They wear jackets and black jeans and rough coats and some of them have women or girls clinging to them. They’re brainless girls, otherwise they wouldn’t be seen dead here. They’re pretty, with ugly, appealing smiles and conversations we can’t hear. They breathe smoke and blow it out, and words drop from their mouths and get crushed to the floor. Or they get discarded, just to glow with warmth for a moment, for someone else to tread on later.

Words.

Just words.

Just sticky-blonde words, and when I see the ring all lit up and silent, I can imagine those women cheering later on when I hit the canvas floor, my face all bruised-up and bloody.

Yes.

They’ll cheer, I reckon.

Cigarette in one hand.

Warm, sweaty hand of a thug in the other.

Screaming, blonde, beer-filled mouth.

All of that, and a spinning room.

That’s what scares me most.

‘Hey Rube, what’re we doin’ here?’

‘Shut up.’

‘I can’t believe we got ourselves into this!’

‘Stop whisperin’.’

‘Why?’

‘If y’ don’t, I’ll be forced to trounce you myself.’

‘Really?’

‘You’re startin’ to aggravate me, y’ know that?’

‘I’m Sorry.’

‘We’re ready.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yes. Don’t you feel it?’

I ask myself.

Are y’ ready Cameron?

Again.

Are y’ ready Cameron?

Time will tell.

It’s funny, don’t you think, how time seems to do a lot of things? It flies, it tells, and worst of all, it runs out.

8

It’s the sound of my breathing that gets me, falling up my lungs. Perry’s just come in and told me. It’s time.

‘You’re up first,’ he says.

It’s time and I’m still sitting there, in my old, too-big-for-me spray jacket. (Rube’s got an old hooded jacket of Steve’s.) All is numb. My hands, fingers, feet. It’s time.

I stand up.

I wait.

Perry’s gone back out to the ring, and the next time the door opens, I’ll be heading there myself. With no more time to think, it happens. The door is opened and I start walking out. Out into.

The arena.

Aggression quivers inside me. Fear shrouds me. Footsteps take me forward.

Then the crowd.

They lift my spirit, as I’m the first fighter to come out.

They turn and look at me in my spray jacket, and I walk through them. The hood is out and over my head. They cheer. They clap and whistle, and this is just the beginning. They howl and chant, and for a moment, they forget the beer. They don’t even feel it pouring down their throats. It’s just me, and the fact that violence is near. I’m the messenger. I’m the hands and feet. I bring it to them. I deliver it.

‘THE UNDERDOG!’

It’s Perry, standing in the ring, holding a microphone.