Page 6 of Watcher

“I’m sorry. You know I’ll do whatever you need.”

“I know.”

The music in the auditorium ends, and we cut off our conversation, rolling out to thousands of cheers.

Diablo and the other blockers make several warmup laps around the rink, trash-talking the other team as they do so. The women on the other team are obviously scared of her. We’ve already won the battle of minds.

Emily and I take several warmup laps. Though life is kind of in the shitter at the moment, seeing all the young girls cheering me on gives me a temporary escape from all that’s wrong. The hardest part about the roller derby team is that Mom isn’t around to see how well we’re doing. She’d be proud. That’s what I need—to hear those words from her lips. I miss the pep talks and the advice she gave without judgment. What did I get as a trade for my mom? A fucking wicked stepmother and fairytale that just keeps on giving.

We take two more laps around, adjusting our knee and elbow pads. I grab the jammer helmet as we pass the bench and then stop along the railing, where there’s a slight rise in front of the crowd.

The biker whose arm I signed sits in the front row, close to the rail. He winks, and I scowl. The guy is obviously old enough to be my father. It wouldn’t be the first time I had a perv removed from the arena.

The biker gets up and comes to the rail. I face away, careful not to make eye contact again.

“We got off on the wrong foot outside.” He places his hands on the rail, and from the corner of my eye, I see the veins under his tanned skin popping out. He speaks with a northern accent, an outsider to these parts.

“We didn’t get off on a foot at all.” I roll away, leaving him at the rail the way a woman leaves a cheating man at the altar and join my team. I look back only out of macabre curiosity to see if he’s still standing there. He’s not. He’s returned to his big redneck biker friend.

“What was that all about?” Emily asks.

“Some perv hitting on me again.”

“He’s kinda cute.”

“Yeah, in a helpless old man kind of way.”

The ref blows the whistle, and I skate onto the floor with my five blockers. He briefly goes over the rules, mainly about no roughhousing. He looks at me, and a bead of sweat races down his temple. Fuck that. He knows what time it is. He knows when the next whistle blows that it’s on.

The blockers move into position, separating into two small groups, one blocking on offense and one blocking on defense. Diablo glances back, a chuckle bouncing her tits. The whistle blows, and I press my hand against Diablo’s back.

To say we have an unfair advantage is an understatement as Diablo bulls forward. She knocks three Cannibals to the side, and I skate around the rink, finishing the game’s first score.

We set up for the next jam, and Diablo moves in front of me again. Like the first jam, Diablo knocks Cannibals to the side, and I score.

The next jam starts much like the first two, but this time, one of the Cannibals breaks from offense and comes straight at Diablo. For a moment, I think the Cannibal is going high, but at the last second, she drops and takes out Diablo’s knees. Diablo drops to the floor, screaming, and everyone stops. The ref blows the whistle, and as he’s about to throw the Cannibal out of the game, I get up just enough speed to leap over Diablo and hit the Cannibal with an elbow.

I hear a crunch and then see blood erupt from the woman’s nose.

Unlike when men get into a tussle during sports games, where they push and hide behind each other, we aren’t anything like that. We’re out for blood, looking to throat punch and break bones.

Two Cannibals come at me but are intercepted by Kat and Rosemary. Rosemary knocks a Cannibal on her ass, but Kat isn’t so lucky. The Cannibal gets in a lucky knee to Kat’s gut, and she goes down hard.

I see the crowd rushing the rail from the corner of my eye. Just that short second of not paying attention to what’s in front of me causes me to get knocked on my ass. Two Cannibals come with skates rising, ready to smash my skull. I cover, but nothing comes down on my head. When I look up, I see the Cannibals airborne.

The two large men roll the Cannibals away. The one named Watcher smiles, but his smile only lasts a few seconds as he’s hit in the back with a chair. The other biker turns in time to get a chair to the face. He drops next to Watcher, and then there are shots fired.

The place is just about cleared out when the police arrive to find our two teams still fighting. The bikers get to the railing but are met by guns in their faces. They would have been fine if they’d not come onto the rink. I would have been fine if I’d not continued fighting after the cops pulled me away from a Cannibal.

It wasn’t my first trip to county jail; I assumed it wouldn’t be my last. I never took shit off anyone and never would. Consequences were consequences. They came with the territory. They came with standing up for yourself.

3

Watcher

“You come here often?” I rub the back of my head and get off the bench. Jessica rolls her eyes and walks away from the bars separating our two cells.

I get that I’m older, but that’s never stopped the young ones from wanting to jump in the sack. They know what an older man brings to the table. Though, to be fair, none of them know what they’re getting into with me after that initial fuck, assuming they come back for more.

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