© Matthew L. Jones

“ONE…”

Said The Voice from a void so complete it was if a god were clearing its throat before speaking light into existence. But the light never came, and it was a very long time bnefore The Voice spoke to him again.

He drifted in blackness for what seemed a small eternity. It was empty and terrifying. So silent and unfathomable. There was no sense of boundary nor border. Like a universe with no stars. His movements produced no sound, no matter how broad and flailing. His cries returned no echo, and it took a long time before he finally found comfort in his isolation. Solace in the quietude. Beauty in the black. Until-

“TWO…”

He went from nothing to something in an instant. Stunned and confused. Brash, braying, and red-faced. Angry, dammit. With every hitching choke of new air, the jet-black before-times became greyer and something else began to unfold. Colors. Sounds. Vibrance. The exact opposite of the exquisite blackness he had grown to love.

A voice. Not The Voice. But a mask-muffled voice, said something he found very peculiar.

“It’s a boy!”

“THREE…”

The word echoed across a suddenly sunny day. The sky was a deep, bright blue with pops of cotton. He was a child. Of diaper age. Toddling and wobbling through a world where little was familiar beyond the stone path beneath his feet. Even the word that brought him here—THREE—was unfamiliar. Not completely foreign, but of questionable relevance. He was certain he’d heard the word before, and that it had something to do with other words he just barely knew. Like ONE and TWO.

That was it! That’s where THREE fit in. With the others. And now he was reasonably sure there was even more to it. Another word the warm young lady with the yawning red smile (the one called “Mama”) had taught him. What was it? He threw his head back and shouted to the sky, his thin young voice ringing into the blue.

One, two, three…

“FOUR.”

Another needle-scratch in time. He now finds himself in a playground, weeping. A tooth cupped in a bloody puddle at the center of his palm. His lip is fat, his pride wounded.

He was only in third grade. The other boys were bigger than him. Both of them. But they shouldn’t have called that girl a “cripple.” He never considered the fact that they were older and meaner, and that they had probably been in many, many more fights than him. He had to stop them from laughing and pointing and making that little girl with the leg braces cry. So he stood up to them—all the way to the point his head hit the pavement and that lone tooth skittered from his lips.

He didn’t regret it, though. Quite the opposite. Even knowing the outcome he’d do it again. In fact, he’d give every tooth in his head to keep guys like them from saying things like that to people like her. He felt something change in himself that day. But that wasn’t entirely accurate. Nothing changed. Instead, something had awakened.

“FIVE.”

The Voice boomed and quickly dissolved into the screech of an alarm clock, jolting him awake.

“Jesus,” he said with a deep inhale. “Howzit five already?”

He rolled under stiff sheets to see a thin smear of indigo at the horizon, barely visible between heavy drapes. He never understood why roadwork had to start so early. The rumor around the gym was that Duck, his trainer, never slept. And he wanted to make sure none of his fighters did either. It’s not like they were going fishing, for fuck sake. He was just going to jog behind the car while Duck yelled at him. Whether that happened at five in the morning or nine didn’t seem to make much difference to him at the moment.

“You know what?” He thought. “Fuck Duck.”

He hit snooze on his alarm clock and immediately drifted deeply. Until the phone rang.

“Hello?” he said.

“Don’t ‘hello’ me, godammit!” croaked a hoarse-throated Duck. “Get your ass out here.”

“Who is this?” He mumbled from a fuzz, intentionally needling the already agitated Duck.

“Who? It’s – Get…” Duck stammered and sputtered. “You lil’ sumbitch, your ass is mine today. We’re gonna run ‘till my engine dies or you do!”

Duck hung up. He knew he would pay for that one. With sweat and tears and maybe even a little blood.

“Totally worth it.” He said.

He lingered in bed for just a moment, mentally readying himself for a brutally physical day. He promised himself he wouldn’t drowse. All he did was blink, it seemed. But his eyes never snapped back open. Instead he tumbled right back into the black.

GET UP!

It was Duck’s voice.

GET UP YOU SUMBITCH!

He realized he was no longer in bed, and Duck didn’t sound pissed like before—he sounded desperate. He wanted very badly do what Duck said but found he couldn’t. He was back in that dark place—just like before—unsure of where he was, how he got there, or where he’d end up next.

If anywhere at all.

“SIX!”

It was summer in New York. Upstate. He was young and still very handsome. His face was clean, bright, and free from the scars that would one day thicken his features. His nose had only been broken once at this point, its crooked bridge only adding to the off-kilter charm of his slanted grin and single dimple.

He had just met the girl on his arm. It was a moment of instant chemistry. She was an au pair from Spain. A glorious swirl of raven ringlets and easy laughter. He’d never heard the word “au pair” before that day. And he probably couldn’t have pointed to Spain on a map.

She proudly described her hometown in a region called Ribera del Duero. The way she said it, the way the words rolled effortlessly from her, the passion in her eyes as she spoke of home and the food and the wine…it all sounded so far away and impossibly romantic, with ancient lamplit alleyways and vineyards that seemed to have always been there. At that time he preferred beer to wine but was smart enough not to say so.

When she asked him what he did for a living, he hesitated. He did a lot of things. Deliveries. A little warehouse work. Picked up some catering shifts here and there. Sold a little weed. Coke, even. (But only a handful of times.) Noting solid. It wasn’t because he couldn’t find regular work. Training was his life, and boxing was his singular focus. He wanted to be a fighter and would do whatever it took put a paycheck in his pocket so he could train, spar, learn, study, and refine every aspect of the game.

“I do a lot of things,” he said, his eyes straying from her gaze. He felt ashamed he didn’t have as clear or as wonderful-sounding an answer as “au pair.”

“Yes?” She said. He melted at how she said “yes” instead of “yep” or “yeah.”

“Yessum,” He replied, infinitely less eloquent, and now more aware of it than ever.

“Ok then. Forget about what you do. What do you want? No…” She took a moment and reset. “Como se dice—what are you?”

Without hesitation he said it. “I’m a fighter.”

It was the first time he’d ever said it aloud like that. He’d only ever said he “wanted” to be or was “training” to be. This was the first time he’d ever said, definitively, he was. A fighter.

He never answered that question any other way after that day. Whenever someone asked what he did for a living he said with conviction and without hesitation, “I’m a fighter.” He had her to thank for that. For making him see the power in saying it, not just wanting it.

They agreed to let themselves fall in love, but only for the summer. After which she would return to Spain, school, and someone she didn’t sound very thrilled to call her “fiancé.”

While they’d never meet again, he would carry a special affection for Spanish wines for the rest of his days. Especially those from Ribera del Duero.  

“SEVEN!”

The Voice shattered sweet dreams of Spanish au pairs into a kaleidoscope of confusion, replacing them with a deep, fuzzing roar. Crashing waves? A busy highway?  

A tunnel of gray opened above him. Unlike the blackness, there was some semblance of awareness in the gray. He knew, somehow, that he lay on his back. Shirtless. There were lights above him—impossibly far away and broken into blurred prisms—but lights nonetheless.

He felt he should swim to them, those lights. All he had to do was…

GET UP!

It was Duck, shouting from the middle of a Doppler curve—warbling in and blurring out just as fast. Behind Duck’s voice, the fuzzing roar continued. He knew that sound. It wasn’t waves. Or cars. It was a crowd. A cheering crowd. And the lights above him…they were arena lights. The ground he lay on, canvass.

THIS IS EVERYTHING YOU WORKED FOR YOU SUMBITCH. GET. UP!

He knew Duck was right, and he knew what he had to do now. He had to be a fighter.

“EIGHT!”

He felt himself rising. His head was clearing, but not at all clear. The same could be said for his vision. It was as if his body knew before his brain did that The Voice absolutely could not reach TEN. There was no more time to linger, he had to rise fully.

“NINE!”

He stumbled to his feet and into the ropes at the edge of the boxing ring, feeling their rough scratch at his back as he leaned into their elasticity. He was up, barely. And just in time.

The Voice boomed again, but not from some vague place beyond comprehension. It came from the small man with glasses who had appeared in front of him, wearing a white button-down shirt with black pants, shoes, and matching clip-on bow tie.

“YOU GOOD? YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?”

He nods, only somewhat sure of the questions he was asked.

“He’s fine, ref!” He turned to see Duck at ringside, his eyes bugged, his face flushed, his forehead mapped with veins. “He’s up. Let the man FIGHT!”

“HOW MANY FINGERS?” Said The Voice. The referee.

His thoughts were still a muddy slurry. All he could see was a fleshy blur where the referee said fingers were supposed to be. He certainly couldn’t tell how many there were. Not exactly. He knew he had a one-in-ten shot at this. If he guessed wrong, it was all over.

Three. His lucky number was three.

“Three” he spat, nearly losing his mouthpiece.

He was unsure whether his gamble had paid off. Until the ref nodded, stepped aside, and waved the other man in. His opponent charged, smelling blood and sensing weakness. He managed to get his hands up in time to block a savage left hook and looping overhand right. The blows made his ears ring despite absorbing most of their impact with his gloves. His knees wobbled, but the blows served to finally clear his head. He kept his hands high as his opponent shifted focus to his body, thumping a series of savage punches into his midsection. Each blow forced a sharp puff of air from him. He feels a hot stab in his side, followed by the familiar crack and grind of breaking ribs. He was in deep trouble now. For just a moment, he longed to be back in that safe, dark, unknowable place.

He drops his left elbow to cover his side. Seeing an opening, his opponent swings for his exposed head. He partially ducks the blow, which causes his opponent to over-extend. This was it! This was his opportunity.

With skill, precision, and all the remaining power he could muster, he releases an uppercut. His opponent turns to deflect the blow toward the top of his head, but instead causes it to land squarely behind his left ear. The other man crumbles to the canvass at his feet, his eyes blank and staring. His frame slack. He was out. Down for the count, as they say.

“ONE…”

Said The Voice, but not to him.

“TWO…”

He stood towering over his opponent.

“THREE…”

Awestruck.

“FOUR.”

It was hard for him to fathom that he was just there…

“FIVE.”

…only seconds ago on that same canvass.

“SIX!”

The count continued all the way to “TEN.” The man on the ground remained still. A bell rang. The crowd roared. Duck stormed into the ring, grabbing him around the waist and lifting him high off his feet.

He barely noticed any of it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else. All he could do was look at the other man on the canvass and wonder…

Where had he gone? And where would he go next?

If anywhere at all.