The Boxer

Sorry I suck so much at writing regularly, my audience, but rest assured that I am still more or less writing things! Even if that’s largely in my head… But anyway, I digress, and what follows is a story that started with my philosophy professor, who I mistakenly thought was diabetic. I thought up the perfect nickname for him, and eventually wrote a story about that imaginary person I thought my prof could be. enjoi:

The Boxer

Born a diabetic, a cruel life was made easy by medicine for Derek. Easy is a relative term, for not even a hundred years before his birth, he would not have been expected to live past fourteen.

It was in highschool that Derek learned about the development of medicinal insulin, that miracle tool, and it struck a strange chord, reverberating for the rest of his life. Somehow, every birthday after his fourteenth, he was reminded of how precious and fragile his life really was, how unlikely it was and how much he had to lose. He wondered what use he would have been a century ago, and what use he was now, blowing out his birthday candles and wishing in the dark.

Four years of insulin later, and moving to a larger city for college, Derek started taking courses in boxing. No doubt that a part of his motivation was the insistence of his parents for his safety, but there was something else in Derek’s choice to take up boxing. “Why boxing? Why not Judo or Karate or Jujitsu? Why something so… old?” his friends asked. Like so many aspects of his life, however, the answer was beyond him.

It would be a long time until he discovered for what exactly he took up boxing.

Finding a trainer was difficult, because for some reason the men would stop listening to him and start acting like he was contagious once he said he was diabetic, leading him out the door without actually touching him. Then there was Forrester. He gave a laugh like a stalling car and asked Derek if he’d like to be nicknamed “Aspartame” when he went pro. After signing papers, setting schedules, and shaking hands, Forrester said he’d “turn those hands into surgical hammers.” Derek liked that.

A year of training and insulin later, and that was mostly true about his hands. Forrester was trying to convince Derek to have a real match, “make something with your mitts,” as he put it.

The conversations turned into arguments, and the arguments found their way into the sparring ring, where Forrester kept Derek dancing in circles. This went on for months until Forrester managed to corner Derek with one question: “Is school hard for you?”

In context, that question had more heft to it.

School was never hard for Derek, not even his college courses. He had chosen the accounting program to make sure he had employment before graduation, and he had paced himself in his studies to reach that point comfortably. His life itself had not been challenging; seventy years ago it would have been a struggle, but that’s just not the case any more.

This minor revelation stirred the thought of life a century ago once more, of how he would already be dead had he not been born in the latter half of the century. This didn’t so much occur to Derek in words as it did a breath, a pause in his life in which he noticed how little moved.

That was enough for the two to set a date for Derek’s first match, the first fight of his life.

The night of the match, Forrester left Derek alone in his dressing room.

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea leaving him alone like that. Derek kept himself from thinking as much as possible, kept his life from flashing before his eyes. He was hoping that his fists and his feet would remember what to do because, frankly, his head had no idea.

Sitting on the table, his hands taped and gloved, and a thick, dusty breeze around him, Derek wondered how he would win his fight. It wasn’t that he had no idea how to box; he knew, in theory, how to. He knows jabs, hooks, uppercuts, glancing blows and dancing feet; knows when he should, in theory, apply all those techniques. But a man doesn’t know himself, what he’s capable of and what he does when it’s just himself and his hands, until he’s been in a real fight. In fact, you’re just a boy until your first fight. At least, that’s how Forrester put it before he left Derek alone.

As if the world were wrapped the very tape that protected his knuckles, the whole of the room was mute. Even his slow, practiced breathing didn’t reach his ears. Sweat would cake them later that night, blood would too. There wouldn’t be any crowds screaming or cheering after his fight; just a few tired old ex-boxers ready to go home.

In the coming fight, Derek will be tested for the first time in his life. His head will be sore, as will his fists. And he won’t win. At the end, though, Derek will know what kind of boxer, what kind of man he is.

The walk down to the ring was quiet and cold. There were no cheering fans or rhythmic, beating feet. It was his own soft boots pressing against concrete that carried him forward, and that was a strange, comforting experience for Derek.

He knew then that, in the end, it’s his own feet and his own hands that bring him to the fight, and it’s the very same tools that will bring him out. That fact would stay with him for the rest of his life, every fight he faces, in the ring and out.

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