by Shey Stahl
With a little less than four weeks to go until the fight, the basement was usually filled with press or various members of our camp. They watched glimpses of the training for publicity leading up to the fight. It was like pre-fight press. Some days, like today, I kicked them all out in attempt to focus on what I needed. Getting my mind right.
Moving through the gym at my own pace, above me on the wall was a photograph of my father at a peak in his career, two fighters slugging it out for a belt. A title. It was way more than some title though. To those fighters, much like myself, the chance to call yourself a champion has far more glory that any monetary reward.
Inhaling a breath of stale air, I shook the thoughts away. Lying down on the bench, I reached my arms up to grasp the bar overhead. Watching my grip closely, I then focused on the ceiling, the exposed black pipes, as I brought the bar down to my chest before pushing up. The resistance immediate, my muscle protesting against the action.
Huffing out breaths with each upward motion, I stared at that ceiling, focusing on nothing in particular, images blurring together as sweat formed on my forehead. With my gaze steady and the musty smells around me, it all tied every childhood memory I had of this basement together. It may have been a basement to some, but to me, it was my home and where I was comfortable.
I heard the door open to the basement and the screeching metal sound it made. I knew my Uncle Danny was in deep again, but I wasn’t sure how deep. In the weeks since he first asked me for money, we hadn’t spoke about it, especially since I was focused on training. I did notice the change in his demeanor, however. Usually, he was right there watching me spar and train, only now, he’d kept his distance from the basement and hardly spoke to anyone. That should have been my first clue he was in deeper than I realized, or deeper than he cared to admit.
I didn’t give it much thought until I saw Colt show up in the bar and make his way downstairs to the basement. I knew then how bad it was because Colt would never pay me a visit unless he was intending on showing Danny a lesson that at this point, he fuckin’ deserved.
Danny had the shit beat out of him by his bookie a lot, mainly for not paying up when he should have and I let it happen to a point, hoping someday it would teach him a lesson.
It never did and I never let it get out of hand.
“How’s it going, champ?” Colt remained in the shadows of the basement, the allure of being a dangerous man. Only he wasn’t. He was dangerous in the sense his only weapon was a crow bar and a gun. Make him fight for his life with his fists and he couldn’t do it.
I didn’t reply to his greeting; instead, I kept up with the weights in my hands, looking at him through the mirror in front of me as I lifted.
Wearing his jacket in the middle of summer, his Italian leather shoes scuffed over the concrete, a grating sound that made me cringe. “You seen Danny around?”
It was late, nearing eight that night but no, I hadn’t seen Danny around today. More than likely he was at home. More than likely Colt knew that too. He wanted to involve me.
I was livid he would choose now to come to me with this bullshit. The matter of Danny and his gambling would be dealt with, and the fact that he decided to come to me, had me reeling. Still, I didn’t say anything as I curled the weight forward in my arm, repetition after repetition, attempting to control my anger with the weights.
“He’s in deep and says you can help him out. Word on the street is you’re earning something like thirty million for a rematch against Lucas.”
Thirty-eight but who’s counting?
And then it hit me why he was here.
Stupid motherfucker. Goddamn Danny.
GODDAMN HIM!
He thought… no… he assumed I’d be there for him. My stomach clenched, anger rushing through me at the thought of what Danny had gotten himself into now. “How much?”
“What?” Colt smiled, his slicked back hair shinning under the light.
Greasy motherfucker had a lot of nerve stepping down here with me and asking for me to pay off Danny’s debt again. I dropped the weight on the mat at my feet with a thud, my hands hanging on my hips. “Don’t fuckin’ get cute with me, Colt. You know what I’m talking about.”
His smile grew, his hands in the pockets of his slacks now. “Two hundred.”
“Grand?”
He nodded.
That son of a bitch!
I didn’t wait for Colt to explain anymore. “Get out.”
He tossed a business card on the ground. “I’d be willing to forgive his debt if you swung the fight my way.”
I watched the white card float to the gray concrete. “And that would be?”
Why I was even asking was beyond me. I knew what he wanted.
“Go down in the tenth round.”
Fuck you.
How does he owe two hundred grand? Are you fucking kidding me?
But then I focused on what he was asking me to do.
Throw the fight of my life.
My redemption.
I wanted to shove him against the wall, tell him he was out of his fucking mind. But I didn’t because you didn’t start anything with Colt. I knew the outcome. He never fought fair.
“No,” I told him, flat out and staring intently at him. “I won’t.”
Colt raised an eyebrow. “You know what this means for Danny, right?”
“I do.” I nodded, barely able to stand there in front of him. “Now get out of my fuckin’ bar.”
This is any punch that is delivered to the back of another fighter’s head. It is illegal blow, due to being highly dangerous. It’s called that because of its similarity to the way that hunters used to kill rabbits.
I was fucking livid, a blinding pulsing in my head I couldn’t relieve. Pissed beyond belief that Danny could do this and bring me into it at a time like this. Family or not, I was ready to break his motherfucking hands.
I found Danny at his house, and I didn’t wait for him to answer the door. I threw my shoulder into it, grunting at the contact. Rain pelted my face and shoulders, the air outside as cool and damp as my mood. He was sitting in his chair watching television as if all was good in his world. Probably was, he constantly had me to bail him out of his mistakes. I was a fucking kid, twenty-four years old.
He was forty-eight. You’d think this should have been the other way around. Shouldn’t he be helping me out?
“You fucking son of a bitch! How could you do this?” I picked him up out of his chair with my hands and threw him roughly against the wall. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” In a moment, I’d forgotten my own strength and fisted my hands in Danny’s jacket and took a firm hold of him. Slamming him back into the wall once more, pictures fell around us as the sheetrock shook. I was in his face spitting anger and words that more than likely didn’t make a goddamn bit of sense, but I was saying it.
He was so ashamed that he wouldn’t even look at me. He sputtered out some words, unable to make a clear defense or formulate an excuse I supposed.
I slammed my palm into his shoulder. “You’re a worthless piece of shit!”
Danny reeled back, his lifeless eyes flashing with anger, cheeks and neck warming as his spread throughout his body, catching up with my own intensity. “Don’t you think I fuckin’ know that?” Tears stung his eyes, never spilling over, but the emotion welled up before he dropped them to the floor. “I don’t know… I can’t….” And then he broke down, his chest shaking. “I can’t stop.”
Seeing a grown man sobbing wasn’t easy. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to help him. I wanted to fix this but I couldn’t. Not this time. At some point, I had to give up and let him destroy himself. If I didn’t, it’d destroy me.
I knew what addiction was like, I did. I understood it in a sense because my dad had the same problem, only his wasn’t gambling. It was alcohol.
Despite him breaking down, my anger didn’t rest or wane. “How did you even get in that deep again?” Dropping my shoulders, I squeezed hi
m harder into the wall, putting the pressure on him.
“I’m sorry!”
When I knew I was hurting him, I let go and took my anger out on his house. “You’re sorry?” Raising my eyebrow, I smiled and reached for the chair in the kitchen sending it through the sliding glass door in his dining room. “YOU’RE FUCKING SORRY?” the question roared out of me and then followed by the crashing sounds as the chair shattered the window on impact, the sound deafening. “Be that fucking sorry!” I screamed until my voice broke apart.
Danny jumped, backing up against the wall, scrambling to create some distance. He was afraid of me. Good. “How many more times are you going to fuck up?”
He didn’t answer me; instead, he remained silent, shaking his head as tears fell freely. It only made my anger soar higher.
I was in his face again, glass crunching under my feet, my body shaking with tremors.
“How many more times?”
Something in him changed and his own self-pity took over. Angry with me now, a side of him I hadn’t seen in a while, he spat through gritted teeth and tight lips, “I said I was sorry, Destry!”
“Yeah?” I ran the back of my hand over my jaw, stepping closer until my breath hit his face. “You sure about that? You fucking positive? Because it seems to me you’ve only ever thought about yourself.”
Danny nodded. “I am… sorry.”
“I’m not doing it this time, Danny. I can’t. I won’t.” I could barely get the words out because I knew what that meant for him. He’d have to face Colt himself. “I’m sorry for what that means for you but I can’t do it anymore.” Tears stung my eyes, his never stopping and the nausea hit me suddenly. He knew then what this meant.
“I know.” His voice broke like the glass beneath my feet. “And I am sorry. I never meant to bring you into this.”
“But you did, constantly,” he interrupted me again—apologizing once more—but I raised my voice. “You’ve brought me into it for so long that I can’t ever remember a time when I wasn’t holding you up.”
He nodded again, his face void of color, the consequences of his actions clear in his bloodshot eyes. “I know.”
As much as I wanted to, I’d never be able to fix Danny’s problems. Ever. The more money I gave him, the worse it got. I took his house and his bar in hope he wouldn’t gamble any longer, wouldn’t have anything to gamble, but I was wrong.
There was nothing left to say; at least, I didn’t feel there was. Turning, I faced the wall before heading to the door.
“Destry, wait!”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not again. “I can’t. I’ve been waiting on you for years.”
I wondered, when I was in my car, if he truly understood those words.
I wasn’t sure he ever would.
When a fighter’s legs give way. As in, “The punch buckled him.”
Two hours later and a half a bottle of vodka, I was back in my apartment wondering what the hell I was thinking. I never drank this close to a fight. Ever. And the fact that I was over this made it worse. Made me feel somewhat guilty when that was the last emotion I wanted to feel.
Tallan was already there, writing outside on the balcony. I was so frustrated and lost by the anger inside of me I wasn’t seeing straight. I should have never been around her that night. It had me thinking hazy and doing and saying things I wasn’t going to mean.
I knew that, but I couldn’t help myself.
When Tallan noticed I was home, she made her way inside. Setting her laptop on the counter, her gaze travelled over me, unable to process the change and when it occurred. She took in my stare, my fists and then my stance, guarded and unsure. “Are you okay?”
Was I? No. I wasn’t fine. Dragging my eyes from hers, I sighed and gave a nod to the bathroom where I stayed for a good twenty minutes trying to calm myself down.
Only it didn’t work.
Nothing worked. Pain and adrenaline pricked at my stomach, rigid and unfamiliar, sitting there, boiling and feeding to the point I couldn’t shake the feelings from taking over.
“I’d be willing to forgive his debt.”
“If I mean anything to you.”
“Go inside, Destry. I’ll come get you later.”
Sure you will, Mom.
Sure you will.
WHEN I EMERGED from the bathroom, Tallan was on my bed with slumped shoulders. Her head snapped up with the unlatching of the door. “What’s going on?”
It was evident that my time spent in the bathroom had taken a toll on her. She wore the worry in the scrunch of her brow and the paleness of her face.
Taking a step toward the bed, my knees hit the mattress and I lied down beside her, my face pressing into the mattress before I rolled over to run my palms over my face. My breathing was heavy, panting even. I felt physically sick from the alcohol and the reality that it was going to set me back.
What made me want to vomit was that I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t save Danny. When I left his house, I knew there was a good chance Colt would show up next.
Tallan scrambled to move next to me, her hand on my damp stomach. I’d splashed water over my face in the bathroom and didn’t bother to remove my shirt. Not only that, it was pouring outside.
“Destry, are you okay?”
No. I’m not.
She kissed down my jaw until her lips found mine. She captured me, right then, consuming me with her kisses. Our lips never fumbled, maybe frustrated we couldn’t get enough, but they were always kisses that classified what the two of us were.
In love. Despite anything in my life, I didn’t have to question her intentions. Never. Not anymore. Because of our bond, if I was angry about something, she knew it.
I tried to calm myself down, pull back before anything happened, but it wasn’t easy to do. The moment her tongue met mine, I couldn’t breathe nor could I stop myself from taking more.
With a growl, I was on top of her and pushing myself between her legs, hands pawing at her clothes, my kisses and touch never letting up. Ripping my cotton shirt over my head, it dropped at the foot of the bed and then I yanked my shorts down before she could process or protest what it was I wanted. I was too fucked up to care if this messed up my training because what did it change?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing at that point.
So, I gave into the insatiable desire this woman left me with. Only Tallan realized what I was doing, her small hands flattening over my chest and pushing back. “We can’t.”
“Stop fighting me,” I demanded, sitting up on my knees to remove her panties.
She didn’t want to obey, unable to understand my reasoning, and shook her head. “But you said—”
I was pissed by then and ripped her hands from my chest a little rougher than I needed to. “I don’t care what I said.”
Nodding, she twisted, doing as I said by peering up at me as she let me remove her sweatpants and panties with it. I didn’t bother with the shirt.
Without warning, I entered her with a hard deliberate thrust. My lips were on hers next, drawing her bottom lip inside into my mouth. I bit down, swirling my tongue around the softness only to have her gasp, opening up for me, her body curving around my own.
My body broke out in a sweat, hips sliding and rocking into her. Reaching down, I took her right leg higher, grinding our hips together. Tallan screamed out, all the while my mouth never parting from hers, her head thrown back against the pillow, and I drove into her harder, faster, attempting to satisfy her need as well as my own.
My panting breaths and her gasps of pleasure filled the room. The rain pelted against the windows beside my bed adding to the intensity of the moment.
Within minutes, I came, as selfish as it began, it ended the same way. I fell against her chest, my body shaking with sobs that weren’t necessarily all from pleasure. It was from the pain of knowing that no matter how hard I wanted to control the world around me, I would never be able to. I couldn’t even control this and the a
bility to abstain from sex. How could I win a fight if I had no control? I couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. My tears soaked Tallan’s neck as she cried out against me, my grip on her too tight, my weight too much, a force unmatched.
“Get off me!” She gasped when my weight was too much for her and grunted in pain when I didn’t move. “Destry….”
My mind was blank, a jumbled mess of thoughts I couldn’t process.
“You’re hurting me!” She gasped what I’d done.
“I’m sorry! Don’t leave me,” I begged, frantically reaching for her. My emotional struggle went way deeper than the surface and she could see that for the first time when she noticed I was crying, in front of her. “Please… don’t fuckin’ leave me!” I gasped, sounding desperate, and I was.
For a moment, brief and fleeting, she wanted to comfort me, even reached forward and then retracted her hands. That wasn’t to say she was going to let me get away with it though, but she looked at me, confused as to what the hell happened. Then came the anger, surfacing in all its raging beauty. Her eyes narrowed as she jumped off the bed and reached for my shirt to cover herself up. “Destry!” She gasped, eyes wide as she took in my appearance. “What the fuck was that?”
“I’m sorry.” My head hung in shame, my chest shaking, my throat tightening as a lump rose. I tried to swallow over it only it did no good. I felt like the biggest asshole of all time and unable to look at her. If I was going to be an asshole, I was apparently going all out.
She crossed her arms waiting, red marks evident on her chest and neck from the harshness of my mouth and teeth taking what never belonged to me in the first place. A wave of guilt flooded me when I realized how rough I’d been with her.
Swallowing over my tears, I wiped my forearm over my face. I sat on the edge of the bed in front of her, staring at the wall. “Danny’s in deep again… owes two hundred grand and they want me to throw the fight.”
“Oh, my God!” She stopped suddenly. My eyes snapped to hers, waiting to see what my reaction was. “You can’t be serious.”