The Bad Guy

By Niz Thomas

All fighters play to a stereotype. The prize fighter. The golden boy. The heel.

 

Aging fighter Teddy Pemberly knows how to be just the one thing, though.

 

The Bad Guy.

 

Long past his prime, nobody can make sense of why Teddy still fights. For the money? For the glory? Because his brains long ago went to scrambled eggs?

 

Somewhere beneath his rough exterior lies the answer. And as he steps into the ring for one last fight, the world waits until the last knockout blow before finding out.

 

A unique, gritty voice set amidst the riveting twists and turns of heavyweight boxing, this crime boxing story pulls no punches on its way to a gripping final round!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Throughplace Publishing
• Release date: Jun 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223752097

Book preview

The Bad Guy. Cover image of a pair of boxing gloves overlaying a red background with canvas texture.

THE BAD GUY

A SHORT STORY BY

NIZ THOMAS

Throughplace Publishing

CONTENTS

Also By Niz Thomas

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Exclusive Sneak Peek

Family Tree

Chapter 1

Also By Niz Thomas

About the Author

ONE

Usually, Teddy Pemberly couldn’t even remember a passing score of the 5 Ws about one of his fights. Not Who, What, When (and sometimes), not even Where the whole thing was going down.

Just another match, another venue, another sweaty, petroleum-jelly-slicked, bruised and bloodied opponent set up before him for some predetermined number of rounds. Inside the ring, bright lights and darkness all that could be seen on the periphery. It didn’t much matter usually who it was standing across from him. Fighting came natural to Teddy. The way most people breathed or ate junk food or took a crap.

Tonight, he knew more answers than most nights.

But most importantly, he knew Why he was doing it.

The crowd’s chanting rained down on him like fire arrows in a medieval fantasy movie. Blocking out the sky. Fight in the shade type shit. For most people, this environment would make them crumble up. A beer can smashed against some doofus frat guy’s head, trying to make the girls swoon (and allow the neurologists of the world to send their kids to graduate school). Teddy had plenty of experience with head trauma, what being a boxer and all.

He just didn’t think any fancy-pants doctor was going to save his sorry excuse for a brain. It was probably most of the way to pulped blood orange by now.

And maybe that was just as well. Since nobody in their right mind would be caught fighting inside a place like this.

It was cramped. No A/C. No amenities to speak of, really. Packed-tight gymnasium, those cheap metal folding chairs that only got sold in packs of a hundred–not bad for a graduation. But absolute hell for the thirsty-for-blood spectators of tonight’s fight. Hot enough to make your sweat evaporate, but too humid for it to actually happen. Muggy, was the word edumacated people would use.

Hotter than Hell was how Teddy experienced it. And in a church no less, Lord Have Mercy.

To most people, the sound alone would have drummed them straight into the ground. Hammer, meet nail. Here on this side of the cheap rubberized flooring (horse stall mats) beneath his boxing shoes one minute. Sleeping with the worms, or the fishes, or whatever else was beneath this church gymnasium the next (hell, it could have even been Hoffa).

But that was why Teddy was who he was.

And everybody else wasn’t.

Few understood what it was to be the bad guy.

Teddy Pemberly knew what it was like to be The Bad Guy™.

He practically wrote the book.

Tonight he was going to finally show everyone just how it was done.

TWO

The walk to the ring could be long for some. Not nearly long enough for others. No matter whether it was a gym or arena or (in this case) a church gymnasium in the Bronx, if you walked the path and didn’t want it to end, you were already dead to rights.

Teddy walked over