Pain Don't Hurt

by Mark Miller

  Willie, Shelby, and I wandered around, taking pictures of St. Basil’s and the Kremlin, and even got to see a portion of the military marching in formation. At the opening of Red Square is a small chapel for people to pray in, no bigger than a closet, called the Iveron Chapel, which has been there since 1669 and housed the icon of Panagia Portaitissa, the keeper of the gate. The story about the chapel is that customarily, everyone heading for Red Square or the Kremlin visits the chapel to pay homage at the shrine before entering the gate. The only poor I saw in Moscow I saw here, clustered around this small chapel. Outside of the chapel stood a Russian Orthodox priest in his traditional garb, collecting alms in a small cup and offering blessings. I approached him and placed a few coins in his cup, and he gave me a blessing. I said before I am not a religious man, and that is true, but I also believe that doing that would have made my mother happy. She never saw this chapel, she never saw the homeland of her faith, and here I stood. I may have gotten the blessings for her, if blessings indeed work that way. That may have been my whole purpose for doing it, but it made me feel comforted, like she was there somehow, like I had completed a task I hadn’t known was mine until then.

  After walking a bit and taking some pictures, we ventured back to the hotel, where we ate a little and I slept. I awoke a few hours before I had to board the bus to take me to the venue. Shelby was already mostly dressed, and I nearly fell over when I saw her. Knowing Willie would be cornering me, she had opted for fancier dress than the tracksuit she would have worn in the corner. In a tight black pencil skirt, a white high-necked blouse, a steel-boned corset shrinking her already small waist to a cartoonish size, a black pillbox hat with a veil, red lips, cat eyes, and staggeringly high black heels that had naturally shed shark teeth encrusted around the heel, she looked like some sort of comic book villainess.

  “Jesus, do you have daggers hidden in your garters?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No, just glucose tablets. I’m still working with your run-down old ass, not James Bond, not yet.”

  I smiled. “So why so fancy? You know we’re just going to sit at this venue for hours before I fight, right? You don’t have to do all this. Be comfortable.”

  Her expression got frosty. “This is one of the most important fights of your life. I’m not dressing like some sad asshole. You deserve to have the people with you dress to the nines. You know what Deion said—you look good, you feel good; you feel good, you play good; and if you play good . . .”

  She trailed off and I finished it: “They pay good. Deion Sanders, my favorite quote. Stealing my lines. Again.”

  She meant it too. She would go on to suffer in that steel-boned corset, her waist at a mere twenty-two inches max, all night, only loosening it on the bus ride back, simply because she wanted to represent right.

  “Fine. If you’re going to dress like that, though, you’re at least walking me out to the ring. Otherwise that’s just a waste of a perfectly superb outfit.”

  I got into the shower and steamed for a while. The shower in the Ritz-Carlton was the best part of the room. I could have invited ten of my friends over to hang out inside it with me, had I ten friends in Moscow who would have wanted to do that. I shaved my head, lathered up, and got out. Some guys don’t shower before fights on purpose; not me. In fact, before fights are the few times I will shave my head down to the skin, simply to make it easier for stitches to be put in if I suffer cuts. I think it’s revolting, the idea of not showering, and I have pride in who I am. If I have to use body funk to get leverage in a fight, I shouldn’t be fighting. My heart was feeling slower, calmer, and so was I. I got dressed and we headed downstairs for the bus, but not before I handed Shelby all of my blessed Thai amulets and my necklace with my family’s names on it. She put them on her own neck, every single one, and followed me out, taking tiny steps in those gruesome-looking stilettos.

  Once at the venue, we were divided into rooms. One room held one group of fighters, the other room held the opponents of those fighters. Red corner and blue corner. I walked into my room with Shelby close behind to see Andre Mannaart, an old legendary Dutch fighter turned trainer. I had known Andre for years. Andre was incredible, positive, a tough trainer but very good. He was there cornering his fighter Brice Guidon, a massive French heavyweight who was facing Gokhan Saki. I grabbed Andre in a hug.

  “I haven’t seen you for so long, Mr. Shark! I am glad to see you. Robbie told me that he was working with you! He said that you were looking good!” Andre’s bright eyes were shining; his presence made me feel even more relaxed.

  “Yeah! I am so glad I got to train with Rob. Hey, Andre, when am I going to get one of those shirts, man? You know I’ve been a fan for forever, when do I qualify?”

  I was referring to Andre’s Mejiro Gym shirt. I was in awe of the old Dutch kickboxing gyms Mejiro, Chakuriki, and Vos. So many titans had come out of those. So many kings. Andre smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll see, Mark, we shall see.”

  I sat in the corner with Shelby, who was now playing video games on her phone. She was nervous and trying very hard not to show it. She was distracting herself but fidgeting and clearly emotionally reactive. As we had filed into the room one of the co-promoters of the event had touched her shoulder and said, “It’s just really good that he’s fighting again, you know?” It seemed like a nice enough thing to say, but with the tone it was said in, it was obvious what was being implied. No one expected me to win, and this person was trying to offer a bright side to Shelby, who they figured would be carrying my broken body back to the hotel later that night. My sweet friend didn’t react so kindly to it. Shelby was behind me when it happened, and while they had tried to be quiet, I had heard the whole thing. I also heard when she yanked her arm away and said, “It’s also going to be fucking awesome when he wins. PS: pity is so fucking unattractive.”

  A TV crew was moving between the rooms doing interviews. The man holding the microphone was Samuel Pagal from Eurosport TV. He was an impeccably dressed French journalist, in braids and custom-fitted leather pants with a bright scarf draped around his neck and a bomber jacket on. He tipped up his sunglasses and approached me.

  “Man, and here I thought I was the best-looking guy in the room,” I said, smiling, as I shook his hand.

  “Mark it is, yes? So, Mark, we know your nickname is ‘Fightshark,’ but why that nickname?”

  He held the mic out and I leaned in, the memory of when my nickname was first spoken suddenly so fresh in my mind.

  “I was in my early twenties, and after a sparring session where I had been particularly brutal, my trainer told me that I was like a shark in the water when it smells blood. If I know you’re hurt, I come after you. I’m the Fightshark.”

  Samuel was grinning. “I love it, Mark, I love it.” He asked me a few more questions about my heart and then wished me well, but not before commenting on Shelby’s outfit, which she loved.

  After a little while, Willie came in, and I sat to have my hands taped. It felt good, calming. I hadn’t had tape on in so long, but here it felt familiar. Like putting on an old, comfortable pair of jeans. Willie was serene, even-toned, relaxing as he talked to me, went over the game plan. Once my hands were finished I waited to get my gloves so I could warm up. Shelby turned to me and said, “Let’s play the game, Mark.”

  We went back and forth quietly. She gave me a strike, and I rattled off the counter, trying to get my mind to disappear into the answers so they came faster than I could even recognize. I was immersing myself in the patterns that come naturally to a fighter. I started thinking in terms of what I wanted to set up, what my strengths were. The gloves were brought in, bright blue ones. Willie started rubbing them and manipulating them to soften them up before he put them on and taped me in. I warmed up on the pads with Willie for a bit before he worked with Mighty Mo. Shelby watched close by, taking quick breaths as she tried to calm her obvious nerves. I was not nervous now. I was so calm, in fact, that I felt like I could take
a nap. I had missed this, longed for this. I was excited, but more so, I was happy. The time came; I was up soon, so a few people came to retrieve me and take me to the back of the catwalk.

  There was only one catwalk to walk out on. This meant that I would be going down the same walkway as my opponent, either before or after him. Nikolaj stood a few feet from me. His trainer, a massive man with a shaved head, was grabbing ahold of Nikolaj’s shoulders and pressing his forehead against Nikolaj’s. He was muttering something, something aggressive sounding, in another language, and every so often Nikolaj let out a series of impossibly loud screams. The second time he did it, Shelby, whose nerves were eating her up, turned to him and loudly went, “Are you kidding me?!” Willie and I burst out laughing.

  I was to walk first. The announcer shouted my name, and I set foot onto the walkway into a cascade of spotlight. Twenty feet away was the ring. The ring, my home. The place where I had worked through so many personal and emotional battles, the place where I had unshackled so many demons and brought them out to play, hurling them at my willing opponents. The place where everything shrank down to simple, quick decisions, and for minutes the world was so uncomplicated and lovely. The place that had been my church, my sanctuary, my theme park, my playground, my purgatory, and the nest from which my smoldering carcass would hopefully rise again from its ash. This was where we as fighters went to grind out our pain, to survive. To truly be alive. I had only minutes to go. The helicopter that had crashed and taken out so many had spared the ones closest to it, held them safe somehow against its metal bosom as it careened into others and crushed them. My whole life had felt like I was in the helicopter, and I had been inside it. I had come this far. I had rebuilt my little army with better soldiers than I was born into having. I had my three boys, Shelby, her family, Justin, Matty, Mikee, Rakaa, Paul, Cory, Jacob, everyone. They were waiting, they were watching, they had sent their best hopes to follow me and the score I was settling into this ring. My feet were moving as though through water, without my being connected to them, it felt like. I was floating. My heart was thundering like a war drum. I reached the ring and turned to climb inside; I saw Shelby step off the catwalk and Willie go to the corner. From here until the bell, it was now up to me, and me alone.

  Guide me now. Be with me.

  Nikolaj walked down the catwalk, screaming and snarling. He stepped into the ring and went straight to his corner, his coach firing him up more and more, pulling on his shoulders as Nikolaj stamped and pawed at the ground like an angry ox. I pulled my shoulders back and stretched my jaw. I didn’t need manufactured motivation. I had the real thing. That’s what everything had been up until now. Encouragement, training. The bell sounded, and the referee immediately called for a pause as a small water bottle somehow rolled into the ring. Our pace was awkwardly halted as they retrieved it, and I glanced up to see Shelby in the crowd. She was leaning against a pillar next to a cluster of VIP tables. Her hands were pressed to her mouth and she was completely frozen. She knew the weight of this fight. She might as well have been tied to me.

  The referee waved us on, and we began.

  Nikolaj approached me; his cover was good. Having big muscles is a plus because one can hide behind them. I threw an inside low kick at him, and though he checked it, he didn’t like it. Then he decided to bully me . . . he started trying to walk me down. I threw my jab. . . . And I saw it. . . .

  Nikolaj had walked right into it. As my jab was retracting, the entire world slowed, and I saw it. He was countering with a left hook, leaving the left side of his face completely vulnerable.

  Left hook. Shelby’s voice, Buddy’s drills . . .

  Right hook.

  I slipped his left hook, and I threw it. My fist connected, and I knew by the feel, by the sound. Nikolaj crumpled to the floor.

  I was almost too shocked to return to my corner, but Willie was screaming at me to come back so the ref could start the count. It wasn’t a full knockout, not yet. Nikolaj might still rise to his feet. I went to my corner. The ref counted, and Nikolaj rose on rubbery legs before staggering backward into the ropes. He was muttering to the ref, something I couldn’t hear, and suddenly, the ref waved it off.

  I had won. By knockout. In nine seconds.

  Willie ran to me. He lifted me up, giggling. “You did it, Mark! You did it!”

  I could not stop shaking. I hadn’t shaken before the fight, yet now, I was trembling like a leaf in a storm.

  I clasped Nikolaj’s glove in mine and he was kind in defeat. Later he asked me how long it had been since my heart surgery. I told him four years. He shook his head and smiled. “You hit very hard,” he said, his face bearing the swelling and bruise from the punch.

  As I was stepping out of the ring Shelby came, on tiny quick steps in her heels, and grabbed me in a massive hug. She was crying. “I am so proud of you, so proud.” I had to let go of her hug fast; I didn’t want to lose it. Not here.

  As I made my way back to the room, I saw Andre, and he walked up to me. “I spoke to Robbie on the phone, he said to give you a big hug and a kiss. I won’t kiss you, but here . . .”

  Andre pulled the Mejiro shirt off his own back and handed it to me before grabbing me in a massive hug. “You have earned this, Mark. You have earned this.”

  The entire night, wealthy Russian businessmen offered to buy me champagne and caviar. I declined politely, but Shelby partook. She fell asleep on the bus on the way back to the hotel, her pillbox hat slightly crooked and her red lipstick smeared. We went up to the hotel room, and she disappeared into the bathroom, reappearing only twenty minutes later in sweats with no makeup on. In minutes, she was asleep on the chaise.

  I got in the shower, thinking about everything that had brought me here. My self-doubt, my anger, my inability to climb out of my own self-imposed cage. Then the eventual letting go of every weight I bore that told me what I was supposed to be and the accepting of who I am. My friends, who would not let me drown. My kids. My boys . . .

  I came out of the shower and sent Justin a text message. I wouldn’t hear back from him until I was back in the States, but I told him I loved him.

  Before I climbed into bed, I sat beside Shelby and placed one hand on her shoulder. As she was sleeping, I told her thank you. I told her thank you for everything. She would never know what she did for me. She would never know how close I was to giving up.

  And then, in bed, I slept, the deepest sleep I had known in a long, long time.

  chapter twenty

  Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  This homecoming was the best I had ever received. Shelby’s mother picked us up from the airport and was wearing the biggest and brightest smile I had ever seen. When we got back to Shelby’s house, her brother, Tristan, grinned at me and said, “Told you I should’ve bet money on that fight, you would have made me a rich man.” Her father had us over to his house a few days later, where he had invited friends and coworkers over to brag about my fight. Matty and I talked a few times, and Mikee called to tell me how proud he was of me. I felt like a fighter again. My kids called and said they missed me, so I took a portion of my win money and booked a flight home. I hadn’t seen them in way too long.

  Pennsylvania still was full of ghosts, but I felt a little better, a little stronger, about being there. I didn’t feel so defeated or lost. I took my children out to meals, bought them some new clothes, and generally did things that I hadn’t in past years been as able to do. After a few days I decided I felt strong enough to finally do something I hadn’t done yet. I wanted to visit my parents. I was ready.

  I sent Shelby a message and asked her to be near her Skype. I wanted to show her something. . . .

  I climbed into the car I had rented and rolled down the window. It was starting to rain, and fat droplets flew through the window onto my arm and the side of my face. A spring storm was coming. I was more nervous to do this than I had been for my fight. I hadn’t don
e much to address my feelings about my family since they had died. I had wept torrents in the recent months, but I hadn’t really felt that I had said good-bye or found closure. In truth I don’t think I had addressed my feelings about my family since before they died. I had been able to mourn in small spurts when something would trigger a memory, but I had not yet found a way to completely release all of that pain I had in me about their being gone and about the way I had grown up. I had lingered in anger for so long, avoiding tapping into any feelings of real sorrow. I was pissed off that my family had died, one after the other, that they had left me to handle all of their business. I was pissed off that I’d never had the life I wanted with them, the childhood I had read about or seen in friends of mine. Fathers who carried their sons on their shoulders like I do with mine now, or mothers who cuddled and kissed their babies. I was pissed that my brother hadn’t wanted to live enough to get clean, that he had jumped the emotional ship so early on that I missed out on having someone to talk to when all hell was breaking loose in the house. I was pissed that he had died after I had told him to, as if to spite me, and left me there to miss him and hate myself. I was pissed that he had said the things he had, that there were elements of truth to his final corrosive words, even if they were generated specifically to hurt me. I hadn’t been able to visit my parents; he was right about that. Because it was too hard to take. The finality of it all. Once you accept that a person is truly gone, there is nothing left to do but grieve, since the conversation is ended. There is no more to work out, no score left to settle, no more talks. It’s just you, left by yourself, with a fucking bag of issues that you’ve accumulated over the years. Time to sift through the bag. Time to take out the garbage.