by JD Hawkins
“Don’t be silly! Sit down.” I oblige very reluctantly. “It’s not even for you, it’s more for him. He asked me if I knew anyone who was single and…well…”
“I’m the most single person you know,” I say, deciding to treat this with humor.
“Well, put it this way,” Jaime says, leaning over the table with enthusiasm, “you’re the only person who I think is good enough for him. The only reason he’s single is that he’s almost too great. He’s so handsome it’s almost intimidating.”
“Why do I feel like I’m watching the home shopping network?”
“And he’s such an adorable guy. Always positive, always smiling. He has wonderful energy. And loyal—he’s incredibly loyal.”
“Are we talking about a man or a dog here? Because I already have Lucy, and she’s all the dog I need.”
She ignores my jibe. “He doesn’t like to go out—he doesn’t drink—or eat lavish meals or anything too flashy. Which is why I immediately though of you, you know, with your rabbit food and locking yourself up for hours at a time to meditate.”
I fold my arms and lean back.
“Let me guess: he’s also super rich.”
Jaime makes a face like she has to think about it, all of her energy taken up with pretending not to know why I ask. She never was a good actress.
“He’s…well-off. I think.”
“So you think it would be a great match because if I can ‘snag’ this guy, all my business issues will get taken care of.”
Jaime makes a thoughtful expression so false that she may as well be wearing a mask, then turns to me with a big smile, as if it just hit her.
“You know what, I didn’t think of that but yes! Now that you mention it, though, that does makes a lot of sense!”
I nod and smile with mock agreement. “Right…well, if I decide to move to the nineteenth century when women had to do that sort of thing to survive, I’ll let you know.”
I see the hope die on my sister’s face, replaced with a frown. “Oh come on Frankie, don’t get on your high horse. I don’t mean it like that. I’m just saying it would be nice for you to have a supportive man in your life. Someone you can depend on, to help you achieve your dreams.”
“I agree. Supportive is good. I’m sure that’s how all sugar daddies think of themselves.”
Jaime lets out her frustration in a sharp sigh.
“All I wanted was for you to give this guy a chance,” she says, before shaking her head vigorously again. “You know what, I give up.”
“I wish that was actually true,” I say, in between sips.
“I don’t understand you, Frankie. A few years ago when you should have been working at your future you travelled the world and dated every tree-hugging hippie surfer you could find. Now that you’re finally settled and ready to find a nice guy to spend the rest of your life with, you’re not even interested. When was the last time you even gave a decent guy like the one I know a chance?”
“A chance to have a little fun with? I’m always open to that.”
Jaime tightens her face like someone took a screwdriver to it.
“A chance to have a legitimate relationship. Someone who can help you, can give you what you need.”
I shake my head and put my cup down.
“I don’t need a man to give me anything. I’m building a life on my own, one that I can be proud of. What’s so wrong with that?”
Jaime sighs and looks away for a moment, too frustrated to look me in the eye.
“I feel like I say this every time we meet, but you’re too proud. That’s always been your problem. You would have your own chain of yoga studios by now if you weren’t.”
“And I certainly wouldn’t be proud of owning a chain.”
“There’s an irony in talking about your pride when you’re reduced to soliciting thugs on the street for clients.”
“As long as it never gets bad enough that I have to date rich men to stay afloat, I’m good.” I grab my smoothie and give it a loud slurp, hoping this is the end of the conversation.
Jaime checks her watch, taking the hint, and we both get up and move toward the pavement, where we stand facing each other. She sighs once more.
“At least think about it,” she says. “One date. One evening. That’s all it is.”
I grab Jaime and pull her in for a hug.
“I’ll think about it,” I murmur.
But we both know I won’t.
3
Connor
“Triple! Double!” Butch screams over the punching mitts, spraying spit on me. I throw the combinations at the pads, Butch changing up the location with each one.
“Stay on your toes, I don’t wanna see those flat feet!” he drawls in his Irish accent, moving around the ring as I repeat the combinations. “Too predictable, Connor, make me guess, son!”
“Dodge! Triple!” He swings the pads a couple of times and I duck out of the way before pushing forward with the combination again. “Come on lad, pick your range! I coulda taken your legs twice there. In and out! One-two-one-kick! Again!”
I let myself get angry, let the frustration that’s stuck inside of me give a little edge to my hits. I grunt with each strike, the hum of violence coming to the surface from some deep pit inside.
Then Butch backs off. I keep my stance for a second until he starts unstrapping the pads.
“What?” I say, standing upright. “We done? We barely went five minutes.”
“I’m done. You’re not,” he says, and I notice that his eyes aren’t on me, they’re on the entrance to the gym behind me. I turn around, suddenly noticing how the sound of punched bags and chatter isn’t there anymore.
Two men walk into the gym. The punchline is that one looks like a twelve-year-old choirboy, the other looks like six feet plus of tough bastard. He’s bald, and has enough tattoos on his coffee-colored face to make him look like the result of a college prank. I recognize some of the gang-related ones.
“Who’s that?” I say to Butch out of the corner of my mouth as they approach.
“That’s your sparring partner for today. Luis ‘Python’ dos Santos. One of the best counter-strikers I ever saw. He looks like a brick wall, but he moves like a ballet dancer.”
“Never heard of him.”
“That’s ‘cause he just got out of prison. Shame. He could have really had a shot at the belt.”
I turn to look at Butch. He chuckles gently, then I turn to call out to the two men.
“Hey. Welcome.”
“He doesn’t speak English,” Butch says, as we move to the edge of the ring to meet them. “Hence he takes his little nephew everywhere to translate.”
“Oi,” I say, and the guy gives me a nod in return.
Then I stand back and watch as Butch leans down and shakes hands with them, exchanging a few words with the choir boy. After a little while Butch stands up and claps his hands.
“Go get hydrated,” he says, pointing at my corner. “Let the guy get changed and we can start.”
“Doesn’t he need to warm up?” I say, turning to the big meatball on the other side of the ring and translating for him. “Você precisa se aquecer antes?”
He just breaks his mean face into a smile, revealing a row of gold teeth inset with jewels.
“Eu me aqueço no ring,” he growls low and steady. I’ll warm up in the ring.
“Tudo bem,” I reply, turning to Butch. “Ok. Let’s go.”
“You learning Portuguese now?” Butch asks, almost suspicious.
“You ever seen those Brazilian girls? I’m not about to let a little thing like language get between me and them. Working on my Mandarin next,” I say, winking the implication.
Butch sighs and shakes his head before turning me around and leading me to my corner where I crouch down and take a swig of water from my friend Matt, a lightweight from Boston who can drink like any heavyweight, and who’s idled over to watch the show along with a few others in the gym.
&nbs
p; “So what’s this guy’s deal? I don’t know anything about him,” I say to Butch, as I pull on some gloves and headgear.
“That’s the point. You play a counter-striker like Hendrix you’ve got to change your game up, go with the flow. The one thing I can tell you is that he’s broken his lower left rib about two dozen times.” I look over at the other corner to see dos Santos removing his shirt, revealing a body even more striking than the tattoos which cover it. “It’s a weak spot, but he knows it. He’s always expecting people to go for it so…well, just try not to. You won’t catch him off guard.”
Butch slaps my back and goes over to the other corner to explain the rules. I hand the bottle back to Matt, and lean on the rope.
“What do you think?” I ask him.
“About you? Or the gangster?”
“Both?”
Matt considers. “You’re hitting faster, for sure, but you’re getting sloppier too. This guy…all I know is, I’d like to meet his dentist.”
I laugh and turn around as Butch sets himself in the middle of the ring. Dos Santos and I walk up either side.
“Ok,” Butch says, putting himself between us, “we’re not fighting for a drink here so back off freely. That said, I wanna see what both of you can do.” The boy translates for dos Santos from his position in the Python’s corner. “Touch gloves…ok…let’s go.”
As soon as Butch backs off I hear the shouts of the other fighters outside the ring, and realize almost all of them have taken a little break to see the show. The pressure’s on.
We start circling each other, and almost instantly I feel my mind slipping, thoughts wriggling in and out like my cranium is a can of eels. I can feel the eyes of my peers on my skin, judgmental and keen. I try to look good, swiping away his light, reach-testing jabs. Swinging from side to side and trying to make it look like I’m not just buying time.
Why is everyone in the gym watching? Are they cheering for me? Or do they wanna see me get knocked out?
He's quick, but it’s the way he moves that holds me off, shuffling and jerky, changing direction. I keep him locked into my eye line and bounce my arms to get them primed for a hit. He shows a little too much of his back and I go for a kick, but he jerks back.
Hendrix wouldn’t have done that. Hendrix would have hit a combination.
I try to push a little, claim the center of the ring, but he’s prickly. He starts putting a little force in his reach, starts kicking out a little. I back off and try not to make it look like I’m not ready yet. I’m used to dominating in the ring, but this guy is a wildcard—I know nothing about him, we’ve never sparred before, I haven’t spent the last few years landing hits and seeking out his weak spots. Without my usual advantages, I’m not sure what to expect.
Come on, Connor! Stop fucking thinking. Did Butch just shake his head?
There’s nothing left but to go for it. I need to do something, anything, to get my body doing the thinking for me, to get my blood going. I sidestep as if evading but plant my foot at the last moment to jab once and push a hard right straight at his head.
“Yeah!” Matt roars, but I’m so in the zone that I barely register the shout.
Python takes my jab but it’s barely a stroke, and he’s awake enough to swing himself under the right and land a shoulder against my gut. He braces his legs and makes a push to get me on the ground but I manage to twist him on me.
That was bad. That was fucking amateur. Hendrix would have had me for breakfast if I did that.
Python’s confident now, throwing combinations with aggression. His fists rain down on me like I’m driving the wrong way on an interstate, giant bags of pain. I swat and dodge like a maniac, doing everything I can to lessen the amount of contact, but I feel like he’s working on fast forward and I’m on pause. He lands a couple of hits on my jaw that snap my head back on my neck, just short of knocking me out.
The watching crowd shouts, their blood up, and now there’s a buzzing in my ears.
This can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.
I see a patch of ring and manage to slide into it, giving me a couple of feet to work in, but Python sees I’m shaky, and he comes right after me without any caution at all. I can’t come back from this, I can’t make up the difference. I either end this now or get even more humiliated than I already am.
I go for his rib, the one Butch called a sweet spot. I throw everything I’ve got left at it, keeping nothing back.
The punch lands, and I can see it send tremors across his tattooed skin, but he doesn’t even flinch. Instead he locks my arm to his side, stopping me from pulling back, from guarding. I look up, trapped and exposed, watching a giant fist soar out of the sky like a comet headed straight toward my face.
A split second from having my features turned inside out by the Brazilian, just when his weight is at its most vulnerable, I manage to plant a foot and turn. The arm he’s using to hold me with turns into the arm that pulls him over my body along with the weight of his punch. He lands shoulder-first on the floor, and I don’t give him a second to bring his feet up, jumping on his chest and landing punches before he can even reorient himself.
The gym explodes, hands to mouths as they scream at the twist. I showboat a little at my impending victory, my raining fists turning into mocking slaps, and I grin as I stand up, flexing neck muscles as I nod around me, drink in the hype, making eye contact with my gym buddies as they point at me appreciatively. Then I get around to Butch, who wags a finger toward the locker room, and my smile drops—he’s not buying any of it.
* * *
“The fuck was that?!” Butch screams, just before he kicks a water bottle against the wall of the locker room with his stubby legs. “What the fuck did you just make me watch out there?”
“I beat him, didn’t I?”
“Do I look like a fucking eedjit?” Butch stops his pacing to direct his typically-pasty, but now-flushed face at me. “He had the better of you from the second you pulled on the gloves! You only beat him because you’re stupid enough to try a move like that at the end!”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Butch grits his teeth.
“Try that against Hendrix and he’d show you up for the fool you are! You should have had the better of this guy from the beginning.”
I pause a moment and look up from the tape on my hands.
“How? You said he was one of the best counter-strikers you ever saw!”
Butch smiles grimly and steps towards me.
“I lied.”
For a moment I’m too stunned to speak. “Why?”
“‘Cause ever since you pulled that peacocking shit during your radio interview I’ve had a feeling you weren’t right up here,” he says, tapping his finger to my temple furiously. “And I was correct.”
I bat his finger away and he sets off pacing again.
We’re in the old locker room nobody uses except for storing spare equipment and first aid kits—and for Butch to ‘have a word’ with his fighters when they need them.
After Butch has done another twenty lengths, shaking his head and huffing all the way, I say, “You lied about the weak spot too.”
He only glances sideways at me, as if I was a beggar on the side of the street.
“I wanted to see how quickly you’d go for the panic button. Even I didn’t think it would be that quick.”
“Look,” I sigh meekly, “you’re right it took me a while to get my head right out there. I just need to sharpen up a little.”
“And your mother’s sick, and there was traffic, and did the dog eat your homework too? Quit the fucking excuses, Connor. Everyone in this gym can see you’re sloppy. Depending on your strength too much, making big moves that could just as easily land you on your arse. Out of the gym you’re fucking dynamite, talking a good game and acting like the big cheese—but in here, where it matters, you’re away with the fairies.”
Butch stops the pacing and stands in front of me, putting his h
ands on his hips and softening his face. Here comes the good cop.
“I’ll tell you what happened, Connor. You spent all of your energy and fight in that interview yesterday. And since then you’ve been whirling around like a hubcap in the wind thinking of glory and girls and God-knows-what. The only time you’re stopping to think is when you get in the ring, and then it’s too little too late.”
“It’s not that,” I say, sounding a little too dismissive.
“What is it then? Is it the diet? Is that what’s getting you like this?”
“The diet’s fine,” I sigh. “It ain’t easy, and I think Woodland’s shakes is people, but I’m not losing sleep over it.”
“So what are you losing sleep over? Tara? Are you seeing her again?” His face hardens.
“No!”
I must sound overly defensive, because Butch pushes on, “Is training with her here a problem? I told you before; I can get her fired if it’s going to mess with your chances of—”
“I don’t want anyone getting fired because of me. And it’s not her. I don’t even see her most days.”
“Hmmph.” Butch quiets down, looking me slowly up and down. “Are you drinking again, lad?”
“Not a drop.”
“Is it the pressure? You feeling nervous? Scared?”
“I ain’t scared.”
Butch spins around with his hands in the air as if pleading with God, before facing me and dropping them.
“Then what the fuck is it? Because you’re fighting like a pre-schooler. And just when you’re about to go for a belt is a hell of a time to backslide. Don’t you see that—”
Butch stops, shakes his head, and paces a little away from me, rubbing his bald, liver-spotted head like he’s figuring it out.
“Connor,” he says, turning back toward me, “pound-for-pound you are the best fighter the UFC might ever see. You’ve got more talent than anyone else in this gym. You’re faster than most middleweights, hit harder than any heavyweight. Your ground-game, your boxing, your counters…you don’t have any weaknesses…physically. But all that doesn’t mean shit when your head is gone. So you need to get that straight, or else…” He sighs.