It was still two hours before Fight Nite and the place was already buzzing unlike I’d ever seen it buzz before. The whole scene was nuts.
Suddenly, a poster caught my eye, an advertisement for tonight’s fight that had been staple-gunned to the side of a telephone pole. I stared at the imagery.
BAM BAM VS. THE BROOKLYN BEAST
The Apocalyptic War
Someone had turned me into a cartoon, with muscles that hulked and blood that dripped from my mouth. I studied the picture and couldn’t tell whether the red liquid flowing through my teeth was a result of me having taken a bunch of heavy shots to the face that I’d defiantly battled through or if the blood was from me having devoured an opponent, as if I were so vicious I had literally eaten chunks of his flesh.
The Brooklyn Beast looked like a prisoner from a supermax penitentiary, a monster of a man with the strength to rip off your arms and then beat you into a coma using your own limbs to batter and bloody you.
I narrowed my eyes and read the tagline at the bottom:
Mothers, hide your children!
I scoped out the crowd and saw hard, hard men in shiny suits, grandmothers who chain-smoked and cursed like construction workers, and young, hot women parading ballooning breasts the size of cantaloupes. I’d never seen the place so packed. Or the hordes so juiced. In fact, so many fans had shown up for the fight that the Priests had set up extra bleacher seats to accommodate everyone.
So this is what the big time feels like, I thought.
The energy that sizzled through the evening air, fueled by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, felt electric. It was like everyone there was expecting a night to remember, and though the thought made my gut churn, I had a feeling, yeah, that no one would be disappointed.
To squeeze every dime out of the showdown, the Priests juiced the undercard matches with some unique twists: a deaf girl vs. a mute girl fight, a girl vs. a guy fight, a two girls vs. one guy fight, three traditional fights featuring up-and-comers and a “twins” super brawl where two sets of twin brothers would go at it at the same time, four in the cage fighting at once instead of just two. Truth is, it didn’t seem to me that either set of “twins” were actually real-life brothers, but I doubt many in the crowd cared to verify their birth certificates. If someone got coldcocked and carried out on a stretcher, that’d be entertainment enough for the peeps in the audience.
Of course, Bam Bam was the main attraction. Not McCutcheon, not M.D., but Bam Bam. And he wasn’t me. I felt like I was some sort of creature that had been manufactured in a toilet bowl of darkness. For some reason, I think I’d always imagined that success at this high of a level would feel different, that when the day came that I finally entered an arena like this as an undefeated cage warrior with screaming fans and electric hype, the “makes-your-blood-tingle” main attraction of the evening, it would feel good. Feel thrilling and awesome.
Instead, I just felt sick.
“Th-th-this guy, remember, you g-g-g-got the skills to take him, M.D.” Nate-Neck rubbed my shoulders and tried to keep me loose. “F-f-f-fight your fight and fight s-s-s-smart.”
“I never seen him dance myself,” Klowner added. “But people I know say he’s a wicked elbow striker with black belt level skills in BJJ.”
Considering that there was no way my father was gonna do it, Nate-Neck and Klowner were cool enough to volunteer to be my cornermen for the evening, and while I found a small bit of comfort in their presence, the fact that Klowner wasn’t cracking any jokes told me tons about what he was thinking.
I wasn’t rested, I wasn’t nourished, my head was a mess, and my eyes kept darting around as if I were looking for someone.
Which I was. I hadn’t heard a peep from Mr. Freedman since I’d left his classroom yesterday, and though he promised he’d show, I still didn’t see him anywhere.
I hungered for news. Any news. And then finally I got some, but it wasn’t what I expected.
“Ain’t no Beast.”
“Huh?”
“Ain’t no Beast.”
I could see people scrambling to figure out what the whispers meant. Apparently, the Brooklyn Beast never made it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t in the arena; he wasn’t even in Detroit.
A few techie guys adjusted the Web cameras that had been placed around the cage preparing for the upcoming live-stream broadcast. Despite the swirling rumors they continued on with their work making sure all the fight angles would be covered.
Finally, Willie the Weasel, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear, strutted up to me with a sideways walk to fill in the blanks. “Dipshit got ’rested last night for armed robbery in New York.”
“So there’s no match?” Klowner asked.
“Oh, gonna be a match. Gotta be a match, a good match, too.” Weasel flipped open a lighter and torched the tip of his smoke. “People come to see Bam Bam, so Bam Bam they need to see.”
I glared at Weasel, a burn in my eye. He could, I was sure, easily read my mind.
Where’s my fucking sister?
Weasel squinted at me and then took a calm, self-confident drag off his smoke. Not only could he read my mind, but also, I could read his.
Touch a hair on my head and your li’l Gem will pay an ugly, ugly price.
Right then I swore to myself that if anything happened to her, I’d kill ’em all or die trying. That wasn’t a threat; it was a personal promise.
“B-b-b-but who’s he f-f-f-fighting?” Nate-Neck asked, steering the conversation back to the question at hand.
Weasel pointed across the arena.
“Him.”
Klowner and Nate-Neck turned, then froze.
“No fucking way,” Klowner blurted out.
I squinted into the lights.
“No fucking way.”
Seizure.
Shirt off, sporting green and yellow trunks, the colors of Brazil, Seizure bounced into the cage grinning ear-to-ear.
He flexed his muscles, pointed at me, and then ripped his hand across his throat in a “slicing the jugular” move to rev up the crowd.
“One word, bitch,” he yelled in my direction. Seizure crossed his arms into his signature rear naked choke hold and began to shake.
“Epileptic mothafucker!” he shouted. “Aayyy-aaaaagghhhh!”
The crowd exploded with delight. No they wouldn’t be getting the Brooklyn Beast, but they’d still be getting the promised “Apocalyptic War” to decide once and for all who was the real pound-for-pound emperor of Detroit.
Seizure crossed the cage and jogged up to me. We stood face-to-face. “I been lookin’ forward to dis for a long-ass time,” he said with a fiendish smirk.
I didn’t respond.
A fight with Seizure would violate one of the most highly respected unwritten rules in the world of MMA: guys who trained in the same gym almost never fought against each other outside of sparring.
“Th-th-there’s a code, Seize, and you know it!” Nate-Neck yelled. “This is b-b-b-bullshit.”
“Fuck da code,” Seizure answered. “And if you want a piece of me, Neck, I’ll straighten that crooked nose of yours and stick my dick in your ear when I’m done.”
Nate-Neck leaped for the center of the cage, ready to go toe-to-toe, but Klowner jumped in front of Nate and held him back.
“Cool down, dude. Cool down.”
Seizure smiled and stuck out his tongue like a punk kid you want to smash in the face with an ashtray.
“I’m right here N-N-N-N-Neck,” Seizure said, mocking Nate’s stutter.
“Composure, Nate,” Klowner said. “Show some composure, buddy. Be the dignified man he ain’t.”
Nate-Neck cooled down, but I could tell he wanted a piece of Seizure more than a fat man on Weight Watchers wants a jelly doughnut.
I tried to figure out why Seizure would even t
ake this fight. He was ranked number three in the world, and real pros like him were prohibited by the leagues from fighting on the underground circuit. But like a lot of knucklehead athletes, Seizure was a guy who would score a big payday and then blow it all on clubs, girls, clothes, cars, and living the high life. Clearly, he took this match because he needed the cheese.
But also, for Seizure it was a chance to settle once and for all who the real man of the city was. For months he’d been hearing the rumors, the innuendo, the disrespect to his reputation about Bam Bam being D-town’s true chosen one, so tonight I knew he was coming to the ring with another thought in mind.
Total annihilation. It was time for him to bury the chatter in an unmarked grave.
Bury it for good.
With another smirk, Seizure backpedalled to his corner and again flashed his signature rear naked choke hold sign for the benefit of the crowd. Followed by another epileptic shake, of course. Half the mob roared with excitement; the others booed. This was the moment I realized that nothing less would do for him other than choking me out and sending me into a very public fit of involuntary, semiconscious convulsions for all the fight world to see.
Nate-Neck and Klowner spun around and hammered me with their outrage.
“It’s not fair, M.D.”
“It’s h-h-h-horseshit.”
I glanced to my left. Sitting cageside next to the High Priest in the chair usually reserved for the night’s guest of honor was my father. Dressed in a pinstripe suit like an old-time Chicago gangster, he smiled at me and tipped his hat.
“Y-y-y-you don’t have to f-f-f-fight him,” Nate-Neck said. “You d-d-d-don’t have to fight him at all.”
But what Nate-Neck didn’t know was, oh yes, I did.
TWENTY-ONE
When the bell rang to start Round One, Seizure shot out of his corner like a rocket, and though my brain told me to do one thing, my body did another. I was in the worst fight shape of the past few years and Seizure, like a fanged cobra sensing easy prey, pounced on me from the get-go. His onslaught of strikes, kicks, elbows, fists and knees were relentless, and within the first thirty seconds I’d been tagged with an assortment of big, clean, heavy shots that immediately put me in trouble.
Tired, weak from hunting the streets, emotionally drained from worrying about Gemma, all I could do was try to cover up and hold on.
Seizure, of course, was having none of it. Muay Thai is what they call the art of eight limbs. It felt like Seizure was assaulting me with sixteen.
I pushed forward, seeking a defensive clinch to shorten the distance between our bodies in order to slow his attack of blows, which were landing way too cleanly and with way too many good results for him, but Seizure was too big and too strong and too experienced and too determined and he continued to punish me with shots that hit me like bombs. I lurched forward. He nailed my forehead with a dirty boxing elbow that rattled my wits and blurred my vision, and then he threw me over the side of his body with a technically flawless hip sweep.
Suddenly, we were on the ground, and I found myself about to be snagged in a straight arm bar. At the forty-five-second mark Seizure was on the doorstep of owning me. If he got my elbow, I knew he’d snap it at the joint before I even had a chance to tap out.
Funny thing, however, about being in the cage is that only the warriors doing battle ever really know what’s going on in a fight. From the outside, onlookers can speculate about the action. They can guess about the impact of factors like size, speed, degree of pain, and determination, but it’s on the inside, and only on the inside, where the real truth of a cage war is known.
Yes, Seizure had me snagged. And yes, he would have cracked my elbow like an old wooden puppet. But as we grappled, I could tell his commitment to locking the arm bar wasn’t quite one-hundred-percent, and a second later I found myself able to get my hips off the floor, turn my thumb toward my head, slide my knees up, and free my trapped arm by pushing inward toward his body. No, I couldn’t get side control of Seizure as I executed the move, but I’d escaped, and a moment later we were both back on our feet.
Yes, I’d broken away.
To fans watching it probably looked like I’d pulled off a difficult escape. And I had. But also, I hadn’t. Deep down I sensed that, though Seizure would have taken it, he didn’t really want an arm bar.
Why?
Because he’s a greedy motherfucker, that’s why. He knew that a quick Round One submission against me could be easily dismissed. Fans could claim he’d just “gotten lucky.” After all, anyone can get caught by a quick submission hold in a cage fight, so a Round One loss via a non-spectacular arm bar would have opened the door for all the Seizure haters to dump on his victory with claims that his win was nothing more than a fluke.
Seizure wanted total domination. It wasn’t enough to just beat me; his plan was to destroy me. To eliminate me. To kick my ass and then choke me out for all the world to see.
That’s why there was a lack of commitment for locking the arm bar; Seizure still wanted to administer more abuse. His plan was to have me lying in the center of the cage doing convulsions in front of the entire universe.
End of Bam Bam. End of story. The real king of Detroit cage fighting was named Seizure DeSilva…now, everyone go home.
The thought of it made a snapped elbow seem like a better tradeoff, but of course, Seizure wasn’t offering options. All he was dishing out was punishment. To his way of thinking I’d exit the cage as a victim of his signature rear naked choke, and once he finally landed it, it’d be my night-night time, once and for all.
We traded strikes. We grappled. We intermixed judo with wrestling with Tae Kwan Do and we exchanged blow after blow, me on the receiving end much more than I was on the giving end. By time the first round ended, I felt as if I’d been beaten like an egg in a bowl. But at least I was still standing.
I staggered to my corner where both Nate-Neck and Klowner screamed at me to throw in the towel.
“This is crazy,” Klowner said. “It’s an outrage this fight is even happening.”
“Y-y-y-you’re in no shape for this, M.D. It’s over. Be s-s-s-smart.”
The two of them had been around mixed martial arts long enough to know the difference between a fighter who’s simply taking some nasty shots and a fighter on the doorstep of being seriously hurt by his opponent.
“I’m t-t-t-tossing in the towel.”
Nate-Neck raised a white rag that had been splotched with my blood, but I reached out and prevented his arm from completing the throw.
“No,” I said.
Nate could have easily pushed my arm away and finished signaling my forfeit with a toss of the towel. But he didn’t. Because there’s another code between fellow cage warriors, another unspoken rule that says if a fighter has the heart to battle on, even if you don’t think he should, it’s his call to make, not yours.
“No,” I repeated. Nate-Neck paused and thought about it long and hard. Then, against his better judgment, he lowered his arm.
“B-b-b-bullshit,” he muttered.
Suddenly my father walked calmly and coolly up to the side of the cage.
“I got you down for a Round Three win tonight, son. We clear on where we stand?”
Anger boiled inside of me. Hate seethed. I wanted to climb out of the cage and rip his face off, but I knew that if I bailed out of this fight now and got into a scrum in the crowd, the Priests would separate us before I could do any real damage. And of course, that would open up the door to something very bad happening to Gem.
Assuming something already hadn’t.
Don’t think like that, McCutcheon. Stay positive and stay on task.
I took a long, slow, deep breath like I always did when I needed to calm myself, and then I ignored my father, lifted my eyes, and scanned the auditorium. Where’s Mr. Freedman? I wondered. He still hadn’
t shown.
“Hey,” my dad said, trying to snag my attention again. “Round Three, boy. There’s a lot riding on this.”
It went without saying that he was flying naked again. Probably super big-time, too.
“And by the way,” he said to me with an evil smile. “I love the way you’re making it look like you got no fuckin’ chance. I got fools lining up to take my action right now.”
My dad cackled as Klowner pressed an enswell against my eye to try to deal with the swelling of my face.
“Oh, and one word of advice,” he said before walking away. “Leverage, leverage, leverage.”
He returned to his seat next to the High Priest and flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his jacket. Asshole was acting as if dressed like this all the time.
“N-n-n-no need to be a h-h-h-hero, kid.”
“Yeah, you don’t have to do this,” Klowner said.
But I did. I needed to find a way to win. However, when the bell rang for Round Two, it was more of the same.
Seizure beat on me like I was his personal human punching bag.
TWENTY-TWO
“Avoid the RNC. Whatever you do, avoid the RNC.”
When fighters get cloudy after being rocked with too many shots, things get smaller and their outlook becomes less dimensional. They stop seeing angles, openings, and opportunities, and instead lock in on single, simple ideas that their jellied brains can still latch on to.
After Seizure tagged me with a spinning heel kick to the side of my head, this began happening to me, and all I kept telling myself was, “Avoid the RNC. Whatever you do, avoid the RNC.”
The rear naked choke hold, Seizure’s signature submission. I had to avoid it at all costs.
Seizure didn’t want a heel hook, a knee bar, a kimura, or any other kind of compression lock. The only thing he wanted was an RNC so he could cut off the flow of blood to my brain. No matter what else he did to me, I promised myself I’d refuse to let him lock his elbow under my chin.
Round Two turned ugly and lopsided, and I took all sorts of big shots as a result of this “prevent an RNC at all costs” defensive strategy. Yes, our fight had found a rhythm, but I knew I couldn’t sustain it. The bad part was, Seizure knew this, too. He was an experienced fighter, and patient, content to just whale away, picking and choosing his moments to strike, and whittle me down until the opportunity he most wanted opened up.
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