The Fighter

“Dear mom and dad… Thank you for giving me A Reason to fight my way through life. Make no mistake, I still hate you both…”

Droplets of blood are splattered across the ring like rose petals over a casket. The air smells like a mixture of liquor, leather, and sweat. Around him and through him, the echoes of a roaring crowd reverberate 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 his knees.

It's round number three in a nine-round match, but he’s been fighting for what feels 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 stagger back to his feet. That last hook hit him like a freight train across his jaw, nearly knocking him out cold. Lucky for him though, the pain quickly subsides as another burst of adrenaline surges through his veins.

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 where men exchange pain for glory. 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, he does just that.

If there’s really 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 when he was just a kid. Back when he spent most nights hiding from the drunken monster that rampaged through the single-wide trailer he called home. Day after wretched day, night after sleepless night, his father prowled through that house like a hungry wolf; ready to devour any glimmer of joy he 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 the face.

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

CRACK!

The shot across his ribs hits him harder than his father ever could. Buttoning up, he quickly finds himself backed against the ropes. He’s spent most of the fight here already. Across the ring, he can hear 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 in 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 whizzed by his head. Bodies, or at least what was left of them, were scattered on the ground, charred and smoldering. As a boy, he thought that the military would be his one-way ticket out of that trailer park he grew up in. In hindsight, it felt more like a one-way ticket straight to hell. Even now, nearly ten years later, he can still remember 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 for the rich and stupid, and as poor as he was, he could never hope to afford it.

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.

Eyes half swollen, 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 as his coach lathers a fresh layer of Vaseline across his face. Spitting into a metal bucket, chunks of blood stream from his lips.

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

Suddenly, he hears his wife shouting 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. They’d been arguing for months after he got home from Iraq, mainly about the drinking habit he couldn’t seem to shake. She’d been with him through thick and thin; three deployments, the loss of his best friend, and more night terrors than anyone could ever count. She was his last glimmer of hope. His ultimate refuge in a world full of darkness. And if he couldn’t save himself from becoming everything he ever hated, he’d end up losing her too.

That was the night she stormed out of the house. The night he thought he lost her. It was also the same night 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 started running! Sprinting after her car, he ran for what felt like eternity. Past the smoke-filled bars where he went to drown his sorrows. 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 when he felt like he couldn’t run any further, he put his head down and 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 stares at his opponent from across the ring. In the man’s eyes, he sees that old, familiar wolf glaring right back at him, searching him for weakness; probing him for fear. Glancing across the crowd, he catches a glimpse of his wife and son. She’s nearly six months along with their second child. Smacking his gloves together, he steps back out into the center of the ring, ready to fight against that monster of a man like his very life depends on it.

Because at the end of the day, it does.

Droplets of blood are splattered across the ring like rose petals over a casket. The air smells like a mixture of liquor, leather, and sweat. Around him and through him, the echoes of a roaring crowd reverberate 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 meet 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.