After I learn the heavy bag, my father begins boxing with me. We go at it in the middle of our living room, my mother usually cheering me on from the couch, making sure my father doesn’t get too rough. The irony is that I want him to be rough, have begun to look forward to the bloody noses I sometimes get. He boxes on his knees, throws careless punches he expects me to duck, but at times gets caught up in the excitement of fighting again and throws punches far too hard, uppercuts that floor me, left hooks I never see coming that send me reeling into the wall.

“Goddamn it, Mark,” my mother says, and during those first few weeks I go to her so that she can soothe me.

“What? I’m toughenin’ him up.”

“Yer being an asshole is what yer doin’.”

“Don’t baby him, Darla.”

She voices a make-believe bell for our three-round fights, usually sounding it when it looks as though I could use a break. I go to her corner and she whispers encouragement into my ear, and then she rings the bell again once I’ve caught my breath.

After two months of this, and for whatever reason, my father announces that tonight’s loser will be the first one who bleeds.

“Not a chance in hell,” my mother says.

“First one who bleeds loses,” he repeats, ignoring her. “Ring it.”

I punch my gloves together as I’ve seen Mike Tyson do to let her know I accept his stipulation. She sighs, sounds “ding ding” in her high-pitched voice, and then adds, “Don’t be an asshole,” just for good measure.

I bob and weave in a way that makes my father laugh. I’ve learned that mobility and quickness are my greatest advantages since he can only shuffle while on his knees. He toys with me, wraps me up and lightly punches me in the ribs. I break away, charge and duck right into an uppercut he’s thrown too hard. He threw it playfully, theatrically meaning to miss, but it’s a solid shot to the forehead that knocks me backward into the TV.

“Goddamn it, Mark,” my mother says. My father laughs.

“What? I didn’t mean it.”

“I don’t give a shit if you meant it.”

I get up, tears in my eyes. I’m angry. My father has assumed I’d quit and is in the process of taking off his gloves. It’s then that I wind up with everything I have. What am I, forty-five, fifty pounds at the most? However much I weigh, every ounce of it is in the fist hurling his way, a fist that hits him flush, squarely in the nose. It does exactly what he had said it’d do, temporarily blinding him, forcing tears to his eyes. Blood gathers in his left nostril and a thin red line trickles down to his upper lip.