Fight Night at Patty’s

by

William Kitcher

I’d heard that Patty’s Bar And Grill on the other side of the city, across the street from the old, abandoned train station, was a place there were fights every night, guaranteed. The bars’ owners encouraged this because it brought in business.

I like the idea of people getting drunk and into stupid fights. I’m generally not a fan of violence, but, as someone who almost finished a sociology degree, I find it funny when people act irrationally.

Patty’s was owned by two biker brothers, Big Patty and Little Patty; their last name was Patterson, and they’d dealt a lot of drugs before they laundered the money into a legitimate business. Capitalism. They obviously hadn’t invested much money into the bar; it looked like someone’s shed although they had one brand of imported beer.

So I sat at the bar, being careful to not bump into anyone as I entered about nine o’clock, and waited. Sure enough, a fight started. The regulars watched the two drunken idiots go at it before lurching out of their chairs to the fight in an attempt to stop it. It took quite a while because the drunks kept missing their opponent and accidentally smacking the bystanders/fight-stoppers. But, eventually, the two guys were pulled apart.

They were so drunk they sat at the bar beside each other and had no idea who the other was. They looked at each other. One of them pointed to a growing bloody lump beside the other’s eye and said, “What happened to you?”

Big Patty said, “Guys, stop it,” but he didn’t sound as if he meant it.

Little Patty wandered down from the end of the bar, picked up one of the guys and planted him in a chair at the far end of the bar.

After a while, another fight started, this time two women. It was obviously confusing to the crowd; it looked to me like they’d never see females fight for a long time unless they were on TV. So, it took some time for the regulars to figure out they needed to break this one up as well. Apparently, this was a do-it-yourself bar because Big Patty and Little Patty just watched the fight.

From my point of view, it seemed like the boys had no chance of breaking up this fight. They could barely handle the drunk guys; they didn’t stand much chance against the two Amazons now going at it. Two solid tough women, the best of the best, crunching and pounding, going at it like a couple of Resistance fighters.

So, the boys . . . there they were, a dozen of them, stunned by the concept of women doing this right in front of them, moving in slow motion toward the idea they might intervene.

But they did. They moved closer as the fight continued, occasionally getting pushed back by wild punches.

I wandered around on the outside.

Eventually, the bar calmed down after the two women were separated and kicked out. Apparently, male regulars were allowed to stay in the bar after causing a ruckus but female strangers weren’t. Some guys went to the front window to see if the two women would continue the fight outside, but they were nowhere to be seen.

The excitement over for now, I settled up my tab and wandered up the street to the first nasty alley I could find.

Sara and Barbara were waiting for me. I took the twelve wallets out of my coat pockets one by one, extracted the money, and threw the wallets away (yeah, maybe there were credit cards in them but I’m not that mercenary or reckless).

About half of them had cash in them. I did my best to make it equal, twenty for Sara, twenty for Barbara, twenty for me, lather, rinse, repeat, but I didn’t get to the end of the counting of the cash.

Sara punched me in the head, and I dropped. When I looked up, they were gone.

My best guess is that I’m not going to work with them anymore. And as far as I can tell, it was only about $200, so what the hell. Easy come, easy go.

Bill Kitcher’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches (and one poem!) have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, and the U.S. His stories have appeared in Horror Sleaze Trash, Rock and a Hard Place, Shotgun Honey, Guilty, Mystery Tribune, Yellow Mama, and many other journals. His novel, Farewell and Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep, was published in 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing.

Also, his prehensile tail, which never caused him any problems, has now started lengthening.