... The first place Lily took Dumble to was the nearby barn of farmer Randy Adamson, where bare-knuckle fights were held on a fortnightly basis. The only rule governing the bouts at Adamson’s barn was No Rape. This may sound obvious on the face of it, but the rule had to be instituted after a victorious combatant, who shall remain nameless, took his humbling of a particular opponent to levels well beyond what Lord Queensbury would consider ungentlemanly.
... Lily sat behind the steering wheel of the Fleetwood, blue smoke puffing from the exhaust. The doorman asked Dumble for a password. Dumble gave him one in the form of a bullet to the face, coating several in the back row with shards of skull and bits of gray matter. From there, Dumble let his twin Desert Eagles roar, killing ten and mortally wounding eight. Once the guns were spent, he ripped a thick wall-plank loose and went to work with it, swinging like a man beating back a mob of lepers coming for his chunk of the True Cross.
... Soon, all were dead save bare-knucklers Polecat Janson and Peril Conroy, who were main-eventing the evening’s bouts. Dumble dropped his flesh-covered club, raised his dukes, stepped into the bloodstained squared circle drawn on the barn floor in chalk, and prepared to go two-fisted on their asses.
... “Will you two get on your knees and pray to Jesus for His Forgiveness? Will you boys do that for me? You’re fit and strong and the Lord has a mission for you that involves many a can of whoop-ass and good Christian lads to pop them open.”
... Polecat and Peril had gone one five-minute round prior to Dumble’s arrival. Polecat appeared to have gotten the better of it, but blood ain’t much of an indicator of which way a fight’s swaying except as a visual clue as to who’s doing the bleeding. Blood’s just blood, and in Dumble’s experience (himself a backyard pugilist of some notoriety in his youth), the getting of color don’t mean nearly as much as shaking limbs and furious breathing do. Both these boys were slick with sweat, but they were lean and fit from farm duties. In short: neither man was to be taken lightly.
... Blood and gore had spattered the barn lights, and everything was a weird tinge of hell-red as a result. It was fitting, Dumble thought, for this showdown of the righteous versus the wicked. As he landed a jab flush on Polecat’s nose, a sulphuric smell rose from somewhere. Then the dead sat upright and began to boo him.
... The racket caught Dumble off-guard. Polecat landed a sweet hook that sent him knock-kneed. Dumble, ironically enough, had the chin from hell and no man possessed enough thunder in his fists to shut out his lights, but he was rocked. Peril slipped behind Dumble and landed a kidney shot so wicked that Dumble actually blasphemed. Polecat pushed Peril aside and came running in with a Muay Thai knee to the face. It sent Dumble to the floor bloody-nosed.
... Then came a sound. The rich, soul-stirring sound of gospel music:
... From Him who loves me now so well.
... What power my soul shall sever?
... Dumble looked up. A halo of canaries circled haphazardly about his head. They had been roughly plucked and charcoaled and wore looks of pity on their burned-up faces. Their tiny beaks opened wide and in unison, they sang:
... Shall life or death, shall earth or hell?
... No! I am His for ever.
... Dumble rolled to his side and got up, giving his head a shake or three. Polecat and Peril had morphed into a single two-headed, four-armed beast. Dumble lashed out at the nearest head and felt hard things turn soft beneath his fist. There was blood and teeth in the air with his second blow, and as the dead heckled him, Dumble tossed manners out the window and went for the eyes.
... There’s a trick to throwing a subtle gouge and Dumble had learned it the hard way in his teenage years in a scrap with Bobby Sole over a skirt named Petunia: you make a fist, then straighten your thumb and poke that mid-knuckle of your index finger forward a touch. Throw that bad boy towards an unsuspecting opponent’s eye and if he don’t drop, he will at least back the fuck off toot-sweet. Which is exactly how the Polecat half of the amalgamated fighters reacted.
... What followed was a thorough bastardization of the sweet science. Two heads, four arms, it didn’t matter a damn to Dumble, who fought so filthily, he repented with each blow struck. He split the single beast back into two. He opened up new orifices on his foes and swelled existing ones shut. Bones and cartilage snapped like celery. Fixed parts were beat loose and dangling. Polecat and Peril were rendered post-human by the fight’s end: alien, misshapen and shocked at the parts of their own insides Dumble showed them.
... The undead audience fell hushed at their fighters’ defeat and slowly lay back down once more. Dumble walked out of the barn, victorious and combat-exhilarated. The cremated canary halo returned and it sang:
... Here I am!
... Rock you like a hurricane!
... He shook his head and the canaries faded into smoke. He got in the hearse and told Lily to turn the radio back to the gospel station.

#

... Meanwhile, back at the chicken-ranch, La Gorda sat atop her daybed throne in the expansive main office of her Putero, sucking the marrow from her nineteenth drumstick in as many minutes. She let out a belch and rang the petite bell she kept at hand, wiping the greasy fingers of her other hand on her flowered muumuu.
... Ms. Guiterrez entered immediately, the bun in her hair as tight as her ass, despite the heavy-petting session with Buck the stable-boy, which La Gorda had just interrupted. The color still high in Ms. Guiterrez’s cheeks, her voice kept its clipped and professional tone: “Yes, ma’am?”
... “Mija,” La Gorda said, “Have one of the boys run down to Hector’s and get me some flautas. I just can’t get full today.”
... “Yes, ma’am.”
... “With guacamole instead of sour cream. Make sure you tell them it’s for me so they use the real guacamole. Not that crap that comes out of—¿cómo se dice?—a caulking gun.”
... “Yes, ma’am.”
... “No lettuce.”
... “Yes, ma’am.”
... La Gorda fetched a sigh. “¿Mija?”
... “Yes, ma’am?”
... “Am I still beautiful?”
... Ms. Guiterrez smiled. “Of course you are, ma’am.”
... La Gorda sighed again. “Ay, no sé. There was a time—”
... But before La Gorda could begin to properly wax nostalgic, Smitty, Felcher and Stimey burst in. “La Gorda!” Smitty said, “You gotta help us! There’s—”
... Ms. Guiterrez flicked a wrist and an 8-inch butterfly knife appeared between her slender fingers, which she plunged into Smitty’s forehead to the hilt. Smitty dropped like a load, filling his jeans with shit and death.
... “Ay,” said La Gorda wearily.
... “How dare you profane this place with that name!” Ms. Guiterrez said. Her eyes burned with the fury known only to big-tittied secretaries. “You filthy, degenerate bowlers will keep a civil tongue in your heads, or I shall personally remove them with an emery board and salad tongs. Are we clear?”
... Felcher and Stimey stared at the twitching corpse of Smitty.
... “Are we fucking clear!”
... Felcher clapped a hand to his mouth and nodded vigorously. He glanced at Stimey, who was still wide-eyed, and grabbed the back of his head and nodded vigorously for him as well.
... “Good.” Ms. Guiterrez folded her arms. “Now, what is so urgent that the three of you would be so forgetful of your manners?”
... Felcher kept his hand clapped to his mouth. Stimey finally piped up with, “W-Well, see it’s like this La—” Stimey caught himself, “La Señora, we was up at Billy’s just now...” and Stimey’s tale rolled forth.
... When he was finished, La Gorda looked at Felcher. “This is true, what he say?”
... Felcher nodded.
... “Ay,” La Gorda said, “El viejo loco. He finally lose his mind completely. It’s just as well. Okay, mija, these nice boys have had a long day. Take them upstairs and get their vergas sucked.”
... “Yes, ma’am.”
... La Gorda waved a hand at Smitty. “Have Buck come in and clear this away.”
... “Oh, yes, ma’am,” Ms. Guiterrez breathed as she yanked her blade from Smitty’s skull.
... “And call Brent down here.”
... A chink in Ms. Guiterrez’s façade, she grimaced ever so slightly as she said, “Yes, ma’am,” and went out the door, Felcher and Stimey on her heels.
... “And where are my fucking flautas!”