junior Borja a couple of minutes before, back when his scared self was so slow to understand that they were driving him to the site of his execution in the desert. Moments after Marty Rizzo had finished driving several miles towards nowhere, Junior was on his knees in a big hole dug in the mantles of sand, begging for the mercy of two men who couldn’t help but look down on him. Marty kept his poker face and Parco continued having that perpetual mask of melancholy and boredom.

“Really! You don’t have to do this! I can pay you! I can.. I can..--I can kill that asshole myself, if you want! Honest!” implored Junior, his face reddened and his voice weakened due to his panic. He screamed at the top of his lungs when Parco drew an automatic handgun from his belt.

“No, Junior. No --Oh, god damn it. Stop crying already. Give it a rest. You're a big boy now!” said Parco, his emotion that of someone who has just gone through a marathon of boredom.

The bookmaker squealed every time the sights of the Beretta drifted over his body, creating further annoyance for Parco; he hadn’t even bothered to take the safety off. The bespectacled hitman sighed and started to scratch the side of his head --with his gun, no less.

“What do you want then? Do you want Marty to come down to that hole and beat you to a pulp, genius?” Parco crossed his arms in exasperation. “I think he carries a bat in the trunk. You do, right?”

Marty didn’t take his eyes off good old Junior. He simply nodded.

Say Hello to Mr. Violence

Because within every man, there always exists an animal.


I dream of hurting you, your siblings, your parents and your dog. I’m not talking about things like insults, indiscretions or vitriolic little gossip behind your back; I’m talking about really fucking you up: smashing your face in, stomping a crater into it and then kicking your chest until it caves in. Don’t ask me why. It would be like asking me why I breathe.

Truth is I don’t even know you, and I’m hardly interested in changing that fact. Hell. More than likely, we’ll never even exchange looks; but in the unfortunate event that we did, I assure you you’d see one tough, wild and unhinged bastard.

You’d also walk away without a scratch, and that’s because above all else I am a coward. I could extensively –and ad nauseum- talk to you about the coma I’d leave you in whenever I decided to put my hands on you, but then you’d laugh after seeing me second-guess myself, or better yet, run away like a little punkass bitch. It’s not that I’m weak or afraid of pain. Simply put, I am corroded by the same sickness you are: lack of initiative and lack of balls. You and I are anchored down by a kind of fear so sneaky that it found a way to become widely acceptable: fear of consequence and fear of the unknown. So, whenever I think about crushing you, I’m going to find my supposed perfect strategy to do it far more exciting than what would have taken place in real life, where everything would have probably worked against me one way or another. What’s really funny is that I wouldn’t kill you, maim you or even rape you, so I don’t think I’m that crazy. Consider yourself fortunate.

But it’s a pity, since none of that is going to happen. Just because I can’t gather the stones to let my true nature take over. I’ve been domesticated just like you to follow rules and be afraid of everything: parents, the police, God. I’m a eunuch, a pussy, and in spite of all that, the fact that I accept this situation and real identity surely makes me a better person than you are.

Oh well. What can you do about it? Keep going down your boring stupid road and don’t look back, because as much as I’d like to really smash you, I’m letting you off in one piece; however, never forget that when the day dies and the flares of this fast city start to hum, in the shaky dreams that my frustrations have created, I’m going to rub that stupid smile off your goddamn face. Yours and that asshole’s, the one you may or may not have next to you right now.

Amilcare's Pursuit Pt. 1

This is the first of two parts of this short story I now present to you. When faced with the question of whether or not to follow your nature, what do you do? This piece is meant to explore the darker choices made in that constant struggle between instinct and reason. Formerly titled "Brawlers in Twilight", it was changed for reasons you are free to speculate on!

It hasn’t been that long since I forgot what my name was. Each letter in it was erased with every tooth I knocked out, one punch at a time. Each dental piece clacked against the ground like the hammering and chick-chack of an old typewriter, spreading white-out over pointless memories. It was a gradual process that I ignored until it became too late: too late to do something about it and too late to mind an iota. I have lived life since those rough days as something strange, unknown and bizarre, without denomination or reason.

I am what others see and, up ‘till now, nothing else.

I live just the way things live: despised and ignored until someone finds them a use and purpose. What will I be called? A monster or a sick man? Either way I shall be pitied. Maybe that’s the reason I keep treading this life without any rhyme or reason. Conjectures bore me. Fleeing from them helps me stay sane. It helps me stay focused.

My past -excuse me for disappointing you- was something mundane and lacking of excitement. I lived my youth just as some of you already had. Back in those days my eyes expressed curiosity and vitality. Back then I probably wasn’t as indifferent and nonchalant towards living as I am now; in fact, life seemed boring and meaningless until I found my own reason to justify it, though I ignore why.

This raison d'etre was the desire to fight. Such an intense and wonderful thing overwhelmed me; in no time I was dangerous and a threat to everything and everyone around me. The scent of blood, sweat and dirt, together with that numb feeling that remains on struck fists, gave me an impression of disembodiment with the rest of the universe. In violence, I was. In pain, I existed.