There’s too much riding on this, and I’ve got to hold the balance.
We get to the abandoned warehouse and my eyes start moving over the fence, looking for whatever entrance has been provided for tonight’s event.
We have to walk all the way around to the back before we find the gap in the fence.
Ash hands me my duffel bag when we get up to the fence and I toss it, trying to get it over the fence, but the bottom catches a couple of barbs and just kind of dangles there. I can worry about that once I’m on the other side, though.
We get through and I climb up the fence a little to get a good angle on my duffle bag, but still end up tearing a long line out of the bottom of it.
I don’t care. Today, I am calm, clear.
Finding that kind of peace was a little difficult earlier when I got Dr. Sadler to tell me exactly how she knew so many specifics about my life. Honestly, I was expecting her to say something about her years of training and how she can spot pain a mile away. I didn’t expect her to tell me that she likes to keep a private investigator on the payroll to look into new clients.
Her explanation was that those who drop out of therapy early are usually in the first few weeks. If they can get past that point in the first session, everyone’s happy. That’s what she said. “Everyone’s happy.”
What a loon.
Still, that loon does give advice I’m actually willing to take and she’s bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, so I left her office without calling the cops.
As we approach the building, I’m starting to get a little nervous that we haven’t seen anyone. Usually, there are a couple of guys standing outside with a cigarette, but I’m not even seeing a bouncer at the only door on this side of the building.
As we get a little closer, I can start to hear voices coming from inside the building and the adrenaline starts.
If I can beat Furyk, I have a chance to win this whole thing. I don’t know who I’d be going up against in the final, but from everything I’ve heard, Furyk’s really the only guy on the scene that might be able to take me down.
We get to the door and Ash tries the knob, as I’m now cradling my duffel bag, trying to make sure nothing falls out of it.
It’s locked.
“What do we do?” she asks. “Should we try the front?”
“I don’t think they’d go through all this trouble only to have the entrance facing the road,” I tell her.
“What should we do then?” she asks again.
I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess we could knock,” I tell her.
Ash tilts her head a little to one side, peering at me before turning back toward the door. She knocks.
The door opens a crack and a voice says, “What’s the password?”
Ash turns toward me, mouthing, “Password?”
“There is no password, dickhead,” I respond. “Are you going to let us in or what?”
Believe it or not, that’s the password.
The door opens the rest of the way and Big D comes into view.
“Oh hey, Ellis, glad you could make it,” he says.
“I didn’t know they tapped you for this,” I tell him. “Couldn’t find anyone better, huh?”
“That hasn’t stopped them from trying,” D says, extending a fist for a bump.
My hands are full, but Ash is kind enough to reciprocate the gesture for me. Big D just smiles and moves to one side.
“I’d watch that Furyk guy,” D says. “I’ve never seen him fight before, but I’ve heard the stories.”
“Is he here?” I ask as Ash and I make our way through the doorway and into the large, empty space that is the inside of the building.
“Yeah,” D says. “At least I think he was the one surrounded by people wearing shirts with his last name on the back of them.”
“How tacky,” Ash says.
D smiles big, saying, “Now I remember you. How’ve you been, girl?”
“Logan here yet?” I ask.
D’s not listening, though. He’s taken Ash’s hand and now he’s kissing the back of it like he’s James Bond or something.
“Flirt with someone else for a minute,” I tell him. “Where’s Logan?”
“He’s here somewhere,” D answers, not even acting like he’s going to look at me while he says it. “He’s pretty pissed at you, bro.”
“What?” I ask. “Why?”
“Ellis!” that booming voice comes, making my question redundant. “What the hell man? I haven’t seen you all week. I thought you weren’t going to show.”
Logan’s coming toward me. He’s not smiling.
“Seriously,” he says. “You think you can just come in here after sitting on your ass all week and take on someone like Furyk? Are you trying to throw this match?”
“Do you have any actual advice or did you just want to bitch at me for a while before the fight?” I ask.
“You’re right,” Logan says, lowering his head. He adds mystically, “The fight comes first.”
Logan tells me what he can about Furyk, though it’s not much. The thing the guy’s most well-known for is his stamina, something I’m sure I’m lacking after taking so much time away from training this last week.
Ash and I hold hands as we make our way through the crowd. I’m occasionally stopped by random guys from my pit, who each has a different, often contradictory, opinion of how I should go into the fight.
After a while, we head toward the back of the crowd and I quickly change from my street clothes to my trunks.
“I’ll never understand how guys can be so comfortable quite literally changing in front of a crowd of people,” Ash says.
“Just one of those things, I guess,” I answer.
“All right, all right, all right!” some guy with an annoying voice bellows from the center of the now massive group. “We’re here for the semi-finals. First up, we’ve got the strawweights. Chelsea! Johnson! You’re up!”
“You’re a featherweight, right?” Ash asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Do you want to know the weight classes?”
She looks back at me with a smirk, and I take it that’s a “no.”
Two guys who are nothing but rib, muscle and scar tissue make their way to the middle and we’re off and running. The fight goes on for quite a while, and by the end of it, I’m not entirely sure who won because hands are coming to rest on my shoulders.
I’m up next.
The hands belong to Logan and a couple other guys from my pit, though Ash joins in when she deciphers what’s going on.
“Come on now,” Logan says behind me. “Nothing but clear thoughts, hard punches and kicks that’ll make what’s-his-name think he’s being beaten with an aluminum bat. Keep moving in there. Don’t let him get you pinned down. You’re a striker. Keep him on his feet.”
The next voice, surprisingly, is Tom’s. “You know I don’t know as much about fighting as I do about patching you guys up afterward, but stay out of your head,” the medic says. “You’ve got this thing.”
“Chelsea gets beat down in the fourth and you know that’s gotta hurt!” whoever they touched to be the announcer says from the middle of the crowd. “Next up, we’ve got featherweights, Furyk and Ellis. Let’s do this!”