The Fight
You there Bradley?! You fucking with me?! The voice is a distant echo.
A sharp sting on his cheek, a slap, and a deep breath and suddenly he is back there. Back right there, in the middle of it all. Men cheering and shouting and hollering, the noise pulsing inside of his skull spreading the pain all over. Vision clears and the face is there in front of him, the face of a man who has nothing but anger and rage and who fires spittle as he shouts words into his face.
Keep your hands up, he shouts slapping him on the cheek with both encouragement and force. He’s moving, he’s fucking moving, that right hand, okay? Watch the fucking right hand.
From somewhere a bell goes and he is held to his feet, the stool taken from under him, gumshield back in place. Frozen cold water is poured over his head, but he barely acknowledges it. The crowd clap and shout c’monnn Braddlaayy, come on lad. The air in the warehouse is hot and thick and oxygen deprived. He breathes in deeply the smell of sawdust and whiskey. He coughs. Like when entering a sauna for the first time. The air grasping at his throat. The floor is uneven, and he stumbles slightly and the crowd wheeyyy at him, knowing that it is only a matter of time. Only a matter of time for them to raise their hands in the air and for them to collect their winnings and then go off into the night with their ball of cash.
His opponent approaches him. He is cut. Just on the eyebrow and just in the right place to bother him. Vaseline has been smeared across, but it isn’t helping the blood flow. There’s anguish and venom on his face. A rage and a reluctance all at the same time. There’s something there. Something to exploit.
Then there’s a jab. In his hazy state Bradley hadn’t realised the ref had signalled and it catches Bradley off guard, hitting him just to the right of his eye. But he’s lucky. Not full contact. A hint of a glance that doesn’t quite make him feel the full force.
The opponent sends a straight inside combination. He counters with a right to the body and then a swinging upper cut. His opponent is ready and blocks both, lunging in and trying his own hit to the body which Bradley dodges to his left. Another left/right combination swings and misses, but now they are up near the ropes on the far side near his corner. His opponent moves to the inside and they clinch and both gasp for any clean air they can find. Then they are separated and Bradley makes for a swinging right hook which, while not quite catching him cleanly, is enough to cause a split stunned second as spittle and blood go flying through the hot air over the canvas.
Shot to the body. It winds the opponent, and he goes inside for another clinch. They stagger in drunken circles together around the ring before the ref again breaks them up, and signals to fight.
Jab, jab, hook. All dodged by the opponent, and all missed. Right hand dodged, then a swing to the body that doesn’t connect. Don’t gas out! someone shouts, a gravelly voice that rises above the cacophony. Don’t fucking gas out on me, Bradley.
A sharp pain on the bottom of his jaw, and Bradley’s neck whiplashes backwards. Shit, he’s caught him. Yet somehow, he forces his legs not to buckle, his right foot crashing down onto the canvas with a shotgun like crack that echoes around the room. A jab flies towards him and he manages to lean back on it as the vision in his left eye starts to blacken. He goes in for a clinch, but the bell rings as deeply as a church bell tolling two o’clock.
He staggers onto the stool like an old man sitting into an armchair. The cutman goes to work on his eye and the trainer starts again. I am not throwing in this fucking towel. You want to get fucking beat then you get fucking beat on your own fucking terms. Bradley nods. Yep. Uh huh. He’s listening to this alright. Everything makes perfect sense. You were gassing there, the trainer says. Massively gassing. You’re getting shithoused and you’re getting dragged down with him.
His ears start ringing. For a second, he thinks he is going to violently vomit, but catches it in his throat just in time. He cannot see out of his left eye, and the cutman’s towel is marbled with red and crimson.
As the bell goes and he staggers forward again, he remembers when they were both 16. Him and his opponent. Sitting at the park with their bikes behind them. They shared a bottle of cheap cider. They watched funny videos on his phone and then, as he leaned over him to change the video, there was something. A jolt of electricity. Something painful. Something he knew he’d been taught to never do but couldn’t fight.
But someone saw them. One of the boys from down on the estate. It spread like wildfire and soon the old man was in Bradley’s room, smashing up his TV with a cricket bat and screaming at him for doing what he had done and there was no way that he was going to be that way. Both old men agreed, let’s teach them the sweet science to punch it out of them.
The heat is white now. Blood is dripping into his eye. This is it. He is done. As they stagger forward towards each other, the crowd roaring and baying, the opponent’s corner shouts for him to be finished, seeing his wobbly legs and the loose arms. And so Bradley takes a perfect shot to the side of his head, smashing down onto the canvas, blacking out to nothing.
