by Claire Adams
He’s hurt.
That’s not stopping him, though, as he swings a wide kick, striking Mason in the shoulder. Jones’s foot’s not even completely down before he’s throwing up a follow-up punch and then another and then another, pushing Mason back as the latter tries to nullify as many of the blows as possible.
Mason catches Jones in the mouth with an upward elbow, but Jones leans back then lunges forward, taking Mason to the ground for the second time this round. This time, Mason’s struggling for position until the announcer shouts, “Round!”
Eventually, the two separate, but there’s a growing enmity between them. Mason jumps to his feet, but as soon as he’s back by me, Logan and Tom, he turns away and hunches forward a little.
He stands back up straight again, but continues facing the center of the ring. The reason he’s facing the center is, I’m pretty positive, the same reason he covered his mouth and nose when he started to laugh between the last two rounds: He doesn’t want to get any blood on the rest of us.
I’m a nurse, and I know for a fact that he’s clean, but I greatly appreciate the gesture all the same.
While Tom is tending to Mason, I lean forward, saying, “He’s hurt on his right side. It looks like around the area of the fourth rib—do you know where I’m talking about.”
Mason nods in front of me.
“He’s trying to hide it, but he’s favoring that side,” I tell him.
It’s a good thing Tom’s standing a little to one side, because I can see the little drops of red coming out with Mason’s words, “You sure? I didn’t see it.”
“He went to grab for it when you were getting to your feet the first time, but he moved his hand away like he didn’t want anyone to know,” I tell him.
“You sure you’re training to be a nurse?” Mason teases. “Why not come to the dark side? You can be my carnage coach.”
“Can you go after him there?” I ask.
“You bet your ass he can,” Logan says. “You know what you gotta do. Do it.”
Mason nods and the ref is getting the fighters’ attention.
That’s when it hits me.
I turn toward Logan. “If all the championship fights are happening right now, why are you here?” I ask. “Mason says you could handle yourself well against the pros? What happened?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Logan answers, his eyes focused somewhere behind me.
“We’re both going to be a part of Mason’s life for a while,” I tell him. “We may as well get to know each other.”
It feels awkward the way I say it, but I don’t really know how to approach Logan about anything yet.
“I didn’t enter,” he says. “I told Mason I was winning matches so he’d keep his head in the game, but tournaments aren’t my thing. I’d rather support my boy.”
I can feel Logan’s body tense a little as I give him a quick hug, but he gives me a pat on the back before I’ve pulled away. “You’re a good friend,” I tell him. “Maybe we’ll have to have you over for dinner sometime.”
Logan shushes me.
I turn back around when I hear the announcer yelling, “Round four!”
Mason looks tired, but determined as he steps toward his opponent again. He waits until Jones comes at him with a hook before dodging and throwing his first hard punch into the weak area of Jones’s ribcage.
Jones winces and I can’t help but feel a little bad. Then again, he’s trying to beat up my boyfriend. Screw that guy.
“Take him out, Mason!” I shout.
Jones is a little slower with his next punch, but it connects, rocking Mason backward a little, but my man comes hard with a hard kick to what could seriously be the exact spot he’d landed the punch.
Jones staggers back, clutching his side a moment and everyone in the crowd who didn’t know what was going on knows now.
“Right side! Right side!” people all around me are yelling and I’m pretty proud of myself as Jones’s eyes go wide.
Mason doesn’t let up, either. Not all of his strikes go toward Jones’s right side, but enough of him do that the latter is really starting to slow down.
For the first time in the match, Mason is out-striking his opponent.
Jones lunges forward desperately, trying to take Mason down the way he had so easily in the previous round, but Mason chastises him with a hard knee to the right side and then another.
Mason’s got Jones in a grapple now and he’s just pummeling his now-frequently-blinking opponent with knees and fists.
Jones finally gets a leg between Mason’s and uses it as a fulcrum to take Mason to the ground, only this time, Mason has every advantage.
“Arm bar! Arm bar!” Logan is shouting behind me.
I don’t even know what words are coming out of my mouth, but I’m shouting, my blood pumping. Honestly, I could probably do pretty well in a fight, myself, right about now.
Mason gets Jones’s arm between his legs when the announcer shouts, “Round!”
Seemingly every voice in the room—Jones’s excepted, naturally—seems to say, “Aww,” at the exact same moment.
Mason lets his opponent go and the two get to their feet.
Tom does his thing and Logan and I just stand behind Mason, silent. As far as I can tell, he knows what he has to do and he’s doing it.
When the ref signals to the fighters, Mason glances back at me and we share a look that may as well be a conversation. His eyes are fixed on mine as mine are on his and without even consciously thinking about it, my head starts nodding on its own.
Mason nods once and then turns back toward the ring as the announcer shouts, “Round five!”
Both Mason and Jones almost run toward each other, coming into a grapple. Mason tries to get a knee into Jones’s ribs again, but the latter’s wised up since the last round.
Still, Jones is hurting and when Mason takes him down, the fight is all but over.
“Arm bar!” Logan shouts again, and I’ve just decided that I’ve really got to learn some of these terms.
Mason has Jones’s arm held with both hands and one leg. He swings his other leg up, trying to close it around Jones’s arm, but Jones pulls away so hard I’m worried the guy’s going to dislocate his shoulder.
The move works and Jones slips out of Mason’s grip and both of them get to their feet. It would have been nice if Mason could have ended it there, but he’s got the advantage now. It’s just a matter of time.
Mason takes a step forward the same time Jones does, the latter throwing an uppercut and just like that, Mason’s off his feet, landing limply on the ground.
I lunge forward the same time Jones does, only Logan holds me back as the ref basically throws himself on top of Mason, waving his hands and calling out, “It’s over!”
Logan releases me and I beat Tom to Mason’s side.
Epilogue
The Falling In
Ash
“How are you doing?” I ask Mason as we sit in the parking lot. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Probably not,” Mason answers, “but there’s not a lot I can do about that.”
That championship fight against Ben Jones was the last match Mason ever fought. Maybe someday that’ll change, but for now, he’s much too busy focusing on school.
After that fight, I thought he was going to be devastated, but to him, it just seemed like the way that part of his life had to end.
Now, we’re sitting outside the county jail, waiting.
Testifying against mom and dad turned out not to be necessary. When the police started going through all the paperwork mom and dad were fortunately too dumb to throw away, the real villain became clear: Johnson B. Witherton VI, Esq.
My parents are certainly not innocent, but when their former lawyer was confronted with the pages of handwritten notes my father had taken about every topic he wasn’t actually supposed to write down, he confessed to everything. The fraud had been his idea, as had every single one of my
parents other schemes over the years.
They tried to tell the press they didn’t know what they were doing was illegal because it came from their lawyer, but nobody, least of all me, bought it.
On the bright side, though, the two of them did get a reduced sentence when it was explained to them at great length that these crimes weren’t actually their own idea.
“Here we go,” Mason says, and we get out of the car.
“What up, Brossels?” Chris calls when he spots us as he’s coming out of the jail.
“Brossels?” Mason calls back.
“You know,” Chris says, “like the country in Belgium.”
“I think your brother might be an idiot,” I murmur to Mason.
Mason smiles and laughs, saying, “I know it for a fact.”
Chris finally gets to the car and gives Mason a hug. “Thanks for coming to pick me up, man.”
“I’ve had some time to forget about all the crap you’ve pulled over the years,” Mason says, playfully shoving his brother. “Give it an hour and I’ll probably be trying to get you back in here.”
“Let’s not do that,” Chris says. “Hello there, gorgeous,” he says, turning to me. “I see you’re sticking with the less impressive Ellis, huh?”
“Chris, I’m sure we’d have a lot of fun, but we’re just different people,” I tell him. “I like a good cry-movie and you’re more into selling people bridges in Arizona.”
“You’re right,” Chris says, giving me a hug. “It would never work out, would it?”
“You still staying with us for a while?” Mason asks.
“Us?” Chris says and turns to me with high eyebrows, wide eyes and a gaping mouth. “Oh my dear lord, you’re pregnant!” he exclaims and he’s now—what is he doing? He’s putting his ear against my belly button.
“You’re a weird guy, Chris,” I tell him. “I thought Mason told you we’re living together now?”
“That’s right,” Chris says, though he doesn’t move.
“Chris?” I ask.
“Yeah?” he answers, still listening to my abdomen—for what, exactly, I haven’t the slightest.
“Could you maybe get off of me now?” I ask.
“Sure thing,” he says, getting to his feet. “Hey, would you two mind if we stop by the gas station for a minute? I could use a cigarette like you wouldn’t even believe, bro.”
“Got any money on you?” Mason asks.
“I had a couple bucks in my wallet when they took me in,” Chris says. “I always carry enough for a pack of freedom smokes. You never know when you’re going to need them except right now, so could we…?”
“Fine,” Mason says, patting his brother on the shoulder.
It’s only about half a mile to the gas station, but the distance seems much further than that as Chris recounts us with the various horrors of long-term jail life; not a single one of which I feel comfortable repeating or even processing.
Suffice it to say, the guy saw some things.
We pull into the parking lot of the gas station and Chris jumps out of the car before we’re anywhere close to being stopped.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m having a nici-fit like you wouldn’t believe.”
Chris shuts the door and runs in while Mason finds a spot to park.
“Should we go in there with him?” I ask.
“Nah, let the man have a minute and a half of freedom,” Mason says.
“How are you—” I start, but Mason interrupts.
“Really, I’m fine,” he says. “I’ve come a long way this past year.”
Time simultaneously changes everything and nothing. So much can happen in a year, but once that year has passed, you still feel like you. At least, that’s the goal, I think.
After Mason gave up fighting, we started spending a lot more time together. It’s been nice not having to compete with the gym and, you know, the violence involved in MMA, but I actually find myself missing it sometimes. Those are the times Mason and I head to the nearest abandoned building and hope for a show.
After a few months of me sleeping at his place every night, I finally told Jana and her mom (who is still living there, by the way,) that it was time for me to move out.
“So, where do you think we should…” I start, but in the next moment, I’m frantically patting Mason’s chest with one hand and pointing out the side window with the other. I try to explain what I’m seeing, but the only word I can manage is, “Chris.”
Mason looks where I’m pointing and he’s out of the car. I get out and stand in Mason’s path. “We’ll find out soon,” I tell Mason. “Just let it go for now.”
What has me trying to talk Mason down is the sight of Chris being led out of the gas station by a plain-clothes policeman with a badge hanging from his belt.
“Chris, what the hell?” Mason shouts.
“Stay back!” the officer says, pulling out his pepper spray with the hand he’s not using to hold the chain between Chris’s cuffs.
“What happened?” Mason shouts again.
Chris turns his head and there’s a big smile on his face. “Just counting change, bro!” Chris yells back. “I’ll see you in a year or so!”
“Counting change?” I ask. “What does that mean?”
“You give a cashier a hundred and then keep feeding them small amounts of cash while they’re trying to make change. If you do it right and you can end up with a lot more than you walked in with,” Mason says with an inscrutable look on his face that slowly dissolves into an awkward smile. “Did that really just happen?”
The man with the badge gets Chris in the back of the undercover police car and then gets in himself, turning on his lights before he’s even got the engine going.
“Whatever happened, I think he pissed that cop right off,” I say as the car peels out in reverse and then screams out of the parking lot with the siren now blaring. “You don’t think he just—” I start.
“I think he did,” Mason says. “No way was that a real cop.”
With that, we’re left standing here in this parking lot, staring at the last spot either of us could see the car speeding away.
“But why would he—” I start again.
“I have no idea,” Mason says. “You wanna get out of here and grab something to eat?”
“Yeah,” I tell him and we get back in the car.
The more settled this life becomes, the less frequently I have any idea what to expect. Mason and I have our problems, but when it really matters, we’re there for each other.
We drive back into town, and Mason’s telling me about his physics class again. I don’t know what it is about the subject he finds so fascinating, but the way he’s been prattling on about it lately, I’m starting to miss the days when he wouldn’t shut up about MMA.
As we get back into town, I notice a strangely familiar car parked at the cross street of the first intersection. Mason’s going on about quarks or something, and I can’t help noticing that the man behind the driver’s seat of that car is Chris, though he’s now wearing a red baseball cap while his “cop” buddy sits in the passenger’s seat, drinking from a brown beer bottle.
It’s not the simple life. Even with the wildcard that is Mason’s brother maybe out of the way for a little while longer, there’s still a lot to contend with. What’s helped us get this far is that we’ve learned how to let things go when there’s nothing we can do to change them.
I can see Chris following us a few cars back, but I don’t know if Mason’s spotted him yet. It’s obviously a joke, otherwise I’d feel a little better about not telling him that Chris is 100% not in any trouble (yet—I mean, let’s be realistic here.)
The joke finally makes sense as we’re almost to Mason’s house and I hear the police siren starting up behind me.
“What the hell?” Mason asks.
“You really need to pay more attention to who’s behind you,” I tell him.
“Oh jeez,” Mason says, reaching into his wallet
and trying too hard to act casual. He rolls down his window, saying, “Is there a problem—oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Wasn’t one of the charges that sent you to jail—which you just got out of by the way—pretending to be a cop?”
“I didn’t hit the siren, my buddy did,” Chris says. “By the way, we’re going to have an extra guest for a little while. I kind of owe Manny back there a favor.”
“Leave it to you to make friends with cops while you’re in jail,” Mason mutters.
“Yeah,” Chris chuckles. “‘Cops.’”
This time, there’s no way I can get between the two of them, so I just sit back and watch Mason get into his first fight in a year.
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THE FIGHT
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams
CHAPTER ONE
Fenton
The bells and buzzes of the slot machines reminded me of the game shows my mother used to watch. Not that she ever had time to sit and watch television. It was the soundtrack to dinner, dishes, laundry – all the things a single mother did when she got home from a double shift. There were no jackpots or double bonuses for my mother. No giant checks or sudden floods of gold coins. I thought about the charity ward at the hospital, with those same game shows on the tiny television mounted in the corner. The casino floor depressed me.
Then, as always, I thought of my father – how he could decide one day that he could walk away and never look back. He must not have had a conscience or a spine. It took hard work to have a family, harder work to keep it. Maybe they were too young when they started, too poor. All I knew was I would never be him. I'd take the punches he taught me to throw and I would fight my way to the top.