It was at a fairly arbitrary point in the fight that, in the middle row seating on the fifth aisle, a man in a brown coat took the cigarette he had out of his mouth and puffed a stream of smoke. “So… You see them, right?”
The man in the black coat sitting next to him didn’t even look up, as if he had been waiting for his partner to say this to him for some time now. “Yes, I see them.”
Top row seating in stands, one in the middle of the second isle and one near the right hand end of the eighth. Both were men who were covered head to toe in a way that couldn’t help but raise immediate alarm.
“They’re suspicious, but let’s not make any hasty assumptions. They’re probably just here to watch the fights, same as us. They both might just be covering up injuries.”
“That’d be one thing,” the man in the brown coat said calmly as he took another drag on his cigarette. “It’s another thing when one guy shows up in a flack jacket and the other in a metal mask.”
The man in the black coat said nothing, and simply took a sip on his soda held in one hand while fiddling with his PDS in his other. A picture of a ghastly creature was displayed on it.
“I hear you. But there’s not much here worth disrupting. Relax.”
The man in the brown coat suddenly got up from his chair. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
The man in the black coat didn’t even look up from the ring. “I’m not bailing you out if you get caught, or if you start anything. ”
“I just want a little closer look is all. Nothing more,” the man in the brown coat said dismissively as he strolled casually down the aisle and into the stadium snack area to make his way to the top row stands, buzzing the lit cigarette into an ashtray atop a trash can as walked by.
In the top row stands, neither of the two covered men made any movements suggested they knew the other was there, but both were fairly sure that they were watching each other. The man in white bandages was hardly even watching the fights: he had his nose buried in a small book with a cross on the front and only looked up every once in awhile to see who was winning. The man in the mishmash of hide and leather clothing, meanwhile, was having a ball and a half.
He slapped the man knee of the man sitting next to him and laughed in a thick backwoods Quebec accent. “Dja see ëim? That little one’s got ëem running skeered like a chicken chasing a big ole horse, ya? Hahahaha!” The man next to him seemed more than a little intimated by it but just nodded his head, fearful of angering this completely covered man who was easily four inches taller than he was. It didn’t help that he had a bizarre smell to him, too: a wild, unkempt odor that was unlike anything the stadium patron had ever smelled but was quickly ruining his appetite for his hot dog. But what got him the most was the mask: it was a simple metal mask without any distinguishing features other than hinges down the middle like a knight’s helmet. Thin black cloth covered the eye holes, as if the man didn’t even want his eyes to be seen, and even so the patron felt deeply uneasy when he knew the strange figure was looking at him.
“Oh. I’m distruptin’ you,” the figure said solemly, as if he had only just realized how bizarre he was acting. “Let me buy ya a beer ter make it up to ya, what’d’you say?”
“S-sure,” the patron stammered, seriously debating getting up leaving the stadium once the figure was out of sight, and with a chortle the covered man walked down the isle, issuing out apologies to all the views he blocked as he headed towards the food court.
Beneath his mask, the figure gave a sigh of relief as he got closer to the smells of fat, salt, processed starch, and cheap beer. The subtle but sickening smell of burnt flesh from the bandaged gentleman six rows down had been a bit too much to bear.
Meanwhile, at the races, a monkey and a turtle were arguing with each otherósomething that sounded much more bizarre than it actually was for the teenage human that sat between them.
“It’s not my fault, BeeJay,” the monkey in the red baseball cap said distractedly as he watched the race. “You were supposed to buy the tickets when I told you, not three days later.”
“I was busy!” The turtle cried out, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation as if this wasn’t the first time this point had been brought up. “And you said there was no way they were gonna fill up till five days later!”
“Well, that’s why I said to get them early,” the monkey replied, throwing a popcorn kernel in his mouth while the turtle sulked. “’Sides, I like watching races better anyway. It’s harder to guess who’s gonna win, you know?” The turtle gave his monkey friend a pronounced pout.
“But I wanted to see people hurt each other!”
“Maybe someone will crash.”
“Big dealówith all the staff crawlin’ around down there they’d be fine. Lame!"
The monkey looked like he was running out of patience. "Look, I'm just trying to--"
He stopped, noticing that the human that sat between them was watching the two of them bicker instead of watching the races. The monkey scratched his head with a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, dude,” the monkey apologized. “Please keep watching the race. We’ll keep it down. Right?” He said this last word while glaring sternly at the bizarre turtle creature.
“Oh, it’s no worries,” the boy with the bowl-cut said with a chuckle. “I didn’t mean to stare. You two just remind me a lot of some people I used to know.”
“You know someone like him? You poor guy,” the turtle huffed while the monkey threw him a dirty look in retaliation. The boy, named Usso, couldn’t help smiling at the two as they continued to bicker. He was definitely glad he came to the races and not the fights. Shakti had told him that seeing some competitive fighting would be good therapy, but Usso just wanted peace of mind with his entertainment, not challenges.
A red vehicle zoomed by and the turtle suddenly leapt in excitement, startling Usso out of his thoughts. “That’s my boy, number 32! Come on!” he crowed while pumping his fist in the air, his strange bandana fluttering about. “You win this baby and Imma make you an honorary minion! Go go GO!”
