16 HOURS OUT
IT WAS COLD as frozen shit outside; the gym heater in Lock Haven PA’s only Holiday Inn was broke; so at 6AM, with 5 pounds to cut before sunrise, cocooned in a black sweatsuit, terrifying the earlybird businessmen & hotel staff; jumping rope & shadowboxing like a raging bull in the hottest corner of the 3rd Floor hallway, Pedro Cunha looked like a fucking maniac.
Right before he got in the van Coach said, “You look fat.” Pedro said, “Nah, I’m on weight,” even though he had the same suspicion; he’d been too scared to weigh himself after the self-confrontation in his dorm mirror.
But he prayed that in the excruciatingly frigid & boring 8 hour van ride across all of flat endless Ohio and most of troubling Pennsylvania, — where often, deep in the twists & turns, a horse & buggy would pull out in front of them to delay their journey on behalf of a ridiculous convenience-spurning God, — the requisite weight would ooze out of him like magic. Sleep wasn’t happening: he was too desperate for it. He had a sack of 22 almonds, a half-empty water bottle (yes, half-empty, he left optimism in the Oxford parking lot).
He’d nibble & sip in painstaking, precise 30-minute increments; he hoped the repetition would ease time’s churn. It didn’t.
AUDREY THOUGHT HE was sleeping the whole way.
That’s what he’d told her. The exigencies of a long-distance relationship were becoming an albatross around his neck; weird metaphor, albatross, he’d never even seen a bird like that, more of a crane, svelte, leggy, a little very beaky the way she was, that abhorred nose she tried to angle-hide in every picture, he thought it was cute, once he said it was distinguished: that was a fight.
Everyone told them it was a statistically dunderheaded doomed idea.
But what if he were the perfectly ultimate throbbing sword for her amicable sheath and mutatis mutandis, sheathwise? . . . plus the fright of rending a comfy bond deep in the loveydovey throes, he’d hadn’t gone all the way with nobody else: the terror of facing a pussyless tundra, he’d have to restart, it was unclear if what she liked about him was transferable currency, what if he hoarded a heap of Audreybucks and in this new country the exchange rate was deadfuck zero; she was going to Pitt, he was 5 hours away at Miami of Ohio, they traded their nice kissy now for a future of perfect bliss. Idiots.
4 years of trials & attrition. The 2nd winter of ceaseless talking, texting, screen-mediated love was starting to drag.
What happened when men were away at war? They didn’t facetime their ladies in the trenches. NO. Women waited nicely primly chastely. Nourished by occasional letters. While the men got the damn work done and returned with epic tales.
MEET MY GIRLFRIEND! this disembodied voice boring me every single fucking day. A life of perfunctory obligations. Right outta practice calls, drained & sore, gotta talk to her about nothing,
Miss you baby, Miss you too, I love you, Can’t wait until we live together, pretending lust isn’t a glacier eroding your insides,
modulating stories about female friends not to spook her.
When we gonna see eachother? Well it’s boxing season, you could come visit me. Baby, with work & school . . . He didn’t say, You gonna be a landscaper, a fucking snowshoveler forever? You don’t respect my job she’d say. That brute ogling boss of hers. Are you INSANE Pedro?! You think I would fuck my boss??
It was almost worse if they didn’t fight.
Grasp past the natural conversational endpoint until he was restless, she withdrawn, he’d have to coax away her loneliness.
LAST FRIDAY MORNING Pedro was scrolling thru Instagram while walking and he dropped his phone in a sewer grate. A shocking unshackling. 3 whole days before he was reconnected to the world. Like being resurrected back into hell.
The thrill of boxing, other than the license to inflict cruelty, was the direct unmediated experience. He was retapped-in into LIFE.
Had campus always been so squirrel-saturated? Had the women always been so fragrant & budding?
He went to the bar that first phoneless night. Not thinking about Audrey, about having to constantly update her what he was doing. Usually he stopped drinking 2 weeks before a fight, this was 1 week out, he was 4-0, Coach said he had a legit shot to win Nationals; but rectitude was a damn drain, why delay gratification in every aspect of my life while everyone here frolics in lascivious joyworld; 1 drink became a dozen, aided by Brick Street’s most heinous concoction: the Trash Can, a dump of clear liquors washed out by Red Bull.
Woozy, libidinously open to limitpushing, he spotted Carmen.
IN ETHICS 201 he sat a few rows back & diagonal. Watch her take her coat off, all scanty & sexy underneath . . . “Pedro, stand up and show the class your boner!”, the professor would say in his nightmare.
“I’ve seen you looking at me,” she said.
Soon she was throwing ass; grinding, kissing, squeezing, hands up inside her shirt, it was good to feel someone full & buxom . . . I like that you’re bigger than my girlfriend, that’d be insane to say . . . sucking, biting on her neck, she recoiled . . . until coaxed by another Trash Can glug.
I don’t think Pedro realized there was a reckless impetuous ferocity to his drunk behavior that made him scary.
Attested to by a girl in his hall last year who deemed him “that scary guy,” cause one night at Brick he was leering at her like an across-the-street serial killer. She literally fled home.
Pedro thought his boundary-pushing ferality was sexy. Boxing & dickmanship were part of an ancient attitude toward life that he was reviving, to beat off (no pun intended) the world-siege of emasculating forces.
“COME HOME WITH me baby,” he hotly whispered in her ear after a failed maneuver at a dance-floor fingering.
But her friends pulled her away. She wrote down her phone number on a napkin.
2 nights ago they went out, got drunk, ate sloppy midnight Jimmy John’s; she sat on his lap in her dorm room lobby.
She knew he had a fight this weekend. He got a text from her in the van, good luck :)
15 HOURS OUT
PEDRO CUNHA KNEW it was time to quit the rigamarole, heart leaping up thru his neck, gasping like he was breathing thru a wet rag, nearly barfing, Red Bull remnants of Thursday’s Trash Can wafting up from his esophagus, — puking wouldn’t be the worst thing . . . would help with the cut.
He walked back into the hotel room. Now he was done moving, his sweat was turning to ice, encasing him in his double hoodie. Everybody was still asleep. Lucky bastards.
Ricky & Adán were seniors, seasoned with more than 25 fights apiece, Coach’s little exemplars, course they were on weight (156 & 125 respectively); his bedmate Big Trev was more like him in terms of laxity, hustle, abiding by natural power, but he was a fat-ass heavyweight: he was snoring peaceful unemaciated dreams.
Pedro walked into the bathroom, stripped down. Scale. Cold. Gonna be so fucking cold today. 197.5. Coach wanted him at 195. To get used to doing it for Nationals. 2 pound allowance today. 197 was all he needed. Might as well.
He stuck his hand down his throat and threw up.
Better get that W if you’re doing all this, Pedro.
12 HOURS OUT
COACH WAS 5 foot nothing but stood erect as a revered rooster. And thanks to his days as a literal drill sergeant, he didn’t balk barking at nobody.
“Fuck’s wrong with you, huh?” Coach said, after Pedro processed off the scale in Lock Haven’s locker room, 2nd to last in the line of sickly post-evaluation cattle. Last was Lucian McNamara, his chiseled fracas-hungry opponent, God his biceps were big, he almost wished he hadn’t seen him with his shirt off. 194. He came in crisp. Ready.
“You look horrible! Lucian’s the real deal, he was in the finals last year.” “I’m good Coach, just wait on it, you’ll see,”
and Pedro did believe in-so-far as saying so out loud hardened the soft pulsating doubt gnawing at him since he had that dream where Lucian KO’d him; plus it bolstered the pie-in-the-sky estimation he had of his own natural talent, of his sheer propensity toward violence, of the ungamified pleasure he took in leaving a body crumpled via age-old simplicity: fist to skull bashing, — all of which would surely surmount paltry obstacles like being outta shape or a few weeks of bad training.
I do believe Pedro really wished he was junkyard mean, the mean you couldn’t fake like Ricky & Adán & Big Trev; and Lucian (if Pedro would’ve looked up his past fights on Youtube, he might’ve deserted in a looneytunic poof, they would’ve found him shoeless on 1-71).
Instead, he had to construct a psychological scaffold of lies to bring himself to get in the ring.
I’m a bad motherfucker, I’m a bad motherfucker, he’d write over & over, filling up pages in his journal.
WHAT’S THE POINT? he’d think sometimes when Coach scolded him, all this damn work to go to some rinkydink town to fight in front of 80 . . . 50 . . . OK, maybe 30 bumpkins with rinkydink lives; enduring the vicissitudes of training, sparring, rationing food & water like you’re trapped in some boat in the middle of nowhere! all for 6 minutes of ineluctable conflict, 6 minutes where you couldn’t lie to yourself no more; and it was all worth it for that brief glory, when the ref raised your hand,
IN THE RED CORNER PEDROOOOOOOO CUUUUUUNHA!!!!
but if you lost . . . then the patience, discipline, sticktoittiveness . . . it was all worthless, in fact, it just amplified the humiliation . . .
Humiliation lingered, unlike glory.
Hard truth: hard won don’t make it eternal.
Boxing was starting to feel like Audrey.
Agonizing arduous build, for what? Fidelity, closeness, comfort? Wouldn’t any warm body do? Why was he suffering so much for her?
Did anything last forever?
Poor Pedro. He does think he’s suffering.
10 HOURS OUT
THE BOXERS WERE killing time at the ostensibly palatable Dutch Haven Restaurant after weigh-ins.
Pedro, Ricky, Adán, Big Trev. It was only 12PM and the fights didn’t start until 8PM. Pedro was last, his opponent was a big draw.
Waiting, waiiiiiiiing, waaaaaaaaaaaiiitiiiing. All day watching the gallows in the distance: JUST HANG ME ALREADY!
Young pert waitress standing at attention. Button down shirt a little too big, you could see a glimpse of pink bra between the buttons. How does a town like this sprout a girl like her? Though you could see it in the teeth when she smiled.
“What the fuck Pedro you can’t eat chocolate chip pancakes before you fight!” “You gonna be slow as shit bro.”
“Ricky’s right.”
“I won’t put syrup on it, I’ll be OK.”
Know-it-alls. Telling the only undefeated fighter what to do.
“Sooooo, chocolate chip pancakes?” “Yup — ” “ — I’ll have the chicken & waffles, could you bring me a side of bacon too?” “Why don’t you guys get on Big Trev’s ass?” “Yoooooo, nobody’s getting on nobody’s ass.” “Trev’s fat bro, don’t matter what he eats.” “Motherfucker, I’m strong.” “Under that blubber.”
“Youz in the boxing tonight?”
“Yeah baby,” Ricky said like he had a rose in his teeth.
“I love boxing.”
“Then you better come check me out.”
“Maybe I will.”
She walked off blushing; more beautiful than when she came to the table; Ricky invigorated women, Pedro drained them.
“She was sexy.” “You bugging out, can’t be thinking bout no women before a fight.” “Why?” “Bruh, why you think I hit so hard? Cause I retain my seed.” “Easy for your ugly ass Trev.” “You can fuck em but you gotta make em squirt, that’s how you get the power back.”
“ADÁN SHHHHH!”
The locals were staring daggers. The boys laughed boisterously.
ON THE ROAD
WE CAN IMAGINE how she felt during the drive, the girl in effervescence, miles hastened by the expectation of his luminous face, giddy from the reveal, surprise! my love; why not go see him in the active fruit of his toil, he was in her State, she took off from work, it was those bright morsels of care that made the relationship they were building worthwhile; like when they first started dating he showed up at her door with lilies & her coffee order from Starbucks, sure it was easy enough but he remembered her drink, her favorite flower! he was such a boy and just for her he was differentiating flowers!,
— though I hate to add, that was 2 years ago and she can’t think of a semelhant recent example, —
though (she would never think this, lest a bleak doubt subsume her), it didn’t seem likely he would drive 3 hours on a Saturday to see whatever her equivalent of a boxing match was, no, he didn’t vest her victories like she did his,
— he cherished their separateness while she was trying to merge them into a consummate WE, —
really this trip was a hopeful act of conjuring, as if enacting the things she wanted from him would compel him to anticipate her needs, reciprocate,
— “Be the change you wanna see in the world,” unfortunately, she was thinking, Gandhily, —
and if she was being totally honest with herself, an honesty which the eardrum eviscerating Kacey Musgraves-inspired playlist was staving off; she might admit the notion he might only be a quixotic hologram of all the tangible things she wanted out of life was starting to itch like a single louse, prested to become a complete infection.
9 HOURS OUT
PEDRO REALIZED PANCAKES were a grave mistake by the time he conceded his first bout of the day: this one with abominable diarrhea; no, not the easy gush it’s over but the kind that makes your bowels feel like an anchor dropping thru you to sewery oblivion.
If only it had been before weigh-ins! Must’ve dropped a pound and a half. While suffering on the toilet he texted Carmen: “what up?”
No answer yet.
THE TEAM WAS long-gone when he left the bathroom. Soldiers off to play cards before combat. (Is that what you are, Pedro? A soldier?)
He texted Big Trev, wya? and he got a call from Audrey. Reject. Rang again: he answered. “BABY! Where are you?” “Lock Haven . . . ” “PEDRO — ” “I mean I told — ” “I’M HERE DUMMY!”
SHE WAS THERE. In front of her red 2009 Chevy Colorado. Snowflakes starting to fall on her Cabela’s camouflage jacket. She was from Burgettstown — the Dirty B, — nobody’d ever dispute that. So weird to date a girl with a truck, he thought, when they first started dating. Can we . . . . . . . ? They call it a bed for a reason!
She was a shock. Distance diluted memory. Easy to forget how radiant, smiley, enbonerating, kissy she was; he knew exactly what was under that tacky coat. Her visceral nowness made Carmen seem like a relic of a longgone eon; he was stupid, attributing to the new girl, cause of newness, a wild ready-to-bedness he swore Audrey lacked; but here she was, looking at him like a sunflower looks at the sun, . . . maybe they could find a bathroom around here . . .
“You’re here!” “And this ain’t all, I got a surprise for you later too . . . but only if you win.” She smiled, cheeky, but that was cold water on his lap, reminded him that her, here, completely changed the stakes. He always wants to win, but it don’t matter if you get your ass kicked in front of a bunch of random yokels; it was like shadowboxing in your bedroom.
But now, watching, with her beautiful ass plunked in the bleachers, would be one of the few people to whom the successful performance of his masculinity actually mattered; he had to prove that all his ambition & boasting were warranted. He did not want her to think he was a pussy.
“I’m just joking Pedro! I don’t care if you win.”
“I know Auds, but I don’t lose.”
7 HOURS OUT
PEDRO & AUDREY were sitting on a snow-whipped swingset getting pelted by the wind. What now? It was already starting to get dark, they’d seen everything in town. She’d taken his suggestion of a coital-detour at a portapotty as a joke, LOL!; now the boredom & blueballs was making him surly.
“You OK?” “Yeah.” “ . . . Did you like the surprise — ” “ — Obviously!” “I’m sorry if . . . I made you feel pressure or — ” “Are you kidding me?!” “Maybe I should’ve asked first . . . you seem nerv — ” “I’m not nervous!”
Something was off between these two. I didn’t see them that day, but you can tell when a couple’s on its last legs. There’s a translucency; a feeling like when you open a bag of chips and there ain’t as many chips as you thought there’d be: That’s it?
THEY WALKED IN the direction of the gym, silent; they’d given up on holding hands because of the cold. His gait & posture were flaccid, almost limp, until he saw his teammates approaching and it was like a cocksure creature was suddenly under his skin, stiffening him up.
“YOOOOOO! MY BOY! WHO IS THIS?” Ricky asked. “That’s Audrey.”
“We’re going to CVS, you guys trying to come?” “Nah, we’re good.” “Aight. Nice meeting you Audrey!” . . . “You didn’t think maybe I wanted to go?” “Why?” “I don’t know any of your friends from school.” “Those guys are assholes, you wouldn’t like them.” “It’s like . . . I don’t even know your life, like, you could be totally different at school.” “I’m not.” “You didn’t even tell them I was your girlfriend.” “Seriously Audrey? They know!” “Do they?” “Obviously!!” “You talk about me?” “All the time.” “OK.” . . . “Could you not do this right now?” “I’m not doing anything.” “You’re being weird, you know what you’re doing.” “OK Pedro.” “Like, I gotta get focused.” “Do your thing.” “I’m FIGHTING, you know that right?” “I’m sorry Pedro, you’re gonna be great. I can’t wait.” “I love you, Audrey, you know that.” “I love you too.”
2 HOURS OUT
HE’D NEVER FOUGHT this late. Didn’t even know when to warm up.
Ricky kicked the night off; he was a brawly hardhitting southpaw; his opponent came out swinging: big mistake.
Easy stoppage for Ricky in the 2nd round.
90 MINUTES OUT
COACH USUALLY WRAPPED everybody’s hands, but Pedro was superstitious, he used his own purple handwraps in his first fight and it was lightwork. He was gonna stick with them until it failed him.
Coach was walking Adán to the ring. “Get your wraps on, COME ON PEDRO! You gotta start warming up!”
Adán was niiiice. His fights were never in doubt. He got robbed in the finals last year, but this year he was a shoe-in, nobody left at 125 could even touch him; of course he schooled the local bum from Lock Haven, silenced the crowd real fast, dude didn’t even land a clean jab, Adán’s head movement was way too slick, his pace was relentless.
He stepped out the ring not even breathing heavy.
30 MINUTES OUT
ALL DAY YOU sweat the thought of stepping thru the ropes, but it feels impossible that you’ll actually be fighting soon. Time creeps & creeps & then careens. Pedro was shadowboxing, throwing 5-6-5-6-3-2 fast as he could, cheating his way to a sweat; he had no routine, he was jellylegged already: not good.
BIG TREV’S TURN; he was Pedro’s main sparring partner, so he was on intimate terms with the power of the dude’s right hand: he was 6’6 260 and put his whole ass into every one of those punches: Pedro suffered the only knockdown of his life thanks to Big Trev’s right cross right on the chin.
The big fella was supposed to give him a ride after practice, Pedro couldn’t even remember his address.
He was an unassailably frustrating fighter: for 2.5 rounds he’d stand like a statue, hands up, getting backed up into a corner, eating punches while Coach & everyone else yelled PUNCH! PUNCH!, with 30 seconds left, he’d uncork his annihilator & leave the dude flat.
He was 8-1; his only loss was a unanimous decision where he only threw a single punch and broke his opponent’s orbital bone.
Went right according to script: with 25 seconds left, that tomato-can from Navy was canvas-backed looking at the ceiling, popped like a balloon.
3 Miami fighters up, 3 wins. Pedro had to bring it home for the sweep.
IN THE BLEACHERS
WE CAN IMAGINE how she must’ve felt enduring the weary reeky spectacle of a sport she didn’t understand; her legs were falling asleep, she couldn’t believe she was still inside that horrid gym watching these brutes bash eachother,
— why did men need these silly war-substitutes to keep themselves busy?, —
she promised herself she would give the moment her attention, not look at her phone, except to post a quick IG story of Pedro handsome in his uniform, his sculpted arms, he wouldn’t repost her story on his page, don’t think about that; it was exciting watching Pedro’s teammates win so easily, comprehensibly,
— in some of the fights the judges chose one boxer over another for reasons that didn’t make any sense to her, there was a weird calculus to this head-bashing, —
she was sure Pedro would do just the same, and the night would go on wonderfully, the two of them would be swaddled in her delightful further surprise, all would be sweet & hunkydory, she’d ignore his earlier irascibility, everything,
— the loneliness in the stands, without the slightest chit-chat-buddy to ameliorate the dead-air; his perdurable, perdoable, Pedroity; the farmyard-level stank it would take weeks to remove from her nostrils, —
everything would be redeemed by watching her love, her man, make his ringwalk & kick the shit out of some lowly bastard.
5 MINUTES OUT
COULDN’T HE JUST abridge time?
Be slumped in the van, satisfied at the sweat of his labor; be post-service getting his due kudos or condolences, right now the result of the fight was immaterial, he wanted it to be over, he was praying.
(Pedro was always praying impiously. He was the nastiest kind of unbeliever, credencelessly relying on a magician God: I know I don’t believe but can I pleeeeeeeeaaassssse get what I want?)
Disaster strike this gymnasium. An errant bomb, an earthquake; nature, intervene!
It almost happened, I seen it myself. While the penultimate fight was in the ring and Lucian McNamara was wailing on the pads like a wild boar, while Coach was whispering the gameplan into Pedro’s ear,
“Stay at YOUR range. Jab & circle, and when he steps in, hit em with that goddamn shoeshine. Uppercuts are FREE!”,
one of the fighters in the ring took a hard step and the board underneath the canvas caved: he almost fell through.
WHAT A RELIEF!
The ring was broke, he wouldn’t have to fight, he was already telling Audrey in his head, “I’m PIIIIIISSED! I was gonna fucking beat the shit out that guy!!”
His prayers were answered!
NO. 35-MINUTE DELAY.
The ring was fixed. It was time to fight.
TOUCH GLOVES!
LUCIAN LOOKED SO much more focused than him when they heard instructions in center ring; he stared right up into Pedro’s eyes, our boy was 5 inches taller, but I think he resigned himself to his defeat, donned a nasty scowl as a last-ditch feign, but Lucian could smell it on him.
DING DING!
“BE FIRST PEDRO!”
Pedro flicked a lazy jab, didn’t bring his hand back to his chin, Lucian walloped over the top with an overhand right, he was gonna do that all damn fight,
it ain’t so much seeing stars it’s like headlights on a pitch-black street BASH FLASH it’s over so fast you don’t have time to think before getting binged again,
then the hazy feeling you’ve fought this guy before, in a dream or something, the you-can’t-handle-this-guy despair was setting in, Lucian was drilling the body with hooks, finishing hard to the head, the crowd was in an action loving frenzy, Pedro hit a nice jab, snapped his head back,
“MORE OF THAT PEDRO!”,
before eating a 3 on the kisser.
THE BELL. LEGS like rubber stilts. No stool in the corner. Coach didn’t want you to sit.
“You gotta fucking throw the right hand! Jab, jab, jab, bust him with the right. KEEP THROWING! You lost that round but you can beat this guy. You got 4 more minutes, PUSH! DO NOT LET HIM GET INSIDE YOUR RANGE.”
DING DING!
ROUND 2 WAS a complete battering.
The little bastard somehow found his range with the jab, parrying with the lead hand, jabbing right off it — a technique all the West Point fighters used, — and he was getting inside whenever he wanted,
landing on Pedro’s chin, nose, ribs, liver, temple; marking his territory like a dog on a fire hydrant,
our boy was about to quit, I could see him wanting to fall to the canvas, quit like a condemned prisoner,
that’s when Lucian would let up, teasing him like a heavy bag,
how was there another round left?
BACK TO CORNER. Blood from nose, mouth.
(The punches didn’t even hurt. It was the fear of the punch that was worse than the contact. But this was new. He’d never been completely overmatched. Lucian was making him his bitch, there was absolutely nothing he could do.)
Coach gave him a sip of water to swish and spit in the bucket,
“You’re down, you need a knockout Pedro. I’m telling you, YOU CAN DO IT!”,
Pedro spit, missed the bucket, accidentally launched a bloody goop right onto the judges’ table,
“EWWW!!!”,
as if Lucian needed more help on the scorecards.
DING DING!
THERE WASN’T NO bravery in his last round tottering, stalling, he swore he could hear Audrey,
“KICK HIS ASS PEDRO COME ON!”,
but there’d be no asskicking this round; his purpose was to survive until the final bell, he spent the whole round ignominiously refusing to fight, arms & legs so full of lactic acid he couldn’t have landed a good punch if his life depended on it,
he clutched Lucian like a needy koala,
“STOP HOLDING!”,
“I’M GONNA TAKE POINTS IF YOU KEEP HOLDING RED!”,
dislatch to latch again, the crowd even started to BOOOOO, but ding ding ding . . .
the fight was over.
POST-RING CLARITY
“That was not good Pedro,” Coach said, succinct.
It was too early to tease him, so his teammates, that confederacy of winners (they were a spoils-separate army), gave him silent, half-ass knuckles; Big Trev slapped him on the back.
THERE WAS AUDREY. Robust, ruddy, with relief & admiration, smiling, as if she was scorning his failure. She went to embrace him.
“I don’t wanna get my sweat all over you.” “I don’t care! I thought you were amazing Pedro!” “I was horrible. I lost.” “People lose, it’s not a big deal.” “I fought like fucking shit.” “OK . . . ” “Yeah.” “What do you want me to say?” “ . . . I’m gonna go shower.” “You want me to wait up for you?” “I mean — ” “Why don’t — ” “It’s late, you can just go . . . ” “Well — ” “You got a long drive.” “OK . . . ” “Thanks for coming.” “ . . . ” Pedro turned to walk away. “You know this was my whole Saturday, right?” “I didn’t tell you to come.” “Why are you being an asshole?” “Idk.” “OK, well . . . bye.” Audrey turned to walk away. “AUDREY, WAIT!” “ . . . what?” “ . . . I don’t know what to say.” “OK. I’m not just gonna stand here while you stare at me.”
“ . . . ” “ . . . ” “Well I guess I’ll go take a shower then . . . ” “OK.” “I love you.” “Love you too.”
FUELING UP
THE TEAM WAS at Burger King, chowing with gnashing smucking triumph, having re-accepted Pedro into the fraternity. The hamburger, fries, milkshake, it was all so absurdly sublime that his pitiable misery felt like an ancient ruin; distant & dried of any bloody human drama.
Ricky said, “You got a little baddie don’t you Pedro? She’s fine.” “Bruh that’s why he lost. All that pussy earlier wore em out!” “And you know he ain’t making no bitches squirt!” “Have some respect you jagoffs,” Coach said, “and hey, I got laid before plenty of fights, I ain’t ever fought that bad!”
Everybody laughed.
JUST UPSTAIRS
WE CAN IMAGINE that on the 4th Floor of Lock Haven PA’s only Holiday Inn, at 1AM, she was lying in the bed that should’ve been a conjugal surprise to her weary soldier, being able to spend the night restfully ensnuggled; she told herself the surprise was never contingent on how he acted, but at some level it must’ve been because she bided her time to tell him,
— victory wasn’t the thing, she was wise enough to know the meretriciousness of results, —
but his whole disposition confirmed her worst fear,
(we might wonder if she came all this way to corroborate a suspicion: a private eye’s ambush),
that she might’ve wasted spry years on an unbloomable dud; but, she thought, looking up at the timemottled ceiling, she was young & beautiful, she could afford the mistake, and anyway, kindness & fidelity were their own reward,
resigned to her fate, I happily surmise, she checked the weather-app before she shut her eyes; tomorrow was going to be unseasonably sunny & warm,
a peace like the presentiment of that sunshine on her head overcame her; she had absolutely nothing to do tomorrow or the next day, she would sleep-in as long as she liked, and when she woke up, she would take a long languid drive home.
JUST DOWNSTAIRS
IT WAS PEDRO’S turn in the bathroom. Loser went last. Everybody was asleep. Almost 1AM. He typed out a message to Audrey, “i was an asshole today. i’m sorry. you mean everything to me! I LOVE YOU!!! & i’m so grateful u came out to see me,” but he deleted it. She was probably on the road. She wouldn’t see it.
He pulled up a nude she’d sent him a few months ago, his cherished favorite, and he jacked off into the toilet.
Just as he finished he got a text from Carmen:
“hey srry i was busy all day! how’d the fight go???”
Harold Rogers is the author of the Substack THE ANNALS OF HAROLD. He works as a boxing coach in NYC. His second novel Humpty Dumpty is forthcoming from FSG in 2026.
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