A Hard Good Muscle Needs Two In A Bad Push

There’s a lot of talk on Substack about “dudelit”, specifically men being able to write heterosexual tough guy men stories like The Mechanic or any type of male character you could think of that Charles Bronson would play in the 1960s-1970s. I’ve said time and again on this – fuck what the “industry” says sell, write your damn book. Well, somebody heard that in the ethos and did just that.

One morning over a rare cup of coffee I never really drink, I read Muscle by John Davies.

I could not put it down until I finished!

The Benny Hill Show binge I had planned would have to wait that morning; it was worth compromising my sweet British comedy time just to finish John Davies’ novella masterpiece all the way to the end. Now let me tell you something about this book. It’s a short and sweet. Think of it as a good quickie from the maintenance man that needs to tighten you up when that itch needs to get scratched. It might not be a long time, but you know you’re going to bust that nut and for that reason alone, it’s a good time. Muscle takes you into the inevitable fact of life called aging, and how your career aspirations tend to be interrupted by others that feel you’re too old to stay on the job regardless of your skill and capability to maintain your position.

In the case of Muscle, it’s a tale old as prostitution. Midlife crisis men trying to hold on to their gig, half by lying to themselves about their age and the other half accepting they aren’t the hungry young twenty year olds willing to kick ass, chew gum, and conveniently run out of gum. We are introduced to down and out Frankie, who is currently in a midlife crisis as the book opens. While his title isn’t definitively given, what we know about him is that he runs a night establishment and his job is to see to it that fuck boys and fuck girls behave themselves while a guest at his spot. If that means he has to get his hands dirty with your blood for you to mind your manners he will.

Let me just say for the record that Frankie is one of the few cases where I actually feel for the guy. Despite all his flaws, and trust there are a bunch, he’s likeable. I really wanted him to get the one thing he thirsted for the entire book, which was his eternal youth. The problem though is that Frankie didn’t understand the mission. That’s the heartbreak of him. He clings to an image of what he thinks he was as a young guy and not what he truly is at his current age. In this regard he is no different than the typical gang banger trying to ball until they fall within the structure of their gang activity. What makes him different is that he’s like the guys in Peaky Blinders – his work is his life and his life is his career. He doesn’t want the street fame. All he wants is respect. Fucking up motherfuckers is his steady gig, one he has resigned himself into thinking he will have until retirement. He can’t do shit else. The problem for Frankie is, retirement is worse than death.

Frankie’s just knocking on forty, and the pressure of his street business and his age are starting to catch up to him. For one, younger assholes keep trying to test his mettle since they think he’s too old for the game and got one foot in the senior citizen home because his reckless brazen youth has all but disappeared for a more conscientious, thinking man that just wants to keep his hands, and his business, clean. All that shit sounds good until it goes to hell after being shot at outside his spot by Warren, an ambitious asshole looking to make a name for himself by any means necessary, including breaking the unspoken street protocol about having sit downs and agreements with the head folks in charge.

God protects babies and fools, especially fools like Frankie that don’t take being shot at too kindly. He’s old school muscle, so he wants to get this business sorted out the old fashioned way, with his bare hands. Oh yeah, Frankie will knuckle up on a motherfucker real quick just to prove he ain’t too old to give your ass a proper ass kicking. Warren, who also fancies himself as a brawler as well, agrees. The crazy thing is, the two of them get to training and shit like they about to make Rocky 7, though we aren’t really clear which one is Rocky and which one is Drago. Frankie’s out to win it so everybody knows, at least for the next ten years I’d say, not to fuck with him. Warren is just a straight up psychopath that loves the bloodlust. After enduring a week of psychological pussy withdrawal, Warren’s taunts, and his street gladiator training, Frankie knuckles up on Warren where only the mightiest of the fittest lives another day. Once the winning emerges, the spoils of victory await them, for better or worse.

Muscle is one hell of a book but let me lay it out and get you together. If you’re really reading it and voyeuristically watching the story unfold, you’re going to know, at least 90%, of what’s going to happen by the end. This ain’t a Scooby Doo Mystery. That’s not a bad thing either; the noir aspect of the novel is similar to that of Carlito’s Way/After Hours by Edwin Torres (the books, not the movies) with a splash of Menace II Society’s urban mise en cine (and just to be mysterious I won’t point out which characters) as far as the ageless lesson of characters paying the price for the lives they choose and then having the nerve to be fucked up when the bill comes due. Still, the novel is as refreshing as a cup of cappuccino on a veranda in Venice when it comes to the raw gritty storytelling of Frankie, who damn near is insufferable facing a future not being a young ass buck wild brawler everybody shivers at when his name is spoken in harsh tones.

Fucking read this book. It is books like this that need to be out. If you dig Carlito’s Way, Menace II Society, & Manson all with a flair of British gentility, this is your motherfucking tea.