Then he said to me, “I ain’t held a weapon in ten years. But as I recall I was a dead-eye shot.”

“You’ve already served the call, Brutus,” I said. “But thanks.”

“Figured you’d say something like that,” Brutus said. “But what youth don’t tell you about the truth is friends—real friends—are few and far between. Half of ’em are going to disappear when the sun goes down and the monsters come out. Another quarter of ’em gonna screw you for the sheer easy pleasure of violating your trust. And that leaves one-quarter of the folks you been callin’ yo ‘friends’ who actually stand shoulder to shoulder with you when darkness hits the pavement and the beasts come out to play. I stood with yo daddy, boy. I stand with you. And ain’t a gosh-dang thing you can do ’bout that. Now, what that smart mouth of yours got to say to that, boy?”

I struggled to my feet, snapped a crisp salute and said, “Sir, yes, sir!”

My physical rebirth began with K.

“How’s your appetite been?” he said. We were in the weight room where a few of the city’s movers and shakers were attempting to lift twenty-pound weights.

“All right,” I lied. Truth was, I didn’t have much of an appetite. Near-death experiences kind of take the joy out of eating since they make you realize everything turns to shit anyway. Tortillas, Kung pao chicken, KFC, it all just becomes fuel for a machine that’s bound to fail.

Instead of putting me to work on the machines or free weights, K got both his coat and mine, and we set out for a quick trip to Greektown. Once we returned to the club, we sat in the employee lounge, each of us with a full five-pound rotisserie chicken.

“Weight training is protein training,” K said, ripping a leg off his chicken. “It’s eating with nothing else in mind but building, fueling and maintaining muscle mass.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but come on, K—a whole fucking chicken?”

“Put down half,” K said. “That’ll be a good start.”

And so we began.

After a week of aches and pains courtesy of Abby’s squared-circle finesse and the protein-and-weights regimen K had me on, I began feeling my body and mind coming back to me.

“Do you realize how humiliating it is getting hit with pink boxing gloves?” I said to Abby after a strenuous forty minutes in the ring with her. She’d rung my bell at least twice with a lightning-fast left cross and a straight jab that had nearly knocked my mouth guard down my throat.

“Do you realize how hilarious it is to see tough guys like you wobble on your knees after getting hit with pink gloves?”

“Fair enough,” I said.