Offering

The outbuilding is cold, made of stacked cinderblocks and plaster. The floor is wood, old, splintered, worn. The ceiling is high. A long bench sits along the right wall further back. Clusters of camp chairs (arrayed in no particular order) are the only furniture, save a table stacked high with six-packs and coolers. Every inch of the place stinks of cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke, bonfire smoke...

And the acrid reek of alcohol.

I sit at the furthest end of the bench, closest to the corner. I hate that stench. Memories well up all at once, bruises bloom once more, shouts ring in my ears, and I start seeing him in the shadows. I want to hit something, someone, I want to make blood flow and knuckles crack, I need to let the rage out. But I can not. There are fights and brawls every so often in the outbuilding, sporadic outbreaks of violent pustules, but any Smoke on the prowl look at my arm, miss the grey cloth, and ask whose I am.

I am Dante's initiate, I tell them.

This seems to startle them. Some react in fear, others sneer, some jeer, but all make note that I am the heretic's neo, and they walk away. I want to stand up and shout at them, I want to hit them and dare them to think less of me, but I cannot. Dante has forbidden it, and I cannot defy him. I cannot leave this outbuilding. I am here with my family, and I must obey their rules. I owe them even the name I walk under.

Graves settles down beside me, grunting an acknowledgement. He asks me why I have not at least grabbed a beer from a cooler, and I tell him that I do not drink. Graves nods, approving. He says that alcohol makes you slower, dumber. It is harder for a drunk man to exercise his hate properly. A maimed sort of hate. I tell Graves that alcohol does not create rage, nor violence, and that everything that crawls to the surface while in its claws was curled up and waiting all along. So Dante says.

Graves raises a bushy eyebrow, turning his gaze towards the rest of the room. I do the same.

Dante stands, loose plaid shirt unbuttoned, nursing a bottle of whiskey with a black label. My breath catches in my throat. I force it out. Dante is not him, would not hurt his neo, he saved me. I have to remind myself to breathe in again.

That is true, Graves says, but it provides an excuse for what escapes. I ask him, for whom does Dante need to provide an excuse? Graves shrugs. I look to Dante.

Dante is drinking while Flint yells. Half of the bottle is gone.

Flint is taller than Dante, broader, thicker. His white skin is sickly, almost pallid. The sides of his head are shaved. He wears a denim vest, grey cloth tied around his wrist. His tank-top does little to hide the swastika tattoo over his left breast, the razor-blade with German letters resting atop his collarbone.

Flint says he knows the right fucking path for the Smokes. Says we could have real weapons, real money, add real scalps to the Wall, instead of grovelling in filth with 'low lives'. Very few heads around the room nod their assent. They are all white heads. Flint says, we should sign up with the Brotherhood.

That's why your hatred is so pathetic, Flint, Dante says. That's why it's so weak, and small, and dirty, because you've got to justify it somehow, Dante says, because you have to pick a target. As though you want to make the rage acceptable, Dante says. Your hatred is impure, Flint.

Flint says, that's deep talk coming from some word-omitted (slurs also make hate political, they are social and political, and that is blasphemous towards hate. So Dante says) who's never stepped into a fucking ring with anyone bigger than him.

Silence falls in the outbuilding. All eyes turn to Dante, now. Graves laces his fingers, leaning forward.

Dante lets his arm drop, lets his eyes go wide. His jaw drops slowly. And then, he whips the whiskey bottle at the floor. It shatters. Brown liquid and shards of glass scatter across the wood. Dante begins to pace, to circle Flint. Smoke stand, surround them both. The only rule of the Ring is that no one and nothing else enter the Ring once it is closed. Flint steps closer to Dante. Dante brings his fists up.

They stand there, for a few seconds, almost still. I can feel the anger in the air, it sets my skin crawling. Finally, at last. A release. An outburst. The hate will spill forth at last.

Flint rushes Dante. Smoke starts bellowing, cheering, screaming. Dante steps out of the way, fists raised.

Flint swings a wild, looping haymaker at Dante. Dante steps back, hands going up, and then lowering once more. Flint growls, then charges Dante again.

Dante steps to the side, and slams a booted heel into the side of Flint's right knee. A dull crack barely breaks the crowd's cacophony, but Flint buckles, falls hard to the wood floor, barely catching himself on his hands. Dante swings a boot into his face, now.

Flint takes the kick, but grabs Dante's heel before he can withdraw it. Dante is dragged to the floor, writhing and squirming. I stand. I know I should be concerned, but it all feels so far away. There is only the taste of rage in the air, and sweat beading down my brow, and I am watching and waiting for red to join the whiskey on the floor.

To join Dante on the floor.

He is on his back, now, arms trying to block his face as Flint hammers fist after fist into his face. There. There. Flecks of blood, cuts, what will later be a bruise, they start forming as Dante's defences flag, as Flint picks up speed, vein throbbing in his forehead, spittle flecking his lips, face darkening as his eyes bulge.

Dante's arms fall away completely, splaying out along the floor. Flint grabs one fist in his hand, raises his arms high, ready to bring his hands down on Dante's skull.

And then, Dante's arm flashes across his body, shoots up at Flint, a strange glint between his fingers.

Bright amaranth wells and spurts out of Flint's neck. The metallic tang of blood rips right through the alcohol stink as Dante drives the shard of broken whiskey bottle into Flint's neck again.

Flint gurgles. His blood, his hatred, all cooled now, all spilled and impotent, flecks and stains Dante's face, his clothes. Flint falls forward, landing atop Dante.

The air is absolutely electric. The outbuilding has gone wild, smaller fights breaking out all around, howls and yells doubling, tripling. I am screaming too, now, forgetting all forgotten breaths and anticipation. I want to join. I want to be part of the sea of rage.

Dante pushes Flint's body off of him, pushing himself to his feet. Battered, cut, covered in blood, sticking-up hair shining with beads of sweat. His eyes are wild. His breath is ragged, chest rising and falling. He stares at Flint until Graves claps him on the shoulder, grinning. It could have been seconds later, or hours, or both at once. I was burning and right and ready.

The corner of Dante's mouth quirks, and then he turns away. He pushes the doors of the outbuilding open, and the cold withers as it tries to slip in amongst our heat.

I follow Dante, seeking his permission to fight, to find my own release in the violence. To express the ways of the fist and the bludgeon and the edge, as I have been shown.

Dante walks around the outbuilding, stumbling every so often, shuddering once or twice as the wind rips through his open clothes, but he makes no move to close his shirt. The anger still boils, then, still drives his temperature up. I would not know the wind was there were it not screeching.

Dante walks away from the outbuilding, and sits cross-legged between two of the trees amongst the tree line. His back is to me. I think about approaching him, tapping his shoulder or back to get his attention, though I am not uncertain that my fingers would burn. Not that it would matter. Not that it would do anything less than stoke the fire.

But I decide against approaching, at the very last moment. Surely, Dante is revelling in his unleashed rage. The blood is still hot on his flesh, after all. His hatred broke the doubts of everyone in that room as it cut down Flint. I have never seen Dante kill before, but surely he has done so many times. Surely, he takes time to contemplate and explore the experience.

Maybe he's reliving it, over and over. The cold may make his body shake, but his mind is free. He is Dante. He is the apostate, the heretic. Both part of Smoke and above it, higher than it, seeing and understanding more.

I am honoured to be his neo. His chosen. I am honoured that it was Dante who pulled me from the darkness and the vile man lording over me, that he gave me my name.

I turn away, and walk back into the outbuilding's discord. To thrive in the wake of my legacy with my family.