The Fight Within

by Laveen, Tiana

  BAM!

  His fist connected once more with the black punching bag, this time causing it to swing uncontrollably in uneven circles as it cut the air in crazy whisks.

  BAM!

  Sean kept right on hitting, sweating, cursing, fighting, and now kicking the painful shit away…

  His right thigh muscle flexed and burned as he lifted it high into the stagnant air dyed with the odors of old sweat and swampy underarm stench. Exerting all of his damn might, his foot connected with the bag along with a simultaneous punch, causing a loud, popping noise as if he’d deflated the damn thing, burst its hearty bubble, and made it crumble to pieces.

  Beating one’s troubles into extinction became intoxicating; it was so fucking good going down, almost better than sex. But when training was over, and the kickboxing matches put to rest, he’d hold his shiny golden trophy, but always wonder, ‘What did I really win?’

  What he wanted, he didn’t have. And putting what he wanted into words was some shit he wasn’t trying to do. No, he had no intentions of going there… no way. Not now, hell, maybe not ever…

  BAM!

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  The beating came in rapid succession; so much so, he was completely unaware he’d drawn a damn crowd. His eyes burned with increased perspiration; his arms acted of their own volition, flying so fucking fast, he saw blurs of his own self standing outside of body, watching from afar. He’d never felt so dead, yet alive, all at once.

  BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Beat it down! Beat the pain! Make the memories pay! Make her pay…

  I’ll show them! I’ve got what it takes! I’m important! I’m worthy!

  BAM! BAM!

  He soon heard the muffled, excited curses from the men around him, all athletes their damn selves, and all hungry for a piece of the action. As each crooked second passed, he gained more treacherous momentum. Rather than grow tired, he grew stronger, hungrier…more dangerous…

  “Yo’ Sean!” someone called out. “Save it for the ring!”

  A few chuckles followed, but he kept right on until he’d had his damn fill. And soon, he had. Like a curtain drawing across a stage after the final act, he pulled himself back, waned like a once vibrant, full moon. He stumbled into the recessed shadows and simply watched his soul re-enter his being. The bag was dented in several places…

  How is that possible?

  The damn thing had been around since 1995. It hung on a wall mounted pad system, the absolute finest. A worn leather relic, it proved the best bag, bar none, at Urban Martial Arts. It had taken its share of bangs and bruises over the years, but he couldn’t quite recall denting it in such a way previously. He stared at the indentations curiously, until he snapped out of his thoughts by another call to action.

  “Sean, you got five new guys coming in less than ten minutes. Cut that shit out before you scare ’em half to death or at the very least give ’em unrealistic expectations. You did good though. I’d like to see that in your next fight you sack of shit.” The older guy chuckled. He was a retired kickboxing trainer named Tugboat that hung around the joint for shits and giggles. Sean offered a forced half grin as he tried to collect his thoughts, remove himself from the uneven, slippery floor of disorientation.

  “Yeah,” he nodded as if awakening finally, embracing the words spoken. He glared at the slightly swaying bag a time or two more, then pulled on his bandages, unwrapping a portion from his sore, slightly swollen hands. “They’re Pete’s guys, right? Need an introductory lesson…I forgot they were coming.”

  “No problem.” The older man leaned on the ropes of a boxing ring a mere few feet away. “You alright?” he asked in a concerned whisper.

  “Yeah, I’m good, fine.” He swallowed a wad of warm spit accumulating in the back of his throat and disappeared behind a partition to sit on the lopsided locker benches. He needed to relax for a minute or two, be alone with himself, no longer under the watchful eye of others. Yes…just a minute or two, to transform back into the fun loving persona he’d perfected over the damn years. It hurt to slide into that constricting costume…but, it was who he was in the public eye, and whenever the darkness crept out instead, during times of emotional weakness, he had to tell the real goddamn Sean to stand back, be still and not say ONE.FUCKING.WORD…

  Shhh….

  ‡

  A Word from Our Hero

  Sometimes I used to look at the trash piled up and knew the shit was vivacious. Yeah, that’s the right word. Fucking vivacious, like a stinking ass party that no one noticed but me. It breathed, had a life of its own. The rain would flood the wasteland, saturating and sprinkling spit onto the past lives of everyone from Staten Island to Franklin and beyond. They’d thrown away their losses and gains, their precious secrets and declarations. They’d thrown away yesterday, today and tomorrow, but trash always has a way of coming back, no matter how many times you strike the shit down. Once created, it never goes away. It’s just there in some way or fashion. Forever, ya know?

  Its stench reminds you that you are now a part of destruction, of things decayed, of a past that oozes with remembrance of the life you once led. And I’m that man that hauls it away, that guy you barely see. My name is Sean Mahoney, and I’m used to being ignored. This isn’t no pity party though, I like slipping past bastards, undetected like the color gray on cement. Some would argue I prefer it that way, it’s like my default setting or some shit like that.

  Alone…

  It’s the fucking best, right? Being alone is a choice for me, and I like that shit very much; well, I did…or at least I told myself I did.

  It’s just the truth, it was my truth, and it wasn’t so bad at times, but I’ll get more into that later. I grew up in Queens and if you’ve ever been there, you’ll know there isn’t too much shit I’ve not heard or witnessed. I saw a lot of things growing up in Sunnyside, that’s the community I was raised in. And I learned a lot, too. New York? Hell, there is no better place on Earth. I’ve travelled a bit; most of those places were interesting, perfect for a vacation too, but I always come right back here to New York. She’s like your first love. You know, the chick you used to dig, but now you kinda hate her because she knows all of your secrets, and you realize after the fact that you were way too young to have that sort of serious shit goin’ on at that age. Strange thing is, you don’t regret knowin’ her, spending that time with her, even with everything that happened. You’re still somewhat respectful to her, ya know?

  Respect. That shit is not a two way street. It’s the one thing a man needs in this world that he has to fight for. I didn’t need to be adored, doted on, and loved. I needed to get some fucking respect. People are born disrespectful nowadays. They pop out the goddamn womb talkin’ shit! A man’s ability to take care of himself and those he loves is a serious thing, something a man like me strives to accomplish. People say dumb shit about my occupation all the time, but at the end of the day, I know I can pay my fucking bills and my needs are covered. I’m a sanitation engineer. That’s just a fancy way of sayin’ garbage collector or trash man. I work for the goddamn city of New York’s sanitation department. There is nothin’ like collecting trash in New York. You see all types of shit. I’ve seen horrible shit, and funny shit. You want the funny example or the horrible shit, first? Ahhh, fuck it. I’ll give you the bad one first, no sense in delaying it. Like one time I was a part of a fucking police investigation. It was only for like an hour or two, though. Found some human body parts in a grocery bag that had split open during the take…yeah, you don’t hear that kinda shit everyday now, do ya?

  Another time I found a shitload of brand new expensive men’s shoes, but all the mates were missin’. It was just tha one…just tha left one. You’re fuckin’ crazy if you don’t think a woman had something to do with that! Yeeeaahhhh, her old man must’ve pissed her off really bad. What a goddamn waste! Anyway, back on point here. I do the shit no one else wants to do and for the longest, I held a grudge against a certain type
of person, because that ‘certain type of person’ seemed to hold a grudge against me… Enough of that though. Let’s get into something else. You want to know one of my best attributes?

  Well, my friends say I’m funny. I guess it’s sorta true. Okay, I’ll stop bullshitting you. I know I’m funny, okay? I like making people laugh and I don’t have to put any energy into it; it’s just part of who I am. Been told for years I should be a comedian. I ain’t got the discipline and stomach for all of that though. Let’s see, what other good qualities do I have? Hmmm, been told I can fuck pretty good, too. I’d have to say that’s true. All of my ex-girlfriends said I was good in bed but some of them said at times I was detached emotionally, whatever the fuck that means. What’s the point in getting all wet eyed behind some shit? Most things we can’t change, and the shit we can, cryin’ sure as hell won’t help. Enough of that shit – let’s dive into the here and now.

  My current situation is like this, okay? I love a great woman who, when I met her, didn’t look past me. No, she looked through me. She didn’t treat me like I was invisible. She didn’t just see my face, what I do, my persona and all that shit. No, she saw me, the real fuckin’ me, and took it with both hands, embraced me, broken and fucked up and all. Now, I won’t lie to ya. It took some time to get to that level, but she at least waited a bit before hearing me out. Alright, that isn’t actually true either. She tried to get rid of me a time or two, but I wouldn’t let her go. That doesn’t matter right now, though. The point is, she gave me a chance after seeing me completely, at face value.

  That’s hard to do when a woman loves a man like me. I guess you could say I suffered a bit from a lack of self-awareness. That’s a psychological babble way of saying I’m a bullshitter and bullshit so much, I bullshitted my own goddamn self in the damn process. At one point in time, I had to do it just to make it, just to survive. If you don’t think you’re top shit, you’ll get trampled. That’s just God’s honest truth and I, my friends, and my family all stood on the same page, reading from the same book of life. I guess there’s comfort in numbers. For me to sign off on my dysfunction was just how the shit worked.

  I have a close-knit gang around me, full of good friends and family, and I stay in my own fucked up world where we live by our own fucking rules, but when I’d step foot out of that ecosystem, these rules no longer apply. I ended up in someone else’s territory, and I didn’t like that…I didn’t like that at all. I had to learn this lesson the hard way…

  I found out through this process of falling in love with this woman, I didn’t know myself as well as I thought I did and sometimes, being invisible is self-imposed. You see, the mask I put on protected me, and I’m all about self-preservation. I didn’t have to answer for anything. I didn’t have to defend myself, explain why I didn’t have this, didn’t like that, or was a certain way. I hated the very people that gave me the gift to remain quiet and unseen. I hated them for not taking notice of my so-called magnificence, and I hated them for at times calling me on it, forcing me to accuse them of being back-stabbing liars…

  I guess that’s how life is sometimes. You wake up, thinking you know every goddamn thing, only to find out you don’t know shit at all. But the one thing I do know is this…

  When you have someone good in your life, and they love you from the depths of their damn soul, despite these crazy regulations you impose on yourself and others, you gotta hold on to that son of a bitch. You gotta hold that woman tighter than you’ve held anything or anyone in your whole damn life. You gotta fight for her! I was born fighting; this shit is nothing new to me. I fought for the right to fucking breathe! I fought for some goddamn respect! I then fought a bit quieter behind some books, used my brain, learned a thing or two, but there were other fights to come as well. Those fights that weren’t as easy for me, fights that required more than just a 1-2 punch, they wouldn’t give me the TKO I yearned for, the one I needed. No, the shit was drawn out and painful, in a way I couldn’t imagine…but…it was worth it. Because you see, for the first damn time in my life, she gave me two things really worth fighting for…

  Myself.

  And Love.

  ‡

  Chapter One

  Sean’s fatigued eyes fluttered suddenly open from the sound of the band Muse blasting the pounding beat of ‘Madness’. The tune came through crystal clear from his trusty iPad hooked up to a small set of dusky black cube shaped speakers he’d plucked from a half off bin in the twenty-four hour Walgreens one late evening. He stretched out, sprawled in the small living room of his dimly lit apartment. His contorted, half nude body jerked in an awkward, uncomfortable way, causing the dark, tawny split leather of his couch to moan and protest under his weight. Almost sucking and swallowing his own damn tongue, thick with the remnants of beer tang, he ran taut fingers along his stubble-covered jaw and peered at the red numerals on the rectangular digital clock setting atop the clear end table. They read 2:43 A.M.

  “Shit…” he cursed in a whisper while he stood from the floor, unsteady, keeping quiet as if he were inside of a church and needed to watch his volume. His feet covered only in socks, he almost tripped over the things. One was partially pulled down, flopping, barely hanging on as he stomped about on his heel. He paused and stretched again, trying to make his damn muscles come alive, work and do their damn mission. Reaching up to his popcorn ceiling and yawning wide, he lifted an inch or two more from the tips of his toes, causing his calf muscles to pleasingly stretch and burn. Huffing, he trudged down the mud colored carpeted hallway, smashed from years of his hard, flat-footed steps. Short as an ass hair, the trek seemed to be five acres long as he toured his cramped apartment, barely keeping up until he’d reached the plywood door of his bedroom. Flinging the thing open, he clumsily flicked on the light, exposing the partially made bed, mostly covered with soiled workout clothing from the day before.

  Smack dab in the middle of the faded emerald sheets sat his laptop, the apple icon on the back glowing like some beacon of hope to the tired and digitally hopeless. Pausing by the side of the bed, he grabbed the elastic of his black jogging pants, flung them down his aching legs and kicked the grimy garments across the room, causing the articles to land atop a heap of hardbound text books that threatened to topple over. He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and carried his weary bones the rest of the way across the room, bunching a cheap muted orange throw rug from a yard sale with his choppy stride.

  “Ahhhh,” he sighed as he fell atop the flattened pillow. He savored the promise of possible relief from the kiss of a good night’s sleep as Muse now serenaded him the cheeky, ‘Knights of Cydonia’. As he began to doze, his computer dinged with a sound like a microwave’s, as if a meal now awaited his pending consumption. He let his eyes flicker like a half dead bulb, hanging on to wakefulness, and flirted with the notion to ignore the email notification and go on about his sleepy way. Yet, it proved simply too tempting. Besides, he’d been waiting on the free tickets Kyle, his best friend, had promised him to the Yankees game. He had been checking his phone all damn night to no avail. On an aggravated huff, he sat up and ran his sluggish fingers along the keyboard, hoping for the guarantee of a white baseball flying midair, caught in his grip on live television. It sure would give him a reason to rejoice and not worry before wandering down Slumber Lane.

  They play the Twins… Tickets can’t be that damn hard for him to get.

  Yet, instead of his deepest athletic desires being granted, he was greeted with a pop-up window from a gorgeous blonde connecting on one of the many dating website profiles he’d created. His lips twisted and settled into an impish smirk as he sat back against his headboard and leisurely crossed his ankles, flexing his toes a time or two. Clicking on her photo, he read the beauty’s profile:

  28, Single, and into the Nightlife. Just moved to New York from Maine. Wish to meet new people, especially tall men with big smiles and even bigger assets.

  He shook his head in incredulity as he clicked thro
ugh the stranger’s montage of salacious photos, growing instantly attached to one of her showcasing herself in a baseball snapback and lacey dark pink shirt. Before he could save the photo and add it to his desktop collection of ‘Hotties that wanna party’, the pretty little thing noticed he was online…

  Hello…

  The popup window caught him by surprise, making his heart jump a bit as his computer rang out, alerting him that the lady caller in question was on the typing prowl.

  He lightly laughed and tapped his fingers against the keys.

  Hello back…

  What are you up to tonight? she asked, her icon picture featuring her in a heart shaped computer generated frame. The woman’s photo image stared back at him, drenched in flirtation as she sported a come hither look on her sultry face.

  I was trying to get some sleep actually.

  Oh, am I keeping you up?

  Yeah, but maybe you’re worth my while, so don’t worry about it.

  He decided to bypass the open segue into a sexual innuendo about her keeping him ‘up’ alright…

  I’m a night owl. LOL, she added.

  That reminds me of a good joke.

  Really? What is it?

  There was an atheist, night owl and dyslexic that stayed up all night arguing that there is no DOG.

  …I don’t get it.

  Natural blonde? he asked.