Jul 26th 2011, 08:39 by E O Hatterpol | 1228 AU FROM SUN
I GAVE Heartbreak a good look from the side of my cloudy eyes, then reluctantly put my hand in his boxing glove.
He smiled big, then yanked me off the ground with such smooth, awesome power it was like being pulled off the end of a dock by a WaveRunner. My feet actually went two inches into the air before they ever hit the ground.
"Th- thanks," I managed, putting a hand to my head.
"Take it easy, now," Heartbreak counseled. "It's not many that survive a Hurricane Haymaker."
"Try a Meteor Knee."
Heartbreak put his muscular arm around my neck and held the other out in front of him to clear a path through the angry mob and out of the Dancehall.
The rusty metal door shut the noise off behind us. A fluorescent light flickered on and off in the disused hallway, putting the bugs skittering in front of us in strobe.
"Listen, I'm really sorry, I don't really know what--"
"No worries," said Heartbreak dismissively. "Everyone at my Ragga Dancehall knows what they're there for. People are expendable."
He waved his boxing glove in front of him, like they weren't worth more than the musty air around us.
"Let me tell you something," he said. "I never wanted to be a fighter."
"What?" I asked, working my legs wide to keep up with his strident pace.
"Used to be an academic. At least, I wanted to be. I never really made it past high school."
"Really? But- but the bowtie! The suspenders, the moustache, the-"
"People can change," he said simply.
We reached the mouth of Tentacle Six and crossed the Squid's Beak. I tried to keep cool, but couldn't help shoot darts here and there to look for Starbase policemen -- especially the ones I had torn up in the trampoline room.
"My dad beat my mom. He said I should learn to beat, too, so he pulled me out of school and put me in the ring. He said books were for cowards who couldn't punch."
"Some books fight well," was all I said. I missed Ravi; I wondered if he was done putting all those books back he had knocked down when he went Stompyface on Makemake.
Heartbreak kept going; my asides aside, he obviously wanted to get this off his chest.
"I kept reading when my dad wasn't looking. Diving into those books, challenging myself to learn new words or think new thoughts, it was the only way I had control. My dad had such power over my life and over my mom's; all I want is control. All I wanted was control."
I was so deep in Heartbreak's backstory I couldn't see that middle-aged snotbrain who called me out back at the DSOD. He pointed, said something I couldn't hear, and hustled over to a police box to pick up a phone.
We went down Tentacle Three. Heartbreak clenched his boxing gloves almost as hard as his teeth.
"One night he found me. It was The Catcher in the Rye. I hadn't even got past the first sentence - I'll never forget it, it was the one about 'the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like' - when he slapped it out of my hand and threw me in the ring. He was so angry."
"About reading books?"
"Yes, but also that he had forbidden me something and I had disobeyed him. He whooped me. Sixteen years old; he beat me like I was an arrogant heavyweight champion, and he the underdog."
I didn't say anything; I didn't know what to say.
"I felt a rage building up inside me. Like I was the eye, and my life a storm. Like I had launched off the coast of Africa, and every time I felt his fist ram my guts, I was that much closer to the Gulf. I had swirled up that much more hot water.
"I'm sure my face wasn't more than raw hamburger meat when it finally came out of me. A terrible, murderous energy I couldn't control. My dad was blind with rage; he couldn't even see me step into his box for the counter. His arm outstretched past my ear; he'd never be able to block in time. I felt it; an unstoppable energy swirling around my fist like I had never felt before.
"I said the first thing that came to my head."
"Hurricane Haymaker," I whispered, rubbing my chest.
"I can control it now; I just hit you hard enough to see if you were worth your salt. But back then, I was like you at the Dancehall. A young snake who can only drain all his venom in fright, not knowing he's leaving himself open until his poison - his energy - has a chance to fill back up."
He paused, tracing the winding curves of Tentacle Three thoughtfully with his footsteps.
"Didn't matter. My dad's skin tore off; I saw the red meat of his chest muscles. Those got stripped, too, in shredded fibers. Broke his sternum; I think a piece of it went into his heart. The force of my very first Hurricane Haymaker was so great it would've pushed a pine needle into a car tire. My dad flew across the ring and hit the corner post so hard it shattered his spine.
"He was instantly paralyzed."
"Was he dead?" I asked.
"Not before looking at me straight in the eyes, with a smile. He said, 'You fight good, son. I'm proud of you.' And then his body just shut down. Too much trauma."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Don't be. Don't even know if I lost anything that day. Doesn't matter. We're at my place now, anyways."
I picked my head up from where it had been staring at the floor, partly in concentration on Heartbreak's story and partly in deference to how personal it was, and took a look at Heartbreak's "place".
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
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