The Fighter

“This story is dedicated to my parents. Thank you for giving me everything I needed to fight my way through life… I still hate you both, and I pray to god I never see either of you ever again…”

Droplets of blood are splattered across the ring like rose petals on the floor. The air smells like a mixture of liquor, leather, and sweat. Around him and through him, the echoes of a roaring crowd reverberate off the walls so loudly that he can feel it in the pits of his stomach. Sweat beads off his brow and into the corners of his eyes. His blurry vision spins as he crumbles to the floor.

It's round number three in a nine-round match, but he’s been fighting for what felt like eternity.

He’s a father, a warrior, a fighter.

And right now, he’s losing.

“One! Two! Three!” the ref begins to count.

Grabbing at the ropes, he manages to stand back up. His knees shake and his legs wobble. That last hook hit him like a freight train across his jaw. Lucky for him, the pain is quickly replaced by a numbing sensation. 

Looking across the ring, he sees his opponent glaring at him like a wolf eyeing its prey. He fears this man - hates him even. This ring feels like a trap. A merciless place holding him in here with both this man and his own demons. It’s a cage with no way out other than through the gauntlet; a snare he can’t escape unless he’s willing to gnaw off pieces of his own soul.

So, raising his gloves up and nodding to the referee, he steps back to center.

If there’s truly no easy way out, then by God, he’ll go down swinging!

At least, that’s the lie he tells himself. It’s the same lie he told himself when he was just a kid hiding from the drunken monster that rampaged through the house every night. Day after wretched day, night after sleepless night, that monster prowled through that trailer like a hungry wolf ready to devour any glimmer of joy it managed to sniff out. For ten years he was forced to find somewhere to hide. For ten years he listened to screams echoing off the walls. For ten years he endured the same backhand across his face.

And at ten years old, he finally got tired of running.

CRACK!

The shot across his ribs hits him harder than his father ever could. Buttoning up, he quickly finds himself against the ropes. He’s spent most of the fight here already. Across the ring, he can just barely make out the voice of his coach yelling at him to step to the inside and work his angles.

He’s right. That would get him off the ropes. But he also isn’t the one getting the literal shit beat out of him right now, either.

WHOP!

That damn right hook again.

Falling forward, he can’t let the ref see that he’s about to crumble. In a last-ditch effort to keep fighting, he throws out his arms and goes for a clinch. He just needs to catch his breath. Just a few seconds to get the feeling back in his legs.

He just needed a minute to get his shit together.

But that’s just another memory that haunts him. Crawling out of that Humvee was like crawling onto another planet. Smoke filled the air. Bullets hissed by his head. Bodies, or at least what remained of bodies, were scattered on the ground, charred and smoldering. The military was his one-way ticket out of that trailer park he grew up in. However, it felt more like a one-way ticket straight to hell. In his mind’s eye, he can still remember himself trying to wrap his head around it all - the explosion, the burning corpses, the firefight that ensued. He can remember thinking that he just needed a minute to compose himself. Just a second to figure out what was going on.

Unfortunately for him, time was a luxury, and he couldn’t afford it even if he wanted to.

DING! DING! DING!

Thank God for that damn bell! Another minute in the ring with that monster and he’d be lying unconscious on the mat.

With half swollen eyes, he stumbles over to a corner. 

It’s not his corner. 

Looking over his shoulder, he sees his coach shouting at him, so he stumbles over there and takes a seat.

Removing his mouthpiece, he begins swishing water around in his mouth as his coach lathers a fresh layer of Vaseline across his swollen face. Spitting into a metal bucket, chunks of blood stream from his lips. Quivering, he desperately tries to catch his breath.

“Do you want this!?” his coach yells at him. “I said, do you want this, or not!?”

Suddenly, he hears his wife yelling at him from the not-so-distant past.

“Because, if you don’t, then I’m taking our son and I’m leaving!”

Truth be told, nothing in his life ever hurt him quite as much as the day she nearly walked out on him forever. They’d been arguing for months after he got home from Iraq, mainly about the drinking habit he couldn’t seem to shake. She had been faithful to him through it all; three deployments, the loss of his closest friend, and more night terrors than anyone would dare to count. She was his last glimmer of hope. She was everything he held dear. And she was about to leave if he didn’t find a way to stop himself from becoming everything he ever hated.

That was the night she stormed out of the house. It was also the same night that he poured out the last drop of whiskey into the kitchen sink. Wanting to sober up as fast as he could, he threw on his shoes and just started running! He ran for what felt like an eternity. Past the subdivision where those rich bastards lived, past the trailer park he once called home, past the recruit depot where he signed his name on a dotted line. 

He ran past it all. 

And then he kept fucking going!

He didn’t stop until he puked…

And he eventually puked in front of the old boxing gym.

DING! DING! DING!

The bell tolls again.

Standing to his feet, he looks across the ring at his opponent. In his eyes, he sees that same hungry wolf still staring back at him. Glancing across the crowd, he catches a glimpse of his wife and son. She’s nearly six months along with their second child. 

Stepping out into the center of the ring, he’s ready to fight like his life depends on it!

Because, at the end of the day, it does…

Droplets of blood are splattered around the ring like rose petals on the floor. The air smells like a mixture of liquor, leather, and sweat. Around him and through him, the echoes of a roaring crowd reverberate off the walls so loudly that he can feel it in the pits of his stomach. Sweat beads off his brow and into the corners of his eyes. His vision begins to focus as he marches out to face his opponent.

It's round number four in a nine-round match, but he’s been fighting since he was ten.

He’s a father, a warrior, a fighter.

And right now, he’s giving it everything he has left.