The stocky bald man driving the semi truck, with "Frontier Casino" painted on its sides, wiped the gleam of sweat from his wrinkled forehead. He casually threw away the last third of a tightly rolled thin cigarette. A web of red spread around his brown eyes. He had the pronounced features of a native Indian but with much lighter skin. He turned the steering wheel of the massive truck wide left to get on a private road.

"Change in plans, Lefty? I thought we were heading to the train station."

A younger looking native Indian seated next to Lefty in the semi’s cab, turned towards him with a surprised face.

"You’ve been here nearly a month, Otis. And it’s been really busy with these immigrant fucks we been guarding the last week, so I think it’s time to show you some fun."

"Yeah, where’re we going?"

"You’ll see. Otis, are you sure you have the numbers written down?"

"Relax, dawg. I got it. That’s the third time you asked me. I have it in my pocket. I’ll read it to you if you like. Two brick red coaches towards the end of the train. One of them is numbered HK69J4 and the other is WM074B. Can’t miss them. The numbers are painted a foot high in white paint, okay? The coaches are back to back."

"We get six minutes, that’s all, and we have to get all these losers up on those two coaches. All 400 of them. Another thing, stop calling me dog. Where did you learn to talk like that?" Lefty patted down his thick handlebar mustache.

"I told you, man. I’m from South Boston. And it’s dawg not dog. It’s how my boys talk."

"Save that shit for your boys then. Speak English, or even Spanish like a lot of these fuckers."

"Ain’t no Spanish where I grew up, Lefty. I see you picked up Spanish. Bedding them immigrant women, huh? You moan in Spanish too? Ooh, papito, polonito and shit." Otis slapped Lefty’s knee and chuckled.

"Shut your ass, youngblood. Or you gonna get it from me." Lefty sounded amused.

The semi pulled near an old grain shed. Roughly the size of a school gymnasium, the red shed stood a slingshot away from the train tracks in the northwest part of Harvest Quarter. Above the gigantic doors of the shed was a tilted yellow board with the words "Fort Knocks" written in lightning-blue letters. Lefty jumped off the truck and Otis followed.

"What’s here, Lefty?"

"Open the door and see for yourself."

"Are we gonna leave them in the truck?" Otis pointed to the truck.

"Not for long, now go check out the place and wait there, I’m going to select players from the truck for our little game." Lefty headed towards the back of the truck while Otis stepped inside the shed.

Ten feet tall wooden posts carrying glowing torches on their tips and spaced systematically like pillars were the only source of light and heat inside the shed. A middle-aged Asian woman kept busy sweeping the shed with a bamboo broomstick. She looked up briefly at Otis and went back to her work after noticing the Frontier cap on him. Rolled up bales of hay packed tightly in rectangular chunks and stacked like stadium seats took over the outer two-thirds of the shed's interior. The nucleus of the shed had a tournament-standard boxing ring with torches glowing on all four corners. Right above the ring and extending about thirty feet from the ceiling was a gigantic chandelier holding nearly a hundred virgin candles. A row with seating for ten made of plush red leather seats bolted to the ground encircled the ring on all four sides.

The door creaked as Lefty walked in followed by two destitute families—two men and women and a kid in each family. They were clad in cotton rags discolored by dirt, rust and evidently bad living. Dark hair and eyes hinted at their Hispanic heritage, but with bony frames all around accounting every vein and joint to the naked eye, their only true race was of the underclass. All their eyes showed a submissive dread of authority. The kids, a girl about two years old in one family and a boy about the same age in the other, hid behind their hunched-over fathers.

One of the men weakly asked Lefty something in Spanish. Lefty replied in Spanish that seemed enough reassurance to calm their demeanor.

Otis grew wide-eyed at the shed’s spectacle and turned to Lefty.

"This is like WWF, man. What’s going on here? They have fights here? How come no one told me about this?"

"Most people don’t know about it. The ones who know don’t act like they do. This is one of Shep’s hobbies. Once a month, he gets two mean, mad motherfuckers from the federal penitentiary and has them fight it out until one of them bleeds and hits the floor. Very special people are invited here. Stony picks the crew that works these gigs. You know me and him don’t get on well, so it’s been a long time since I came here."

"Wait, wait, wait. Slow down here. You telling me that Shep gets two prisoners to come out here and fight so he and his richass friends can watch? Prisoners, who are still in prison? Even Shep can’t swing that, can he?"

"Sure he can. The governor has this special highway cleanup program where he gets these prisoners to clean up the highway while they are watched by guards. It’s all political bullshit, but that’s where our man Shep swings his big influential dick. He got on real well with the Warden in charge of this program. He brought him here on a private jet, boozed and pussied him enough till the guy was ready to hand over the key to the prison cells. Now, once a month, two select motherfuckers come box their brains out here for $5000 dollars to their families and quick pussy for theyselves. Shep is the shit or what? After the fight, the two are taken back to the prison and checked in with the rest of the highway crew. All done in time, a few hours deal. Everybody’s happy, except maybe the poor bitch that gets to fuck the winner. She probably needs a horse doctor to sew her up after." Lefty clapped his hands and laughed with a jolt to his big body.

"Man, that’s amazing. I wish I could see a fight like that. I bet they get some tough guys for this. They probably fight their hearts out, huh? What are we doing here though? Why did you bring these sorry fuckers out of the truck?"

"That’s the game we’re playing. I’m gonna tell these two families they are chosen for a special drawing. The two men are going to put on a fight for their lives. The winner’s family gets into Shep’s recruiting program immediately."

"And the loser’s family?"

"That’s the killer, man. I told them the loser and his family gets deported." Lefty chuckled.

"No way. I thought Shep’s orders were to get all of them on the westbound train to one of his other casinos."

"They are, fool. But they ain’t gonna fight hard if they know they getting in anyways. Go have a seat and light me a joint. This’ gonna be fun."

"We only have another forty minutes, Lefty." Otis sounded concerned.

"You think either of these losers can last that long?"

"You got a point there, big guy. Let the show begin." Otis brought out a thin cigarette of his own from the front pocket of his jeans and lit it with a match.

For about five minutes, Lefty explained something in Spanish to the two families. The men were dull-eyed and quietly moved to the stage. The women hugged each other and consoled themselves in whimpering sobs. The kids began crying but Lefty shushed them successfully by pointing to the Jackknife attached to his waist belt.

The women stayed near the door. Their crying continued. Lefty pointed towards the boxing ring and shook his head to motion them to go there. The women shook their heads to say no. Lefty moved towards them with a sudden force and broke up their embrace. He dragged one of the women to the stacked hay, held her against it with one hand and squeezed her right breast with the other. She let out a squeal. Her husband came running to her and dragged her close to the stage. His eyes seemed to beg her to obey Lefty. She obliged and stood near the east corner of the ring. The cleaning woman left the shed in a hurry without looking back. The husband turned a steely glance at Lefty and made a fist with his right hand and pointed to the ring.

"Fight, fight." He chanted and climbed into the ring, the other man assumed a somber look and climbed after the first.

"Lefty, I got twenty dollars on the guy who came to save his woman." Otis smiled from the middle of the row facing the shed’s door. He handed his cigarette to Lefty.

"Oh, yeah? Let me get a rise out of the other one."

Lefty puffed deeply on the cigarette handed to him and moved towards the other woman who ran around him and towards the ring. Her husband looked on helplessly from the ring. Lefty sat on the seat next to Otis and grabbed the second fighter’s wife and planted her on his lap. He put his hand up her ragged skirt and beckoned the fighter.

"You better fight for your life you piece of shit, I want to win my twenty dollars."

Lefty’s fighter seemed to understand his plight and assumed a fighting position. Tears rolled down his eyes.

"Don’t cry you puss. Okay, okay. See I let go of your wife. Now you better knock that fucker down or else you lose what little you got."

The woman sprang off Lefty and went around to the west corner of the ring. Lefty whistled and yelled something in Spanish. The two stick figures circled around in a fighting stance in the middle of the ring looking like ants inside a deep bowl scrambling and trying to crawl out of their depths.

"Let’s go. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the Peasant Bowl. Start the fight." Lefty proclaimed, reaching his legs to rest on the edge of the boxing ring.

The fighters exchanged blows, their anemic hands rattling the other’s body with every connected punch. They appeared equal in talent or lack thereof. Lefty’s fighter bled on his lips while the Otis’ fighter had a bloody nose. The kids screamed in joy rooting for their dads. They jumped up and down and applauded at every turn all the while screaming phrases in Spanish.

"Hey, your guy used an elbow on my guy, man that ain’t boxing." Otis complained.

"You don’t see boxing gloves on them do you? This ain’t boxing. This is life or death." Surmised Lefty as he handed the cigarette back to Otis. He got up to lean on the ropes of the ring.

He then screamed something in Spanish that caused his fighter to kick Otis’ fighter in his right shin. Otis’ fighter fell to the floor clasping his leg in pain. Lefty continued to admonish his fighter with angry Spanish. Exasperated, he continued in English.

"Don’t just stand there you fucking idiot. Finish him off. This ain’t real boxing, get down there and punch his face out till he’s knocked out, only then you win. Aw, forget it, I’ll talk to your wife."

Lefty approached his fighter’s wife and gave her harsh ultimatums in Spanish which caused her to scream at her husband. The other fighter’s family began screaming at him; it was evident they wanted him to get up and fight from the way their hands motioned upwards.

The other fighter slowly got up when Lefty’s fighter swung his right shoulder in a semicircle and launched a right fist square on the other’s already warped nose. Blood splattered on the ring like paint forcefully discharged from a wide brush. The wives continued their frenzied screaming.

"All right, stop this circus, Lefty. The guy’s gonna bleed to death. You got my fucking twenty bucks for god’s sake, stop this shit."

"What’s the matter, youngblood? Can’t take it? Huh?" Lefty egged Otis on.

"It ain’t funny, man. Come on. You won. Besides, we’re gonna be late. We gotta get this guy cleaned up, maybe take him to that clinic in Grace."

"Yeah? And who’s going to pay for that? Fuck that. He’s fine." Lefty proceeded to beckon the fallen fighter’s wife in Spanish which caused her to jump inside the ring and shake him.

"Come on, Lefty. Let’s go, man. Fuck it, I’ll pay for the guy to get fixed up." Otis said in an agitated tone as he stood up to gauge the state of his fighter.

"Like you said we don’t have much time, so drop the clinic idea. Now look at your fighter’s wife. The greedy bitch is trying to get the poor bleeding bastard to stand up and fight."

"No way. Is that what she’s telling him?"

"Yeah, she’s telling him to think about their daughter, she’s telling him they can’t go back to Peru, they got nothing there. Oh look, he’s getting up, you still have a chance to win, buddy."

Lefty screamed at his fighter to get back to the middle of the ring and finish off the other fighter. Lefty’s fighter lunged forward and kicked Otis’ fighter in the stomach and sent him rolling to the ropes. His body jerked like it was coming undone.

"Okay, we have a winner. My guy won." Lefty proclaimed and proceeded to call the judgement in Spanish.

The winner’s wife let out a cry of anguished relief and kissed her husband’s feet from outside the ring. The downed fighter’s wife jumped up on the ring with a possessed rage and plucked the torch from the east corner. Before Lefty could say a word to warn his fighter, his cotton pants and shirt were drenched by the flames from the torch. The fire swallowed Lefty’s fighter, making him a shadow behind the flesh-licking flames. Otis ran to the back of the shed. Lefty’s fighter ran around the ring and collapsed on the rope and fell over Lefty who receded in vain to avoid him. Lefty seemed to be grasped by his fighter for he couldn’t shake loose off him. Slowly Lefty disappeared behind the flames that began to spread on one of the leather seats.

Otis fetched a fire extinguisher from the back of the shed and sprayed relentlessly over Lefty and his fighter. The fire began to spread to the rest of the seats and Otis turned around to pacify the burning seats. He battled the flames like a tentative bullfighter. His face reeled off sweat. His eyes were tantalized like they witnessed a ghost—a ghost that kept changing its shape and reach. Once he put out the seats, Otis returned to the burning bodies. By the time he nearly put them out, the extinguisher gave out.

"Get out of here. Go to the truck. Go." Otis screamed without looking at the others in the shed. They responded to his scream and ran.

Lefty and his fighter seemed to be molded into each other like a monolithic sculpture. Their bodies were charred beyond recognition: clothes, shoes, hair, skin, flesh, organs all blended into one small heap of burnt refuse.

Otis knelt near the disfigured bodies, hung his head over his thighs and wept like a lost child. After several minutes his head came up slowly. He reached his right hand and with the butt of the extinguisher swept towards him a shiny object from the burnt heap: a burnt leather key-chain containing the semi’s keys. Otis picked up the key-chain using his cap and slowly walked away from the shed.

Stony motions me out of the Fort Knocks shed to avoid any fire accidents. I nod to acknowledge his view and light up a roll of the coarsest Indian beedi. I light the ends of the pink telegram from India. Another laughter silenced. Another place of solace shut. The bell tower falls to the bottom of the sea.

With a spirit too vast for her frail frame, Manju never knew better to fill the small shoes she was given. She shot up faster then both her brothers eating less than a third of what they ate. Not that a girl like her got the thick curd, or the fresh milk, with the bubbles still brimming on the surface that the boys got. Kamu athai never knew how to curb Manju. By the time Manju was 12 she had burst into puberty to athai's dismay. What a confusing time that was.

"Athai, can Manju come play with us now? She has been in the kitchen all morning."

"No, Ramu, go play with some boys your age. It's time Manju stopped playing with boys out in the street."

"But, Kamu athai, nobody can make the top climb their palm like Manju. Can she at least come out and show us."

Amma was no help, siding with her sister-in-law,

"Why don't you ask cousin Kumar to show you? Athai is right, Manju shouldn't be seen with you boys playing in the street."

"Right, like I got nothing else to do. Kumar can't even wind up the top, let alone make it spin and climb his palm from the ground."

Manju always had something extra in her that knew how to show affection. I can still remember the time I got slapped and left behind by Appa for throwing a fit for not taking Manju with us to swim in the pumpset-well by our village rice fields. I put on my shoes to leave the house, leave everything, but I couldn't move. I sat there leaning on the verandah pillar and cried for an hour. Not that Appa hit so hard or that the swimming trip was all that fun, but I must have known right then that Manju was being taken from me little by little. Manju must have known too, she stole into the cellar to fetch me the biggest Malgova mango reserved for Appa and the gents in the family. She would have got such a hiding if athai had caught her. She didn't care, she massaged the fruit with both her hands, tore off the beak and poked a hole on top and watched me eat the whole fruit. I was so full halfway down the mango, but Manju told me to keep going . . .

"It's all for you Ramu, you don't have to share that with anyone. None of the gents in the house will get to eat a mango that big. Go on, finish. Go on, enjoy it."

While I slurped up the flowing fruit, she refused to eat any of it when I offered her. She just shook her head and kept untying and tying my shoelaces like everything depended on it. Every time she tied it she got a perfect bow with the lace ears the same size on both ends. She was amazing like that.

One evening that same summer, when it was just getting dark out, I caught her sitting on the mango tree reaching over the compound wall next door. She was giggling with Gurjit Singh, the tall kid next door, God I was so upset with her.

"Manju, what are you doing playing with that boy, when all this time you wouldn't play with me? That boy is a Northie, Appa says they marry their own sisters."

"Shut your mouth, Ramu. He is my friend. If you tell anyone you saw me here, I will never speak to you ever."

"Then come play with me."

"No. I want to stay here."

"Why?"

"Because, he is jolly like me, he's my age."

Gurjit put his hand over her thigh and Manju cupped his face with her hands.

"This stupid kid might tell his parents and word will get to my dad. God, my dad will belt me good."

"Gurjit, don't worry. Ramu will never do that to me, will you Ramu?"

"Fine, you go play with that turban-headed monkey next door, what's it to me."

But it was everything to me then. I couldn't do anything to forget about Gurjit giggling with my Manju, his hand over her thigh. I saw Manju less and less from then on. When she wasn't being drilled by amma and athai about cooking and cleaning, she was up on the mango tree giggling with Gurjit. I hated the very sight of that boy. I remember chanting myself to sleep, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, wishing somehow that it would make Gurjit fall from the tree and render him unable to be pieced back together again.

More than the games we played or the model rockets and boats we used to make out of newspapers, I missed sleeping next to Manju at night. She used to tell me bedtime stories of Rama rescuing Sita from Ayodhi, or the feats of Hanuman letting his tail grow taller than any seat in the palace. While I lay there strumming my uh huhs, she ran her fingers through my hair to lull me to sleep. But all that had changed that summer. Manju slept on the hallway floor next to the kitchen, not like before with her brothers and me in the front hall.

Then one night, I still cringe at the memory of that night, I got up in the middle of the night to get some water out of the mud pot from the kitchen's corner. In my drowsy state, as I walked along the hallway towards the kitchen, I saw something flash the corner of my eye. I stopped to take a good look. I felt something crumble at the base of my stomach. It was Manju lying on her side with an outstretched arm and her half-sari riding up her lower thigh. The gold paisleys on her blouse seemed to float in the dark of the night from her deep breathing. The thin mesh of her leaf-green half-sari barely held onto her body like a ready to burst pomegranate shell. Manju resembled the Devasthris I've seen in Raja Ravi Varma's paintings. From the corner of the room, the oscillating table-fan spread ripples along her dress, failing to lift the hem of the half-sari over her thigh but managing to billow it just enough. I still can't articulate the feeling I had then, it was a mixture of confusion, mesmerism, and opportunity. I would like to believe that I knelt down to straighten her dress, but somehow my hand crept under the billowing hem of her half-sari to the thigh that Gurjit found so easy to reach. I felt a jolt of panic and joy fight though my body as I wished to bring all my sensations to the surface of my right palm. But my conscience intervened and I pulled back my hand with such disruptive force that Manju's eyes shot open with a fierce expression. She raised herself from the floor and her reflexes quickly straightened out her half-sari.

"What are you trying to do, Ramu?"

"Nothing, I was . . . straightening your dress."

"You have become such a bad boy. I never in my dreams believed you would . . . don't ever speak to me again."

With those words she covered herself entirely with a bed sheet and lay face down. I don't know how I got through that night, but all my hopes were towards the next day when I was going to cry my forgiveness to her absolution. But the next day was nothing like I expected. Manju spoke to me during lunch and supper showing no emotion. She seemed to have relegated me to the list of people she just had to get along with in life. The grin-and-bear-it-you-are-a-woman-now temperament that amma and athai were shoe-horning into Manju had already been instilled. That indifferent treatment was worse than any punishment I could have imagined. I wanted to pay a price to bring the old Manju back. I picked the most painful punishment I could think of. During my nightly prayer, I even asked God to make it hurt as bad as it could.

The time for my penance had come that night. Same as I had done the night before, only intentionally this time, I woke up in the middle of the night and headed towards the kitchen. The whole house was asleep. It irked me to see Manju asleep with her whole body beneath a bed sheet. Make it hurt, God, please make it hurt, I murmured as I headed towards the firewood embers in the kitchen. I knew the tips of the firewood would still be hot hours after supper because amma has threatened to brand me with it when I misbehaved. I knelt near the clay over and grasped the glowing tips of the firewood with both hands. I could smell the burning of the skin, a shudder shook my body inside out as I dropped one of the pieces on my toes. I screamed without meaning to and the whole house awoke. In minutes, amma and athai were applying thick lamp-oil to my palms and toes and coming up with reasons why I must've done it. They said something like Goddess Kali was sending a warning to the family through this mishap, that Kali's indignant spirit possessed me to sleep-walk. Appa and mama were yelling at amma and athai for not properly putting out the embers. Manju kept calm and gave me a look that said she knew why I did what I did. She took over from amma and athai and applied the oil in soothing circles over my palm. She convinced them to let me sleep next to her. Slowly the night retreated to its quiet.

Manju and I stared at each other with tears welling in both our eyes.

"Manju, I'm sorry for what I did last night. Will you please forgive me? Can we go back to how it was? Please, Manju. I will do anything you want."

No words came from her lips, she curled herself into a ball and shook from crying for a long time. I held her with my elbows not letting my oily palms touch her. She buried her face in my chest and cried for almost half an hour.

"Are you still mad at me, Manju?"

"I can never be mad at you silly." She spoke through her tears. "You are my very own stupid silly Ramu."

"Then why are you crying?"

"Gurjit's father caught him writing me a letter. Gurjit got belted really bad. Gurjit's sister Neetu sent me a note through her servant. Gurjit will never see me again."

Manju cried some more. Somehow, I felt so relieved that I wasn't the cause of her crying. For the rest of the summer Manju and I became inseparable whenever she got free from the kitchen. I began to play with Gurjit and his sister just to position myself to carry notes between Gurjit and Manju. It turned out to be one of the most magical summers, I learned the strange way people could be with each other without the physical presence. I wanted to spend the rest of my life living through the love Manju and Gurjit expressed for each other.

Of course, things changed. In the autumn of that year, Manju was married to a guy ten years older than her. Everybody in the family thought it was a great catch for Manju since the guy had a job in the Central Government, a handsome salary, stability, and pension benefits. Athai and mama managed to do the impossible, take all the fight out of Manju. She began to look the way she did the day after my incident with her. She could bury so much in a casual smirk. I couldn't bear to see her after her wedding. I just left the house when I started hearing tales of her drunken husband, her venemous in-laws . . . nobody was going to take the fight out of the Manju who lived in me.

Nobody.

I drop the telegram's ashes in the defunct well behind Fort Knocks to drown the lie--Manju has left us. No she hasn't. Like the torches glowing on all four corners of the boxing ring inside Fort Knocks, she rages inside me like a million muted screams. I sit high up on the stacked bundles of hay and await the addition of rhythms to complete the melody of the mourning: of punches connecting and grinding the smug flesh, of stitched pores tearing through to spill their true desire, of punctured wounds that speak of the ravaged soul inside.