The Fighter Read Online Free Page A

officials to bring Ling
Si, a giant panda, on an exhibition tour of Niagara's wine region —anything, really, to prove to
all the distant aunts and uncles, the unknown business acquaintances and second
cousins twice removed, that he was going places.
    He
headed into the living room. The sofa was white, like the rest of the room and
like most of the house. Soothing, artful white. His mother and father's sofa in
his mother and father's living room in his mother and father's house, where he
still lived. The floors were new, the appliances so modern as to verge upon
space age: no creaks or ticks or rattles. Paul sat on the sofa in the deadening
silent white.
    Closing
his eyes, he pictured shitkicker Todd's trailer—Paul wasn't sure he lived in a
trailer, but it seemed entirely plausible—aflame, the cheap tin walls glowing
and bowling trophies melting like birthday candles until suddenly the bastard
crashed through the screen door, a burning effigy. Next he saw the entire
trailer park on fire—why the fuck not?—occupants smoked from their mobile
shanties, their macaroni-casserole- TV-Guide lives, running around waving
flame- eaten arms and the air reeking of fried hogback.
    A
flashback from last night tore the fragile fabric of his daydream: a huge fat
fist the size of a cannonball, the skin black as a gorilla's, rocketed at his
face.
    "God damnit!"
    He
struck the sofa cushion. The punch was weak but ill-placed: his wrist bent at
an awkward angle and he yelped. He hopped up, shaking his hand; he booted the
sofa but his kick was clumsy and he jammed his toe. Gritting his teeth,
grunting, he lay upon the Persian carpet. His body quaked with rage.
    Paul
often found himself in this state: anger bubbling up from nowhere, a
teeth-clenching, fist-pounding fury. But it was undirected and one-dimensional
and lacking either the complexities or justifications of adult anger. More
like a tantrum.
    He
nursed his hand and drummed his heels on the carpet. His cellphone chirped. One
of his asshole friends calling to dredge the gory details of last night's
misadventure. Or his father, wondering why he wasn't at work yet.
    Paul
headed to the kitchen, popped his cellphone into the garburator, and flipped
the switch. The gears labored, regurgitating shards of shiny silver casing into
the sink; a sharp edge of plastic shot up and struck Paul's forehead. He
twisted a spigot and washed everything down, then picked up the kitchen phone
and dialed a cab.

     
    Paul
followed the cobblestone path alongside a boxwood hedge past a marble fountain:
an ice-glazed Venus riding a conch shell sidesaddle. Early autumn fog blew in
off the lake, mantling the manor's roofline. It was much too large for its
three inhabitants, but Paul's father held a tree-falling-in-the-forest outlook
with regard to wealth: If you're rich
and nobody can tell, well, are you really rich?
    The
cab picked him up outside the estate grounds. Paul gazed out the window as they
headed downtown to retrieve his car. They drove along the banks of Twelve Mile
Creek, the squat skyline of downtown
    St.
Catharines obscured by fog. Roadside slush was grayed with industrial effluvia
pumped from the brick smokestacks of the GM factory across the river.
    Paul's
car, a 2005 BMW E90, was parked around the corner from the club. The car was
his father's gift to him from last Christmas. There was a parking ticket on the
windshield. He tore it in half between his teeth and spat the shreds into the
puddle along the curb.
    He
stopped for a red light on the way to the winery, idling beside a Dodge pickup.
A junkyard mutt was chained to the truckbed. Paul locked eyes with the dog. The
mutt's muddy eyes did not blink. Its lips skinned back to reveal a row of
discolored teeth. Paul looked away and fiddled with the radio.
    He
accelerated past big box stores and auto-body shops and gas stations out into
the country. The land opened into vast orchards and groves. Peach and apple and
cherry trees planted in neat