This was the week a clerk and two elderly customers died at a check-cashing center in a strip mall, the clerk shot despite the bulletproof storefront. There was a buzzer she had to press to let customers in but how could she know who was dangerous before they were standing at the counter.
This was the week a charred body was found inside a trash can behind a bar and this was the week the spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office said the body was burnt beyond recognition but at least they had his teeth.
This was the week a woman was killed by a neighbor when she knocked on his door, her face bloodied and cut, seeking help after a car accident. This was the week the homeowner opened a locked door to fire a shotgun at the color of her skin.
This week was the week it always was.
What would it have taken to make this week different.
She wouldn’t come to the fight because she didn’t want to see him get hurt and for Kelly there was no one else. Before the appointed time arrived the trainer came into the locker room, sat down in the corner where Kelly was resting, his eyes heavy, hands wrapped and gloved and ready. Kelly wore the red shorts and the red shoes and the orange jersey of the watch, considered his color-draped bulk in the mirror across from the bench. He lifted his eyes at the trainer’s approach but didn’t stand to meet him. Whatever had happened in the circle of swords had taken everything he had but he hoped his energy would return before the fight began. The effects of the late mass lingered, the lifting of the swords, the turning circle, the loud thunder of the boombox, the ashes streaked across his forehead, the presence he hadn’t felt in many years. Perhaps imagined, he didn’t know. In his youth he had craved this feeling. He thought he did not believe in God again but he did still believe in that feeling, the absolute and temporary lack of doubt.
You’re not wearing the robe, the trainer asked.
No, said Kelly. Is it time?
Not yet. Soon.
I’m ready.
Soon. Make it a good show and you’ll get your money.
I won’t fall for nothing.
You will.
I won’t.
I wanted you because I knew you’d think so.
I won’t.
He’ll hit you. He’ll hurt you. Bringer will punch you until you go down or the referee makes him stop and you will have no chance of changing this.
This isn’t what’s going to happen.
Like I said. I knew you’d think so.
It was nothing but bravado speaking. Kelly hadn’t come to win but to lose in the right way. He’d never understood the scoring, didn’t want to keep score. He only needed to understand if he didn’t plan on forcing the knockout.
When Kelly entered the gym he saw the lights turned up, a spotlight over the center of the mats inscribing a glowing circle in the center of the ring. The crowd wasn’t large but there were more people watching than Kelly was used to, more noise. The chatter before the spectacle, the boredom muddled with expectation, the crowding of bodies in the motionless air, the gym the hottest room Kelly could remember, sweat already wicking his skin.
The trainer walked out beside Kelly, lifting the ropes for Kelly to climb into the ring. He spoke to Kelly’s corner man, then took his place on the opposite side: the contender assigned the blue corner, Kelly dressed in his gifted red. The contender not coming out until Kelly was set. Making Kelly wait, trying to shake his nerve. At last the contender ducking under the ropes, arriving tall and sleek in his corner, his body in motion even before he dropped his robe.
The revealment of the boxer hidden beneath the garment, the contender’s name on the lips of every spectator: Bringer. Bringer. Bringer. This man Kelly did not know but that he had agreed to hurt, to be hurt by. An abstraction of the deadliest order.
Kelly pulled the orange jersey over his head as the referee began to speak. The call to the center. The expectations of a good fight, a clean fight. The gloves touching gloves. The bell ringing and the contender not waiting for Kelly, coming at him faster and stronger than Kelly had imagined but in both men there existed a matching will to hurt, to be hurt, the suspension of the man outside the ring for the man within, for the contest, the agony, the two words that once meant the same thing.
The contender loomed a foot taller than Kelly but Kelly moved in on him, ducked low under the contender’s sprawl. Kelly was comfortable in the clinch, tried to nullify the difference in reach, but the contender was fast on his feet, technically skilled in a way Kelly would never be. The contender landed a first punch harder than any Kelly had ever suffered and at first Kelly couldn’t find a way under the punches that followed. He took a step back, another. Another punch landed and Kelly thought of the tightrope beam above the plant, the impossibility of walking it backward like the total ineffectiveness of Kelly’s defense, the sudden uselessness of raising his arms, of trying to ball up against the contender — at last the real violence had arrived, the end of the simulation of sparring, the absolute terror of a fighter born to fight — and by the end of the first minute Kelly was forced to embrace his inability to defend himself, the muscles in the shoulders numbed and dumbed by the contender’s fists.
Kelly pushed back in, swung wildly, fought against the gaining lethargy. He crossed his feet, made other mistakes. For the first time in his life he felt his true age, the accumulation of injury obvious in the face of the contender’s still-limitless youth. The gap between them only a few years, a slim fraction of a life. But enough. More than.
The bell rang, the round ended. The water bottle, the towel, the encouraging word. The fight a third over and who knew what the score was.
The bell rang, the next round began.
Kelly knew someone should stop the fight but his trainer was the contender’s trainer and what the trainer wanted was a knockout. One of Kelly’s eyes was shutting, the swell of his brow collapsing his vision on the left side. The contender jabbed, jabbed again, followed with a hook, a cross, more punches Kelly couldn’t track, couldn’t count. The number of punches fewer than you might imagine. Kelly had made himself strong but strength alone wasn’t a strategy. He had made himself tough but toughness wasn’t enough.
With every strike his quiet mind exploded into sound.
The cacophony, the choir: thought, voice, memory, the simultaneous swarm.
Bringer drove a fist through the side of Kelly’s head and for the first time Kelly’s knee touched the mat. The brain suddenly a size too big for the shell. Sparks flooded Kelly’s eyesight as he pushed himself upright but a grin grew around his mouthguard, a wrong-shaped expression easily mistaken for a grimace.
What Kelly saw: the way the contender rushed in, the way he could be goaded.
The bell rang, the round ended.
The water bottle, the towel, the bell ringing again so fast.
The third round began. The contender uninjured, undaunted, moving fast toward Kelly’s corner. Encouraged by the damage he’d done. Kelly protected his face, protected his body, let the injury come. This was the way. Not only to turn the cheek but to offer the entire person. He took one blank step, then another. He was afraid but the fear could make him stronger. He would act out of his fear but first he needed to be scared enough to move.
The contender landed uncounted punches, each one accompanied by a grunted exhalation of angry breath. Their breathing grew sharp, strained. The contender tired now too. Every fighter exhausted in the third round. You could win and still injure yourself with the effort. Kelly dropped to a knee again, invited the overeager rush. It took everything left to stand into the next blow, to take one more punch on his way around the contender — and the gorgeous punch broke every last resistance, exploding a sound inside Kelly’s head, a tearing of some supporting structure twisting free of the skull — and for a moment Kelly found his advantage, its fantastic temporariness, the contender’s body turned sideways, his flank exposed for mere seconds.