Shadowboxer

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  She swallowed and slowly shook her head. She was looking into the woods, and I followed the line of her gaze to a pine tree. The gecko was clinging to the side of it, perfectly at home.

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. Mya flinched and moved away from me a little, so I pulled myself together for her sake.

  Why I was worried about her, I don’t know.

  ‘You did this,’ I said. ‘I told you to escape and you... did this. Where are we?’

  Mya went around to the tree we had hit. She stood looking at it silently. I slapped at mosquitoes and looked, too.

  It wasn’t the same tree that had popped up in the middle of the road in midtown. Well, obviously this wasn’t midtown. But also, it wasn’t the same tree. The image of the tree I’d swerved around was imprinted on my memory like a photograph. Or I thought it was. The night my father threw my mother across the room and broke her neck I had an image of her in shorts and a stripy tank top, flying across the room like a doll. But the clothes they showed Aunt Jennifer at the hospital had been Mom’s nurse’s uniform. They’d had to cut it to pieces to get it off her. When I told Aunt Jennifer what I remembered seeing, she said, ‘The mind plays tricks under stress, chika. It’s a neurological thing.’

  Was I experiencing a ‘neurological thing’ right now? I’d seen the vines twisting around the enormous trunk. I’d seen the light green leaves. And I’d seen the ribbons tied around the trunk, the little gifts and stick figures offered to the ghosts who lived in the tree. Just like in Thailand.

  For those moments when I tried not to smash into the tree, somewhere in my mind I’d been thinking Mya had brought a piece of Thailand here. Or brought us there. Like the smell in my house when she was around, like the strange creatures that came with her and ate my trail mix. It had seemed so real.

  Now we were standing at the base of a big pine tree. Or maybe a fir. (I can never tell them apart. Like I said: I hate the woods.) There were no ribbons. No offerings. It wasn’t even as big as I remembered it.

  I started to cry.

  I don’t even know what happened.

  One minute I was looking at the stupid tree feeling pissed off at the way everything was slipping and sliding underneath me. Like the world was some unsolvable puzzle that I’d had enough of. I just wanted to throw it across the room. Like you throw a woman you say you love. Like you throw your opponent. Like you throw your chances in life, if you’re not careful.

  Then I was on my knees at the roots of the tree, my hands covering my face, crying like a baby.

  I wanted my mother. I wanted Nana to not be dying. I wanted the world to be solid. And it isn’t.

  It really isn’t.

  After a little while I felt Mya’s hand on the back of my head. As if it had a will of its own, the crying stopped.

  She said, ‘I can’t take you to the forest without the night orchid drug. Only myself. I tried, but we came here instead.’

  I stood up and wiped my face with the end of my t-shirt. Beyond the van there was a shallow hillside, and I could see a trail of crushed underbrush and battered saplings where the van had crashed through. The forest floor was torn up by the skid. At the top of the slope I could see light, a break in the woods.

  I ran up there. It was a country road, and we’d driven off it. Trees everywhere, in all directions. Great.

  I took out my phone. There were seven texts and two messages from Malu.

  Oops.

  I hit ‘Call.’

  ‘Tell me you’re at least alive,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I’m alive. Malu, you know that app our parents use to trace our phones? Like, when they want to find out if we are where we say we are?’

  ‘You mean the app I used on you to see if you were really at Mr. B’s and you were at the apartment?’

  She was mad.

  ‘I’m sorry, Malu. I had to lie. There were good reasons. You didn’t tell Mr. B, did you?’

  ‘Where the hell are you now?’

  ‘Well... I was sort of hoping you could tell me that.’

  ‘This is a joke, right?’

  ‘I’m not sure where I am. I had an accident. Can you come get me?’

  ‘Can I...? Jade, I have no words for you right now.’ This was a whole new level of mad for Malu.

  There was a pause. I could hear her clicking and tapping on her phone. Then she said. ‘What the hell are you doing in the Pine Barrens? Don’t tell me somebody threw you in a sack and dumped you there.’

  ‘Malu, please. I’m supposed to be on a plane in three hours. Please...’ My voice broke. I really was about to lose it and not get it back.

  ‘Stay where you are. Sit your ass down and wait. I’ll call you when I get closer. Under no circumstances are you to hitchhike. Got it?’

  I hung up.

  ‘I don’t know how she turned out so bossy,’ I said to Mya, turning.

  The back of the van was open, revealing heaps of flowers wrapped in cellophane and several gourmet gift baskets. Mya had grabbed as many of these as she could carry, with their wedges of cheese and expensive jams and chocolate-covered pretzels.

  I stared.

  ‘You’re thinking about food now?’ I marvelled.

  ‘I have to go, Jade,’ she said. After listening to Malu bellow at me over the phone, Mya’s Thai sounded even softer than usual. Like soothing music. ‘We will see each other again. Tell Shea good luck.’

  ‘But—’

  She was way ahead of me. By the time I got out the word ‘but’ she was fading away into the green, leaving the door of the van swinging open and a red Mylar balloon drifting up into the trees with its message: Welcome Home.

  Beast

  I GOT TO the weigh-in late but they hadn’t started yet. The room was full of twitchy fighters in silk robes advertising their sponsors, surrounded by endless handlers. Mr. B’s contingent had Khari surrounded. There he was, showing it all off for the cameras, talking to his nutritionist and his yoga teacher and the rep from the supplement company who make all the shakes and pills and potions he takes. You could barely see him with all the people he had around.

  Holding my event ID out in front of me, I slid into the room and sat down next to a water cooler. I hate all this bullshit, and I didn’t even want to talk to Mr. B or I’d just end up accusing him of being a slave trader or worse.

  My mother left me in this dude’s custody, and here he was doing business with perverts and psychos.

  Tommy Z swept in with his girlfriend Jemima Stone of Circus Freak fame. The cameras all turned to the TV beauty and the action star, clearing one side of the room. Across the empty space, Khari looked up and noticed me. While Tommy was making a little speech Khari swaggered over, smiling.

  ‘You in so much trouble,’ he said out of the side of his mouth. ‘Why you ignoring my messages? Where my car at?’

  ‘Oh, long story.’

  ‘You look like hell. What you do to your hand?’

  The fist I’d used to take down the Florist Van dude was bruised pretty bad. I’d iced it and loaded it with arnica, but it still looked blue-black. Khari said:

  ‘You got problems with that English dude?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Yeah, I get it, you don’t want to talk. You go on and weigh in ahead of me and then get out of here and up to your room ASAP. Tell you what, everybody want to interview you. They billing your fight as Beauty and the Beast. Don’t play into it. No head-butting the media, got it?’

  Over Khari’s shoulder I could see Mr. B making a point of ignoring me. Was it because I was late and blowing off his messages, or was it because he was in on the Richard Fuller child trafficking thing and he knew I knew?

  Everybody was looking like an enemy to me now.

  I weighed in four pounds lighter than I’d planned. Ignoring the questions about why I was so skinny and would it hurt me in the fight, I kept my head down and my mind still. Reporters taunted me and tried to get me to ‘s
how my beast fangs’.

  ‘I’m saving my fangs for Gretchen.’ I got out of there before they could make me take pictures beside Gretchen.

  I tried to eat my room service dinner, but my guts were reacting to the nerves and it was just like Thailand all over again, except with softer toilet paper. For hours I prowled up and down the room, stopping only to twitch the curtains aside and look out into the neon. Looking for trouble, because I had a feeling it would be looking for me. My mother called. Then Malu. I let them both go to voice mail. I didn’t trust myself not to break down if I had to talk to family. Malu would squeeze me for the truth, and the truth was crazy.

  I didn’t sleep. In my mind, the fight had already begun. Everything between now and that starting bell was meaningless.

  The Las Vegas venue was nothing like Lumpinee. No more ancient traditions; no more stained old canvas. No wai kru, no musicians to spur on the fighters. We were into full-sized American bigbucks, complete with giant screens and Dolby stereo. Big crowd, spotlights, cheesy dry ice, sound effects.

  Khari was third on the card. They’d matched him with a former submission champion who should have been an easy knockout, but Khari walked into a guillotine in the third round and lost control of the fight. Afterward he shook off everybody’s efforts to console him, and I think Mr. B was afraid to say much in case Khari started tearing down the locker room. Khari hates losing.

  But Khari surprised me. Before my fight he came over and asked me if I was ready.

  ‘You’ll do great,’ he told me. Our gazes met. He didn’t have to say anything; we could read each other. He knew I was scared. He didn’t know everything about the shit with Mr. B and the gym, but he could put some of it together. ‘I got your back,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, baby.’ I hugged him. ‘Now I have to go throw up.’

  ‘Man, that’s harsh, Jade.’

  ‘Nothing personal,’ I gulped, and ran for the bathroom.

  Here’s the strange thing about the fight. When I got in the cage I wasn’t nervous about Gretchen. I was scared of a world that could crack open, where ghosts could walk out of trees and stuff like that. I was scared of the forest coming here. My skills meant nothing in that place. It’s not like you can punch a ghost.

  Up in that cage, the whole gladiator thing was unreal. The dazzle of the lights and the energy of the crowd made it feel like my whole body was plugged into a socket. I jogged up and down in place, shadow-fighting a little bit and working the kinks out of my neck. I could see myself on a giant screen, scowling and twitchy. The red mouthguard made it look like my mouth was full of blood. I quickly turned away from that view and found myself with my eyes locked on Mr. B. He was wearing a rhinestone suit so loud it could only belong in Las Vegas, but I didn’t find him amusing. He looked very, very serious, and he was talking even faster than usual to Cake and Khari in my corner. When he saw me watching, he thumped his fist to his heart and then punched it at me.

  I felt hollow.

  Focus, Jade. Better late than never. Come on.

  Celebrity announcer Max ‘the Axe’ Hartman was in the ring, reading our names in that blaring, exaggerated voice. Focus, Jade. Now the ref was giving us our instructions, I had my eyes fixed on Gretchen’s blonde head and she was tonguing her mouth guard and flexing, staring daggers at me with them blue-blue eyes, but it still didn’t seem really real. We were touching gloves... and the bell rang.

  Now it was real.

  Gretchen came at me like a tank, gunning for my head. I never had nobody charge across the ring at me so fast and nasty. Rights and lefts coming in hard and furious. She drove me back and within seconds I felt the cage behind me. I covered up so all she could hit was elbows and shoulders, but she was still landing shots.

  I had two immediate impressions about Gretchen: a) she was bigger up close, and b) she had total contempt for me. She was thinking of me like an obstacle to be knocked down and stepped on. She wasn’t afraid of me one little bit. She was the predator and she had me down as prey.

  I could hear the distinct thump of each punch as it knocked against my skull. The cage was bouncing against my back and the crowd were screaming for my blood.

  But you know what? I was OK. I was still standing, upper body curled, guts sucked in tight, head down against the storm. She could batter me but she wasn’t going to knock me out like this. Every time she gave me the slightest opening, I hit back for two, three, four shots, until she shut me down again. I didn’t really land anything, but I wasn’t going to just crouch there like a victim. I hit when I could and waited for her to wear herself out. I could hear her grunting with the effort of hitting me, and it gave me some satisfaction to know that whatever she did, it wasn’t enough.

  I broke out and came back at her, bang-bang-bang, but I ended up eating a left and covering up again. Blood in my mouth. I hate fighting southpaws. Those left hand shots come out of nowhere. I locked her up in the clinch for a second but then she nailed me with a series of uppercuts before sliding away out of range. I grabbed a breath and started to pull away from the cage, but it turned out she’d only let up with the hitting long enough to step back so she could charge in with a flying knee. It took me right off the mat.

  I guess this was supposed to crumple me up, but I rode it. I’d taken plenty of them from Pook and Gold. Then I got hold of her and clinched her. I glimpsed Gretchen’s face. She was frustrated. She’d given me everything she had. I was supposed to be smeared all over the mat by now, but I wasn’t.

  My heart filled.

  I hadn’t planned on going to the ground, but it was getting pretty obvious that the only way to get my back off the cage would be to shoot on her. So I took her down and went for the mount, but they don’t call her ‘Greased Lightning Gretchen’ for nothing. With all that BJJ in her background, Gretchen’s guard was an automatic response to the takedown, and I found myself right where she wanted me to be. She had her legs wrapped around me like she’d strategized the whole thing; I was in her sweet spot now.

  When she went for an overhook I knew I was in trouble. She had outpowered me on the feet and now she was outclassing me on the ground, and that didn’t leave much for me to do other than survive and hate her with a burning hate deep in my angry bones.

  I was fighting out of the bottom of my belly now. This wasn’t about prize money or contracts or career anymore, it was my life, it was Mya’s life, it was a fight for the next breath and the next moment of being on this planet. Not to be snuffed out. Not to give in.

  All those holds they do in MMA were making me angry. I just wanted to hit her. So I kept stacking her, pressing her hips higher and higher until she lost the overhook. Stacking, stacking, moving my weight up against her and pushing her knees towards her head so she couldn’t get any room to work. I wanted to mount her but she wasn’t going to let me do that, and I was tired already. Two minutes into the fight and we were both struggling for breath.

  I got high enough on her body to use my head to turn her head away from me, grinding my skull against the side of her face to give her pain and compromise her neck. All those neck exercises in Thailand were paying off. I used my head like a drill. I started working her toward the cage, moving her along the floor inch by inch. Put in my shots where I could. I knew if I could just survive, I’d figure her out, find a way to beat her. But Gretchen was planning on ending this thing in the first round. I’d have to figure fast.

  She was starting to angle herself into position for the rubber guard. If that happened, I was screwed. Delayed pain messages from the first minute of the fight were coming in now from pretty much everywhere. I was swallowing blood. I shut down on it. Not important.

  She went for the rubber guard.

  There just aren’t enough swear words in English or Spanish or Thai to cover how I feel about getting caught in that sucker. Not going to happen; not if it kills me. As soon as I felt her starting the move I reacted explosively.

  Miraculously, she gave. I broke out.

&n
bsp; She was on her back with her head against the cage now, and there was a scramble. I lost my gum shield, she pushed me away with a kick to the belly, then sprang to her feet and the ground phase was over. The crowd screamed. She was in a hurry to get away from that cage wall, but before I could capitalize, the ref stepped in and called a time out.

  He took me to the side, where Cake handed me a clean gum shield and said, ‘Circle left.’

  We faced off and I saw Tommy Zhang standing up in his seat. He was leaning forward, his eyes on fire. When I looked past Gretchen at him, he glanced away, but I’d have to be an idiot not to know how to interpret the expression on his face when he looked at me.

  Hate. I know it when I see it. He hadn’t forgiven me. So why was I here?

  Gretchen and I moved around each other. I had to knock her out before she took me down. I was watching her head, but out of the corner of my eye I sensed Tommy. Talk about staring daggers. Something wasn’t right here. There was something I was missing. A hole in my awareness.

  The next thing I knew, Gretchen’s left round kick had come out of freaking nowhere and was slamming into the side of my head. I was going down.

  Out of nowhere.

  The crowd went nuts. I was falling, and there was a split second where I was not all there—but then I came back, and even falling, even stunned, I resisted the blow. I wouldn’t give up consciousness. She moved in. The ref must have been over us, watching every move, getting ready to stop the fight. But I didn’t see him, just saw Gretchen’s pale feet moving across the mat in my line of vision and then felt the weight of her landing on me.

  No. No. I wasn’t thinking no more. I was riding the blow and turning over to get back up even as I hit the mat. I must have been stunned, but I didn’t know I was stunned and so I was fighting on anyhow. Probably the crowd and the ref and the coaches thought the fight was over. Gretchen sure thought it was. And here she was, literally getting on my back and trying to exert control.