LITMIR.BIZ

      With Viddi sunglassed and chapeau’d proudly by his side, Scuzzy strode into The Banana Ballroom with his newfound YMCU championship belt, which consisted of a weightlifter’s belt sprinkled with glitter and adorned with tenuously glued-on Diet Pepsi tabs, antique French postcards of questionable taste, fifty-cent imitation Red Army medals, and, inexplicably, Elvis Presley and ABBA cards hooked on with safety pins.

      “…making his professional debut from the People’s Independent Democracy of Saal-Am-A-Bu, Mambo le Primitif,” clamored Morty Buffet, the ring announcer. “In the opposite corner, the YMCU supermiddleweight champion of the world, the uncontested, undefeated, unmolested Bucharest Brawler Dimitri ‘Scuzzy’ Sciatscu.”

      “Viddi, what exactly does a cutman do?” queried Beardy.

      “Moral support, mostly. Hotter than hell in August here,” added Viddi, taking a swig from the bottle generously supplied by Joe.

      “Where’s helmet? I’m Olympic boxer,” complained Scuzzy.

      “Welcome to the U.S. of A., land of the hard-asses,” snapped Beardy.

      “Yeah, this ain’t Ruministan, bub,” explicated Hulk.

      Going nose-to-nose, Viddi crouched in front of Scuzzy, looking his protégé square in the eye. “First, do a bit of the Ali shuffle, then take a few on the kisser to lull him into complacency.”

      “Who is Ali? What is complacency?”

      “Next give him a Reykjavik roundhouse, coupled with a haymaker.”

      “What is haymaker?”

      “Then some love taps, eine kleine Schubster. You with me?”

      “No.”

      “Before the bell tolls, go south of the border when the cyclops is winking at the rubes.”

      “No border. No have green card.”

      “Seconds out,” bellowed Referee Thorndigger.

      Referee Emil Thorndigger, tough as nails, old as the hills of Kilimanjaro, and brooker of no nonsense, motioned the two warriors forward to face off. As he stepped between the two fighters, Thorndigger found himself facing a smiling Viddi. “Get back to your corner.”

      With his one eye, Thorndigger glared at each boxer as hard as a Quaker at a brewery. “Your show, not mine, so don’t make me rain on your parade. Keep it clean and defend yourselves at all times. May your God be with you.” As the bell chimed the first round, Mambo cannonballed out of his corner with all the fury of hell, whereas Scuzzy lumbered to the center of the ring as if taking out the garbage against his will. Within three seconds, the Bucharest Brawler was splayed across the canvas. Bopping up and down, Viddi held on to the ropes, shouting lofty encouragements to his fighter. “Get up, you bum. We got the farm riding on you here.” At the count of nine, Scuzzy stood up, uncoiling languidly as Mambo gazed in awe upon the rising Lazarus and Thorndigger tried to ascertain whether the fighter was in a coma or simply not overly interested in the matter at hand.

      “You okay?”

      “Okeydoke, let’s hit a road,” replied Scuzzy.

      For the rest of the round, Mambo kept Scuzzy at the end of his left jab but did not commit to a power punch as the Bucharest Brawler’s eyes were clear as a Quaker’s rap sheet. Little did Mambo look forward to sampling Scuzzy’s punches if his fists proved as hard as his jaw. At the bell, Scuzzy dribbled down onto his stool, more exhausted than injured.

      “Where’s the cutman?” roared Viddi.

      “I’m the cutman,” drawled Beardy, brandishing the corkscrew on his Swiss Army knife.

      “He’ll never walk again,” some ringside wisenheimer cracked.

      “Cut his eyelid,” commanded Viddi.

      “But no hit in eye,” remonstrated Scuzzy.

      As he announced his new strategy, Viddi poured liberally from the bottle of Alabama Mama down Scuzzy’s throat. “Okay, you gotta gimp the geezer. Go whorehouse on him. Then go roughhouse. Go whorehouse again, then go to town on him with the world and his wife watching.”

      “I go to town with wife?”

      “Go old school on him.”

      “We go to school?”

      “Remember what Abe Lincoln said,” injected Beardy. “We shall fight them bitches. We shall never surrender.”

      “You have to Jones him. Then give him a kisser-upper. Throw in a little Archie Moore. Once you’re done Mongoosing, use love taps.”

      “I bring no taps.”

      “And try catching him with a Hail Mary. Then it’s bedtime for Bonzo.”

      “I pray?”

      Referee Thorndigger caught a faint but mysterious whiff as he passed Scuzzy’s corner. “You whooping it up between rounds?”

      After all the Alabama Mama, Scuzzy plodded out of his corner wobblier than he went in. This time, Mambo came out with a straight right, catching the YMCU champion flush. The primitive one went southpaw, laying thunderous right hooks on Scuzzy, snapping his neck back each time. Not to a cheering corner did the Bucharest Brawler return.

      “I said left, left, left,” crowed Viddi. “How difficult is that for a Communist to understand?”

      “I go left, left all the time and he hit me.”

      “No, no, to my left. First you Obi-Wan Kenobi the bum, then go south on him when sourpuss

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