The Nebuchadnezzar magazine

Its two seconds to the bell, and already I know I have him. The hook is his weakness: specifically his left flank. Yes, I am a man—but a pseudo-man, like austrolipithicenes or cromagnon. On occasion, I can be reasoned with, but I am operable on fear. That is my drive, and has always been. I will not admit it, lest I appear weak, to the insubordinate few.

As the bell peals, that sullen tintinabulation, I drive my heel into his ribs and supplement this action by burrowing my knuckles into his Adam’s apple. Stomache 9.

On the ground he flounders. He flops like a fish on dry land. Up comes a fist, but I thwart that. Through a bloodied mouth I grin. How pathetic. Let me relieve him of his misery.

its funy becuasse the last thing I can rembmer of my dad was his fist. It came down strong, and hard with a whooshing soun. I saw it in slo moshon. Then I heard it land:

Crack!

Right on mom’s jaw.

I never called him dad after that. Tsering, I say. That was his name and I didn’t care if id get hit for doin it..

Years later I’d hear the mantra: “Respect is a two way street.” Of course I’d heard it before, but it didn’t stick until Alice the social worker said it.

My brother and me were playing with our legos and hotweels as the bacon and eggs cooked. Mom was making pancakes, fliping them with the wooden spatula. I smelled the onions, and parsely

Mom! I called, but she dint move.she lied there still on the groun EVEN WHEN I POKED HER. Then Tersing shove me against the counter.

He say,” you stupid fuck! “ then I fell on my brothas legos. “Ouch!” my baby brother say.

i

dint

cry.

Even tho it hurt real bad. Id been hurt worse on the inside. I wispered for mom she still dint move.

My lil bro threw his legos, the enterprize ship wed just built at his head. The whole thing busted, sprayed all over the room like splintrd wood. Tsering was mad. He rolled up his sleeves, a I smelt ber on his braeth.if I hadn’t yelled, im sure he’d have hit my bro.

“Tsering!” I yell, “You the stupid fuck!”

Then he hit me again. And again. I was glad becaze he didnt hit my litle brother.

I saw grandmas shinto shrine in the corner of the living room between the hits.i saw the rice on the floor, and the incense smolering.he slapped me til I could hardly stand, but no: I wouldn cry.

I rembmer in scool they tol me to call the police. When I tol mom what I learned she said she’d handle it.she said that because she was scared, but on the flor she couldn handle it. I ran to the phone but I forgot the number.i forgt numbers becaze there confusing, and I don see the poin in them.

I now how to add sum things but I dont much get the point in it. My taecher once showed me three apples. She ask how much. I told him: three.

Then he showed me three bananas. I told him I din know. That was first grade. I took it twice.

That’s when the doctors daignsoed me with dislecksia, and dyscalcalcucalcala.

I remenber dialling the phone to call the poleece but I didn no wat to do. I tried, anyway. I knew there was a nine somewhere. Then the greasepan fell, hot bacon grease on my leg.

It didn’t fall, but Tsering poured it. I could smell my skin, saw it pucker into boils. I’ve got a burn on my arm till this day. Not that you can see it. My tattoos cover it.

Mrs. Bernson taught me in special ed then. She was old but nice with gray curly hair. I wanted to shout becaze I din know what else to do. I felt like an angry snake in a bag.

Idont care if people call me stupid, because once you got one fingr pionting, you got three more looking back. People act dumb all the time. Its not what you say but what you think.

Coach Lancer told me that.

Sports caem easily to me. I liked footabll. I was the running back. But boxing was my forte.

It wasn’t until junior high that id decided to pick it up, after getting into a brawl at school. I was expelled for two weeks.

Mrs. Bernson holds up ESL cards. I see a squirrel. I see a dove. I see a parakeet.

I like to learn English. Slowly I forget Tibetan.

After I practice in the Ring. Coach Lancer looks tired, he is missing his wedding ring – and his face is gray.

Tsering he say. Do you want to fight?

After practice I walked in. I took off my jersey, my cleats, and pads. I hadn’t noticed Tsering sitting on my bed until I’d removed my helmet, and set it on the bedstand. He sat with a vodka bottle, ninety proof.

“You a big boy now,” he said. I could tell he was fairly drunk by the way his head bobbed—his eyes danced like firelight. He gulped the remnant air. “Aren’t you?”

“I am,” I replied, “Does that scare you?” I couldn’t understand why mom hadn’t left him when I was younger. But he was a hardworker at the meat plant, with a modest income, and she couldn’t afford to raise us herself.

That’s why I think she went back to school. She took night classes, while he pitiously drank from morning to evening.

“I am,” I say emboldened. I muster my voice in a low baritone, and puff out my chest. “I’ve always been.”I wasn’t afraid of Tsering or anybody. I took pride in myself, that I hadn’t felt scared for a long time.

“No,” said Tsering. He poured the remainder of the vodka on my sheets. “Big boys aren’t scared. But you afraid of fire,” he grinned flashing ivory teeth.

For the first time, I choked. I was suddenly aware of the acrid alcoholic fumes. He plucked the joss stick from my bedside shrine, and waited.

“Your mother left me today,” he stood up. “Fffew, just like that. She vanished into thin air.”

“She’s at school.”

“And your brother. Where is he?”

“He’s studying–”

“Just like your mother.” He lumbered over to me, expelling his sour breath into my ear. “But you, you will stay. Because you’re a big, stupid boy.” He poked me in the chest.

That ticked me off enough. I pushed him. I should have thought about the joss stick in his hand before I did it, but an animal in turmoil doesn’t think in terms of reason.

I operated on fear.

The bed set on fire, and Tsering with it.

The apartment building stood at the corner of Algren, and when the firefighters responded, the entire thrid flor had turned to cinders. I’d gotten out, in the knick of time.

Even after the bell has rung, I pin him to the ground. I can feel his pulse—his wild drum—beat in my knee. I know I’ve won, but making him suffer is part of the lesson. I punish him for entertaining the notion that he could beat me.

The ref pries my hands loose before I realize what I’m doing. I’ve spat at him, yelled profanity. His body convulses, but he’ll live.

I’ve had a grandmal before. I remember when that happened to Tsering.

Tsering’s clothes were on fire. I don’t think he knew his sikn was burning until he smelled it. By then, though, despite the yips, and the jumping it was too late. The alcohol saturated his flesh, so much so that it craved for exile through his pores.

I hear the sound of the ambulance, I hear the noise of that sound – I look up at the steel of the ambulance and I hear that round. 

Peeling, reeling, dealing. 

I have no idea why I’m reeling, systems kneeling.

I hear the call. I hear sounds. I see shapes in my periphery: red draping past my eyes, draping past my eyebrow cut.

Then, I pound and I patter, and I hit with a mit

I figure it lit

On fire, 

Not bothered.

I am Tsering.