Below The Belt by A.J. Stewart

Author:A.J. Stewart [Stewart, A.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-12-04T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

BY THE TIME I got back to the venue, it was nighttime and the crowd had filled in. There was an audible buzz in the theater, and people seemed in good spirits. Not to my complete surprise, I was overdressed. People didn’t dress up for anything anymore. Theatergoers wore chinos and wedding guests turned up in jeans or shorts. I was a casual dresser most of the time, but I really didn’t see why we all had to wear leisure suits outside the house all the time.

The usher checked my pass and offered to walk me to my seat. The undercard bouts allowed for a guy like me to meander about, but at the business end of proceedings, I had a third-row seat on the right side. I thanked the usher, but I didn’t sit.

The ringside seats were only half occupied as things headed toward the first of three fights on the main card—the final bout of the evening was for the world title. As people stood around chatting and looking wonderful, I wandered around the ring with my eye on the front row.

I didn’t see Breyer Priestly. But I did see a seat bearing a placard with his name on it. I leaned over a judges’ table against the ring, and while two people were talking I borrowed a marker. Then I sat down to wait.

Camera operators were moving around ringside, filming spectators. I recognized a guy from a nineties television show that I had never watched and one of the local news anchors. There was a couple that the camera guy kept drifting back to who might have been an actor and his supermodel wife, but they also might have been a local cosmetic surgeon and his test bunny.

The man in the red jacket returned, and I had to give him props for being the only person near the ring to be working the entire day. He was going through the running order with a man wearing a headset. My view was then blocked by an usher.

“Excuse me, sir.”

I looked at him but said nothing.

“These seats are reserved.”

“I know.”

“Soooo, you’ll need to find your own seat.”

“I have.”

The usher frowned and glanced at the two people behind him. One was a woman of roughly thirty and an older guy who I could have met in Orlando. He had his brother’s eyes and nose, but his gray perm was all his own, a bold and interesting choice for someone not living in the 1970s.

“Um, sir, this is Mr. Priestly’s seat.”

I looked up at Breyer Priestly. He had matched me in wearing a tuxedo, but his jacket was purple velour, and he was totally rocking it. Beside him, I felt like a waiter in a French restaurant.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” said the usher. “There’s a reserved sign.”

“There is?”

“Yes, sir. You’re sitting on it.”

I leaned forward to reveal the sign. I had flipped it over and scribbled on it with a marker, so it now read: Reserved, Miami Jones .

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