by JD Hawkins
“I’m warning you, David.”
He shrugs. “Then again, maybe it could…”
Something inside me snaps. “Listen!” I say, suddenly taking a step toward him, finger extended with the intent of a spear, face tightened into focused aggression. “You talk to me like that one more time and I will burn this fucking place to the ground with you inside it. Evict me, sue me, do whatever the fuck you want—but don’t for one second think you’re getting anything more from me than rent money and disgust. Is that understood?”
David’s face shows fear for a second, like a mask slipping, before the smug smile returns and he holds his palms up, taking a step backward.
“Message received loud and clear. Simple misunderstanding. I’m sorry you thought it came off that way.”
I let my heightened breath calm down a little, allow the snarl to slowly fade from my face, put my finger down like a weapon at a stand-off.
“Good,” I say, glancing at the clock on the wall. Eight-fifty. I’m well in the ‘hoping for no-traffic’ zone. I grab my sports bag and toss my phone into it, skipping the makeup and ready to get the hell out of here.
“There’s still the issue of the bills, however,” David says, seeing my intent.
I pause just before swinging the bag onto my shoulder.
“Unless, of course,” he continues, “you meant what you said about being fine with me evicting you.”
I glare at him for a second, tired of the games, then let the bag drop to the floor, the sound of it perfectly mirroring my sense of exhausted defeat.
“What exactly do you want?”
David shrugs with his eyebrows like an onlooker watching someone embarrass themselves.
“How do you plan to handle this…issue? I’m sure you understand how concerning this is. If you can’t even handle a…” he peers at the paper, “sixty dollar internet bill, how do you suppose you’ll be able to maintain all of this?” he says, gesturing around him.
“I have a plan.”
“Oh?” David says, like an asshole headmaster listening to a schoolboy’s dreams.
“A three-month plan,” I say, voice low and humbled by the vulnerability of expressing it. “I’m going to start advertising a lot more—it’s one area I was lacking in. I thought I might let some other health-related places sell products here in return for exposure. I might offer incentives too—refer a friend and get a free class, stuff like that. I want to implement a lot of ideas I’ve been thinking about in the next couple of months.”
David’s smugness disappears for the first time since we’ve been talking.
“Interesting,” he says, making the word sound more dismissive than encouraging, even the distant notion that I might make the place work, that he might lose these opportunities to twist the knife, too much to bear for him. “Presumably there are costs involved in this,” he says, with almost a tinge of hope.
I nod. “Sure. But I’ve drawn up a plan, and quite a lot of what I want to do is feasible.”
“May I see? This plan?”
Eight fifty-four.
“Tonight,” David says, noticing the frown that appears when I glance at the clock. “I’m afraid I’m busy tomorrow. I’ve had a few inquiries about this space, you see, and although I’ve let the interested parties know that it’s currently under a one-year lease, once they learned my tenant was consistently tardy with the rent payments they insisted on meeting with me to discuss possible future—”
“Fine.” I let out a deep sigh and gesture to the office chair. David sits with an exulted groan, and I lean over him to open up the laptop, cursing mentally at how slow it is. I know he’s probably lying, probably just pushing my buttons, but I can’t risk losing the studio.
I click files and explain numbers while David breathes heavily through his mouth, barely able to conceal how much more interested he is in the closeness of my leaning body than in the spreadsheets on the screen. Every time I stand up straight, or finish explaining something with a tone of finality, he asks a question, or to be shown something else, his hot panting like toxic fumes I hold my breath and my patience against.
Eight fifty-nine. Nine oh-two.
“Good,” David pants, as I scroll back up to the top of a document. “Very good,” he repeats, almost certainly at his current position with regards to my breasts rather than what I’m showing him on the screen.
I seize on his sense of contentment, unable to stand him, the situation, or the anxiety of missing the fight any longer.
“And that’s basically the whole plan,” I say, slapping the laptop closed with a bright smile, already moving toward my sports bag. “I think it could really turn things around. All I need is a little time. If I’m not on top of things by the third month then…well, I guess that’s it. Look, if I leave now I might just make my thing, so I really, really have to get going.”
I pause at the door, glancing back, raised too well to make the exit without at least an acknowledgement—even from an asshole like David. He smiles at me, his eyes still roving over my body, too excited to even bother maintaining a façade of decency.
“Until next time,” he says, voice humming with stolen satisfaction.
“Right,” I say, turning on my heel and sprinting for my car.
Almost an hour later, as I sit in crushing traffic behind a big rig accident on the 110 freeway, watching the minutes tick by on my dashboard clock, I realize there is no way in hell I’m going to make it to the venue in time. A feeling of utter defeat washes over me, and I ask my GPS to point me to the nearest sports bar as I crawl toward the next exit. I wonder how much I’d pay to see David in a UFC fight.
15
Connor
Even here, down the long corridor, behind two doors, in the private pre-fight locker room, you can hear the crowd. Loud enough to sound like a war’s going on, vibrations through the floor every time they jump to their feet at an exciting part of the bout. Cheers and boos as if in a distant dream, Butch’s harsh voice cutting through it.
“Be unpredictable,” he calls out as I hit leisurely at the pads in order to warm up. “The second he knows what you’re gonna do he’s got the advantage.”
I throw a few more punches, trying to zero my focus in on the pads, to feel every movement of the hit, to retain concentration even after the loud smack when pulling back. I’m a little tight, a little late. Not quite achieving the perfect balance of looseness and focus, something holding me back.
“Show me some kicks,” Butch says.
He can see it too, but he won’t say it, now’s not the time. I shake my head, as if it’ll throw off the nagging sensations—barely thoughts—that seem to hold my focus back. Unresolved feelings of something missing, something not quite right at the edge of my mind, holding my arms back, distracting my center.
“You’re bigger, you hit harder, and you can move faster when you want. The only way he takes this is if you let him be more clever,” Butch calls, as he dances around my stamps and covers his face with the pads to defend the follow-up. “Don’t get hung up on your moves.”
I hit hard, put a little more weight into my punches than a warm-up deserves. Letting the edgy frustration mounting in my head out a little.
“Ok,” Butch says, lowering the pads to show that he’s done. “Don’t get excited, Connor. Excitement makes you easy to predict. Loose and unpredictable. Do that and the chance will present itself.”
There’s a knock at the door and we both spin toward it, Butch scowling at the interruption.
“What is it?” he asks like an accusation.
The door opens and Matt pushes his head through the gap.
“What is it?” Butch repeats, his anger more familiar this time.
“I just want a word with Connor.”
“He doesn’t need a fucking word with you right now—”
“It’s ok,” I say, holding a hand up to Butch and moving toward the door. I lean against the wall and speak low enough that Butch can’t hear.
“Well?”
Matt apologizes with pursed lips and shakes his head.
“She’s not here yet.”
“You sure?” I ask, wishing I didn’t feel the need to.
“The tickets are still at the front. I was just there.”
I swallow and realize how dry my throat is.
“Ok. Well if she comes—”
“I know,” Matt interrupts. “Bring her straight ringside to where I’m sitting. I told you, my cousin Edwin is working the Will Call window—the second she shows her face he’ll get her where you can see her, even if you’re already fighting. Although,” Matt stops to check his watch, “there’s less than fifteen minutes left. Forget her, dude. You’ve got a fight to win.”
“Yeah,” I say, wishing it was as easy to do as it was to suggest.
“Come on!” Butch calls from the room, causing Matt to offer a quick nod before disappearing back into the corridor. “Enough of that, you need to get your head straight.”
I go back into the middle of the room and hop a little, shaking limbs to release tension, then close my eyes and breathe carefully while Butch goes into full Sun Tzu mode.
“The more windows you take the more that’ll open, Connor. So don’t be impatient. No need for grandstanding.”
I throw a few shadow punches at the notion of hoping the current fight goes on long, giving Frankie time to arrive.
“Make sure he doesn’t get you punching—you decide when you want to attack, and you do that when—”
Butch is interrupted by a roar from the main hall. We lock eyes for a second as we strain our hearing to make out whether the announcer is on the loudspeaker. Butch gives me one more hard stare and then turns away.
“I’ll give you a few moments to yourself,” he says, on his way to the door, “while I get the team ready.”
The second the door closes behind him, the silence in the empty room turns ominous and suffocating. Walls lean in toward me and I feel an uncomfortable heat rise on my skin, like I’ve just drunk one pint more than I needed.
I start breathing quickly, as if my breath is trying to catch up with my rollercoaster thoughts. Images and memories flicker behind my closed eyes like a film on fast forward: the radio interview that pissed Butch off, Tara’s hand down my pants, the sweet smell of Frankie’s pussy, ‘you just believed your own hype,’ Hendrix’s glare at the conference…
All the baggage and shit comes in like a flood, a free-form association of everything I shouldn’t be thinking about, filling my mind with frenzied anxiety, beating down any sense of composure and focus I had. A mini existential crisis.
When the door opens I don’t know how much time has passed, and when they call my name I almost feel like I’m not the one they mean. Familiar faces surround me: Butch, Matt, a couple of guys from the gym, my judo instructor—but for as well as I know them, I feel for a second that none of them know me—not this me. Not the one who’s all eager meanness on the outside and a hurricane of shit on the inside.
I look at Matt, who shrugs subtly, regret in his eyes. She’s not here.
“Showtime, Connor!”
“Pick your moments, remember.”
“Ready to kick some ass?”
“Teach this motherfucker a lesson, dude.”
“Show everyone who you are.”
Encouragement, pats, and the enthusiasm of the people around me bring me out into the long corridor, the one that ends in a mass of writhing people, two big-haired girls in tight spandex hot pants standing on either side.
They chant my name, and I let myself hear it, let myself believe it. I let the sound of a thousand cheers fill my chest, raise my jaw, put iron into my muscles. This is who I am, this is who I was, and always will be: Connor fucking Anderson. Alpha Male. The meanest motherfucker the UFC will ever see.
My music starts and I let the memory of the backroom fights and the glory of their victories seep into my bones.
‘Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy…’
Fuck Frankie, and her mystical bullshit.
Fuck Tara, and her groupie mentality.
Fuck Hendrix, and his big mouth.
They don’t mean anything. None of them.
I’m an alpha male. A law unto myself. Afraid of nothing, stopped by no one. The hype is real. I swagger out of the corridor as the crowd noise rises like a conducted orchestra, pitch perfect and beautiful to my ears. Fuck the fight, this is my moment of glory. Hendrix is only incidental.
I throw a pretend kiss and a wink at the spandex girls and swagger around to the octagon’s entrance, pausing to raise my arms and nod in time to the sound of my name—a name that makes the walls vibrate, that sounds like a battle cry, a love song, a prayer.
I get in the ring and take my shirt off slowly, enjoying the way the crowd’s noise seems to lower for a second, before rising to another raucous fever when I toss it at one of my team and flex, turning slowly so everybody in the stadium can look on in awe, in reverence, in worship of the greatest physique Michelangelo didn’t create. How could anyone call this ego? Cockiness? It’s truth, plain and simple.
The announcer interrupts to call Hendrix’s name, and I move to the side, covered by my team, as he makes an entrance that seems pithy and mundane next to mine. To the sound of hip-hop he enters the ring. Doesn’t even swagger, doesn’t even flex, doesn’t even return my sneer before he returns to the corner, as if rejecting a game—the game of fan favorites. As if all he’s there for is the fight.
I don’t even pretend to listen to Butch as he barks out his last instructions before leaving the ring, leaving the camera crews to film me and Hendrix as we pace our sides and the announcer introduces both of us. I glare at Hendrix, who’s pacing up and down like he’s keeping warm between sets, nothing but a raised arm and a quick pose when the announcer roars his name. Meanwhile, I relish every second of my introduction, staring down the camera, striking the post a couple of times, turning to drink in the crowd’s love once more as the words ‘alpha male’ are drawn out into a long cry by the announcer.
I glance down and see the empty seat, the one that Frankie was supposed to take, but all I can do now is laugh. Fuck her. Fuck her and all her shit. I promise myself I’ll fuck ten better-looking girls by the end of the week, and then I turn back to the center of the ring. The ref babbles the usual stuff, but it’s all white noise at this point, all I can hear is the adulation of the crowd.
“Touch gloves—if you wish,” he says. I hear that, but I don’t do it, turning around as soon as he does and smiling at the roaring fans.
I stalk back toward the crowd one more time, then turn back to see the ring emptied, the ref out of the way. Just me and Hendrix now. Just this fight. It’s time to win.
I shift my feet as I move around him, but I barely take two steps before Hendrix lunges at me, a four-punch combination. I bring my guard up just in time, and swing a hard jab that connects firmly against his side. He rocks backward before I can swing the right, but if the crowd was at full volume before, it’s in danger of breaking vocal cords now.
The fuck is he doing, coming at me out of the gate like that? He’s not dumb enough to go toe-to-toe with me, but that was one hell of a risk…I could have floored him if I was expecting it.
Hendrix dances to the right as I shuffle to take control in the center of the ring. His left hand held far in front of him, ready to bat away jabs, helps him keep his distance. I hit that hand a couple of times, making as if to press in and hoping he’ll make a mistake, but he goes cautious and keeps side-stepping.
From all-out to retreating—is he baiting me? Or is he actually feeling the free hit he gave me?
I test the boundaries, reading his shift in direction and putting forward a kick that leads into a heavy right. Hendrix tries to catch my leg, fails, and takes the hit right in his body. I flick a left jab at his head and he rides the punch smoothly, but it still lands a good hit on the top of his head.
T
his feels too easy. Hendrix isn’t this dumb—isn’t this reckless. What the fuck is going on?
Before I can even finish the thought Hendrix catches me off-guard with a flashy round-house kick that I should have seen coming yesterday. Heel pounding through my jaw like a brick through a window. He moves close and I swing through a blind, fuzzy daze, ears ringing. I can barely see but I know Hendrix is in close from the explosions of pain around my body. I throw punches in defense, try to dodge the fresh volley of hits he’s laying down, but he’s too fast for me, too slippery, and I feel like I’m fighting a ghost in pitch-black dark.
He’s going to town on me already. This is bad. Ten seconds in and I’m already blocking, waiting for the bell.
I’m a human punching bag now, all notions of technique and tactics flying out the window, just a question of enduring the flurry of hits Hendrix is raining down on me. I swing blindly a couple more times, my sense of space and timing just a vague approximation. Each time I only let him in a little easier. My body vibrates, the stamping and shouting of the crowd so ferocious I can feel it even in the ring.
Got to make space, make some time. It ain’t alpha, but if I don’t back off I won’t even get another round.
I back off, waiting until Hendrix commits himself a little, jogging backwards and shaking my head to get some sense into it. Hendrix isn’t letting me go that easily, though. He leaps forward, fist first. It hits the side of my head, and I can almost see the chirping of cartoon birds, then he follows through with his body, clattering me to the ground.
We fall heavy, as if he’s just taken us both off a cliff, and I know it’s over. Dazed, disoriented, and hurting real bad, I’m gonna need a miracle to avoid getting choked out now.
And a miracle is what I get.
I hear a shout. A scream. The kind a fighter makes when something is wrong. I’m on my back but Hendrix isn’t on me, in fact, he’s nowhere near me. Seconds later I get just enough composure to sit up and see the medical team crowded around Hendrix, who’s lying on his back clutching his shoulder and wincing like a baby. The crowd’s got a different kind of excitement about it now, an unruly one, an unhappy one.
