Blows to the face.
Nose cracks.
Stinging palms and cracking
knuckles.
Jabbing at a body.
Ribs cracking.
Air punched right out of the lungs.
Eyes droop.
Pursed lips slide down toward the chin weighing the face down till
the eyes can only focus on the spinning floor.
Blood.
The crowd sees it drip with
gratitude. They scream, their faces
covered with shadows, under the pointless lights.
My body is coated in a layer of
dirt, soaking up the sweat that I drip with after every match.
I need to shower but I feel low and
embarrassed. I’m sick of these grimy faces. I need to leave.
I am bruised and I am hungry.
Under my broad shoulders and square
jaw, I am small, looking up at the crystal tops of buildings. No matter how
much I puff out my chest, flex my muscles, beat against blocks and blocks of
hard flesh, I always end up in the dirt. My shoulders are falling and my legs
ache. The arch of my foot screams with every step and I feel a small painful
quake in my calf.
I prowl past restaurants and
bakeries, which had closed hours ago. My stomach growled, yearning for some
kind of substance. I find nothing to fill it.
I’ve wondered to the edge of the
city, where the black masses reaching for the sky melt into dimly lit houses
with pickets fences and grocery lists and minivans and ritual kisses before
setting off for work, most days at least, and retirement plans to sit and wait
to find yourself back in the dirt. I am still not home.
My knees give in front of some less
quaint yard. The grass looks rough, patchy. It looks dry and long, especially
next to the near by well manicured yards surrounding. It must have rained
earlier. The dirt was damp below me as i fell. It felt nice, cool water
pressing through my tee shirt.
I laid there, finding no strength to
get me up, to move another block of flesh. I lie there under the dark sky.
Tonight the moon hides and took the stars with him. I face the emptiness, stare
into it. I'm looking for something, but I see nothing.
I think back to the fight. My desire
to see blood, to see another man fall, to deliver some fatal blow to him, to
beat him until he would never get up again, knowing even if I win I will have
to do it again. Next time I face a man we will have to stand with our raised fists.
“Excuse me Sir! Sir!”
I open my eyes and pop my head up.
The sun shines into my eyes still crusty with sleep, probably illuminating a
trickle or two of dried blood still on my face. I don’t remember sleeping. My
dreams must have just imitated the darkness I had look up to as I fell asleep.
The man who had awoken me stands
above me, the sun glistening off his wrinkled skin, bouncing off his glasses.
He stands straighter than I would expect. Most old people slowly start to fold in half as their
years weigh on them. His skin hangs loosely off of his slender skeleton. He
looks at me like he’s concerned.
“Are you okay?”
As he says this he strolls over and
puts his hand down, offering it to me.
“Come on, young man. Let me help you
out of the dirt.” he says and I take his hand.
He looks me up and down and smiles.
“Rough night?” He laughs and pats my back. “Come in. I’m about to make
breakfast.”
We walk across the yard, the dewy
grass tickling my ankles. I know this old man’s feet are being soaked right
through his house slippers.
When we get to the porch, I see how
spry he is, seeming to leap right up the stairs to grab the handle on the
screen door to hold it open for me. I painstakingly lift my legs up every step.
My knees crack and I wobble a bit. My legs are stiff. He nods to me as cross
the threshold.
The home is perfect. All the windows
are open, air rushing in and out. Sunlight touches the hardwood floor,
illuminating all the streaks and different colors that the wood was naturally
made with. Pictures of the old man when he was younger and some pretty redhead,
always holding hands, always laughing, adorn the walls.
I hear a woman sing from somewhere
around one of the corners. The voice floats and echos off the walls. The song
is passionate, some kind of gospel.
The old man steps into the house
behind me and says, “kitchen’s this way” and walks on, expecting me to follow.
We step into a room of linoleum and
bright yellow walls, filled with more sun. There's a wooden table with just
enough places set. The voice floats in, It’s an older woman, I assume the man’s
wife, most likely the pretty redhead from the pictures. She’s round, full, her
skin folded over comfortably in wrinkles
on her face, small lines forming as she smiles.
He lightly
touches her elbow and kisses her. “Good morning Dear.” He says as he pulls away
looking sweetly into her eyes. This innocent act so intimate, I wasn’t meant to
see it., but I had to look.
“Hello,there,” she says looking past
her husband, finding me standing sideways, feeling gravity pull toward the
floor. As she sits a bouquet of flowers on the table, she tells me , “ have a
seat, dear.”
I sit down and she and her husband
bustle around the kitchen. She makes coffee as he cracks eggs into a sizzling
pan. Toast pops up out of the toaster. He throw bacon into a popping skillet. I
watch the way they move around each other, every so often, glancing toward one
another, smiling sideways. They look happy.
She sits a cup of coffee in front of
me and sits down pulling her chair in front of me. She pulls out a wet wash cloth and starts to rub my face.
“Sweetheart, what have you done to
yourself. You’re a mess.” She looks at me with worried eyes.
I feel ashamed.
I don’t want to say it.
i don’t want to say what happened.
i don’t want to say i’m a boxer
i don’t want to say for a living i
beat,
i fight.
In the nice home of these nice
people
i don’t want to say
i fight.
i’m quiet.
I close my eyes as she wipes a bit
of dirt from them.
“Ready to
eat?” the old man sits down the food on the table and shovels fried eggs and
bacon and toast onto my plate.
My stomach
growls.
I start throwing food into my mouth.
I gulp the hot coffee, scolding my throat. Some yolk drips on my shirt as i
cut and
shove the egg up into my mouth. Bits of the crunchy bacon crumble onto
my lap, into the clean floor. Some slobber finds it’s way out of the corner of
my mouth as i ravish this meal.
They sit looking at me, neatly
chopping they’re eggs into small bit size pieces and lift their bacon with
delicate fingers, slipping the food onto their tongues.
This is the
first time I’ve eaten with anyone in a while. Again my cheeks flush with
embarrassment. I’m an animal. I stop eating and want to make polite discussion
but cannot come up with anything to say.
“Uh, thanks
for the food. It’s really delicious.”
“You looked
like you need some help” the old man replies.
I looked
like I needed help.
I imagine
them in the house staring at the monster outside of their window, confused as
to if hes lost to death or sleep. I imagine them thinking of their son, seeing
him in me, so lost he’s ended up in some elderly person’s barren garden. They
were concerned.
They notice
how I’ve begun to sway with discomfort.
“ So what
do you do for a living, son?” the old man speaks to me, smiling.
I stare at
him.
More shame.
I have to
tell them. You cannot sit at someone’s table, eat their food and then refuse to
speak to them.
I confess.
“I’m a
boxer.” I say slowly turning my head back toward my food.
They glance
back and forth at each other.
“So is that
why you’re all roughed up now?” the old man says with a laugh.
“Yea,
I had a match last night.” I reply.
They shake
their heads knowing smiles on their faces.
“So how did
that go?” the woman asks, sounding concerned.
I wonder if
she’s making fun of me.
I look bad, bruised and beaten.
Doesn’t she know her husband found me in a pile of dirt?
I look
toward the window. Sunlight hits my face. I am warm. My stomach aches a little
bit from eating so much. I am full.
I face the
old man and tell him.
I tell him.
“I won.”
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