That's Life

[Godhand]

Godhand was born in the slums of Radasanth. Once upon a time a sailor on shore leave visited Mistress Wu’s, a whorehouse that lived and breathed on the influx of travelers like him. There she had met her. Her name was Sylvia; he was John. They all were. It had been quick and simple; just a job. The next morning his father left on his ship and nine months later he had been born. His mother had had one of those copper crosses in her uterus. “Intra…Intrater…It was in my cunt,” she had explained. During one of her more eloquent moments she had remarked to him that his birth had been the opposite of a miracle. Godhand maintains that when she made this comment she was at the most lucid he’d ever seen her. She had taken all manner of herbs and remedies to try and abort him: black cohosh, pennyroyal and even some silphium that old Wu had held on to from her own days as a harlot. Nothing had worked. If his mother hadn't been so afraid of pain she probably would have done it with a rusty coathanger but, luckily for him, she was.

If not for the horribly convoluted adoption system in place in Corone she would have given him up the moment he was born. As it stood though there were so many legal twists and turns that even someone versed in the subject was hard-pressed to legally put him in foster care without admitting to doing something illegal. That and they always sent a couple of government boys to check up on your story and nobody down in lower Radasanth wanted any cops showing up. Some said that system had all been maneuvering by the church to discourage whoring while others posited that it was just Corone trying to save itself a couple of bucks by suppressing the number of kids it had to pay for while not discontinuing the government foster system itself to save face. In the end it didn't really matter. Lot of dumpster babies in those days. Lot of rats, too.

In the end, though, his mother had been forced to keep him. She didn't have the stomach to throw him in a ditch and nobody at Wu's was volunteering either. Out of options, she relented and chose to raise the boy. He had been a frail baby; all skin and bones. He looked sick and his mother had occasionally asked some of her doctor customers to take a look at him after she'd plied her craft, but they all said the same thing. Boy was weak, not ill. Lucky for him too, because paying for medicine would probably have been the breaking point for her. She had already been shaky on the idea of keeping him altogether; paying extra for a "broken baby" would have been enough to steel her desire to get rid of him.

((solo))

[Godhand]

He had been raised by the whorehouse as a whole. His mother was prone to outbursts of selfishness and apathy, refusing to see him sometimes for days at a time. One of the other girls would notice him laying in the hallway next to Sylvia's room and would inevitably invite him to sleep over. They were mostly old-timey gals; real towel-under-the-sheets whores that lived in with Mistress Wu. Things would go well for a while and he was usually better attended to by the girls than his mother. They pinched his cheeks and fed him some of the dark chocolate they liked to chew on between customers. But it wouldn't last. After a couple of days his mother would invariably burst into their rooms, hysterical, and accuse them of trying to steal her boy. Without waiting for a reply she'd grab Godhand by his arm and drag him away, cursing at him if he protested. When they were back in her room she usually went for the belt. Back then he was too weak to defend himself. The lashings came quick and hard but afterward his mother would pick him up in her arms and kiss him, humming some sweet tune all the while. Things would be peaceful for a couple of days and then the cycle would repeat itself.

When he was six years old he got a little better at getting by. Still just a snot-nosed kid but he was old enough to figure it out, and really that was all it took. Doesn't matter if you can't stop it. Being impotent but capable of understanding why things are they way they are is still a lot better than buckling under a senseless pain. It was this quiet dignity that made man so much more different than the rest of the animals. Whereas a wolf might chew off it's own leg to escape a trap it does not understand a man would understand both the trap and why it was laid, and choose to die rather than suffer. Some would say the wolf would have the advantage but while it would walk around on three legs for the rest of it's life without knowing why the man would understand why he had been trapped and choose whether or not to accept it. It was this choice, the choice the animal didn't have, that made man the most glorious of all creatures.

Godhand had been bred early on to hate the government (which he had been told preyed upon him), and the sea (which he had been told had taken his father). Perhaps the first thing he had ever rejected on his own was religion. He had been attending sunday mass with his mother and the rest of the girls. The priest was a regular customer. He was talking about a great prophet, a man that healed the sick and resurrected the dead. Only if they were believers, of course. He had been captivated by the story and after the service had approached the priest, tugging on his robe to get his attention. The kindly man turned to him and asked him what it was he needed. Godhand, wide-eyed, had inquired, "have you met this man?"

[Godhand]

He'd been excommunicated from the church shortly thereafter. Well, that was kind of strong. The priest said he had been excommunicated but really he'd just been banned from that particular church; it wasn't like some whore-loving clergyman had really had the power to issue a papal bull. It was just as well, anyway; after that little display Godhand had decided against ever participating in organized religion. He was looking for answers and anybody who shied away from his questions obviously didn't have them. This presented him with an interesting situation, however. Normally he wasn't allowed outside of Mistress Wu's except for mass or other special occasions, but since none of the girls would stay with him on the sunday service, he was left to his own devices. Wu locked the door behind her of course but he grew exceptionally capable at sneaking out of second story windows to the ground below.

What awaited him was a whole new world. Nobody knew him; nobody judged him. At least not any more than they did any other kid from the slums. For the first time ever he had been able to run, really run, up and down the alleys and through the markets. The hustle and bustle of the Bazaar had instantly attracted the young boy. It seemed like a wonderland; beautiful and shiny weapons and armor were on display while imposing knights rode by on dazzling white stallions. As far as the boy could understand you just took what you wanted and nobody stopped you except maybe to talk for a bit. He was drawn away from the weapon shops by the smell of freshly baked bread. Practically floating into the stand, he picked up one of the merchant's wares and bit into it. He immediately jumped when he heard a roar; a large mustached man in an apron was rushing at him. Godhand recognized him as the baker. He looked just like his mother when she was having one of her episodes. Knowing what was next the child ran through the crowd, ducking and weaving through bodies and darting under one of the knight's horses. After what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a few stressful minutes, he was certain he'd lost the man.

His whole body aching, he had returned to Mistress Wu's. The mass was almost over and with what little strength he had left he climbed up the water pipe and back into his mother's room. Sweaty and exhausted, he had collapsed on the bed, thinking about everything that had happened. The knights, the merchants and the crazy baker. He'd never been so scared or excited. It was only then he realized he'd put the bun in his pocket during the chase. Digging it out, he chewed on it thoughtfully. Godhand could already hear the girls arriving from the sermon, giggling and talking about this and that. How a passing warrior had winked at one of them and how so and so was conspicuously absent from the service that day. They'd never know of the adventure he'd had.

[Godhand]

By the age of eleven he'd had his first sexual experience with a woman. She was a young girl, or at least younger than the usual down-and-out damsels that went to work for Mistress Wu. She looked like she was in her early twenties but was really just barely nineteen. A ravishing woman; most of the other girls were smothered with layers upon layers of make-up but not her. She didn't even try to be beautiful; she just was. Her hair was a light red color. Auburn, she said. Her eyes were the most dazzling shade of emerald he'd ever seen. She was a jewel in the slums; a diamond amid a pile of garbage. She said her name was Erika. Godhand had spent many a night laying upon the foot of his mother's bed mouthing her name. Erika. Erika. To him it seemed like magic; like some sort of incantation he could use to get away from that terrible place. He felt his heart rise and soar every time he thought of her. The young boy often wondered why she was there. She seemed so pretty, so unlike the world around her. He was refreshed just being near her. Erika was like a dash of color in a black-and-white world; an angel. His angel. Godhand never wanted to leave her side.

Erika had once caught him staring at her from behind a corner. She was stretching in front of the hallway window; it was morning and she had just woken up. She was the very image of femininity in a plain white dress, the sunlight making the borders seem to glow with white light. She'd noticed his presence and approached him. Godhand was petrified. The young woman asked why he was always staring at her and, stuttering, he confessed that she was pretty. With the warmest smile he'd ever seen, she leaned forward and lightly kissed him. He gasped and she giggled. From then on they were inseparable.

He found out she was a farmer's daughter. She had lived her whole life out on the countryside growing vegetables and raising hogs with her family. It was a demanding but satisfying life. Erika told Godhand of the sunshine, of the miles and miles of rolling hills and clear blue skies. He hung on her every word. Apparently she'd left because her father had tried to marry her off to settle some feud their family had had with another for something like five generations. She'd left home with what she could carry and never looked back. Godhand shyly commented on how he was glad she had come here and she smiled.

One night after a particularly bad fit from his mother Erika found him in his usual spot in the hallway. He explained how this wasn't unusual and the young woman took him into her room. She even allowed him in her bed. Godhand laid next to her stiffly. He was burning up. Her every breath upon his skin or innocuous brush against his body made his head swim. It wasn't long before she noticed and asked Godhand what was wrong. Gathering up every ounce of courage he had, he admitted his feelings for her. She gave him that smile, that warm mysterious smile, and drew him into a kiss. It wasn't like the first one; this one was deep and passionate. They made love that night; she taught him how.

A year later she died from syphilis. She was the only woman Godhand ever loved.

[Godhand]

By thirteen he had stopped being a child. Life had gotten to him; you could practically see it's claws in him. The youth's wonder was gone, replaced instead with a deep resentment for the world. Life hadn't gotten any easier after Erika died. His mother had started beating him for being "insolent" after the new girl had passed away. She liked to take the frustrations she had out on him, but had stopped when she realized he didn't even struggle anymore. Godhand had changed. Where once he cried and screamed under the belt now he simply stood there, not with rebellion but with apathy; he was like a dog that had been beaten too much. He could feel his mother begin to hate and fear him, seeing him as an embodiment of all the mistakes she'd ever made. He no longer cared. The light had gone out of his life.

The only thing he was left with was outrage at his circumstances. Where once Godhand tried to understand why his mother was the way she was, now he was simply disgusted by her. Sylvia sensed this and avoided him whenever possible. This made their living arrangements much more agreeable, with them only sleeping in the same room at night and nothing else. One of the only other things of interest that occurred during this period in the young man's life was that Mistress Wu had decided that thirteen was old enough for him to go to work. When she saw him decimate a John that had beaten one of her sweeter girls she noticed that he had a strength born of anger. After this she decided to make him a bouncer, "to repay our girls for all the kindness they've showed you." Godhand loved to fight; he didn't object.

Godhand got to work quickly and efficiently. Where once if they had an out-of-control John the girls were forced to call the police and hope they came in time, now they had their own live-in enforcer. Godhand wasn't the biggest and he wasn't the strongest but he was mean, and to win a fight that was really all it took. After they'd turned his face into hamburger and could barely keep themselves standing, he was still ready to go fifteen rounds. It wasn't too difficult to beat them after that. After he'd had a few fights with some of the messier guys in the slums word got around of Wu's new wonder kid and suddenly a lot of the undesirables stopped showing up. This made him quite popular with the girls at the house. As strange as it may sound, they were proud of him.

[Godhand]

For the first couple of years it had been uneventful. Then, just after he turned fifteen, he had arrived. He was a short, scrawny man with a nose like a rat. Godhand didn't like him from the moment he laid eyes on him. Fidgety as Hell and lighting new cigarettes with old ones. He was a tacky son of a bitch through and through, and even though he told Mistress Wu that she shouldn't trust him, she let him in once she flashed her some bills. Said his name was Johnny. Cute. He asked for the youngest girl in the house and even though the madam objected at first a bit more cash was all it took to get him a room with Nancy.

Nancy was a sweet girl. She said she was eighteen but she didn't look any older than twelve to Godhand. It made him sick to his Goddamn stomach but Wu wasn't the type to ask for any papers. Heaven only knew what she was running from; every one of the girls had some story that upset the kid every time he heard it. Probably an orphan, but he hadn't asked her about her past yet; Nancy looked like even a harsh word might shatter her. And yet there she was being led -shivering- into a room with a man that made Godhand feel like spitting to get the taste out of his mouth.

The enforcer had been pacing outside the room just waiting for the first thing to go wrong. Mistress Wu scolded him for being so suspicious but knew better than to try and get him to relent. Once he got an idea in his head he'd hang on to it as long as he could. It had been twenty minutes with no strange noises on the other end of the door; just the muffled yelps and standard creaking that came standard with any customer. Just as Godhand was wondering if he might have misjudged the man -only about violent tendencies, mind you: the fact he had gone for a girl that young proved he was a sicko- he heard a strangled howl from the other side. The young bouncer kicked down the door despite the fact that it simply might have been "bliss", only to find Nancy with a rag stuffed into her mouth and the man slashing at her left arm with a razor blade, sick grin on his face all the while.

[Godhand]

Godhand immediately sprung into action, tackling the man off the bed. Tears were running down Nancy's face as she clutched her arm; the rest of the girls were drawn by the sound of a struggle. The enforcer raised his fist and brought it down upon the man's head, smashing it into his temple. Johnny was screaming, but he still had the knife. He swiped at Godhand, making a deep vertical gash along the left side of his face. It went down from above the eyebrow to the lips and if the bouncer hadn't tilted his chin up he probably would have lost the eye. It didn't really discourage him; The blood from his eyebrow seeped into his cornea and he felt like a bull. His brain was boiling inside his skull. Nancy's hysterical weeping pushed him onward. His fist came down again and again, over and over. He felt the sting of the blade a few more times but after a while the hand holding the knife fell limp. The boy didn't care; he simply kept driving his fist into the man's face. After a while Mistress Wu intercepted him; she held on to his arm to prevent him from striking him again.

Godhand's breath burned in his lungs. He turned around to see what the problem was only to find Nancy gone. The girls had already wrapped up her arm and gone to the hospital as a group. The enforcer turned back to Johnny only to find him unrecognizable. It looked like he'd been battered for hours. One side of his face seemed rather...Deflated, and Godhand realized he had shattered the man's cheekbone. His nose was broken, both eyes were swollen shut and he had swallowed at least six of his teeth. The young bouncer could feel the bile rising in the back of his throat; his fist was slick with blood. It smelled awful and he started to feel dizzy. He dismounted the man and staggered back to his room, locking the door behind him. He'd beaten people up before but never like that. Had he killed him? Godhand could hear Mistress Wu talking to someone on the other side of the door. They came to an agreement and then he heard the scraping of boots against the floor. He realized they were dragging Johnny away. Godhand picked up the garbage can next to his mother's nightstand and vomited.

It came up sour.

[Godhand]

It was just a few days later and Nancy came back from the doctor's; she had a couple of scars on her arm but she'd be fine. She was never the same after that, though. Once she had been afraid of everything in the big city but now she didn't even react when she was told a murder had happened on their street. You could see it in her eyes; the son of a bitch might as well have cut her throat. All the light had left her. No fear, no joy. Nothing. She was like some sort of horrible clear plastic doll. She didn't really talk for a while after that. The young enforcer hadn't walked away from the fight unharmed himself, though. The girls had fussed over him for days while he recuperated; even Mistress Wu had checked up on him once or twice. In the end he felt he got off easy: two long scars down and across his right arm along with the deep gash he'd left on his face. But his soul had been left intact. It was more than Godhand could say for Nancy.

It had been a few weeks after he had recuperated that the enforcer was out in the Bazaar. He was a far cry from the scared kid that'd gotten chased away by an angry baker. People knew who he was now; nobody tried anything. Even the neighborhood pickpockets knew to stay away from him. He was one of them; a bona fide son of a bitch. To them he looked like their future. It could be worse, anyway.

He'd been picking up a couple of ointments for Nancy's wounds and some sweets, too. She loved sweets; Godhand hoped they'd cheer her up. That's when it had happened. The young enforcer saw stars as a lead pipe was swung into the back of his head. He stumbled forward trying to get things to stop spinning and they dragged him off to an alley. He was too dizzy to resist. When they were safely away from the crowd he felt another strike, this time in the back of his leg. He roared as he fell to his knees and then a veritable storm of metal and wood came down on him. They got him good across the neck and shoulders, battering his calves and behind his knees before he collapsed on the ground. Every part of him was starting to swell and change color; first red, then purple, then blue. But his anger kept him conscious. With what strength he had left he drew himself back up unto his knees only to see a familiar, albeit ravaged, face. Johnny looked just as bad as when Godhand had left him, his whole head wrapped up in gauze apart from a spot here or there on his face. But the bouncer still recognized him. Godhand gave him a smile. Enraged, Johnny picked up something from the trash next to him. It looked like a long, glass tube. He rushed forward and just as the bouncer was about to fall unconscious from the head trauma, he smashed it across his chest. Then everything went black.

[Godhand]

When Godhand woke up he was back in his room. His whole body was stiff; stiff from spine to soul. Stiff like a suicide in a bathtub. His flesh seemed to throb. Every time his heart beat his jaw tightened. The enforcer had more sense than to try and get up to look at himself in the mirror and risk a collapse, but even so he could still feel the extent of the damage done by Johnny and his goons. His entire body felt like one big sack of battered meat and bones but the worst of it was definitely his shoulders. They'd really gone to work on 'em with those pipes; hammering them like they were trying to lay down the spikes for a railroad track. Godhand tried to raise his head or even just turn his neck to see who was in the room with him but the minute he tried to strain his muscles in any way at all every nerve in his body began to scream at him; he actually got tunnel vision it was so bad, but he kept himself from throwing up by shutting his eyes and grinding his teeth. Then he tried to make a little noise to draw some attention to himself, but the damage to his larynx was too much. All he could do was groan mutely. The last of his strength expended, he fell into another deep sleep.

When he woke up next it was a little better. He still felt like he had been hit by a train but he could clench his fingers and crane his neck a bit. The young man estimated that it must have been at least two weeks since he had last woken up. To his relief his voice box hadn't been knocked out and he could still speak; the moment he made a noise a girl in white rushed to his side. It was Nancy. She asked him if he was alright; it was the first time he'd heard her speak since that night. He managed a weak smile and tears started rolling down her face. She held on to his chest and started crying, soaking the sheet. Godhand stared at the ceiling and stroked her hair, shushing her to try and get her to calm down. It was almost funny to him that she had been so worried. He couldn't remember the last time anybody cried over him.

Once he had the presence of mind to ask how he had gotten there, Nancy announced his recovery to Mistress Wu and the rest of the girls. They all practically entered at once, fawning and cooing at him. Once they'd all settled themselves around him, Mistress Wu let him have it. Apparently, Nancy had filed a missing persons report when he didn't return from the market that day. The cops ended up finding him in some alley. They'd gotten him pretty bad and a few of them didn't think he was going to make it. The girls all chipped in for a doctor and after taking a look at Godhand he'd told them it was pretty much a coin toss. He said if he lived past the first week then he'd live. He did.

[Godhand]

He was in bad shape but alive, and that was good enough for him. Most people would have taken that beating as a sign to slow down, sit back, relax and take it easy. To lay off the violence and find a better job. Not Godhand; he just got meaner. The doctor said he'd be out of commission for at least a couple of months but he was doing sit-ups in bed within a week. It hurt like Hell but he just bit down on a belt and went for it. No way was he gonna turn soft in that damn bed. He couldn't do much right then but at least he could prepare for his eventual recovery.

A couple of weeks later the swelling in his forearms went down enough that he could lift some weight. The young enforcer started working out immediately; he wasn't going to get caught with his pants down again. A little while later his vastus intermedius healed and he could walk around a bit. Not too much, but just enough that he could train it to handle more weight. It was ridiculous. He was supposed to be diminished and near-dead but every day he got bigger and stronger. He ate more and more often, too. Pretty soon most of his bones had been reset and he was back on his feet.

Right away he used his savings to buy a punching bag and hung it from a rafter in his room. Godhand worked out on that thing until his knuckles bled. Day and night you could hear the savage beatings he gave it. The sharp snap of skin against leather could be heard around the house constantly, and most of the girls were truly shocked with his progress. The anger with which he trained alarmed Sylvia though, and she asked to be moved to another room. It was at this time that the young Godhand really came into his own. With an entire room to himself he experienced privacy for the first time; he discovered he much preferred being alone than with other people.

Soon afterwards the bouncer was healthy enough to leave the house, but instead he chose to remain there. He trained for six more months before finally walking out of those doors. Everybody that had ever seen him before the assault couldn't believe it was him. Where once he had just been a scrawny kid with a mean streak and a decent right hook now he was a man, and a mountain of a man at that. His jaw had been broken in the attack but now that it was reset the bone grew thicker and stronger. His skull was as tough as a fire hydrant and his fists were vast like clubs. Every part of him had either gotten bigger or harder or both.

The kid was back and better than ever.

[Godhand]

The young bouncer hit the streets hard. He was looking for Johnny; this time that rat bastard wasn't gonna get away from him. Everybody knew he deserved it but they also knew he was in the mob. Anybody that had even the slightest bit of love for Godhand had tried to warn him but he had told them all to go to Hell. He was done playing games, lifting weights, working out whatever. There wasn't a damn day that went by that he didn't think about that last sneer the mobster had given him. Johnny felt safe, even as he slashed at a whore or paid some guys to bash a man's head in. He thought he was untouchable and Godhand looked forward to proving him wrong. How satisfying would it be to wipe that rotten little grin off his face?

He met resistance almost the moment he set out to find him. Johnny was just a low level wiseguy but the mafia was still the easiest way out of the slums; a lot of kids thought he'd put in a good word for him if they fought for him. Hell, the little bastard had probably put the idea in their head himself. But no matter how many street rats tried to take him out, they never had a chance against him. Maybe if he'd still been the child he was before, but now he easily made his way through most of the pathetic orphan gangs. The Wild Ones, the Dirty Dice, the Reds? They were all just a bunch of damn teenagers! Children! He punched and kicked and battered his way through their ranks. At one point he might have felt bad about crippling a bunch of kids that were basically the same as he was, but now? He could smash a boy's skull into a concrete wall and never look back.

To him they were all just obstacles. After that many punches to the head and kicks to the ribs all the empathy had been beaten him out of him. As far as he was concerned these guys could live forever or die that second; all that mattered was that they give him what he wanted. And it didn't take long for that to happen, either. He had gotten some kid in the cobra clutch; you know, the cross arm choke? It hurt like Hell and usually put 'em to sleep but the enforcer had used the hold enough that he could apply pressure until just before they passed out and then back off. The pain was crippling and he probably caused some brain damage but the kid still wasn't talking. Lucky for him though his girl came out and, crying, begged Godhand to stop. She told him Johnny liked to go to this pub, the Drowned Stork, and to please just please leave them alone.

[Godhand]

The Drowned Stork was a pretty high class place. Well, as high class as it got in the slums, anyway. It did have a doorman, which is more than you could say for any other tavern around those parts. He was basically just a glorified bouncer, though. His name was Tony Tonelli, but everyone just called him Capital T. Most everybody was afraid of him, including Godhand. Tony had Acromegaly; Gigantism. He was only fourteen years old but he stood at a staggering six feet, nine inches. Godhand had no chance against him, and he knew it. On the plus side, when you were that big you didn't need to be too smart, which meant that he had an edge against the boy giant. He hated to rely on dirty schemes, but against six feet and nine inches? No way, not even on his best day. Coming off a life-threatening beating? There was no chance at all.

In the absence of any men around the whorehouse, or at least any men in her employ, Mistress Wu had forced Godhand into becoming a handyman of sorts. The boy made it clear that he had no idea how to fix a damn toilet, but was summarily ignored by the madame. She had gotten him some tools, though. Godhand didn't really use them for anything except pretending to work on something that Wu insisted was broken, giving up in faux exasperation and then telling her it was beyond his level of skill. She would then loudly announce his uselessness before calling a real carpenter or plumber or whatever. It was a good system, and it worked. Plus, Godhand had gotten some tools out of it, so hey. You never know when you might need a hammer, right?

Godhand needed a hammer. He greeted the off-duty girls curtly as they lounged in the hallway before entering his room and fishing a shiny black hammer out of his toolbox. It was rough and heavy and beautiful. Not like those wussy hammers with the wooden grips like they have now. Just one big black iron sap. That'll do. The young man slipped it into his coat sleeve and left the whorehouse, making his way over to the Drowned Stork pub on the lower east end of Radasanth. It was only about a three mile walk. Pretty soon he reached his destination, and who should he see ogling the rear of some passing broad?

"Tony T!"

The minute the big man turned around, Godhand swung the hammer. He got him good on the side of his left leg. Tonelli screamed, Godhand had never heard a scream liked that, he screamed when the hammer knocked his kneecap loose. After that, it was easy. The young man hugged the giant's legs before pulling back sharply and toppling him. Tony didn't have the presence of mind to fight back; not after something like that, anyway. Godhand locked in the half boston crab on his injured leg and finally pulled the patella completely loose. More screaming. He didn't have to worry about the giant anymore.

He'd never dance again.

[Godhand]

Godhand opened the door softly, keeping his head low. He didn't feel good about what he'd just done, but he didn't feel too bad about it, either. Things were tough all over; you had to do what you had to do. Luckily for him, they hadn't heard Tony's screaming. He still had a measure of surprise on the mobster. Still, you never knew how many guys he'd gotten to back him up. The young bouncer hesitantly clenched the hammer in his hand, running his thumb over the grooves in the iron. Hopefully the element of surprise would be enough. He didn't want to have to fight his way out of the scene of the crime.

No such luck. The second he stepped forward, there was a sound like a strangled yell and someone pointed his finger at him. Godhand muttered a curse under his breath when a large man suddenly charged him. He'd been sitting next to Johnny; only now did Godhand realize the degenerate was sitting at the bar and not at a table. His attacker was a big guy, a bit taller than him. Godhand quickly hid his right arm from view, adjusting it so that the neck of the hammer was between his middle and ring finger, the head resting above his knuckles. Just when he felt his assailant upon him, he twisted his hip and fired a tremendous uppercut. The hammer caught him right beneath the chin; he staggered backwards and collapsed at his employer's feet, nearly knocking him off his stool. Johnny's mouth started to open, then close, then open again. Godhand quickly brought a hand to cover his fist, hiding the hammer.

"Get him!"

There was a bit more hesitation from his lackeys this time, but they still attacked him after a bit. Godhand recognized a couple of 'em from the group that had put him on the shelf for two months. He greeted the first of his assailants with a vicious hammer punch to the temple. If the guy ever woke up, he'd be lucky. The next leaped over his ally's prone form, trying to jump him. Godhand responded by catching him in the stomach with an iron right hand, then tossing him to the side. Just as he was turning back to the group, however, someone caught him with a wooden chair. It splintered against his back, and Godhand sailed over the railing that separated the bar from the tables. He scrambled to get up, but someone hit him with a kick to the ribs before he could. The air rushed out of his lungs, and he hugged his attacker's leg pathetically. Just as his opponent was about to gloat, however, Godhand reared back and nailed him with a low blow. There was a sound like a breathy moan, and then he crumpled to the ground helplessly.

As he shakily got back on his feet, he was assaulted by yet another man. After that chairshot, he didn't have the energy to fight anybody off. But as the man rushed him, he still had the presence of mind to lower his body at the last minute and hit him with a backdrop. He flipped over unto the wooden table behind them, the whole thing collapsing upon impact. Godhand hesitantly raised his eyes, knowing there was no way he could handle another one of those guys. Luckily for him, there was nobody left. Everyone who worked for Johnny had gone down, and the regular patrons had cleared out at the first sign of trouble. They had the place all to themselves. Godhand advanced on the mobster. Johnny fell to his knees, begging for forgiveness.

It was the first time Godhand ever killed a man. He didn't see what the big deal was, really.

[Godhand]

Godhand ducked a big right hand, narrowly avoiding a KO. His opponent advanced on him. He was a big man, almost as big as Tony T. And tough too, Jesus; the bouncer must have clocked him around twenty times by now. Say what you will about Godhand, but he could punch with the strength of a man twice his size. This guy, though, he acted like it was no big thing. Didn't flinch, not even when the young enforcer caught him on the temple. The man bullied him into the corner of the alley, pushing him back every time he tried to dart under his arms. When he finally got him up against the wall, he let him have it.

Godhand had become something of The Man around those parts once he'd taken out Johnny and his goons. The man to beat, that was. It was basic prison thinking; if you're new, take out the biggest guy and the rest of 'em will fall in line. That'd been Johnny. Now with him out of the way, it was Godhand. And once Godhand was out of the way, it'd be this fuckin' guy. It never ended. If the bouncer let his assailant have his way, then three months from now they'd probably be fishing him out of the east river, too. There was always somebody bigger.

The hits just kept on coming. Godhand's knees buckled with every sickening blow. His opponent, whatever his fucking name was, he kept setting him up for that big right hand. Every time he punched him the bouncer nearly sent him to the ground, but he caught him and straightened him out with his left hand before nailing him with another right. Over and over. At this point Godhand had swallowed a pint of his own blood and either a tooth or a pebble from when he'd gotten knocked down earlier. But he could still think, you know. Even wounded and terrified, he could still think. He finally dove beneath a lazy right and spun away from the animal, hammering the base of his fist into his stomach. The man lurched forward. Finally, some sort reaction out of this guy. Godhand roared and pressed his advantage, hammering away on his head from behind. He always went for the same place, right behind the ear. And now it was him punching, over and over, while his adversary tried to get away. No such luck; Godhand clung to him like a psychotic monkey. The big man finally turned and lifted the bouncer off the ground, catching him in a bear hug. The air rushed out of his lungs, but he didn't relinquish his advantage. He started dropping elbows on his enemy, trying to find that nerve between the neck and shoulder. Finally, after a particularly gruesome elbow, the man's hold loosened and Godhand could feel him fading away. He quickly locked an arm around his neck, and just as the would-be boss passed out, Godhand swung his legs forward and drove his opponent's head to the ground with a high impact DDT.

He was breathing heavy, real heavy, and it burned like Hell. But he'd won, and that was enough for now. The enforcer groggily got to his feet and stumbled away from his defeated assailant. Unbeknownst to him, a portly fellow nearby spit out the last of his cigar and smiled.

[Godhand]

"What the fuck are you doing!? I told you to tuck in your arms when you're going for a straight!"

"I wasn't going for a straight; I was going for a hook."

"I told you to go for a straight!"

"I'm better with my hooks."

"Don't you think I fucking know that, you idiot!? That's why we're not practicing hooks!"

Godhand was breathing real heavy but he didn't stop going to work on the bag. He knew if he tried to take a breath Manny would curse him out for being a double nigger-faggot, then force him to go double time. He was barely keeping up as it was.

It was strange how the kid had gotten in the situation. It was right after taking down that gorilla, the old man had approached him. He was an interesting looking guy. Stark white hair that looked like it wouldn't grow back once cut and callouses on his knuckles Godhand knew only a lifetime of fighting could make. His lips were startlingly chapped and ragged, and the middle would split open and bleed a little whenever he smiled. Which probably explained why he rarely smiled. The reason for this became evident to Godhand soon. It wasn't that he constantly licked his lips; no, quite the contrary. He'd never seen him do that so much as once. It was that whenever a strip of lip-skin got too hard and sharp and brushed against his upper lip, he summarily dug out a nice pinching-point with his fingernail and then ripped it off. Ugh. It never failed to make Godhand cringe. "So my lips know who's boss," the elderly trainer explained.

It was his eyes, though, that drew most of the kid's attention. Big and wild; full of madness. He rarely blinked. And it was with that unnerving glare that he'd told the kid what was what.

"Now, you got talent kid. I ain't gonna say you don't. But you need help."

"I don't need help. That guy needs help."

"Oh, what? You feelin' real strong 'cuz you managed to put away that fuckin' ape? Big deal. That guy got tired after two punches and gave you his chin the entire Goddamn time. Give me a fucking break."

"You think you could do better?"

Suddenly the whole world spun as the man grabbed Godhand by the cuff and whirled him around to face him, exhibiting astonishing strength for a man of his age or, really, any age.

"I did do better you son of a bitch! You're talkin' to Manny Montoya, former lightweight champion of the world! So shut the fuck up and listen, because normally I charge for this sort of shit!"

[Godhand]

The training was exhausting. Manny had the kid sweating blood and pissing steam, but Godhand kept at it. He could see the progress he was making; his muscles weren't getting any bigger and he didn't look any meaner, but his hands were getting faster. He'd always been pretty slow, and got even slower after he'd bulked up. He wasn't that big but for some reason he'd always been heavy as hell, which meant that ducking a punch was an unacceptably large expenditure of energy. Combine that with some sort of half finished, primitive brain that inexplicably absorbed concussions as a matter of course and it ended up just being easier to take the punch. There was a limit, of course; if somebody bounced his head off a concrete wall then he'd probably be messed up or knocked out. But so far nobody had been able to punch him out. He just didn't respond to hits like a normal human being.

Manny had tried to train him to have better reflexes, to duck and weave, but eventually he just accepted his primate 'pain doesn't hurt' mentality. His conditioning was so poor that trying to incorporate some fancy footwork was out of the question anyway; he was so used to bringing guys down with one good punch that he got tired after a couple of swings muted by the gloves and bobbing and weaving would have just exacerbated the problem. The former champion tried to ameliorate it, tried to fix him with the pear but he still ended up panting and wheezing a round and a half into a fight.

There were other problems, of course. Chief among them was that he only really had one good punch in his arsenal. His straights and uppercuts were nothing to brag about; maybe if someone walked right into one it would have stunned them for a second, certainly it wouldn't have ended the fight. His hooks were alright. But the only truly exceptional weapon he possessed was the most beautiful right-handed haymaker Manny had ever seen on anyone, even the heavyweights he'd rubbed shoulders with during his time at the top of the mountain. He telegraphed it from a mile away, which was a problem, but once he pulled his arm back and let it rip it was poetry in motion. He put all two hundred pounds of his weight behind it, maximized the arc and pulled it back just a bit at the zenith so that when it made contact it might as well have been a shining fucking comet making contact with his opponent's chin.

Even when it was blocked by a forearm, even when it only caught someone on the shoulder, it still sprawled even the most seasoned sparring partners Manny could call up for Godhand. It was almost impossible to knock him out and that was impressive, he was tough and he could take pain, but that haymaker was the only thing about him that was truly world class. Manny tried to train all his other skills to that level, he felt that his mastery of that punch surely meant that he could perfect everything else just as well, but eventually he gave up and ended up focusing on training him to be able to throw it as often and as quickly as possible. The fact that he had a punch like that was almost certainly some sort of strange astronomical fluke, but the champ thought it might just be the thing the kid needed to knock out the world.

[Godhand]

Manny had decided to train Godhand on the condition that he could manage him. The kid had agreed without giving it much thought, and though he easily could have exploited him, the champion took as good care of the kid as he was able. The first order of business had been to throw him into the ring with some veterans to get knocked around a bit and see how he responded. Godhand had never traded blows with professional fighters; he'd fought cheap thugs and a couple of truly monstrous behemoths but in those cases he'd either outsmarted them or cheated. It soon became apparent that he wasn't prepared to go up against people with the kind of hand speed that these men had. Their punches flew faster than he could respond; by the time he managed to get his eyes back on the boys after they whipped his head to the side with the first blow, another one was coming. Luckily, however, given that he was used to bareknuckle backalley brawls, the cushioned blows of his opponent's didn't have much of an effect on him. Soon enough, he found his groove; he adapted. He could still only get in about one punch for every three that they landed on him but that one punch was usually enough to stun them if it hit and set them up for the haymaker. And after that, well, their quickness didn't matter.

The next thing to take care of was cutting weight. Manny was adamant about this.

"You would be a monster if you cut down to welterweight; no one in that division would have the power to stop you."

"You and I both know that there is no way in Hell I'd ever be able to make a weight like that without starving myself and losing nearly all of my punching muscles. I'd end up a never-go-down punching bag and lose every fight by decision."

"Well, alright but you got to at least get down to light heavyweight!"

"Look, I'm a heavyweight. I've been fighting heavyweights. I can handle heavyweights."

"You goddamn idiot! The second you go up against a top ranked heavyweight, you will die. No ifs, no buts; you will go down right there in the middle of that fucking ring, puke out your soul and fucking DIE! Horribly!"

"Jesus! Why-"

"You just don't get it, do you? You think you'll be fighting guys like Suge Roy or Burns up there? Fuck no! 201 is the starting point for that division! When was the last time you saw a welterweight come in at 152? Listen, the heavyweight division is a fucking death trap. It's boxing with the leash off; most of those guys aren't even human as I understand the term. Just shaved gorillas managed by evil goddamn sharks. You don't want what they got. Look, kid...Listen to me. If you only ever listen to ONE FUCKING THING I tell you, listen to this: Stay out of the heavyweight division. The first uppercut you take from one of those apes you'll end up landing somewhere on the fucking moon."

"Alright, alright! Christ. You've given this some thought."

"Hell, kid, I'm your manager. It's my job to think about this sort of shit. Light heavyweight is the deep end of the pool but at least there's still weight limits; you won't be going up against some seven foot tall, four hundred pound minotaur. But don't think that means you can slack off, you monkey. You're white and, as far as boxing goes, you started training late."

"I'm eighteen years old."

"That's twenty seven in boxing years."